Category Archives: Faculty Senate Reports

Erin Feld is stepping down as chair of the Tutoring Committee, and so a new faculty member is needed to serve. The Senate has always felt that it is important that the tutoring committee be chaired by faculty, to emphasize our role in oversight of instructional matters, and so it would be great if someone could volunteer for this role.

Several upcoming possible changes to Palomar’s policies were discussed.

AP 3900 (governing free speech on campus) is being evaluated, in the wake of recent events on campus involving demonstrations which some students found unsettling, or incidents in which students felt intimidated or coerced by individuals wanting to distribute literature. The guiding principle behind the reevaluation is to ensure that the campus is open to public speech as much as possible, regardless of content, with only those restrictions necessary to allow campus functioning (e.g. demonstrations cannot block access to buildings).

AP 5010 governs admissions and concurrent enrollment. The change being contemplated would clarify that even when exceptionally gifted students are allowed to enroll at very young ages, a faculty signature will still be required to enroll them in a class.

AP 3280 governs grants. The contentious issue here is that some large grants are used to create programs which serve students, but which must then be institutionalized (becoming budget drains) when the granting agency stops funding the project. While this may well be a good thing, there are many who feel that such grants should be reviewed *before* they are applied for, to consider how this issue will be dealt with if it arises. Proposals for “Intent to Apply for a Grant” paperwork have been presented. However, these new forms would have to be filed some number of weeks before the grant application is made, and it was pointed out that in many cases, grant applications are due on short notice–thus, this requirement would make applying for some grants impossible. The Senate also discussed whether such pre-application review might only be needed for grants which specifically fund ongoing projects, or which involve an amount of money above a certain threshold.

New PRP and Resource Request forms are coming up for review, as part of making the PRP process more streamlined, as well as more conducive to authentic program review (as opposed to being more bureaucratic than necessary).

The Senate is considering a statement on its view on Distance Education policy. This will be discussed further at upcoming meetings.

The Curriculum committee would like to remind everyone that curriculum changes take time to review properly (and require Chancellor review), and that late submissions are unlikely to be approved when the applicant would like. The recommended timeline is to develop new curriculum in a spring semester to be submitted in fall, with the anticipation that it will be effective the *following* fall.

Finally, there will be a meeting of the CALM organization (oriented around encouraging and facilitating zero- or low-cost course materials) today, February 14, from 2:10-3:00 in MD-155C.

Here’s a quick summary of the issues discussed at Monday’s faculty senate meeting:

April Cunningham presented information on the Comet Affordable Learning Materials (CALM) program, designed to support instructors wishing to use low- or zero-cost open educational resources in their classes. Information can be found at http://www2.palomar.edu/pages/calm. She is also looking to start a Textbook Affordability Taskforce.

The CTEE division is reorganizing into two main areas: Trade and Industry, and Design and Manufacturing Technologies.

Palomar was granted a substantial endowment in the will of a deceased faculty member, with the stipulation that the endowment be used to fund a faculty award tied to academic rigor. There was discussion as to whether this should be used to create an entirely new and separate award, or to enhance some of the existing faculty awards. The senate discussed whether to give the job of making this decision to a separate task force or to the existing Distinguished Faculty Award committee.

Basic Skills presented a proposal that furniture designed around active learning (such as the new furniture being used in the NS building) become the college standard, and that new spaces be designed and constructed around spaces with active tearning, DRC, and technology needs in mind.

Academic Technology reported that more than 180 courses have already migrated to Canvas as of the beginning of this semester.

The PFF and Senate are co-hosting a marty on Thursday, February 2, at 370 Mulberry Drive #E, in San Marcos. It was clarified that, while this does take place on Groundhog Day, no actual rodents will be present, though Shannon did bring up the possibility of a giant groundhog costume.

Dean Kahn put forward an idea meant to address the fact that students facing discipline for in-class behavior have little support and few opportunities to explain any possible reasons for their behavior. He proposed the creation of a mediator/ombudsman role, possibly to be filled by faculty, to act as an advocate for students going through the disciplinary process. This person would help the student navigate the various stages, and be a resource for the student to draw on, even possibly to act as a mediator. The Senate found the idea interesting, and it was decided to let the idea sit and develop.

Grants are available to develop “Z degrees”, which are programs oriented around classes using open educational resources, so that the student has no textbook cost. Dean Kahn can provide more information to interested parties.

The student fee payment plan is active. Students enrolling pay a per-semester fee, and can choose various periods of time to spread out their payment. No interest is charged. The program is run by a private company on contract.

Academic Technology has recommended that Palomar join the Online Education Initiative, which is intended to improve the quality of online classes, and provides resources to colleges.

Ben Mudgett, our articulation officer, mentioned that a project is underway to ensure that TOP codes (codes which identify a program’s place in the overall taxonomy of academia) for CTE courses are properly aligned with existing course descriptions.

At the Senate, we discussed some proposed changes to the administrative policies regarding prerequisites and corequisites. The reorganization, AP 4260, will separate and clarify instructional vs. student services responsibilities, and update some policies to comply with Title V. (Among these will be a requirement to show six, rather than three, CSU/UC campuses which have a comparable prerequisite as one way of validating a proposed prerequisite).

Along similar lines, a new unified form for clearing or challenging prerequisites is also in development.

• There was an extensive discussion regarding the presence of religiously-based groups on campus, and related changes at Student health. Earlier in 2016, Alternatives Women’s Center (an anti-abortion Christian pregnancy counseling service) approached Student health regarding establishing a presence on campus. Their van began showing up in mid-April 2016, and the organization was hoping to establish a lasting and official presence on campus (indeed, some of their fliers list Palomar as a location).

In late April, concerns were raised at a meeting between AWC, student health, and several administrators and faculty members. At this meeting, AWC clarified that–while they provide ultrasound, they are not equipped to offer medical care based on the results. In addition, while they provide information on possible complications of abortion, they do not offer any information about the risks of pregnancy. They also provide no contraception, STD testing, or referrals to abrtion facilities. The organization also maintains two websites, one for patients (which does not mention their Christian mission or orientation) and one for the organization (which does), targeted to potential donors.

AWC also provides food and diapers to pregnant and parenting students, which they cite as a reason for their presence on campus, claiming that these services are not available elsewhere.

In subsequent meetings, the administration has clarified that the organization is welcome to be present on campus under free speech guidelines, and that there is no MOU with the organization, nor is Student Health  affiliated with them.

Note that Student health does not currently provide STD testing for women, HIV testing, or pregnancy testing (though information is inconsistent on this last one; some people calling the center have been told that pregnancy testing is available, others have been told otherwise). However, Student health’s website still claims that they offer pregnancy testing (see here: http://www2.palomar.edu/pages/healthservices/fees/).

Planned Parenthood has expressed interest in coming to campus to offer STD screening. It was reported that they have filled out Facilities applications twice, and that both times, the applications have been lost. When they attempted to follow up, it was claimed that their emails were not returned.

Personally, I find these reports quite disturbing. AWC is certainly welcome to be on campus as a free speech matter, as long as the campus is not affiliated directly with them and they are not being relied upon to provide services which should be provided by Student health. But the same should apply to other organizations, including Planned Parenthood; I hope that this is investigated further. Most Senators seemed to feel the same way, and the ASG representative looked for advice as to how students could become involved in this issue.

Finally, the PFF is filing grievances regarding class cancellation procedures, and is closely monitoring a situation in AMBCS in which an administrator is pressuring faculty to work outside of contract.

Happy Halloween to all.

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

One of the main topics discussed this week was the draft of a new PRP form, which is still in development. This is meant to reflect a significant revision of the PRP process, in which the program review process is being partially separated from the resource allocation process.

The new forms are meant to encourage authentic self-reflection in disciplines as they review their programs, and will include space for feedback from IPC and the VP of instruction of college president. The new process is intended to have 1/3 of disciplines fill out the comprehensive PRP form every year, and then spend two years on updates. The form does ask for data disaggregated along demographic lines to facilitate reflection on whether different populations are being served by the offered programs, but not class-by-class disaggregation.

In addition, feedback from IPC/VPI/President is certainly not meant to be punitive, only to suggest areas to consider or to reinforce concerns the discipline expresses in the form.

Kendyl Magnusson presented a draft revision of a new Petition for Withdrawal form, and discussed the proposed process for preserving student confidentiality with regard to medical or other private information. In the proposed system, students submitting confidential documentation supporting their petition would have the option to indicate whether some or all of the documents should not be released to the faculty member. If they elected that any should not be released, those documents would be reviewed by personnel in Records, and a summary provided to the faculty member, indicating the sort of information provided without specifics which might violate privacy. Faculty would retain the power of approving or denying the petition.

The Senate is planning on drafting a statement recognizing Nancy Chadwick’s many years of service as a member of the Governing Board, as she is retiring with the election.

The Tutoring Committee provided an update on the online tutoring system; the Palomar-provided online tutoring and NetTutor system are both being used by students, and all online and offsite classes have access to the online tutoring systems.

SPC reported that the payment plan option for students will go online on October 31, which will hopefully make it easier for students to register for classes and remain registered in the days approaching the beginning of term.

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

This week, we had Lesley Williams (TERB Coordinator extraordinaire) discuss a few matters with the Senate. TERB is needing to come up with evaluation forms for our Articulation Officer, who is a faculty member housed in counseling but with no student contact time. In addition, she explained her plans on how to evaluate DRC counselors who are specialists in learning disability assessment.

The problem of electronic enforcement of prerequisites was also discussed. At the moment, only a few classes have the option to have prerequisites enforced at time of enrollment in PeopleSoft. In most courses, transcript checking and enforcement is left up to instructors, and it is believed that many do not do so (possibly simply because they are not aware that the prerequisites are not enforced at enrollment). This is out of legal compliance; if prerequisites have been established, enforcement is mandatory, and a pattern of nonenforcement can trigger course articulation reevaluation by UCs and CSUs (among other problems).

Apparently, enabling this automatic checking may be as simple as clicking a checkbox in PeopleSoft’s configuration. There have been requests to enable this function, but the administration has been reluctant to do so. The Senate expressed its support for immediately enforcing prerequisites for all classes.

New legislation (AB 1690) will cause significant changes in how part-time faculty are hired. The legislation mandates that seniority (both in terms of number of semesters and number of classes taught) must be considered in offering classes to part-time faculty, and that classes must be offered so as to total 60-67% of a full time load to each faculty member. While this has the desirable effect of helping part-time faculty minimize the number of institutions they must work at to make a livable income, and making it possible for adjunct faculty to apply for health benefits, it will also make it very hard for departments to encourage the development of new part-time faculty (since classes will be rapidly taken up by more senior instructors).

Since evaluations can also be considered in deciding who should be offered classes, it was emphasized that the part-time evaluation process will probably need to be somewhat stricter.

Finally, we will be having a follow-up visit from ACCJC on Monday, October 24. A newsletter explaining the visit, what to expect, and how faculty can help will be coming out soon. The visit should be strongly focused on how Palomar has responded to the two recommendations provided–to improve tutoring for distance ed courses and student services at Camp Pendleton, and to improve participation in shared governance.

Let me know if you would like anything brought to the Senate!

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

The main event at the Faculty Senate this week was a visit from Dr. Blake, our new college president. Dr. Blake discussed a number of items of interest to faculty members, which I will loosely summarize.

There are a number of community college s which are operating a “middle college” program, in which district high schools operate a high school campus at the community college. Students at the high school take normal high school classes, but have easier access to concurrent enrollment, and often take some classes at the college. These students are also exposed to the atmosphere and ethos of the college campus. According to Dr. Blake, such systems tend to be helpful for the high school students attending, increasing their chances of success in and after high school.

There are several high schools in Palomar’s service area who have expressed interest in this idea. While some high school administrators have suggested that such high schools might be restricted to “honors” students, Dr. Blake feels that such a restriction would not be targeting the students who could most benefit, including students of color and other underserved populations (many of whom are less likely to be identified for honors programs even when qualified).

Palomar may be expanding its “Promise” program (which pays for a year of community college) to help students who do not meet the existing GPA requirements, or who do not test into college level classes.

Dr. Blake has suggested to the ASG that they might discuss the possibility of introducing elements of hip-hop pedagogy (which has been researched and explored by a number of education specialists) with Palomar faculty. According to Dr. Blake, there is evidence that hip-hop pedagogy programs can be very helpful in reaching students from underprivileged or impoverished environments. She emphasized that adoption of such pedagogical techniques would always be at the discretion of faculty members, who determine curriculum, and that she was not intending to impose such changes–only to bring the possibility to students’ attention and allow them to discuss it with faculty members.

The Senate will be seeking volunteers for the task force which will determine whether to adopt Canvas or continue using Blackboard; keep your eyes open for announcements to that effect.

Curriculum changes should be submitted right away to have the best chance of being processed by state bureaucracy in time to be implemented next fall.

The PD program will be undergoing a substantial reorganization to ensure that PD opportunities are available to all campus employees, rather than being focused on faculty. A new Professional Development Committee will be formed to direct the program, and will include representatives from all campus constituencies.

As always, please feel free to bring anything you want to see in the Senate to my attention, or to any other faculty representative.

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

Hello, folks. Sorry for not reporting on last week. The main issues that were discussed last week were faculty involvement in enrollment management (specifically, SPC claiming that we are, and Teresa from PFF responding that we had not been meaningfully consulted), and issues regarding a new director of noncredit & occupational programs being brought onboard outside the hiring process.

Here’s what happened this week:

CA Indian Day Celebration will be held in The Brubeck on 9/22 from 4-5:30.

Wing Cheung is starting an AA/Certification program for unmanned aerial systems technicians. There is a substantial increase in demand for drone engineering and piloting across fields, so this program may well draw in quite a few students. Senators suggested that the program should also emphasize creative and artistic uses, and Wing agreed.

Margie Fritch and Jennifer Patel provided a substantial presentation on how dual enrollment programs will be implemented at Palomar, and how they will impact us. The first issue was clarifying the nature of dual enrollment and its differences from concurrent enrollment, which I will summarize below:

Concurrent enrollment is when high school students enroll in classes at Palomar as Palomar students. They fill out minor student paperwork and receive college credit. Whether they receive high school credit is less certain, and depends on the high school.

Dual enrollment involves classes taught at the high school, during the regular school day, by instructors who must meet Palomar minimum qualifications. These could be Palomar instructors. While the class is taught at the high school, to high school students, it is a college class. The high school at community college establish an agreement under Assembly Bill 288 which specifies that students receive both high school and college credit for the class, and how attendance will be credited (daily attendance for the high school vs. FTES for the college).

There are a number of specific criteria for dual enrollment classes, including:

-They cannot be in impacted areas at the college

-Textbooks are paid for by the high school

-Instructors do undergo peer evaluation, and have the same academic freedom as they would on the college campus

-High schools must contract for these classes within their own district boundaries

-The high school students must also be taking at least 240 minutes per day of normal high school classes

The program is intended to help guide high school students into college (especially students who might not otherwise feel that college was an option, of who are uncertain of their suitability), and to act as a recruitment tool for the college offering the classes. It also results in students who are better prepared when they enroll at the college as regular students after high school.

Issues remaining to be resolved include how instructors ill be paid (given that hours per week will be different, and the class will stretch over two semesters but count as a one-semester course). PFF is examining the proposal.

Details on the requirements for the college/school agreement can be found at http://careerladdersproject.org/ccccode

Finally, the Canvas pilot project is nearing completion, and Palomar will need to decide whether to adopt Canvas or continue using Blackboard. A task force to recommend a decision is being formed via Academic Technology. The intention is to take time to make a decision and to provide ample time for retraining and conversion of course materials.

As always, please feel free to bring up anything you’d like to have brought to the Senate.

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

A few points of interest from the Senate meeting today:

A mobile app for Palomar is in development, with an anticipated release sometime in September. It was unclear on what functions would be included, but it might involve allowing students to manage their enrollment, among other things.

Overall enrollment is only slightly down this term (1%, I think, was the figure quoted), and it is hoped that it may even end up with no decline as classes fill in the first weeks.

There will be workshops on applying for money for student equity projects on September 7 and 8. Olga Diaz can provide more information.

The Senate will be looking for two part-time faculty senators in the near future. Interested individuals should contact Patrick O’Brien.

There was substantial discussion of problems associated with cancellation of “low-enrollment” classes. Many senators shared stories of classes which were cancelled despite having 14+ students. Other shared that they had often seen such classes fill to 20+, even to capacity, in the last days before classes began, which may make cancelling them before that time poorly advised. It was also pointed out that classes are cancelled with the assumption that the affected students will subsequently enroll in other sections or classes–this assumption may not be valid, especially when the cancelled class is (for example) a required capstone class for which there is no alternative. In addition, if low-enrollment classes are cancelled, students may have few options for classes to move to.

There was discussion of many factors which can lead to classes having low enrollment; it was pointed out that our enrollment system’s interface is not especially user-friendly, and may be confusing to students with limited experience with computers (or, for that matter, ones with plenty of experience), and this may delay some enrollment.

Some students do not receive the financial aid for which they have applied within ten days of enrolling, and are thus dropped for nonpayment (which might then result in class being cancelled). This particular problem may be remedied by the upcoming payment plan system.

Several suggestions were made as to how to deal with these problems. Many senators would like greater transparency in how cancellation decisions are made; it seems to be inconsistent between divisions. It was also suggested that it might be possible to adopt a longer-term planning approach, in which a low-enrollment section would not automatically be cancelled. Instead, it would be noted, and used for planning future terms. If a normally full section is sparsely occupied in a given term, it may be that that was simply a random chance and the section should be offered in the future; alternatively, a section which fails to fill for several terms in a row could be rescheduled or altered. If these changes were only applied after a few terms of observation for a section, it would avoid pulling classes out from under students’ feet, wile serving the need for long-term instructional and scheduling planning.

The Senate will be conening a workgroup to consider these issues and come up with a list of suggestions from the Senate to be presented to the administration, in the hopes that the faculty can play a role in solving this problem (which is, after all, an instructional issue).

As always, please feel free to bring anything you’d like to see in the Senate to me, or to any other representative.

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

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:

1. 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
2. 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)