CHAPARRAL

A lot has happened on the Senate’s agenda since I last wrote for the in November. At the local level, the Senate has worked on revising the constitution and by now your senator should have informed you about proposed changes in the Senate constitution. Some of the changes merely attend to the rescheduling that was necessary because of the compressed calendar. The elections this year, which will include the elections of at-large senators and votes on the proposed amendments to the constitution, will be conducted in April, not March.

In conjunction with the revisions to the constitution and Senate elections, the Senate voted by acclamation to reschedule the elections from March to April. Senators felt strongly that we needed to postpone the elections, first, so that all at-large candidates would have the time necessary to complete the paperwork and second, so that the voters would have time to review the proposed amendments to the constitution. To ask people to vote by the end of March would not have allowed the time frame, as much as ten weeks, that traditionally has been the timetable for Senate elections. If you have questions about the rescheduling of the elections or about the proposed changes to the constitution, please do not hesitate to call. If you would like to review the proposed amendments, they are posted on the Senate’s website. Just go to the Senate homepage, click on the constitution, and then click on the link at the top of the page.

Sid Kolpas has agreed to assume responsibility for our Student Success Task Force and has mapped out a tentative research design that will permit us to see how student performance in the winter session compares to performance in the full-length semesters, and how student performance in the fall 2001compressed semester compares to previous “traditional” semesters. While we hope that students during fall 2001 were at least as successful, if not more so, as in previous semesters, we are committed to assessing the outcomes. And we need to examine whether the winter session was successful in helping a significant number of students to complete transferable units. The questions we will ask may make some uncomfortable. There is that concern—what if students did not do as well? What do we do then? But these are questions that we must address. It will provide us with tools to figure out how to fix a problem instead of ignoring it. And if there is no problem, then it offers us valuable information for future calendars, and for future planning of winter and summer short sessions. This task force is open to any faculty member. So if you would like to join, please contact Sid.

We anticipate reports from the Research Across the Curriculum and the Writing Across the Curriculum Task Forces. These two task forces met all fall and during the winter session to develop proposals for us all to consider and have asked to be placed on the next Senate agenda. At this point I can say that the work we are doing on the Research Across the Curriculum puts GCC among the leaders in developing ways and means of preparing our students for information literacy in the 21st century. Writing Across the Curriculum promises to reinvigorate a discussion that dates back to the 1980s but revises it to make it work in our classrooms today.

The work on revising the guidelines GCC uses for hiring full- and part-time faculty is coming along. Of course, these are policies that we must “mutually agree” on with the administration, so that means we will have work to do before we are agreed. The revised equivalency policy is being updated and will provide guidance for those decisions that determine whether faculty have met the minimum qualifications, other than the degrees they had when they were hired, so that they can teach in a given area. The establishment of equivalencies is crucial for determining whether an individual can request a new FSA, and FSAs are provided under the Guild contract as the basis for bumping rights should the college need to lay people off.

We are also planning for the ASCCC meeting which will be held in San Francisco on April 4-6. One very big item on that agenda includes the new draft of the accrediting standards. Some of the proposed concerns with the new standards have been addressed. The new draft includes language that recognizes the importance of the Senate’s voice and the whole role of governance in college management.

On other points of concern the issues have not been resolved. These new standards, as now revised, represent a dramatic shift in emphasis calling for documentation of student learning outcomes. This language calls for changes in the way that faculty teach and evaluate their students to document student learning outcomes. Some of us may be able to revamp what we do to meet these new standards without much time or energy, but others may not. Some of us may need help, and that could mean valuable staff development time—just when we are told we have no staff development budget at the state level.

Measuring student outcomes will also require systematic collection and analysis of data. Of course, we are proud that Ed Karpp does an excellent job in data analysis for us, but the issue is whether his office can take on the added work. This and other proposed standards come at a time when resources are declining. What will happen remains to be determined. Thus far, the ASCCC has been successful in seeing some of the language revised, but there is still other text that need to be challenged. I promise to keep you posted.

Other issues on the ASCCC agenda concern minimum qualifications and a number of other items that result from the proposed budget cuts. If you would like to see the resolutions that are on the agenda, please call. &