Hello all, and welcome back.
At the faculty senate meeting on Monday, August 22, there was concern expressed over late class cancellations. Some faculty have had classes cancelled even when they had 12 or more students enrolled, which does seem odd when the campus is struggling with low enrollment.
The cancellations are justified under the concept of efficiency; the idea is that when a low enrollment class is cancelled, those students enroll in other courses, increasing the number of students taught for each faculty member, and making the campus more efficient. Some Senators questioned this logic, noting that:
- Once a class has more than about 10 students, it generates enough revenue to pay the adjunct faculty member teaching it; the campus then does not lose money by offering the class, and
- No evidence has been presented that students in cancelled classes actually do enroll in other courses; thus, we don’t know whether those students remain with Palomar, go to other colleges, or simply don’t enroll at all.
The administration has been requested to provide any data they have on whether students in cancelled classes stay with the college.
Another Senator noted that she had a class which was low-enrollment but which was not cancelled, and just before the semester began the class suddenly filled to overflowing. Based on this, a request has also been made that classes not be cancelled until at least the first week of the term.
Academic Technology is offering (in addition to their variety of specific training courses) self-designed training, in which ATRC staff can provide training in applications or techniques of interest to individual faculty.
A 3-d printer is also available, and David Gray can be contacted regarding its use.
The accreditation follow0up report, involving responses to the two recommendations to ACCJC needed to meet accreditation standards, is nearly complete. A site visit is expected in October or November, and information will be forthcoming on what faculty can do to be ready. In response to the recommendation to improve participation in shared governance, the college has created the Comet Information Exchange as a place where summaries of the activities of campus councils and committees can be viewed easily. The Exchange also contains a form whereby, by entering your name, constituency group, and the council you wish to contact, requests and feedback can be automatically forwarded to the appropriate representative. The CIE can be found here: http://www2.palomar.edu/pages/cie
Two online tutoring systems (for supporting distance education and offsite courses) have been developed and are rapidly being expanded; they will soon be offered to all online and offsite classes. One system uses Palomar-hired and trained tutors housed in the math and writing centers, and is available during those center hours. After hours, subject-specific tutoring is offered via NetTutor, an outside vendor.
New PRP forms are in development as part of a revision of the program review process. These are currently in discussion in IPC, and more information should be provided soon. The purpose behind the revision is to reduce the amount of less-than-useful analysis requested in the process, while encouraging departments to look at student data (including demographics) with an eye towards meaningful evaluation of program effectiveness.
As always, please feel free to contact me with anything you’d like brought to the Senate. Or if you’d like to become the faculty tri-chair for accreditation. *grin*
-Richard Albistegui-DuBois (radubois@palomar.edu)