Faculty Council Minutes
Osceola Campus
Attending. Joel
Berman, Mark Bollenback, Amy Bosley, Tom Byrnes, Jackie DiMartino, Jean Marie
Fuhrman, Bob Gessner, Carin Gordon, Gloria Hines, Ilyse Kusnetz, James Leonard,
Graeme Lindbeck, Suzanne Lynch, Lisa Macon, Melissa Pedone, Michael Shugg, Bill
Snider, and Chris Wettstein
Guests. Joe Bivins,
Karen Borglum, Susan Dauer, Dan Dutkofski, Tim Grogan, Dave Hosman, Kevin
Mulholland, Marva Pryor, Sanford Shugart, Allison Sloan, Kaye Walter and Silvia
Zapico.
Action Items
Minutes. The February
minutes were approved.
Approval of Faculty to committee to study procedures for
evaluation of online classes. These
faculty were appointed to serve on this committee: Amy Bosley, East,
Communications; Lynn Paredes-Manfredi, Osceola, Political Science; Corinne
Fennessy, West, Communications; Lisa Macon, West, Engineering and Technology;
Gisela Acosta, East, Mathematics; Kamal Kamla, West, Science; Mary Beck, West,
Science; Carol Griffin, West, Health Sciences; Marva Pryor, Business, Winter
Park; and Wael Yousif, West, Engineering and Technology. The Council
recommended that Amy Bosley serve as the chairperson.
Approval of Faculty to Institutional Effectiveness
Committee. These faculty were
appointed to serve on this committee: Sophia Graff, West, Mathematics,
and Carole Nevels, Osceola, Business.
Discussion/Action Items
Discussion of office hours/virtual hours with Tim Grogan,
other deans and the Faculty Council. A
collection of comments, questions, and concerns generated through multiple
conversations with multiple deans on the topic of campus/student engagement
hours. Not all deans have all of them;
no reaching of consensus has been attempted as to which are more important or
even what specific actions, if any, should be taken.
1.Why would faculty who don't have any virtual students
have virtual engagement hours? Students
of course can always connect virtually, but why would the faculty member
regularly be virtual instead of on campus?
It decreases the opportunity for face-to-face interaction for students
who have chosen a face-to-face course delivery option.
2.WebCT6-based virtual access is section (CRN)
specific. Students within a faculty
member's particular section can get to him/her during virtual hours within that
chatroom, for example, but other students can not. The engagement hours become much less open
access. A faculty member with one
on-line class and 4 on-site classes who has 5 virtual hours in a WebCT6 chat
room doesn't have an equitable distribution of engagement hours compared to the
distribution of students.
3.It's not clear if the 2 methods of contact for virtual
hours means 2 methods at all times for all virtual hours, or 2 methods total
when summing all of the virtual hours.
4.There has been a noticeable drop in faculty's physical
presence on campus to be involved in spontaneous or otherwise unscheduled
interactions with students, staff, administrators, each other, etc. Called meetings are working, but "Hey,
let's go talk with X" doesn't work, for X is very often either in class or
not around.
5.If a faculty member is absent on a teaching day, only
class time and engagement hours are subtracted from leave; but if the member is
absent an entire week, wouldn’t that be 35 hours of leave time?
6.Deans’ view, “There are only 5 hours per week when I can
know for sure where I can physically find faculty not in class, and those 5
hours are supposed to be reserved for students.
Isn’t there something not quite right with that?”
Essentially, during this discussion, the majority of the
Council acknowledged that the methods of communication are changing in respect
to student engagement and communication at the College, whether it is virtual
(in different modes) or face to face.
Discussion of ideas for the Honors and Student Success
initiative with Kaye Walter. “The person
who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” What are the
mountains that prevent our students from being successful? How do we begin to
remove these mountains? Each courageous conversation about things that matter
to our students is a small stone. At
Dr. Walter presented two examples of students who had been
able to become successful in college through student success and subsequently
enroll in honor’s courses. How do we
remove mountains so that all students find their strengths and reach their
goals? Courageous conversations are the
ways we remove mountains one stone at a time.
These are the ideas and conversations that the Honors and Student
Success Task Force are looking at.
Many questions were presented for thought: Why do we have
an Honor’s Program at
This discussion led into the question of the process of who
would be involved in these discussions about honors and student success. The
chair of these discussions is Joan Tiller, who leads with honesty and with
great integrity. This process for the task force is a shared collaborative
process. The comment was made that
sometimes after discussion, work groups and some counsels are in a hurry to make
decisions, thereby skipping the most important step--“consensus building.”
It was agreed that a summit meeting, fostered by the
Collegewide Faculty Council with the President’s office and the Deans, will be
planned as a governance retreat for a Friday morning in May. We need to refresh
the steps to build again with principles and reasons; possibly to get back to
work plans. How do we propose to get
back to shared governance? What does shared governance mean in a more concrete
way? What do we mean by process? Who is selected to serve on task forces and
committees? We certainly need a
thoughtful and meaningful process to put groups together for any ad hoc groups,
or the work at the College can be very slow.
Certainly faculty representation should and is included on councils and
committees, keeping in mind that the culture of trust is more important than
any work that is being done by any committee. The crux of the word “shared” is
that we are all in it whether we are all in the room for the discussion or not.
Discussion of shared governance principles and
responsibilities/authority of the Faculty Council in governance: Responsibilities issues that are given to the
College Learning Council affording over curriculum issues, as well as professional
development, professional orientation, and tenure review. These are two particular powers of authority that are very
close – curriculum and tenure review.
Dr. Shugart asked for time to engage in these conversations.
Discussion of issues and possible action items with Allison
Sloan regarding the Professional Development Implementation and Oversight
Committee.
Professional Development Implementation and Oversight Team
(PDT) received approval from the Faculty Council for changes and additions to
the PDC Plan. Secondly, the PDT
summarized areas it believes are interpretations to make sure Faculty Council
approved of these types of
interpretations made by the PDT in the future without approval from Faculty
Council. The wording would reflect to
consider individual circumstances rather than accommodate what was approved.
Also, any change of additions to the Professional Development Plan will be
brought to the Faculty Council before it is forwarded. Comments and input can be solicited before
going to Faculty Council.
The Faculty Council approved Faculty Compensation Plan,
Professional Development Component Plan to read as: For the purpose of this
compensation enhancement, professional development shall be defined as faculty
member-initiated additional work to improve faculty knowledge, skills, and
abilities that should lead to an increase in student, faculty member, or
institutional learning or academic success.
Professional Development activities that qualify under this
plan are not compensated in other ways (i.e. stipends, etc.) and do not include
work that is part of a faculty member’s regular professional responsibilities
per most job descriptions (i.e. staff meetings, committee work, curriculum
planning, etc.).
Additions:
The PDT recommends that full-time temporary faculty (
It was noted that: The Faculty Council does not have the
authority to compensate temporary faculty.
The PDT brought forth that the Faculty Compensation information was presented to Instructional Council for
the deans to distribute to all full-time faculty. However, the faculty compensation did not
include the four or eight month temporary.
The PDT recommends the plan cover a 12-month period that
runs from May 15 to May 14.
Provided that it is o.k. with Human Resources, the Faculty
Council approved that the PDT allow faculty to use activities from the May 15th starting date to the August deadline, this
year 2007, even though the PDC plan does not officially start till August.
Otherwise, faculty would have only 8.5 months to complete the program this
first year.
Interpretations:
If a faculty member is allowed SPD funds, it may be used as
defined by the College’s rules for SPD funding and is not considered double
compensation.
Faculty hired after December are still eligible to create
and implement a plan, but still need to complete their plan by May 14.
The faculty members will receive credit when the
professional development activity ends. That is, if a faculty member takes a
course that starts May 1 and ends June 30, the faculty member would receive
credit on June 30.
Update on PDT Progress to Implementing its charge:
PDT established dual websites, both on Faculty Association
website and on HR website.
The PDT approved the idea of a theme for PD workshops every
year. However, the PDT recommends the faculty member’s plan does not have to center
on this theme unless the faculty member chooses to. The Team recommends that
faculty be surveyed to get ideas for possible workshop themes or topics so that
themes emerge directly from faculty.
Faculty Council gives the co-facilitators of this PDT the
authority to ask Human Resources and whomever they deem appropriate and
necessary to get answers to questions that the PDT may need to move forward
with the PDT plan.
It was noted that part of the intent of the Professional
Development Plan was that, at the time of annual assessment of faculty members,
the deans could present the option to faculty to pursue the Faculty
Professional Development Plan as an
initial discussion, but that the intention is not to press for a detailed plan
from the faculty member at the assessment.
Report/recommendation by Tom Byrnes on Class Climate
information was tabled and will be handled by e-mail due to time constrains.
Discussion of curriculum issues with Karen Borglum and
Susan Dauer. An update was given of the Curriculum
Committee processes and the need was stressed to be more cognizant of learning
outcomes for courses.
It was approved that the Faculty Council President-elect
will be a member of the Curriculum Committee.
A survey was distributed for general education discussions
completed by faculty. There will be open
forums on all campuses for further discussion on general education courses.
Announcement of new president-elect of the Faculty
Council. There will be an election
for the single candidate, Michael Shugg, as the President-elect of the Faculty
Council for next year according to Robert’s Rules of Order.
6-6-0-0 Developments. There
will be collegewide meetings.
Reports
West – Dr. Paula Gastenveld has accepted the presidency of
a community college in
Osceola – The Osceola Faculty Association Meeting was held
immediately before this Faculty Council Meeting and the Osceola Faculty
Association was very appreciative of Dr. Shugart addressing the Osceola Faculty
Association Meeting.
East – There was a suggestion from the faculty to ask for a
discussion of collegewide class caps and perceived inequities for identical
classes on different campuses and for pay. Susan and Tom will send out an
e-mail to ask for volunteers to serve on a committee to address class caps.
Other Reports
Dr. Shugart proposed that
The legislature is moving along just fine. The budget is solid. House budget and senate
budget includes 5% tuition increase. The
College has done a good job in stewardship of dollars. It is very hopeful that the Faculty
Compensation Model will be finished this next year. Dr. Shugart is eager to move ahead with 4-month
contracts with some continuity – some new status for these individuals and
their families.
The
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at
The next Faculty Council meeting is scheduled for