Academic Leadership Team Minutes (1/10/17)

Academic Leadership Team, January 10, 2017, 1:00 pm, Ruby Hicks Hall, Room 248, (Revised)

 

Members Present:       Gayle Arries, Jackie Blakley, Tim Bowen, Rick Cothran, Jenni Creamer, Mark Dougherty, Matt Edwards, Penny Edwards, Stacey Frank, Adam Ghiloni, Scott Harvey, Glenn Hellenga, Linda Jameison, Tom Lawrence, Lynn Lewis, Chris Marino, Mandy Orzechowski, Sarah Shumpert, Brian Swords, Tracey Williams

Members Absent:       Tiffany Blackwell, Crystal McLaughlin

Other Attendees:       

Length of Meeting:     1.50 hours

The minutes of the October 25, 2016 meeting were approved as presented.

Galen welcomed Tom Lawrence to the group and welcomed Sarah Shumpert back to the group.

Jackie Blakley discussed Best Practices in using Student Reactions to Instruction to review the findings and to consider next steps.  She touched on each of the Team Recommendations. 

 

Team Recommendation #1

 

Continued use of the recently revised question set with periodic reviews of the survey questions to ensure relevance and alignment with institutional goals. In particular, as the High Impact EDGE is implemented across the College, additional items related to synthesizing knowledge across domains or disciplines will become more appropriate.

 

Discussion took place on whether this should become a project charter or a faculty-led workgroup. It was decided that it would be neither.  Since IE owns the instrument, it would be an administrative task of the IE department, with input from a Faculty Senate subcommittee.

 

Team Recommendation #2

 

Incorporation of the value of the My Focus Report into faculty development to encourage faculty to document what they are doing. The project team recommends that this effort be led by faculty.

Recommendation:  Professional development should incorporate the My Focus report into its offerings to encourage the development of a cross-divisional repository of best practices and a place to be reflective and to share ideas.  The HIPs team would not own this, but would be a resource.

 

HIPs Team:                              Craft reflection question

Faculty Senate:                        Determine how it’s deployed

Faculty Development:              Provide forums for discussion

 

 

 

 

Team Recommendation #3

 

The development of a pool of incentive practices that instructors can employ to encourage a high student response rate. The project team recommends that this effort be led by faculty.

Recommendation:  ALT select individuals for this.

 

Discussion about the student response rate and incentives to complete the reflection piece took place. The point was made that there is not an institutional position on incentives or guidance for individual faculty on what is or is not acceptable.

 

The group agreed that we need to ask the students if they value the survey.  We must have appropriate student feedback to make this worthwhile.  Need to follow up with students about how feedback was used.

 

Team Recommendation #4

 

Implement an instructor-added-questions feature that could allow individual instructors to include their own questions in the evaluation for their specific courses

 

This can happen right now. 

 

At this point, discussion took place on whether or not this should become a project charter, especially since the following topics need to be considered.

 

• Creation of reflective questions
• Document the benefits to faculty
• Cost benefit review
• Professional development piece.

 

The group agreed that a work group should develop a project charter.  Chris Marino, Jackie Blakley, and Penny Edwards will work on this charter.

 

Galen discussed the strategic plan.  He distributed the draft FY’18 strategic initiatives and asked the group to provide general observations about them.

 

• Some represent next steps as opposed to new.
• Some are operational rather than strategic.
• How do we measure?  Need good metrics to be able to show improvement.
• Some can be combined.
• Some overlap with existing activities or one another
• Need to demonstrate how they relate.
• Is the activity a deliverable of a project or does it need to be placed in an existing charter?
•  

The group discussed the need to prioritize the list, so that we are not putting the cart before the horse.  This needs to be introduced to employees, so that they can be thinking about it.

 

Galen gave the Professional Development Day update.  With our focus on under-resourced students, SC Thrive will be on campus to conduct a poverty simulation.  The goal is for all employees to attend this simulation.  With a maximum class size of 88, SC Thrive would have to run two concurrent sessions in the morning and the afternoon for everyone to be able to attend.  Unit-specific professional development would take place during the alternate session.  If SC Thrive and the logistics do not allow for two concurrent sessions, faculty will attend the simulation first.  Staff sessions would be scheduled very soon after.  Employee debrief sessions will take place, as well. 

 

If a unit has invited and external speaker, let Galen know so that he can schedule around that. Once details are finalized, Galen will work with the deans to determine the better time.

 

Announcements:

 

Galen:

 

The Adult Education/I-BEST program, with a cohort of 15 students, started today.  This is an excellent example of internal and external partners working together to benefit students.

 

Scott:

 

Administrative drops will happen next Wednesday.  Catalog training sessions will be scheduled very soon.

 

Matt:

 

• The new copiers have been installed and training will take place on the 11^th.  Additional copiers were purchased and strategically placed so that everyone can use them.  He thanked everyone for their patience. 
• A maintenance window calendar will be published soon.  Until then, e-mail announcements are being sent.   Employees can log into the service desk portal calendar to see what is being addressed.
• As the college moves to Windows 10, training will be available. 
• Image Now is being upgraded.  This upgrade will provide more functionality.
• Currently, IT is replacing computers in most labs and some desk tops.

 

Jackie:

 

Announced that Billy Carson is a new faculty member for CIT.  Chris McFarlin is the interim department head for Public Services.

 

Galen:

 

Noted Brian Swords’ new role as Director of Community Campuses.

 

Jenni:

 

Reported that spring enrollment is currently above the goal.  Some of our peers have significant decreases in enrollment.  Galen will send the group the Fall- to- Fall report provided by the System Office.

 

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

 

Recorded By: Anne Bryan

 

Next Meeting:             Tuesday, January 24, 2017, at 1:00, in RH 248