Valencia College College-Wide Faculty Council Meeting February 16, 2012 Osceola Campus 1-219B Council Members Present: Robert Gessner (presiding), Rob McCaffrey, Jackie Starren, Ilyse Kusnetz, Sean Jennings, Ruby Alvarez, John McFarland, Susan Matthews, Damion Hammock, Carl Creasman, Chris Wettstein, Regina Seguin, Mabel Machin, and Lisa Macon Absent: Diane Orsini (on sabbatical leave), Claudia Genovese-Martinez, Patricia Smith, Olga Vazquez Guests: Kristeen Christian (Assistant VP Resource Development), Kurt Ewen (Assistant VP Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness), Laura Blasi (Director of Institutional Assessment) ○
Call to order – the meeting was called to order at 2:30 pm
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Approval of the January Minutes
I. Information Item: Resource Development – Kristeen Christian ● ●
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The Resource Development Office is available to explore resources and help faculty develop grant ideas and proposals. A Grant Inquiry Form was introduced and is available online; if you have an idea for a grant proposal, this is the worksheet that needs to be used to introduce your ideas into the “idea hopper.” The “idea hopper” can act as a repository of ideas that the Resource Development Office has on file, should a grant pertaining to your idea appear. Typically, many grant opportunities provide only a lead time of 30 to 45 days to submit your application. It’s a good idea to have grant idea projects ‘in the idea hopper’ so, if an opportunity arises, the Resource Development Office can help faculty move quickly to apply for specific grants. Approval from appropriate supervisors/deans and Campus Presidents is always required for any project. The Faculty Council requested that grant writing seminars be provided for the faculty and Kristeen agreed some would be offered in the future. Links to the Grant Development Flowchart and the Grant Inquiry Form can be found at: http://valenciacollege.edu/aap/development/
II. Information Item: Student Evaluation of Instruction – Course Evaluation Pilot- Kurt Ewen ●
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Class-Climate has been used, in the past few years, as the survey delivery tool used to acquire the Student Evaluation of Instruction information that professors look at and use to reflect on how their courses were perceived by their students. It integrates scan-able paper and online delivered instructions. It has not worked as well as had been hoped. The college is seeking a new survey delivery tool that would be more user-friendly for students, faculty and administrators. Survey delivery tools that have been looked at include Qualtrics and CoursEval. During the 2011 fall semester, the college piloted the use of CoursEval to deliver the survey, in five divisions of the college. This pilot project also included the use of a CCSSE (Community College Survey of Student Engagement) survey instrument. We have used a “home-grown” survey instrument in the past. The distribution of the CoursEval pilot to students went smoothly. Furthermore, two studies were conducted last fall to review 80,000 emails that were sent to students to take the evaluation of instruction survey. Studies found that the response rate for online surveys was 32%. Issues with the survey included:
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a lower response rate from students earning lower grades a lower response rate from male students Kurt Ewen’s team investigated whether responses to student evaluations of instruction differ based on mode of delivery (face-to-face paper vs. online). These were the general findings: ○ The online responses were longer. ○ There was no significant difference in the quality of the answers. ○ Our student results were not consistent with other nationally published studies. ○ Online responses were often extreme-very positive or very negative. The Campus Presidents and deans are interested in finding an alternative to paper surveys, due to the cost, the amount of paper consumed, the amount of time consumed by staff members to process the paper forms and the amount of time faculty members have to wait to receive feedback. To improve the system of student evaluation of faculty instruction, the Faculty Council decided to create a standing committee to look at the issues of: ○ How to improve student participation in the evaluation of instruction process ○ How to customize information on the surveys to be useful to individual faculty members ○ How to improve the time that it takes for faculty to receive the evaluation feedback information ○ How to work out any issues relating to the different modes of survey delivery A Faculty Council member proposed voting as one faculty voice to move to college-wide online delivery of these surveys. By consensus, it was decided to first ask faulty members still using paper surveys what the issues would be if they moved to one online delivery method. The West and Osceola faculty campus presidents were asked to discuss faculty opinions of using online vs. paper surveys with their faculty senates/associations. The other campuses already use online evaluation of instruction forms.
III. Committee/Taskforce Appointments- Bob Gessner ●
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International Education Steering Committee ○ Neal Phillips (West – English) was selected to fill a voting-member seat to represent the West campus on the committee. ○ There is still a need to have a West campus faculty member fill a non-voting seat on the Internationalizing the Curriculum subcommittee; West Campus-Sean Jennings will put out all-call to his campus faculty members to fill the seat. Commencement Faculty Marshalls and Ushers: ○ Robert Gessner, Flora Chisholm, Kris Dougherty, Jeff Kaesberg, Eileen Perez Obregon, Olga Vazquez, Kim Long, Cathie Hansen, Debra Hollister and Joel Berman (Pamela Lapinski – alternate) will be the marshals and ushers during Commencement 2012 in May. QEP Core Team – The following faculty were selected to represent campus and discipline diversity on the QEP Core Team. ○ Marcelle Cohen (E-Communications) ○ Karen Cowden (W-College Reading Prep) ○ Beth King (W-Library) ○ Jenny Hu (Osceola-Computer Programming)
IV. President’s Report- Bob Gessner●
Instructional Material Textbook Policy and Procedure ○ The Faculty Council President met with Joan Tiller, Bill Mullowney, Keith Houck, Ruth Prather, Kathleen Plinske and Falecia Williams to review the Instructional Materials Selection Policy and Procedures that the Faculty Council had voted to approve. It was
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decided that Bill Mullowney will need to review the updated policies and procedures and get back to the group in March. It was agreed upon that when more than one professor is teaching a course, up to 3 sets of instructional materials may be adopted per course per campus.
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Emergency After-Hours Campus Phone Numbers ○ To call security after business-hours on your campus, you can now dial your regular daytime security telephone number (West – 1000, East – 2000, Osceola – 4000, Winter Park – 6000), and your call will then be automatically forwarded to the after business-hours security number for your campus.
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The Community College Conference on Legal Issues ○ Some of the Faculty Council members attended this year’s conference where topics like “The Law and Social Media on Campus,” “Copyright for Educators,” “Status of Tenure in the Light of the Proposition of Alternative Status in Education,” and “Can There Be Legal Forseeability of a Campus Shooter?” were presented. ○ The Faculty Council President advised the faculty that this conference is meant for our faculty and SPD funds can be used for registration; this message should be advertised more clearly in the future.
V. Discussion Item: Faculty Engagement Hours/College Service Hours Taskforce – Assignment of Classroom and Laboratory Professors Procedures- Bob Gessner ●
A meeting was held to revise the Electronic Workload Form ○ It was suggested by the Faculty Council President that one of the additions to the Electronic Workload Form could be a link to the Assignment of Classroom and Laboratory Professors Procedures as well as a link to frequently asked questions about faculty workload issues. These links would provide more specific information about faculty workloads, so there would be standardized, unambiguous answers to workload questions that faculty could find and rely on. ○ It was decided that Bill Mullowney will have to review the updated Assignment of Classroom and Laboratory Professors Procedures (agreed upon by the Office Hours/College Service Hours Taskforce of faculty and deans) and get back to the group on March 13, 2012 (the next meeting of the taskforce).
VI. Discussion Item: Proposed Changes to the Faculty Association Constitution - Bob Gessner ●
Proposal: ARTICLE IV Faculty Council and Officers of the Association Section A. There shall be a Faculty Council composed of the President of the Association, the VicePresident (President-Elect) of the Association, and at-large representatives selected by the campus faculty associations. Each campus faculty organization shall select between two and five at-large representatives as members of the Faculty Council. The President and the Vice-President of each campus faculty organization will be the first two selected representatives of the campus’s faculty to the Faculty Council. In matters of voting, each campus gets one (1) vote with the President or their designee casting the vote. Each campus can request time to caucus, if necessary, to enable the campus representative to make a decision on the vote.
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The Faculty Council President asked the members to discuss the proposed amendment to the Faculty Association constitution with their campus senates/associations and faculty. The repercussions would be that each campus would have an equal vote in faculty issues when the infrequent vote is needed in the Faculty Council. To pass this amendment, it will take a large effort to encourage more than 50% of all the faculty members in the association to vote “yes,” as it is with any effort that needs 50% of the faculty association members to vote in favor of a proposal. The conversations will need to be inclusive and extensive through the departments so that enough faculty members feel it is appropriate to vote for this new amendment.
VII. Academic Affairs- Karen Borglum ●
There was no February report from Academic Affairs
VIII. Campus Reports ●
Winter Park Campus: ○ There is a grave concern about a tenured faculty member who was placed on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) and who didn’t feel she had a fair chance to appeal the charges against her. ○ The Faculty Council President has requested from Dr. Shugart, Bill Mullowney and Human Resources that the faculty member gets a fair hearing; the Winter Park Senate President is also working on this issue. ○ Several council members pointed out that we need renewed efforts to create a permanent faculty ombudsman position. This message has been given to the administration and plans for a faculty ombudsman position are now being developed. Additionally, this event points out the importance of the work currently being undertaken by the Post-Tenure Review Committee.
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East Campus: ○ James May has resigned from the Faculty Council due to increasing commitments for his time— East campus is seeking candidates to replace him. ○ A question was asked about whether faculty have heard of a new policy being discussed that there be a 50/50 split in faculty workloads between face-to-face and online classes. The Faculty Council President will look into whether this is an actual proposal. ○ The next phase of changing 408/417 highways will occur on March 10th, 2012. After the change, people approaching East Campus from the west need to exit at Goldenrod Road and turn left (North) until they reach Valencia College Lane. ○ The senate is no longer pursuing any further action on the change in policy regarding double and triple loads.
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West – ○ Question: If deans are evaluating online courses, should they receive training? We will ask Wendi Dew if there are training opportunities for deans to evaluate online courses. ○ Asked the Faculty Council to encourage the Faculty Compensation Implementation Committee to meet and look into faculty salary increases.
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Osceola – ○ Building 4 construction continues; the building will be ready for classes in spring 2013.
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Met to see if REACH (Reaching Every Academic Challenge Head-On) will continue. The program is growing and is proving to be a valuable asset; it will continue and it will be tied to the Honors Program next year.
IX. Council Reports: ● ●
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College Planning Council: No report College Learning Council: ○ The QEP Core Team was discussed. ○ Karen Borglum explained that she is leading a group of faculty, deans and professional staff members that is preparing a program review for the AA degree. The work is progressing and the CLC was asked to evaluate the current work of the group. College Operations Council: ○ The sustainability report illustrated the many areas where Valencia is shining in this work. ○ The technology report was given and it was suggested that employees that take home laptop computers or flash drives with confidential or FERPA protected information should be discouraged from keeping this information on their devices. In addition, it was suggested that if necessary for this data to exist on a laptop or flash drive, the user create a password for the device file(s) and consider encryption. It was reported that for every student name contained in a stolen file that contains protected information, the college must notify the student and potentially proved several years of credit report monitoring. ○ The Wellness program reported that smoking cessation programs are being offered on East and West campuses. The many Wellness activity offerings were championed as were the rewards programs for participation in Wellness activities. We were reminded that, this year, our health insurance is self-funded by the college and that our physical and mental wellness can affect the overall wellness of the college, financially.
X. Committee/Taskforce Reports: ●
Learning Resources Taskforce: ○ Lisa Macon will send information electronically and report back next month.
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Post Tenure Review Taskforce: ○ Issued statement: The Post-Tenure Review Taskforce is still in preliminary discussions about what sort of concerns would initiate a review process for tenured faculty. We haven’t made any decisions or recommendations yet. We want to reassure everyone that as soon as we have something to review, we’ll share it with you through the campus senates and associations. We want everyone to have an opportunity to contribute to this discussion.
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Evident Based Practice Taskforce: ○ The next meeting will convene on March 12th to review a prototype for grade distribution reports.
Adjournment – the meeting was adjourned at approximately 5:07 pm.