Academic Senate President S Report

Academic Senate President’s Report Week of September 12-16, 2011

Sept. 12—Cabinet We discussed the legality of selling ads on the COS website. Coastline College started to do so, but then decided to wait. We are following suit.

I wanted to ask some questions regarding reassigned time and was told by Ed Sense that any such discussion would be in violation of the contract as this is a negotiation item. As we are now publishing the minutes from Cabinet, if you wish further info on this subject or any other, please see the Cabinet website on the Intranet.

We also discussed how the special Cabinet meeting on Sept. 19th would be handled. John Bratsch is preparing a list of vacant positions since 2009. We will add to the list our current campus needs and future needs in Tulare. We will be considering staff, administrative and faculty positions. We hope to create a master list. I expressed concern about Program Review, but was reassured that we are only gathering all positions into the list, but Program Review will be followed if there is any hiring done. At present, we may not be able to hire due to the uncertainty of mid-year cuts. We did not develop criteria, but will be considering how the position is “integral” to the college.

We also discussed the problems that may occur when student holds must be paid down completely (now they can have a balance not to exceed $99) before a student can register. We have already had students claiming they did not sign up for the class that they owe for. Tamara Ravalin’s office will be handling any student complaints.

Health fees for students will be going up $1.00.

Sept. 12—Board meeting

The Tulare County Community College Transit study was presented regarding the COS Student Transit Pass Program. After studying the trial semester in Spring 2011, they believe the transit pass has been a success. All indicators show great ridership. One out of six students comes by bus and 409 students reported they would not be able to come to college without the pass. They made a recommendation to raise the student fare and also the COS contribution. This will be studied.

The majority of the meeting was about the Quarterly Financial Report and the approval of the 2011-2012 Budgets. After some discussion, they were approved.

The CDC will be laying off two-part-time Instructional Assistants as the number of children has dropped from 96 to 72 when the program moved to the Heart of the Valley Church site. The next Board meeting will be held in Tulare on Oct. 10 and a joint meeting with the Tulare City Council and Tulare Joint Union High School District will follow the regular Board meeting.

Sept. 13th—College Council

This was our first meeting of the year and the committee welcomed Brent to the helm. We discussed our meeting schedule and decided to continue our current schedule of two meetings per month. Primarily, the College Council will continue to be conducted with Brown Act standards (regarding agenda posting and timing, minutes, etc) for better communication and transparency.

We looked at two APs as a first read. AP 3280 on grants generated a lot of conversations from folks that need a quick turn-around time on approval. We made some suggestions and it goes back to Cabinet.

AP 1201 Mission will set a time during the year for the college to review its mission statement. We approved as a first read, but this caused some of us to worry about how APs may be approved by one body (Senate) much later than College Council (the deciding body). We are working on an AP to outline how to do APs. Please don’t laugh! We do need it.