Minutes of September 15, 2014

Bristol Community College

Faculty & Professional Staff Senate Meeting

Minutes of Monday September15, 2014

H210 3:15 p.m.

Senators in attendance: E. French, R. Worthington, G. Heaney, C. Leonard, S. Pero, D. St. George, J. Duponte, J. Constantine, J. Corven, S. McCourt, J. Pelletier, J. Boulay, G. Leeman, R. Soderbom, L. Delano-Botelho, R. Amarasingham, J. Mbugua, K. Hiller, M. Williams, S. Ferreira, J. Jodoin Krauzyk (for C. Poore-Pariseau), M. Geary, T. Grady

Excused Absences: H. Tinberg, S. Gabb

Absences: R. Santos, D. Warr

Eight guests attended this meeting.

Meeting called to order 3:16 pm.

Minutes: Minutes from May 5, 2014 voted on and accepted.

Division Updates:

·       Division 1: Concerns were raised regarding policy changes at the Writing Center, the absence of faculty engagement in these changes and the impact these changes would have on student success. Dean Preston is working with the Office of Disability Services and Human Relations regarding accessibility for a new faculty member who is deaf.

·       Division 2: The search for a division dean has been extended; the search will include the same committee members from the summer.

·       Division 3: The division is offering a third annual “boot camp” (accelerated college success strategy in one day).

·       Division 4: A new associate dean had been hired and is primarily stationed in New Bedford. A new full-time fieldwork coordinator in the occupational therapy assistant program and a new full-time faculty member in healthcare information were also hired. Programs are up for re-accreditation.

·       Division 5: Seeds of Sustainability is urging the college to explore fossil fuel divestment.  

·       Division 6: No update.

·       Division 7: The Senate Bylaws will need to be changed to reflect the new Lash Division organization. First-year advising has reached 60-70% and the college is in the process of hiring a new advisor. The Office of Disability Services accessibility task force is exploring website captioning; they intend to collaborate with the Learning Resources Center.

Writing Center & TASC:

President McCourt spoke individually with the directors of the Writing Center and TASC; both could not attend the Senate meeting due to a scheduling conflict, but they agreed to attend the October meeting. A discussion followed regarding concerns over online and face-to-face hours and the implication of shared governance in the policy changes at the Writing Center.

Joint Senate/Administration Closed-Loop Governance Initiative:

President McCourt spoke with Vice Presidents Sethares and Ucci regarding the shared governance initiative; she will follow-up with them within a week for a status update.

Vice Presidents Council Meetings:

The Senate has been invited to attend the “deans only” VPC meetings, as opposed to the full meetings, which occur Tuesday afternoons. President McCourt will provide the schedule to Senators.

Annual Goals and Calendar:

A tentative calendar was discussed, as follows:

·       October: Writing Center, Academic Support, Service-Learning and Vision Project, communication with other campuses & center (invite chairs of Central Committee)

·       November: Writing Center, NEASC Report; revise bylaws in light of divisional changes and omit Senate interest groups

·       December: shared governance in grants at the college, strategic planning involving stakeholders (wish list by divisions) to extend involvement; advisement update with Dean Steven Viveiros

·       January: transition, Quest, Vision, PARCC

Other Items/Reminders:

·       Search committees: Concerns were raised for the search committee task force regarding Division 1 searches (e.g., candidates alerted late, committee size, use of resources, reconstituted searches). An audit was recommended to explore the timeline for when the position posted, committee convenes, candidates have second interview and candidates are notified of their status.

·       Scheduling: Senate inquired about an update on the scheduling student survey.

·       Website: Senators expressed interest in how to report feedback on new website and inquired about the methods for continuous improvement.

·       PLA Task Force: Senators Amarasingham and Geary have joined the Prior Learning Assessment task force; the group will meet in December.

·       Blackboard LMS: Senators expressed interest in inviting Dean Bellafiore for an update on the Blackboard Learning Management System.

·       Campus Representation: Senate will explore how to improve representation from other campuses, including how the Senate can be used as an academic tool to support academic work there.

·       Diversity: The Senate will explore a common definition for diversity at BCC. The Office of Disability Services suggested incorporating Universal Design for Learning strategies in classroom to retain students, as well as for leveraging support for support services through grants.

Meeting adjourned 4:13 p.m.

Respectfully submitted, Jennifer Boulay, BCC Faculty & Professional Staff Secretary

Minutes of May 5, 2014

Bristol Community College

Faculty & Professional Staff Senate Meeting

Minutes of Monday May 5, 2014

B101 3:15 p.m.

Senators in attendance: E. French, T. Grady, J. Grandchamp, S. Lygren, H. Tinberg, A. Rolfe, R. Worthington, G. Heaney, C. Leonard, S. Pero D. St. George, R. Clark (substituting was K. Garganta), J. Duponte, J. Constantine, J. Corven, S. McCourt, J. Pelletier, K. Woldegiorgis, J. Myles, R. Weisberger, J. Boulay, C. Poore-Pariseau

Excused Absences: Sil Ferreira, Paul Robillard, JP Nadeau, M. Williams, S. Gabb

Absences:  T. McGarty, D. Warr

Three guests.

Special guests Professor Debra Anderson, English, Division I; and Dean of advisement Steven Viveiros.

Meeting called to order 3:19

Minutes from April 7 2014 voted on and accepted with emendation:  Jean Myles was present. One abstention.

Meeting began with a brief update:  due to the NEASC team visit, Senate elections were delayed and will begin online tonight; following results of these general elections, the Senate officers election will be held next week. As per last elections, these will be accomplished using a secure survey tool. Constituents will receive a secure link via email; survey will include a space for write-ins.

Prior Learning Discussion: The Senate’s first guest, Professor Debra Anderson offered some background on the changes to PEL. The college is retooling PEL, which will now be called “PLA—Prior Learning Assessment.” (PEL/PLA is a concept long-accepted at BCC and nationwide that allows students to obtain credit for life experiences.) At BCC, this program was once very decentralized and departments would handle their own granting of credits for prior life experience. Military training etc. would be provided credit by national guidelines or by individual BCC department guidelines, whichever appropriate. Often there would be department exams or credit by portfolio. Professor Anderson has been asked to help centralize this process, and she indicated that this has proven more time-consuming than she had first anticipated.  In effect, a person assessing outside work for credit receives a new set of information  with each student applicant to PLA. Currently, there is no clear process to follow and we need this and faculty compensation is inconsistent and the manual needs updating. Prof. Anderson is trying to get an ad hoc group together, including representation from the Senate, workforce development, MCCC, Student Services, administration, and the Grants area. (Debra’s position is funded by a grant.) Prof. Anderson wondered if there are there any other recommendations for membership for this ad hoc group to insure all constituencies concerned are considered. Members of the Senate asked her to add one or more program coordinators and a transfer person. Someone to think of long-term impacts would also be a good addition to the group. Another suggestion was a person who has been active in Distance Ed. Among the questions raised by Senate members: will we look at testing out of the college’s technical literacy requirement—perhaps a challenge exam based on outcomes outlined in the BCC requirements for demonstrated  technical literacy? Senators were asked to email Debra Anderson with questions or issues or if interested in serving with this ad hoc group.

Advisement Center Discussion: Dean Steven Viveiros joined the Senate to offer an update on the implementation of recommendations made by the Joint Administration/Senate Committee. With him, he brought an updated document (see second attachment) and indicated that the implementation group had met once in fall 2013 and once in spring 2014. Dean Viveiros decided to tackle what would impact students directly first, postponing some of the faculty-related pieces.  He expressed his concern that he hadn’t had a year to learn about BCC before the expectation that he would jump right in to implementing the recommendations. First up was the institution of a first year advising program. (See first attachment.) The first workshop contact affords students career assessment, a look at their goals...do these line up with the program in which they are enrolled? They also learn to use catalog and make class decisions on their own own, with one-to-one help, are advised to enroll in learning communities and combo English 091/092 classes, etc. They also select other basic/gen ed, first semester courses. They are then registered for their first semester. Three more meetings occur in their first semester. In the first of these three meetings, GPA calculation, reading the catalog accurately, preparing for advisement, using map works, etc., are accomplished. Students also do a self-inventory survey regarding the effort and hours put into their work at BCC. The plan is ultimately to get this Mapworks self-inventory survey to faculty too and let faculty give input to students through this page on Mapworks. Those at risk and self-reported or reported as such by faculty will be brought into The Student Success Center (B120) for extra coaching. In the next workshop students are taught to use Degreeworks to develop a plan based on their programs and ultimately to have something solid in the way of semester planning to show to their advisors. The third workshop involves picking courses by time and campus based on the students’ plans made in the previous workshop.  The goal is to get students in to see their advisors WITH a plan for the next semester and courses picked so that advisors can use the time to check the plan, then talk with their advisees about long-range plans, success of the current semester, etc.

In semester two, freshmen will have a choice of a career or a transfer workshop.  A second workshop will help them update their academic plans and get ready for priority registration. There is a rolling model, so students enrolling in Fall or Spring can get the first year workshops in either semester. There are distance elearning workshops online. These are used for elearning students but also in cases where on-campus students can't attend in person. Dean Viveiros sees ways for Advisement to partner with CSS instructors and is working on that now.

Each freshman advising workshop has an active activity; students directly from high school will likely expect this. Older students often say they know this workshop material and ask if there is a challenge exam for the workshops. Steve is concerned that students don't realize how much they don't know about college.  Currently, the Advisement area only eliminates those who have been in college here or elsewhere before.  Dean Viveiros indicated that he would personally like to speak with students who don't feel they need the advisement workshops. Students now coming in learn about all of the workshops, though when they were first instituted last semester students didn’t always know these workshops were required. Next year, Dean Viveiros plans to partner with faculty and improve advisement by building professional development for faculty by faculty.  Steve Viveiros’s extension is 2871 and his email is steven.viveiros@britolcc.edu  . He requested that Senators with further questions or suggestions contact him directly.

Update/Questions Joint Senate/Administration Closed-Loop Governance Initiative: The question arose about grants and whether proposed grants will be part of the shared governance policy/procedure. The answer: yes. The following were discussed on the Senate floor as appropriate for all academic proposals going through the policy/process: 1) proposals should come through the Academic Vice President and Senate President; 2) there should be initial notification of the Senate and the entire college; 3) when the initiative has been through the process set in the policy,  signatures should be limited to the Academic Vice President and the College President, and it should be strongly suggested that a Senate response be included. It was also discussed that 4) a new committee be formed for insuring continued assessment/evaluation of the policy/process for shared academic governance. A motion was then made from the Senate floor that the proposed process be implemented, with these four changes (1-4 above) inserted. Motion passed.

Further discussion brought out the suggestion that we not pick one thing to test this policy/procedure, but that instead we begin to use it with every academic proposal, then evaluate the process again and again as we go along.

It was also mentioned that the college must get to a set kind of “dashboard” approach to apply to all projects going through the process, for the sake of consistency, fairness and clarity of process.

A request was made that the new associate Vice President be met with by the executive committee before summer in order that she might be brought up to date on joint Senate and Administrative initiatives.

Meeting adjourned 4:10 p.m.

respectfully submitted, Jeanne P. Grandchamp, BCC Faculty & Professional Staff Secretary

FOLLOWING ARE DOCUMENTS SUPPLIED BY DEAN STEVEN VIVEIROS…