Minutes of November 30, 2015

Bristol Community College

Faculty & Professional Staff Senate Meeting

Minutes of Monday, November 30, 2015

Room B101 3:15pm

Senators in attendance:  M. Geary, J. Flanigan, H. Tinberg, J. Boulay, B. French, L. Neubert, J. Corven, L. Delano-Botelho, J. Pelletier, R. Amarasingham, T. Grady, J. Constantine, J. Bjornson, D. St. George, J. Jodoin-Krauzyk

Absences: S. Ferreira, S. McCourt, K. Hiller

Excused Absences: S. Pero, D. Phillips, G. Leeman, J. Mbugua, R. Benya-Soderbom, R. Worthington

Special Guest: Jim Armstrong

Two guests attended this meeting.

Meeting called to order:  3:20 pm

Minutes:  Minutes from October 26^th were reviewed and approved with no abstentions.

Welcome, Acknowledgements of Past Service

President Tinberg welcomed Senator Jon Bjornson who will fulfill the remainder of Cecil Leonard’s term. Senator Leonard retired in September and a card was distributed to thank him for his service.

Senate and Work-to-Rule

President Tinberg announced that the Bristol Board of Trustees would be meeting at 3:30 pm that day; attendees were free to leave early should they wish to support work-to-rule by joining BrCCC President Yohe at a meet-and-greet standout. 

Because the Senate is voluntary service that benefits constituents, and the Senate was initiated to provide an alternate voice to the administrative voice, it was agreed that the Senate’s work will not be impacted by work-to-rule.

A motion was passed to produce an official statement supporting work-to-rule on behalf of the Senate. Joining other voices in encouraging both parties to resolve the impasse, the Senate will request that the negotiating team comes to an agreement on a fair and equitable contract for MCCC members, who have been without a contract since June 2015.

Senate and Office 365

Jim Armstrong delivered a presentation on Office 365 for the Senate. This cloud-based software can be used as a repository for documents such as minutes, scheduling, and surveys. Features include:

·         Meeting minutes can be uploaded to the site and all members will be notified via email.

·         A link can be added to approve or decline minutes via Outlook; comments may be added for amendments via this feature.

·         One limitation of approving minutes via Outlook is that it will only work on PCs that have Outlook installed (not via Outlook Web Access).

·         Additionally, it is not clear as to whether unapproved minutes can be viewed by the entire college community or if they can be limited to just Senate members. Some document repositories can have different privacy settings (e.g., access to entire college vs. link access only to committee members). Jim will look into this and will keep the Senate apprised of the program’s functionality.

·         Office365 can be accessed in 3 ways:

a)    Selecting Office365 via accessBCC

b)    Selecting Office365 on the college’s homepage (under Online Portals)

c)     Via www.office365.bristolcc.edu

·         For login, the username is your accessBCC username followed by @bristolcc.edu (e.g., lname12@bristolcc.edu); the password will be the password you use to log into campus computers

·         To access the Senate site, once logged in, select “Sites,” then “Committees,” then “Staff Senate” (Note: Jim will change the name of the site to Faculty and Professional Staff Senate)

Division Reports

·         Division 4: The clinical lab science program’s accreditation went well.

·         Division 5: Dean Saman moved the division meeting and announced the upcoming retirement of Mary True.

·         Division 2: Dean Pearle was granted permission to have psychology and sociology separated into two different departments. She is exploring metamajor pathways for psychology and criminal justice; however, faculty are not directly part of process because of work-to-rule although she is sharing updates with the division.

·         Questions were raised by the Senate as to whether there is uniformity of metamajors within disciplines. This topic was tabled from last meeting due to time constraints, but President Tinberg will ask Associate Vice President Ucci if he will be able to address the Senate for the next meeting.

Update on the Academic Support and Retention Task Force/ Preliminary Data on Academic Support and Retention

President Tinberg shared an academic support and student retention preliminary report he received by Dean Buglione at the executive committee’s monthly meeting with the administration. Senators expressed concern over whether stakeholders were consulted regarding the decision to move the Learning Commons (e.g., TASC and the Writing Center) to the library. The document states “the College holds the vision of creating a full Learning Commons housed in the Library to offer our students a one-stop, comprehensive academic support in the future.”

The question was raised as to whether the task force should continue collecting data during work-to-rule. Because the work will benefit constituents, and in light of the timeline for working collaboratively with administration in the spring, the task force will explore collecting formal and informal data throughout the remainder of the semester. Task force membership consists of Senators and constituents, as follows:

·         Julie Jodoin-Krauzyk, chair

·         JP Nadeau

·         Kimberly Newton

·         Deborah Palumbo

·         Demetrice Phillips

·         Debra St. George

·         Ron Weisberger

Update on Gen Ed Review and Work-to-Rule

Secretary Boulay provided an update of how the general education task force is impacted by work-to-rule. The group last met on November 12^th for a scheduled meeting. Associate Vice President Ucci addressed the group and thanked them for involvement on this initiative. In light of the NEASC reporting deadline, he stated that the committee’s work would need to continue throughout work-to-rule, but as a voluntary committee, unit member could elect to withdraw from the committee without being penalized. Additionally, Vice President Sethares indicated that the committee’s work could be extended into the spring semester to allow for an inclusive and transparent process for constituent communication following work-to-rule. Secretary Boulay stated that she and Holly Pappas would note any limitations in their report.

Nomination Committee

Pursuant to the amended by-laws, President Tinberg is in the process of forming a Nomination Committee for upcoming Senate election. Committee members will serve a two-year term and the group will be comprised of four members—two former Senators and two current Senators. The will be tasked with preparing a slate of candidates for the Senate and Senate Officers by March 2^nd. Interested Senators should contact President Tinberg.

Other

·         A motion was passed to amend the language in the by-laws from “the number of Senators from each division will be 15 percent (or 20 percent) of the total number of its constituents” to “the number of Senators from each division will be 15 percent of the total number of its constituents.”

·         Senator Jodoin-Krauzyk expressed concerns over the language and content used in college marketing (e.g., “ugly schedule” and developmental coursework). She will provide links to these advertisements to Senators and they will vote electronically as to whether the Senate should release a statement about these campaigns.

·         The Senate discussed “going green” by distributing Senate documents electronically to members and using the projector to view documents at meetings.

Meeting Adjourned:  4:16 pm

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