Bristol
Community College
Faculty &
Professional Staff Senate Meeting
Minutes of
Monday October 21, 2013
B113 3:15 p.m.
Senators
in attendance: Betsy Kemper French, Tom
Grady, Jeanne Grandchamp, Sandy Lygren, JP Nadeau, Howard Tinberg, Jim Corven, Jim
Constantine, Susan McCourt, James
Pelletier, Kelemu Woldegiorgis, Rebecca
Clark, Alan Rolfe, Martha Williams, Robyn Worthington, Sally Gabb, Jean
Myles, Ron Weisberger, Gina Heaney, Cecil Leonard, Jennifer Boulay, Kevin Forgard, Cindy Poore-Pariseau, Sharon Pero, Joy Rose, Deb St. George
Excused
Absences: Paul Robillard, Johanna Duponte
Absences:
Thomas McGarty, Sil Ferreira, David Warr
Guests: 1
Special Guests: VP Anthony Ucci and
Dean Suzanne Buglione
Meeting called to order 3:15
MINUTES:
Minutes from September 23, 2013 accepted
after Gina Heaney's name was corrected.
1)
Center for Teaching and Learning Staffing Changes
Guests
Dean Suzanne Buglione & VP Anthony
Ucci
(This
discussion was moved to first place on the day’s agenda at the Senate’s pleasure.)
Dean
Buglione supplied background to Administration’s decision to change her
position to a dean’s position and posit both a faculty and professional staff
member as directors of CTL. It was indicated that one of the strengths of
having a professional staff member involved in directing the CTL is that person
will be on board year round. Senators noted that faculty-drive development was
the original intent in establishing a CTL.
Research
was done via Karl Schnapp, who did a survey of CTLs around our area and saw
there are a wide variety of ways regional CTLs are managed. (There is also a
wide variety of difference in what each CTL does.)
BCC
Administration wants a model in place by January 2014 and would like feedback
from Senate today as it has gotten feedback from other campus constituencies.
Discussion
began and the first question regarded why January was chosen as deadline. Why
not test the concept of a co-directorship first, before adopting this model
permanently? The Dean indicated that the CTL is currently not getting adequate
attention due to her new duties and with so many other factors changing in her
area. VP Ucci added that if the professional staff and faculty co-directorship doesn’t
function as well as hoped, the Administration would be prepared to make
changes. The intent is to post two part time directors (co-directors)
internally, offering reassigned time for the faculty member and reassigned duties
for the professional staff member accepting the co-directorship.
The
theory behind the model: With a faculty member as part of the co-directorship better
engagement of full time faculty might be achieved, and a Professional Staff member
would be able to help with coordination and participation across campuses and in
the summer.
In
terms of the faculty Co-director’s input in the summer, stipends/course
reassigns could be employed.
More
discussion: Will the duo be perceived as equals? VP Ucci admitted that a
hierarchy could develop, which is not the intent of the model, but he felt that
in the proposed Co-directorship, each member would know what the other does not
and it would be just as likely that teamwork would triumph. He reminded us that
the Administration is open to changes in the model for directing the CTL if
problems proved intractable. Other concerns included how the position would fit
with the MCCC contract, but VP Ucci thought that with a Professional Staff
member in a co-directing position, fewer difficulties regarding the contract
would be likely to arise. More questions: Would the faculty member become the
privileged partner? During the
discussion, the Senate was reminded that the first person to direct the CTL was
someone from outside the BCC community, not faculty or staff, but one who had
once been faculty at another institution. He earned the confidence of faculty,
and a Professional Staff Co-director could, too. It was also noted that professional
staff members often have taught or are teaching.
Compensation
discussion: Two reassigns for the Faculty and reduction of duties for Professional
Staff member are being considered. This gave rise to the question would a
faculty with two reassigned times have the time necessary to be focused and
innovative? The suggestion was made that perhaps there should be one faculty
member with almost exclusive dedication to the CTL in terms of reassigned
times, this person to have help from a Professional Staff member.
Other
concerns arose: We have a number of campuses, too, and an online campus and a
workforce development initiative. How do we get them involved with only part
time Co-directors? At that point, a Senator redirected the discussion, asking
the origin of the suggestion that the CTL be Co-directed via this model. Dean
Buglione clarified that she was charged to meet with the BCC community and
survey state colleges in Massachusetts in order to come up with models based on
her meetings with us and research. The discussion moved to other models that
are possible, and Dean Buglione indicated that there were two strong
possibilities: the one we had just been discussing (labeled “A”) and a second
model (“B”), which is a variation of the model discussed thus far. The B model
would feature a full time Professional Staff member and a Faculty member with
two reassigned times. The Faculty member would not be responsible for the
administrative work of the directorship.
Following
the discussion, a straw poll was conducted of the Senate, with Senators voting
largely in favor of option B; two Senators abstained.
2)
Revised Bylaws of the BCC Senate
The
Revised Senate Bylaws, posted at the Senate blog (http://senatebcc.blogspot.com/2013/08/revised-by-laws-for-faculty-and.html) were discussed.
Among
the questions asked during the discussion was one regarding the method for
counting membership numbers per Senate academic & staff division. Answer:
this will be done every three years via ad hoc committee; this change to the
revised Senate Bylaws was added and the ByLaws were passed as amended, with two
abstentions.
3)
Senate Interest Groups (SIGs); Reports from SIGs:
Pres.
McCourt reminded all of the reason for the Senate Interest Groups (SIGs): to
get senators involved, placing a specific interest area on each of their radars,
so they can share with the full Senate important things happening on campus
pursuant to their interest. SIGs are also intended to help in the decision
making re: which issues the senate will take on.
Human Resources Senate Interest Group (HR
SIG) Report:
A. HR SIG made
the suggestion that when the college’s Search
Committee Guide is next up for revision, policy and process for hiring part
time staff and adjunct faculty be considered.
- Also of concern to HR SIG is the new ad for Associate Dean for Health Sciences. Is the college adding another layer of administration under its deans?
- Many of the new faculty positions are being advertised as coming with reassigned times in order for the new faculty member to be responsible for overseeing an initiative; e.g. currently advertised is an Instructor in English position the description of which indicates the new hire will be responsible for the Writing Center and will be awarded three reassigned times to take on the duty. As positions like these require that the faculty member be teaching only two or so sections, will this allow the college to say we have increased full time faculty without increasing appreciably the number of sections full time faculty are teaching? Also, Co-op and Elementary Education, positions for each being advertised now, don't have a full department’s worth of courses—faculty involved in these areas just teach a course or two.
Permission from the Senate was granted
to HR SIG member Sandy Lygren to ask VP Awolaju for data on the last
twenty-five hires re: how many have been hired for full-time teaching rather
than for teaching several classes and shouldering duties that result in
reassigned time.
4) Proposed
Academic Initiative Implementation Guidelines: Joint Governance
Senators were asked to review the PROPOSED
ACADEMIC GOVERNANCE JOINT INITIATIVE IMPLEMENTATION GUIDELINES and encourage members of their divisions to do so and
give feedback. Link:
It was indicated that the
document posted has been presented in several venues as well as being up on the
Senate Blog.
During the discussion, a
Senator asked if the Board of Trustees or Foundation should be included in the
discussion and was asked to clarify this request with Sharon Pero, Senate
representative on the Joint Governance Committee, after today’s meeting.
Further discussion revolved
around whether or not we can have actual shared governance with this document
due to laws of Massachusetts and administrative prerogative. It was generally
agreed that the current initiative would begin to help us see how shared
governance might improve with a conscious effort to include stakeholders in the
academic decision-making process. The aim is to improve transparency, encourage
more sharing, and improve the process and documentation of the process.
5) Hiring
Protocol Ad Hoc Committee: Report and
Discussion was continued until the next meeting.
NEXT MEETING: Wednesday,
November 13th at 3:15 p.m.
Meeting adjourned at 4:22
p.m.
Respectfully
submitted: Jeanne Grandchamp, Secretary, Faculty & Professional Staff
Senate
