Academic Senate
2007-2008 |
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Academic Senate
2006-07 Annual Report
May, 2007
Executive Summary
The Academic Senate engaged in an active year in which we
achieved many of our goals and objectives. We worked at several levels from
ideology and procedures within the Academic Senate, to the faculty role in
shared governance, to MPC institutional policies.
In part, it was a
year of reflection where we considered who we are and where we want to be. We
started the year with a retreat where we started to define our goals for the
year. We sharpened our self image by substantially revising our bylaws to make
them more clear and straightforward. We attempted to streamline COC procedures
by rewriting the COC guidelines and procedures. To ensure a strong faculty voice
we wrote a memorandum of understanding with the MPCTA union, and passed a
resolution supporting our striking colleagues at Hartnell. At the faculty
leadership level, we sent several faculty members to Academic Senate for the
California Community Colleges (ASCCC) workshops and institutes. At the
institutional level we hosted the flex days and reviewed and revised portions of
the board policy pertaining to academic and professional matters. We formed an
Academic Senate ad-hoc committee dedicated to ensuring academic excellence and
integrity at the new Ed Center. Finally, we contributed four long-term
institutional goals to the College Council as part of the institutional planning
process. As the year drew to a close we held another retreat to establish goals
for the 2007-08 academic year.
The following outline details some of our goals, objectives,
and accomplishments for the 2006-07 academic year.
1. Goals
Established at the Beginning of the 2006-07 Academic Year
We started the 2006-07 Academic year with a planning retreat
in which we developed a series of goals for the first part of the year. These
goals included
Host Interesting and
Engaging Flex Days
·
Improve MPC staff participation in flex day
activities
·
Make flex day activities more relevant and
interesting
·
Improve current and future flex day sub-committee
effectiveness
Accomplishments:
ü
Planned and hosted spring 2007 flex days
ü
Formalized procedures for planning and hosting flex days with the
Academic Senate in charge of the content of flex day presentations and the Staff
Development Committee in charge of planning and executing the food and
refreshments for flex days
ü
Institutionalized the refreshment budget for flex days as a line item in
the MPC budget so that the Academic Senate or the Staff Development Committee
does not have to hunt for funds to host flex days every year.
ü
Developed a skit about trying to improve the connectedness of the
traditional teaching faculty and supportive services.
ü
Numerous attendees commented that the spring 2007 flex days were among
the best in years; “There is a new and different feeling on campus,” was a
common remark.
ü
Planning is currently underway for the Fall 2007 flex day; it’s easier to
plan if we start early.
Assure Academic
Excellence and Integrity at the Burgeoning Ed Center
·
To understand where we are now (with respect to
Ed Center curriculum offerings) and how we got there
·
To understand how the present and future
facilities affect curriculum and program offerings at the Ed Center
·
Ensure that an equitable process is developed for
future planning
·
Ensure that there is faculty, Senate-appointed
representation in developing an academic vision and mission statement for the Ed
Center
Accomplishments:
ü
Met several times with Vice President of Academic Affairs Bill Cochran
and then John Gonzalez to become updated on current Ed Center plans
ü
Appointed several faculty members to serve on a campus wide Ed Center
planning committee
ü
Developed an Ed Center web site designed to share plans with a wider
audience
Review and Revise our
Academic Senate Bylaws
·
Make the bylaws internally consistent, orderly,
and easier to understand
Accomplishments:
ü
Completed a significant revision of the bylaws
ü
Clarified when at-large representatives are elected
ü
Clarified which members are voting and which members are non-voting
ü
Clarified when voting should take place for division representatives and
for Academic Senate officers
ü
Stipulated that the COC chair, and ASCCC representative, as well as the
President, Vice-President, and Secretary are all elected by the Academic Senate
as a whole, to make the election of all Executive Committee officers consistent
ü
Clarified roles of the COC chair and the ASCCC representative
ü
Changed the order of presentation so that all sections pertaining to the
executive committee officers are sequential.
Review and Revise
Committee on Committees (COC) Guidelines and Procedures
·
Develop Procedures for Placing Faculty Members on
Committees
·
Improve Inclusiveness and Participation on
Committee Work
Accomplishments:
ü
Revised the document describing the function, guidelines, and procedures
of the COC
ü
Affirmed the need that these procedures be inclusive, transparent,
consistent, and clearly defined
ü
Affirmed that the COC is a recommending body to the Academic Senate as a
whole
ü
Established a goal of trying to spread shared governance committee work
as evenly as possible among faculty members
ü
Affirmed the desire to collaborate with committee chairs to find faculty
members well suited for each committee
Improve Campus
Communication
·
Improve communication between faculty members and
between various campus groups including faculty, administration, classified, and
students
·
Improve the use of technology to assist
communication on campus
·
Make mpc.edu more functional and useful
Accomplishments:
ü
Efforts by Instructional Technology to develop a new integrated web page
and e-mail system superseded our efforts here
2. Reviewing and
Revising Board Policy
In mid fall semester, we learned that reviewing and revising
board policy would be a campus-wide goal for the year. The Academic Senate put
its efforts towards Program Discontinuance (which was initiated the previous
year), Faculty Hiring Processes, and Academic Freedom. The Program
Discontinuance policy has been completed and will be presented to the board of
trustees at their May meeting. Work on hiring processes is ongoing as of this
writing. Our appointed ad-hoc committee on Academic Freedom will present their
proposed policy at a Academic Senate meeting in May.
3. Working Towards
a Strong Faculty Voice Through the Union and
the Academic Senate
We signed a memorandum of understanding with the MPCTA, the
faculty union, promising to support and collaborate with each other when
appropriate situations arise and to let each other do their individual jobs when
those situations arise. Specifically, we agreed that the MPCTA will appoint
their own faculty member representatives to shared governance committees when
the bylaws of those committees called for union representations. At the time of
this writing, these committee seats consist of one seat on the College Council
and two seats on the budget committee.
In a related action, we wrote a resolution in support of our
colleagues at Hartnell
College who went on strike
for better wages.
4. Institutional
Goals
We proposed four 3-year institutional goals to the College
Council. Each of the goals included examples of possible underlying objectives
1. Promote academic excellence and critical thinking across
all fields and disciplines.
·
“Obtain the most up-to-date and appropriate
learning materials, supplies, and technologies for MPC students”
·
“Attend conferences about effective teaching”
·
“Develop and support workshops about effective
teaching”
2. Foster a climate that promotes diversity throughout the
institution.
·
“Sponsor workshops or discussions that highlight
the strength of a diverse community working together towards common goals”
·
“Review and revise board policy to create faculty
position prioritization and hiring practices completely fair, accommodating, and
accepting of all people”
·
“Enhance
the recruitment and retention of a diverse college wide community”
·
“Develop strategies to enhance faculty diversity,
including partnerships, faculty exchange programs, and intra-institutional
collaborations”
3. Create pathways to success for all MPC students.
·
“Promote effective communication between student
services and academic programs”
·
“Identify diverse student groups and develop
strategies for the delivery of academic support”
4. Build MPC into an economic driving force for the
Monterey
area by supporting and developing programs that teach sophisticated, employable
skills.
·
“Obtaining workforce development grants to obtain
external funding”
·
“Develop technology career paths from high
schools to MPC to universities”
·
“Conduct workshops on assessing workforce and
training needs”
·
“Earmark sustained institutional support for
developing programs”
5.
Development of Goals for the 2007-08 Academic Year
·
Foster
academic excellence and critical thinking across the curriculum.
·
Spearhead a faculty lead effort to articulate the meaning and value of SLOs at
MPC.
·
Spearhead a faculty lead effort to establish
Basic Skills best practices on the MPC campus.
·
Host
invigorating and engaging flex days each semester.
·
Review
and revise board policy that pertains to academic and professional matters.
·
Assure
that faculty members are fairly and equitably represented on shared governance
committees.
·
Ensure
academic excellence and integrity at the Ed Center.
·
Create
and sustain effective faculty leadership.
·
Inspire
and encourage cross-disciplinary curriculum and program development.