Senate Update 2-21-12

Academic Decision-Making: 

In 2011, the Senate and College Administration co-sponsored and co-facilitated two structured activities/meetings on the topic of academic decision-making.  On May 11, 43 members of the faculty, professional staff, and administration participated, and on November 30, there were 59 participants.  The structured activity consisted of quiet reading, thinking, and writing time, as well as time for each participant to share their thoughts with others sitting at their table. 

Topics included:

·         Exploring the essential roles of faculty, professional staff, and administration in academic decision-making.

·         Exploring challenges to shared governance, and balancing participation with accountability.

·         Exploring hypothetical scenarios to help discover a variety of issues involved in such decisions.

Results:

Through activities at each of the two events, participants ultimately defined a basis of commonly held characteristics that exemplify good academic decision-making, and made many concrete suggestions for how we could make improvements at BCC. 

Spring 2012 Senate Focus:

From the data collected at these two meetings, we hope to generate a list of jointly agreed to “Best Practices” in Academic Decision-Making.  This list, and the data collected at the meetings will help inform Senate efforts throughout the semester.  Our immediate goal this Spring is to use the data collected in 2011 to have a positive and real impact on shared governance at the college.

Senate Meetings:

• Reminder:  All constituents are invited to attend all Senate meetings.
• Next Senate meeting:  Monday, February 27^th, 3:15pm; H-129

      Agenda items (tentative): 

·         Best Practices in Governance draft

·         Governance: Discussion of results from November 30 and May 11 Joint Senate/Administration sponsored events, and Next Steps

·         Joint Senate/Administration Advising Group – update

·         Committee reports