What Your Senate Accomplished
In 2005-2006

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. It is the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results

—Andrew Carnegie

Your Academic Senate is largely responsible, by law (AB 1725), for establishing policies with regard to academic and professional matters; the Senate brochure you all received on Institute Day delineates the purview of the Senate.  Some of our policy-making decisions are shared with Academic Affairs; the Mutual Gains Document lists the shared responsibilities between both bodies. In other instances such as Faculty Service Areas (FSAs), the Academic Senate shares its decisions with the Guild. The 2005-2006 Academic Year was a very productive one for Glendale College’s Academic Senate.  There follows a summary of what we accomplished with your teamwork.

Exceptional Adjunct Faculty Award

Mission:  To develop criteria and a mechanism for an annual EAF Award, recognizing the outstanding contributions of GCC adjunct faculty.

     Like all California community colleges, we rely heavily on our outstanding adjunct faculty, but until now have never formally recognized them.  Last academic year we presented our first Exceptional Adjunct Faculty Award to Claire Thoke of the Garfield Campus.  Claire received a plaque, a framed certificate from the Glendale College Foundation, and $1000 at a surprise visit to her campus.  Moreover, the Academic Senate provided her with a cap and gown for graduation, at which time the Senate and the Glendale College Foundation recognized her. Former Board of Trustees member Phil Kazanjian, now a tenure-track faculty member, financed our first award; in succeeding years, the Foundation will finance the award.

Senate Brochure

Mission:  To develop a brochure for the GCC Senate that will be used as part of the orientation packet for new Senators and as information for all Senators and general faculty.

     To inform new faculty, and remind continuing faculty of the role of the Academic Senate in academic and professional matters, we created a Senate brochure.  The brochure discusses the role of faculty and the role of the Senate.  It was distributed at Institute Day. Please contact Frankie Strong, Governance Officer, if you need another copy.

Mutual Gains Document

Mission:   To revise the Mutual Gains Document, which establishes the division of AB 1725 responsibilities assigned to the Senate and Academic Affairs.  The document, originally approved in 1993, does not reflect the current realities of shared responsibility or governance structure.

■ to revise the mutual gains document

■ to reflect the negotiated mutual agreements of the Glendale College Academic Senate and the Glendale Academic Affairs Committee

■ to delineate areas of responsibility between the Academic Senate and Academic Affairs

■ to describe the process by which decisions are made and carried to the Board of Trustees

■ to establish the relationship between the Academic Senate and Academic Affairs

          On our campus, some of the Senate’s responsibilities are shared with Academic Affairs, a standing committee within our governance structure.  The Mutual Gains Document describes the authority shared by the Senate and Academic Affairs.  If you want to read the now up-to-date document, it is on our Senate’s web site at http://www.glendale.edu/senate/.

Core Competencies

Mission:

■ to identify the core competencies (reading, writing, critical thinking, quantitative
reasoning, oral communications, information competency and study skills), and define each of them

■ to identify ways to enhance student acquisition of the core competencies within different divisions/programs

■ to identify ways to measure success in teaching the core competencies at the
division/program level

■ to identify ways to measure success in teaching the core competencies at the institutional level

     Core competencies are institution-wide student learning outcomes.  It is hoped that to varying degrees every division, every program, and every course helps our students to acquire these competencies.  If you want to refer to the core competencies at GCC, they are posted on the Senate web site.  The task force will now work on ways to enhance student acquisition of the competencies, and ways to measure success at both the division/program level and institutional level in achieving those competencies.

College Transition

Mission Statement: Since GCC is faced with a major change in administration in the next few years, this task force will investigate strategies to make our transition to a new administration smoother.  Some strategies the task force might consider include:

■ planned meetings with the new administrators to introduce them to our governance structure

■ planned meetings with the new administrators to introduce our Senate, Guild and CSEA leaders and the roles of those
organizations

■ social events to welcome the new
administrators

     With a new Superintendent/President, and more administrative changes in the near future, the Senate felt it was important to institute a Transition Task Force.  The Transition Task Force met over the summer to help facilitate Dr. Levy’s move to our campus.  The issues with which the task force dealt included: events for the fall that will allow faculty and staff to meet Dr. Levy; a document/CDROM with a list of areas of interest and corresponding faculty/staff whose expertise Dr. Levy can call upon; a web site/monthly newsletter with which faculty and staff can communicate with Dr. Levy; and a document listing GCC Traditions/Global Issues.

Distance/Hybrid Learning

Mission: To develop standards for the creation and evaluation of distance learning classes and hybrid classes.

     The Senate and Academic Affairs developed the criteria for establishing and evaluating distance learning classes and hybrid classes.  The document can be found at http://www.glendale.edu/online/facultycenter/distance_education_overview.htm.

 Many of the criteria mirror those established by the statewide Academic Senate. We now have definitive guidelines for establishing and evaluating distance courses and hybrid courses.

Instructional Adjunct Hiring

Mission:  To finalize changes to the full-time language and review policy for part-time faculty.

     Paralleling full-time hiring procedures, the Instructional Adjunct Hiring Task Force sought to establish a procedure, based on state-mandated criteria, for hiring adjunct faculty.  It still has not passed the scrutiny of Division Chairs and Academic Affairs, and is currently being reviewed by a sub-committee of Academic Affairs before it comes back to the Senate this academic year.

Faculty Sensitivity to Cultural Diversity/Methods to Recruit and Retain Culturally Diverse Faculty

Mission:  To review the curricula now offered under the Cultural Diversity requirement and to assess whether GCC is providing courses that adequately prepare students to live and function in a culturally diverse world and to recommend revisions.  To develop and provide information and motivation to our faculty to promote the understanding, acceptance, and celebration of the cultural diversity specific to our educational setting:

■ to identify methods to attract and recruit faculty for new positions from a culturally diverse pool of applicants

■ to identify ways of retaining new faculty, especially those from ethnic minorities

The last accreditation report admonished our college for not having a faculty that represents the ethnic diversity of our student body.  Therefore, the Senate thought it was appropriate to establish a task force that would investigate ways of recruiting and retaining a culturally diverse faculty.  Additionally, the task force will seek ways to promote faculty sensitivity to our cultural diversity.  The task force will continue to meet this academic year.

Student Learning Outcomes

Mission:   To seek new ways to improve student learning.  The assessment of SLOs redirects institutional and individual attention away from the planned curriculum and toward the learned curriculum and resulting outcomes.  This should be faculty driven and assessment methods and content should emerge from the faculty.

     This task force was also charged with writing our institution’s core competencies, which were passed by the Senate last academic year.  The task force will continue to work on implementing SLOs on our campus, and educating faculty about SLOs.  Last year, faculty could earn flex credit for taking an on-line SLO workshop.  Lisa Brewster, an expert on SLOs, also gave an SLO workshop on our campus. We have an SLO website at http://www.glendale.edu/program/SLO/index.htm as well as SLO E-Newsletters.  More activities are forthcoming.

Mentoring Adjunct Faculty

Mission:  A joint task force with Division Chairs that explores the existing adjunct faculty mentoring programs (in Math and ESL) on our campus and on other campuses for mentoring adjunct faculty.  The task force will report back to the Senate with a model or models that could be used by our divisions to provide valuable mentoring support for our adjunct faculty.

     This committee established valuable suggestions for mentoring adjunct faculty.  Suggestions included choosing a peer mentor amongst full-time faculty, providing a list of division policies and college-wide policies, and providing sample exams and syllabi.  The task force’s report will be made public in the fall, and will then be posted on the Senate’s web site.

Flex

Mission: The mission of this task force is to investigate the simplification of the flex verification process.  In particular, the reviewing information on the legal reporting requirements of the college’s flex plan to the Chancellor’s Office, information on the verification process as conducted at other community colleges both for full-time and part-time faculty, and the various alternatives which are available to the college for its flex verification process.

     The Flex Committee continues to investigate ways by which we can streamline our flex process.  They will continue to meet this academic year, and will explore how flex is administered at other community college campuses.

Student Evaluations

Mission: To clarify information about student evaluations of faculty in the contract.

     This joint Senate/Guild task force tried to clarify contract language about who can read student evaluations of faculty, and where the original evaluations and copies of them can be stored.

Waiting In the Wings 

     The following task forces will be formed as others are completed.

Increased Faculty Participation in Shared governance

Mission:  To find ways to increase faculty participation in shared governance.

This committee will investigate ways to increase participation in shared governance amongst all faculty members.  Please see my article in the April 2006 Chaparral on “Where Have All The Volunteers Gone?”  It can be found at http://www.glendale.edu/chaparral/apr06/senate.htm.

Faculty Orientation.

Mission:  To work with Staff Development and Human Resources to develop a comprehensive support plan for faculty orientation.

     This task force will investigate ways to better familiarize new faculty with the Glendale College culture.

I would like to thank Monette Tiernan for much of the information contained in this article. &

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