Bristol
Community College
Faculty
& Professional Staff Senate Meeting
Minutes
of Thursday, September 3, 2015
Room
H129 3:15pm
Senators in attendance: M. Geary, J. Pelletier, R. Benya-Soderbom, B.
French, D. St. George, S. Pero, J. Constantine, R. Worthington, S. McCourt, J.
Boulay, S. Ferreira, J. Flanigan, D. Phillips, L. Neubert, J. Jodoin, H.
Tinberg
Absences: C. Leonard, J. Corven, J. Mbugua, R.
Amarasingham, K. Hiller, L. Delano-Botelho, T. Grady
Excused Absences: G. Leeman
Two guests attended this meeting.
Meeting
called to order:
3:40 pm; quorum 3:52 pm
Minutes: Minutes from February 23rd , March
9th, April 13th, were reviewed and approved with no
abstentions.
Moment
of Silence
The Senate had a moment of silence in honor of the
passing of fellow Senator Sally Gabb.
Senate’s
Strategic Goals for AY 2015-2016
President Tinberg discussed the annual goals,
which resulted from the Senate retreat during the summer.
·
Governance:
implement the joint academic initiative document; revise By-Laws and vote on
them 4 weeks following; report on NEAS work groups; vote on strategic plan at
next meeting
·
Sustainability:
organize
a Senate Nominations Committee and improve attendance at meetings
·
Student
Retention/Academic Support: organize an ad hoc
retention committee to complete a written report by April 1, 2016; plan a
retention summit to be guided by data
Discussions followed regarding recruiting and
mentoring new Senators, using Office 365 to increase Senate engagement, greater
transparency regarding changes to the academic calendar, and engaging adjunct
faculty on the NEASC Governance group.
Proposed
Changes to By-Laws
·
Division representation: Because the
college’s reorganization of some areas impacted Senate representation (constituent
census was conducted by Senators Leeman, Boulay, and Worthington in Spring
2015), proposed changes will reorganize division representation on Senate
(e.g., “Division 7” will now be broken out to Enrollment Services, Student
Services, and Lash Division) in order to expand representation of
constituencies.
·
Article
3 Ad Hoc Committees: created for the length of 1 year and
reconstituted as needed (e.g., Grandchamp Committee)
·
Voting:
if quorum not present, explore electronic voting
·
Glossary:
revise
to outline representation of areas
·
Voting on revised By-Laws will occur
after 4 weeks
General
Education Competencies
·
Senator Boulay and Holly Pappas were
tasked with co-chairing a task force that will provide recommendations on BCC
general education competencies to Academic Affairs by December 2015. The
opening day panel discussion focused on this topic and competency meetings that
explored aligning existing general education competencies with AAC&U LEAP
Rubrics. Overall, the sentiment was that it was a valuable exercise to explore
the assessment of general education competencies and the following points were
raised by Senators:
o
The importance of the Senate engaging
in dialogue; Senators were encouraged to sign up for the task force
o
Understanding the glossary of terms
o
Purpose is to not tie hands of
instructors, but opportunity for communication to students
o
Need for transparency and engaging
diverse stakeholders
o
Importance of alignment with courses
o
Where are notes on conversation from 8
years ago?
o
Importance of including both historical
context and new perspectives from newer colleagues in discussions
o
Do we have too many competencies or do
other colleges have too few?
o
Are existing competencies (or LEAP
Rubrics) too cumbersome?
o
Can it be personalized—will students have
alternate ways for demonstrating competencies outside of courses?
o
Opportunity to modernize our
competencies
Meeting
Adjourned: 4:31 pm
Respectfully
submitted, Jennifer Boulay, BCC Faculty & Professional Staff Secretary
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