Faculty Council Minutes
October 28, 2005

In attendance:

Bert Pooth	Chris Siefert	Iley McCready
Sheila Broderick	Mary Brau	Bojana Stefanovska
Dennis Gilbert	Jim Bailey
Stephen Selph	Sharon Kimble
Mark Harris	Karen Louise White
Alice Whitenack	Larry Scott
Jim Salt (LCCEA)	Jane Batterson

Approval of the minutes of the Council meeting of October 14, 2005:
Approved with minor changes.

Introductions and Announcements
Bert Pooth announced that the harassment survey was still in Craig Taylor’s office, awaiting approval. He will meet with Craig the first week of November.

Mary Brau made the following announcements:

1. A discussion has been initiated concerning SB 342, which requires seamless transfer of courses among all Oregon colleges and universities. The bill addresses all courses leading to the AAOT.
2. A new form has been developed for curriculum approval, but the added items are directed at managers to streamline the process of ascertaining certification, etc. They do not affect the faculty submitting curriculum change proposals.
3. A statewide apprenticeship program now provides credit for enrolled students.

Alice Whitenack reported that the Diversity Council met and

1. held a discussion of the incident that led to the Faculty Council discussion of a “safe place” for faculty.
2. they have put up posters with tear-offs with contact information for students who have safety concerns.
3. discussed training, possibly mandatory, for college personnel.
4. discussed including a students’ rights statement on syllabi and/or texts sold in the bookstore.

Iley McCready announced that the Oregon Nursing Consortium is in the process of standardizing nursing education. This will mesh with the requirements of SB 342.

Mark Harris noted that a sub-committee of the Diversity Council is reviewing the results of the “Climate Survey”. He noted that the instrument was poorly designed, in part because it was meant to be used in a variety of educational institutions. It did not allow for reporting specifics. The raw data from the survey have been lost because the U. O. agency that prepared the instrument and collected the information (OSRI) has lost its funding and no longer exists. The sub-committee is working on the summarized data to submit a report.

Sheila Broderick noted that the Academic Council needs faculty representatives. This council deals with student petitions for waivers. If you are interested, contact either of the Faculty Council co-chairs.

Jim Salt made the following announcements:

• Bargaining is on-going, but management scheduling conflicts have slowed the process. There has not been resolution of some issues, as the Association had hoped would be the case by the end of Oct.
• Last spring, two faculty workload issues went to arbitration. In the nursing department case the arbitrator ruled in favor of the faculty. The administration attempted to deal with this by devaluing a different part of the nursing faculty’s work. The case was resubmitted to the arbitrator who ruled that the new arrangement did not satisfy the settlement. The issue should be resolved soon.
• In a labor-management meeting, the administration noted that a faculty member can have a disruptive student removed from a class at the time of the disruptive incident. For more permanent removal, the faculty must engage in the due process. Jim recommended we add this issue as a future agenda item.
• He also recommended that Faculty Council ask Sonya Christian for a full accounting of enrollment and plans for increasing it. The current enrollment is up 1% from last year, although the budget was based on a 4% increase.

Dennis Gilbert noted that there continue to be problems and concerns with the unit planning process. He pointed out that the initiative submission process varies among divisions. Most importantly, faculty are spending a lot of time on the plans and getting very little in return. It was agreed that we should monitor the effectiveness of the program and revisit this discussion in the winter term.

Faculty Evaluations
The draft of the Charge to the Faculty Council Committee on Student Evaluation of Classes was considered. It was noted that the Student Affairs Council strategic plan calls for evaluations of all faculty for each term. The results would be published for student review. It was noted that the plan has not been approved by the College Council, in part because of this language. It was recommended that the Faculty Council Evaluation Committee invite students to join in the discussion of student evaluations. It was agreed that we would make one more call for faculty interested in serving on the committee, and that the committee would be formed at the Dec. 9 Faculty Council meeting. We also will established a link to the Faculty Council website where the committee can post its minutes. Larry Scott recommended we set an end of winter term deadline for the committee to make a substantive report. Some additional comments:

• The reference to “training” refers to
  • training faculty how to prepare effective evaluation instruments
  • training students to effectively use evaluations, and
  • training faculty in response to evaluations.
• The Faculty Council Committee needs to work closely with the Committee assembled by the administration and the faculty association that will be working on delivery mechanisms for the evaluation instrument.
• The uses of the data collected from evaluations are not clear. Faculty will use information for professional development, but other possibilities include ìred flagsî and student venting.
• There is a need for college support for responding to evaluation feedback.