Doctor RAD

My apologies for not posting these for a few weeks.

At today’s Senate meeting:

The Presidential search is continuing. Candidates will be interviewed around this weekend, with second-level interviews to follow shortly thereafter. A campus forum will be held on May 18, and the Board will deliberate to choose a final candidate between May 25-27.

The Academic Technology Committee reports that they have decided to continue the Canvas pilot project, and hope to expand it to include a broader range of classes and instructors. They are also planning to begin a student survey of both Canvas and Blackboard users.

Wendy Nelson will take the position of Learning Outcomes tri-chair for fall 2016, but she will be taking a sabbatical in spring. It would be ideal if someone would volunteer for this position, to be trained by Wendy in fall. The three positions include 120% release time, to be divided among the tri-chairs as they decide.

We also need someone to come forward to serve as faculty tri-chair for accreditation.

The SPC has recommended that development and planning for the South Center continue. It is anticipated that the South Center could help bring in more FTES to mitigate the losses of recent years. There was some discussion as to the concerns of the local community regarding traffic congestion.

There was significant discussion of the update to the strategic plan. The Senate approved of the emphasis being placed on encouraging teaching and learning by forming connections across campus. There were objections to language which seemed to imply that the problems with growth and enrollment were to be remedied by changes in scheduling and efficiency, with no direct mention of improvements needed in recruitment, marketing, and long-term planning (e.g. not cutting courses at the last minute).

There were a few issues of interest discussed at the Senate this week. A group is working on a new tool, the :Instructional Showcase”, which will make it easier for faculty to advertise events. The goal is to create a form which can be submitted with information about upcoming events, which would then be automatically routed to the appropriate places for advertising, flier creation, or other such publicization options. Faculty input on the tool is requested; please email Jack Kahn, dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences, if interested.

Ian Ruskin will be speaking at Political Economy Days this Wednesday (April 6) at 2:00 pm at the Brubeck theater.

The Senate heard a presentation on Palomar’s involvement in the use of block grants meant to support expansion of adult education programs. These grants are provided to a consortium of local school districts and Palomar College, and are intended to support provision of basic skills and ESL classes, transfers to colleges and workforce, and other related functions. Palomar faculty will be involved in developing curriculum and training those who will be offering the classes, and the program is seeking volunteers (who would be paid via NOHE) for curriculum development over the summer. Some concern was expressed at the fact that this program seems to have begun with effectively no faculty input, despite the fact that it involves development of curriculum by Palomar faculty to be used at other institutions.

The Senate held an election for a new Senate president; Travis Ritt will begin serving in that capacity on May 9.

The Senate also held an election to determine which of the faculty who have volunteered would be appointed to serve on the selection committee for the Superintendent/President position. All divisions except CTEE (SBS, MNHS, AMBCS, L&L, and Counseling) put forth volunteers for the six available positions. The Senate elected to appoint three representatives from SBS, and one each from MNHS, L&L, and AMBCS.

As always, please let me know if there are any issues you’d like me to bring forward to the Senate!

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

Keep in mind that this is not an official document of the Senate, has not been vetted by any other Senator, and represents my own opinions as to what to report. For official records, please consult the minutes.

There was substantial discussion on the topic of improving faculty diversity. Some senators expressed dissatisfaction at the apparent view of the board and administration that lack of diversity is due to bias (conscious or unconscious) bias on the part of hiring committee members. It was suggested that evidence for such bias would come from a statistical analysis of diversity in a hiring pool compared to diversity in actual hiring, and that improved data on hiring pool diversity was needed. There was discussion on how to improve hiring pool diversity, including issues of when hirings occur (some other institutions hire earlier and actively recruit and interview at winter conferences), where positions are advertised, and faculty pay. It was further suggested that Human Resources could investigate whether the position advertisements could be crafted to underscore the campus’s commitment to diversity in hiring.

The governing board has announced the final composition of the hiring committee for the president. The committee will consist of 8 faculty members, 5 classified staff members, 3 administrators, 1 board member (who will also chair the committee), 1 student, and 1 community member. Requests for volunteers have already been sent out to faculty, and faculty are urged to consider volunteering for this extremely important assignment. It was agreed that 2 faculty would be selected by PFF and 6 by the Senate, with emphasis on divisional representation if possible. There is substantial concern with the chair of the committee being a member of the governing board. The committee chair will have a substantial role in guiding the process, and if this member is then part of the closed-door governing board session which makes the final decision, the possibility of undue influence on the final selection is very high. It was pointed out that the board meeting does not *have* to be closed door, and it would be possible for the board to invite either faculty observers or a compliance officer (or both) to witness the deliberations and avoid any appearance of a rigged process. There was some skepticism on whether the board would agree to such a proposal.

The Academic Technology committee would like to remind everyone to please make sure to get videos you intend to use in class to ATRC staff ASAP, as they need to be converted and recaptioned.

The Articulation Officer mentioned that the statewide senate is developing an Area of Emphasis degree in Law and Public Policy, designed to increase underrepresented minority student access to law school. At this stage, faulty input is sought in a discipline input group meeting in Ontario on April 2 from 10-3. Faculty from communication studies, philosophy, political science, and administration of justice are especially sought, buy all faculty are welcome to participate.

The position of faculty tri-chair for accreditation will be open starting in Fall. The Senate agreed that the position will have a three-year term. The person currently serving as tri-chair (me, as it turns out) cannot continue in the position. If anyone is interested in knowing what the position entails, please contact me, and I can describe it fully.

As always, please feel free to let me know anything you’d like brought to the Senate’s attention.

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

A few items of particular interest were discussed at the Senate on Monday. Here is my summary:

The PFF sent out a survey via email recently to obtain faculty opinions on a number of issues. They had received 342 responses as of the meeting. Among these, they found broad agreement that improving the diversity of faculty, staff, and administrators was an important goal, but that hiring based solely on perceived thnicity of applicant names was not a good way of accomplishing it. Most respondents felt that they would have hired either of the candidates for President which were rejected by the Board, and there was substantial uncertainty as to whether the Board’s decision to hire neither candidate was in the best interests of the college.

The Learning Outcomes Council reported that they have begun sending out invitations to participate in the assessment of the Digital Literacy ILO, which will be assessed using a third-party tool. In addition, they are considering how best to assess next year’s ILO. Having that assessment integrated with the PRP process is under consideration.

There was substantial discussion on the ongoing question of improving diversity among faculty, staff, and administration. Trustee Halcon did not respond favorably to the Senate’s resolution expressing disapproval of his actions regarding hiring, feeling that it constituted a personal attack. I have provided more extensive information on this topic at the end of this report, including information from a document from the statewide Academic Senate, in which suggestions on how to encourage the growth of diversity in hiring without violating the law were presented. The full publication can be found here (and I do recommend it as interesting reading): http://www.asccc.org/content/commitment-success-all-hiring-faculty-serve-needs-our-diverse-students

The governing board is meeting today (March 15) to determine the composition of the new search committee for the President position. The Senate is concerned that faculty representation on the committee may be substantially reduced, and that this will result in a president whom the faculty do not feel they were properly involved in vetting. The Senate will probably be sending out a call for faculty interested in serving on the search committee sometime after the meeting on Wednesday evening, and further selections will be made based on what composition the Board selects.

Finally, there was discussion on the ACCJC’s second recommendation, which involved creating a campus environment which encouraged participation in shared governance from all campus constituencies, including classified staff and part-time faculty. The fact that part-time faculty receive no compensation for service in shared governance was identified as a likely major factor presenting a barrier to their participation. Remedying this would be a topic for negotiation, and the PFF affirmed that it is always a requested item. It was also mentioned that departments can try to offer adjunct faculty as much schedule consistency as possible, to make it easier to know whether they can count on being able to serve on a specific committee.

I’ve included information on the diversity discussion, including a summary (paraphrased) of what I see as key and interesting suggestions from the article, below. As always, please feel free to contact me with any issues you’d like to bring to the Senate’s attention.

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois

A few interesting points from the article (my own paraphrasing and interpretation, please read the actual article):

• The focus of hiring should not be on the specific appearance or background of the candidate, but rather on how well the candidate can serve a diverse student population, and what kind of cultural competence the candidate possesses. Seeking candidates with whom students from a variety of backgrounds can relate is likely to produce a diverse faculty, more representative of the student body.

• Job announcements should emphasize the campus’s commitment to serving all students, and the expectation that candidates will have similar priorities. Announcements should be intentionally crafted to appeal to candidates with all backgrounds.

• Hiring committees should consider whether their evaluation criteria place proper emphasis on qualities which will serve students well. While the priority is always to hire the best person for the job, they should consider how important holding Ph.Ds or having a decade of teaching experience is to being an excellent instructor, and whether experience relating to students from a variety of backgrounds should be considered a highly desirable quality.

• Instead of a single, perfunctory “diversity question” in an interview, committees should consider working the candidate’s competence to deal with diverse students into a variety of questions. The committees might also consider longer, more in-depth interviews to get a better sense of the candidates beyond their surface answers and record.

Please remember that this is not an official Senate document, and represents only my own opinions. It is not approved or endorsed by any other member of the Faculty Senate. For official minutes, please go to https://www.palomar.edu/facultysenate/calendar/.

I was only able to attend the first hour of this Senate meeting, so I can’t offer any personal commentary on what happened after I left. However, during the first hour, there were several topics of note.

You should expect to receive (or may have already received) a notification regarding a survey for faculty. Your input will be invited on certain topics of interest to the campus community, including diversity, leadership, and the governing board.

Lillian Payn mentioned that a webinar on ensuring that online course materials are accessible according to ADA guidelines will be held on March 10, from 12-1. Contact her for more information.

The Senate discussed a resolution expressing strong dissatisfaction with Trustee Halcon’s actions at the February 9 meeting of the governing board, and pointing out that those actions violated board policy, education code, and Title V. The Senate strongly reaffirmed the existing policy that faculty hiring procedures are the domain of the Senate, rather than the governing board.

The question of how to improve diversity in the faculty and staff of the college, as well as how to have a robust discussion of the nature and value of diversity, was under discussion when I left.

I hope to be able to provide further description as I get filled in on other matters. In the meantime, please feel free to bring any concerns to my attention. Also, remember that Senate meetings are always open to the public!

-Richard Albistegui-DuBois