FACULTY SENATE MEETING
Monday, March 27, 2017, CD 142, 3:00PM
In attendance:
Meg Allan, Ann Barnes, Tonia Faulling, Stacey Frank, Tom Hiebel, Bill
Leverette, Mourning Pace, Julia B. Seligson, Matthew Simon, and Debbie Vance.
Not in attendance. Gregg Corley, Penny Edwards, Ed Eudy, Justin
Herndon, Laura McClain, Timeko McFadden, Mary Orem, Richard Reeves, Renee
Turner, Jonathan Warnock, and Paula Scales Whitmire.
Guests: Sharon Richards
Welcome and Agenda
Stacey Frank called the meeting to order at 3:06 PM. Scott Harvey was scheduled on the agenda to
discuss Administrative Drops but was not able to attend. Stacey will reach out to determine if he
wants to be added to the Agenda for the next meeting.
Minutes of February 20, 2017
Minutes were distributed and approved electronically
prior to the meeting and have been posted to eTC.
Old Business
Student success. At a previous meeting during a discussion
about tools that are available to faculty that may promote student success,
such as Starfish, which is an early alert system that allows instructors to
notify students of academic issues. Stacey agreed to follow up and obtained data
as of fall 2016 of students in the following categories:
Academic Warning: 693
Probation: 106
Suspension 1: 74
Suspension 2: 29
There was a general discussion about making cause and
effect assumptions and the need to make data driven decisions.
New Business
It is time to conduct Faculty Senate elections for the
next term. The first step is to obtain
nominations for Faculty Senate President.
Meg reviewed the guidelines with senators which are:
“Before
the last Senate meeting of the academic year, the Faculty Senate representatives
will make nominations for the following year’s Faculty President. Nominees for Faculty Senate President must
have served as a representative on Faculty Senate during the current academic
year and must be full-time, permanent status.
After nominations have been submitted, the current Senate President will
call for a vote. The President of the
Senate will be elected by the candidate with the most votes.”
Meg
will forward a request for nominations to all senators. Once the nominations
are obtained, Stacey will call for a full vote.
“Safe
Assign.” Tom Hiebel indicated that
students are experiencing difficulty making submissions through “Safe
Assign.” Apparently during high volume
periods students are not able to submit assignments. In some cases the student
receives feedback that due to volume they cannot submit and in other cases
students cannot get the attach file feature. Others reported students experiencing similar
delays and have examples of students who have made a submission waiting up to
three days for feedback from Safe Assign.
As Safe Assign is coordinated through blackboard, Meg agreed to contact
Richard Smith to see how we can obtain additional information about this
process, and if Richard is the correct contact person invite him to a Faculty
Senate Meeting.
Committee Reports
New Portal
Committee. Ann Barnes reported that a
consulting firm has been hired and that focus groups comprised of faculty,
staff and students will be formed and meetings will be conducted starting the
first week of summer session. The eTC replacement portal is expected to be
implemented during fall 2017.
Pro-active Academic
Advising. Ann Barnes reported that
progress continues with this project team that is working on best practices
solutions to improve the overall advising process from students’ initial
acceptance to the college through graduation.
The team is looking as the process as a continuum with seamless
transitions between success coaches, academic advisors, and services.
Faculty Senate
President’s report:
Stacey reported on
updates from PAC and ALT meetings including:
- There are no more deadlines associated with the SAP appeal process.
- The institution continues to move forward with talent management initiatives that intentionally reward superior performance of staff and faculty who consistently deliver on objectives. Recently a review of system wide salaries was conducted, averages were established, and efforts are underway to identify variances. The systems that are being established will be subject to budget constraints.
- There was an update from the project charter team working on identifying best practices for student evaluations Consideration is being given to use of SMART EVAL which has more flexibility where instructors can add items for feedback. The committee is reaching out to obtain feedback from stakeholders. Current members of the committee include Jackie Blakley, Penny Edwards, and Chris Marino.
- The Allied Health Department has been renamed to Health Professions Department.
- The new web site is currently in test mode.
Calendar Committee: Meg Allan reported that the committee has
updated the rules (Academic Calendar Considerations) that will be posted. The committee will work on creating calendars
based on academic year with the goal of having at least two years available.
Schedule Next Meeting
The next meeting will be
held on Wednesday, April 26th at 3:00PM. Meg will distribute invitations when a room
has been secured.
The meeting was adjourned
at 4:01 PM.
