RCC Faculty Senate Minutes

RCC Faculty Senate Minutes February 27, 2009; 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. RWC-J1

In attendance:

Joel Atkin Tracey Lingo Midge Shaw Kay Aldrich Juliet Long, RCCEA Rep. Sharon Smith, recorder Linda Barnes Cheryl Markwell, IS Admin. Curt Sommerfeld, Substitute Kori Bieber Rep. CS Admin. Rep. Erika Giesen Tom Miller Phyllis Trowbridge Ann Hackford Cyndy Patterson Doreen Wood Jane Hagle Wolfgang Rünzi

1. Call to order: Midge Shaw called the meeting to order. Midge reminded the group that face-to- face meetings were the decision of the senate. Brief discussion related to mileage reimbursement for faculty senate meetings – if your department is willing to reimburse your mileage, you can turn in your mileage to your department.

2. Approval of minutes from previous meeting: The minutes of the January 23, 2009 meeting were approved.

3. Budget 101 Presentation: Summary of Executive Team minutes (handout) reviewed related to budget. This is for the purpose of keeping the senate in the information loop.  There are no new updates from the state since the last email from Lynda Warren. Nothing has come out from the state this week.  Overview/clarification of state budget deficit: $800 million = we will not be “tapped” for these dollars for this fiscal year. Community colleges are held harmless in this biennium.  The next biennium starting July 1 we are facing a huge shortfall. We don’t know how community colleges will be affected. With the Oregon federal stimulus money being put into education, we cannot drop below the 05-07 biennium level which means we can’t drop below $428 million. There will be less money for community colleges in the next biennium. For RCC, this means we will receive approximately $2.1 million less in funding.  We received $4 million from the state for deferred maintenance and we must use outside employees/companies to complete the deferred maintenance projects. The state’s focus is to stimulate the job market, etc. The bulk of the maintenance will take place at RWC; some maintenance will happen at RVC (i.e. flooring).  Brief discussion on furlough days (i.e. cancel spring inservice). FAMAT has had conversations related to the fact that cuts need to have an impact on students so that cuts illustrate the real impact. Discussion of proposals to reduce mileage reimbursement rate.  Budget Check-in: o just listening o no ideas o students feeling the pinch is a good point o furlough day or two would be okay o I think students do feel the pinch (i.e. nursing students who may not have jobs) o Extend winter break by a week or two to cut down on heating, etc. o students are understanding about what’s going on and we can form a collaboration with them and possible have a demonstration on a “Tuesday” and not hold classes o we could close after graduation the last two weeks of June although we will be experiencing an increase in student intake do to job markets o we have students who are suicidal, losing houses, etc – it’s bad politics to put the hurt on our students – they understand how serious the economy is, we are all in this together and we all need to give o more pressure on faculty due to increased student loads and trying to increase their own skills to keep their jobs o people are looking at us to help and we need to stand up as leaders, not sure how to do that and meet budget but we need to be the leader of the community o difficulty in placing students with employers through OST due to economy o need more information after March 5 and then calculate cost savings measures, create efficiencies, use underutilized staff, create cost-profit centers, we need to think about generating incomes from our own skills o we do see students being hurt but we are all in this together but the more we hide things we don’t reflect how much trouble we are in o we may see a higher spring enrollment, possibly the highest in the history of RCC o faculty are under a great deal of pressure and can’t see not including students in the natural impact of reality, be upfront and honest with students with what we are struggling with in terms of budget ramifications, involve students o students and faculty are yearning for an outlet to share testimonials, etc., where legislature will hear us o students need to understand the two pots of money when they start to see maintenance improvements here o Suggestions of what to share with legislatures include: – if the kicker hadn’t kicked we would be ok, the Oregon Business Council supports the corporate business account – taxing them more and putting that money in education, surcharge of 3% to people making $150,000 more a year would generate $1.5 billion in revenue. o We have homeless students waiting at the doors to come in and get warm. o Students do feel the pinch in terms of cutting hours in tutoring center, not being able to see part-time faculty members after class because they don’t have office hours, etc. o We are here to create hope for our students. o Willing to freeze salary, not claim mileage, furlough days so staff don’t lose their jobs. o Tuition will go up so students feel the pinch. What are we doing for students?: There is a sample letter we are giving to students ( via student government) about what they could say to their legislatures along with a legislative contact list. We are also compiling lunch with the dean survey results (300) related to tuition increases.

Teach-in: The faculty senate would be in support of a teach-in on an unpaid day. If FAMAT agrees to a furlough day on inservice, a suggestion was made to hold that day as a teach-in. Suggestion was made to have inservice day as an instructional day and exchange the day off with no pay to a Tuesday (or Monday, Wednesday, Thursday) and hold a teach-in. There might need to be some contractual adjustments made before we pull this off. Faculty Senate requests to put this idea forward to FAMAT and Executive Team. Wolfgang and Midge will work on a proposal and send it forth to Executive Team. Wolfgang will work with FAMAT on the proposal.

4. Continued Roundtable Discussion of Non Smoking Campus – Creation of a subcommittee do further research and report: Andrew Epstein who is with the American Lung Association and Ty Patterson from Ozarks Technical Community College have been traveling around the country promoting tobacco free campuses. They came to RCC to discuss tobacco free campus policies. We placed a student survey online during fall and winter terms and there was an overwhelming response to a non- smoking campus at RWC. RVC did not have the same overwhelming response.

Kori is creating a website that will host the student survey, a faculty and staff survey, research related to tobacco, smokers’ rights links, as well as health concerns. Several Oregon Community Colleges are becoming smoke free (i.e. Oregon Coast (fall (9), PCC (fall 09), etc. There is an RCC Tobacco Free Task Workforce. Members include Kori Bieber, Pam Green, Kimonui Hogan, Linda Wagner, and Kirk Gibson. The faculty senate subcommittee for a smoke free campus will include Tom Miller, Ann Hack ford, and Midge Shaw.

5. Two Day Classes vs. Three Day Classes: Overview of how classes were formed through the M-F week. Not sure what the rational was for MWF classes. Suggestions for MW, TH, and longer classes on Friday (i.e. 1/2 day classes that are pedagogically appropriate on Friday). This would make it easier for students to work, child care issues, etc. Departments would need to pick out classes that could run 4 hours. Cheryl provided an overview of the scheduling process and explained how we can offer more classes on a 5 day week. This scheduling was done prior to the number of online classes that we now have.

Recommendation was made to see a “master” schedule so students could build a schedule without as many conflicts especially in the transfer area. There are classroom issues (i.e. technology) that Laura works with so we would have to work with her to see what we could create in terms of two day schedules. Suggestion was made to invite Laura to the next faculty senate meeting to discuss scheduling ideas. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 4500 students in the web ct systems. Recommendation was made to survey students to see what works for them and review other scheduling models in community colleges. 6. Breakout Groups: Poverty: Break out groups to address how we as a faculty respond to our students in poverty as it relates to our curriculum, classroom policies and course calendars. Topics are pulled from the presentation by Donna Beagle at fall inservice.

Poverty handout shared and discussed from Donna Beegle’s inserivce presentation:  Current model vs. Beegle model  What we Learn is Based on Life Experiences  Shifting the Paradigm: Theories for Closing the Gap: (1) Strengths perspective; (2) Resiliency theory; (3) Asset theory; (4) Social capital theory; (5) Faulty attribution theory  Teaching and Learning Strategies that Work!  How Does Poverty Impact Learning?

How do we build our curriculum, syllabus, etc., around poverty? Review the handouts and bring comments and suggestions to the next meeting.

Handout on “Topics for Faculty Senate Discussion/Consideration” briefly reviewed.

Subcommittee of FAMAT is working on ways to support part-time faculty substantively and formatively. This includes evaluation and mentoring systems between full- and part-time faculty.

Possible faculty summer retreat this summer

7. Set Agenda Items for Next Meeting:  Configuration of classrooms and master scheduling – Laura Bennett  Budget  Poverty  Feedback regarding Teach-in– communicate with Student services to help coordinate, market, and support teach-in day.

8. Next meeting: March 20, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., TRC 101.

Meeting adjourned 12 pm.