Faculty Association:
27 attending
Meeting Date: 02/12/2013
Agenda Items:
I. Approval of minutes from 1/2/13
There was unanimous approval of the meeting minutes posted from previous meeting, 1/2/13.
II. Announcements
A. There will be a staggered faculty pay raise, 2% raise + 1% raise July and August, depending on final decision in the Virginia legislature. This will be a total of 3%.
B. Knowledge Center training
All faculty must complete training in the Knowledge Center. It is mandatory. The training is one-time-only not repetitive, like the previous mechanism for IT security training. The total time for all sessions will be several hours. Faculty have 90 days to complete this.
C. Common syllabus
The common syllabus which was voted on in the last Faculty Association meeting was approved by president’s cabinet and will go into effect this summer.
D. Multi-year contract policy
The protocol for multi-year contracts has been amended. There will no longer be a large portfolio required. The academic dean will recommend anyone who is eligible: 3 or more years of teaching, achieving the evaluation of Meets Expectations. This will still require an ad hoc committee (1 faculty member/division) to approve or disapprove of the recommendations, as mandated by state law (the committee). Faculty who are awarded a multi-year contract will be evaluated once every three years instead of every year, which is an advantage for both faculty and deans. Faculty will be eligible for a 3-year contract after their first three years of teaching; thereafter, they will be eligible for 5-year contracts. This will go into effect in July, 2013.
III. New Business
A. Security Training – violence (shooter scenario),
David McGee polled the faculty to find out what type of training faculty members would find most useful and would be mostly like to participate in. The following mediums were suggested:
Video
Online
Face-to-face training by CVCC personnel (CVCC Police) or outside professionals
Simulation
Campus-wide drill
Combination of training
Other schools have created videos of safety protocols that all faculty were required to show to all students on the first day of classes. The video included training for acts of violence and weather events.
Training would be mandatory.
Juville Dario-Becker is hosting a seminar on how to identify aggression in the classroom. It was scheduled on the 22nd of February but will be rescheduled at a later date due to the inclement weather closure.
III. Student Success Center, CVCC student workers
CVCC students were employed in the past, but that was terminated due to faculty concerns about fairness and academic honesty. However, part-time employees are often students, with the policy that they may not handle tests from their classes (policy is included at the end). A recommendation was made by the Student Success Committee to have 8 AM opening, but this is not possible for the current staff. A way to satisfy this request is to employ work-study students and to modify the official policy to include all students (work-study or part-time employees) regarding the handing of tests from classes in which they are enrolled.
A motion was made to approve this suggestion; it was seconded with no further discussion. There was one vote in opposition.
III. CVCC exam schedule, ad hoc committee volunteers
The current mechanism for scheduling final exams is problematic. Several class periods are not covered, and there is no provision for nonstandard courses. An ad hoc committee will meet to redesign the final exam schedule.
Volunteers:
SME – Michelle Penner, Xavier Retnam
BAH – Ernie Wade
HSS – Lorenz Chan
IV. E2IT, Jim Bell & Cindy Wallin
3 issues
A. iPads in the classroom
The IT department has 12 iPads: 2 are loaners and 10 are in the box for use in a class.
A comment was made about a lack of information from IT about the purchase.
The iPads are to be used in class, not checked out of class by students.
Another question was raised about controlling student use of tech in class, appropriate use, poor attention span.
Response: the goal is a focused activity, not free use during class and that use was not mandatory.
A comment was raised that most faculty do not know how to use effectively in classroom, as there is a steep learning curve and it requires focused training.
A suggestion was made about the possibility of forming a faculty learning community on iPads in college instruction.
Other colleges are using iPads in the classroom, and E2IT is surveying and investigating how to best implement an iPad program at CVCC. Thus far, the best system seen has been the cart system.
A suggestion was made to turn the iPads over to Distance Education to develop a training program and check out to faculty, via Jim Bell (release time).
B. Lecture capture
There was minimal response to a survey about methods of lecture capture.
During the 2nd 8 weeks this semester, 6 people will use either Panopto or Camtasia relay to test these systems for efficacy and ease of use.
C. Bring Your Own Device Policy
A policy is in development to address the permissiveness of devices, as well as faculty goals (particularly focusing on how to enforce appropriate use)
The E2IT committee will send the policy to faculty to read before voting.
The issue arose because students want to use e-readers with textbooks in class, while many faculty have banned electronic devices. There is conflict in the goals.
The question was raised as to whether there needs to be a college-wide policy or if the decisions should be left to individual faculty members.
A comment was raised that we should stop trying to stop technology, particularly as publishers are getting away from papers and are using more e-texts
D. Off topic
There is a problem with the CVCC bookstore, which currently offers all versions of a book, when faculty have a specific version in mind. This topic will need to be addressed at a later date.
V. Faculty advising, Kimberly French
The last agenda item to be discussed dealt with the issue of faculty advising at CVCC. The Faculty Association decided to create an ad hoc committee to work with Kimberly French and the counseling department to develop a pilot program for faculty advising at the college. The faculty members of the committee include Matt Latimer, Michelle Penner, Cynthia Lofaso, Jim Bell, Gary Randolph, Susan Rush, and Irene Wheeler.
Addendum:
A. Employee Policy for students working in the Student Testing Center.
“Use of CVCC Students in the Student Success and Testing Center for Proctoring Exams
There is a need for the Student Success and Testing Center to be open at 8:00AM in the morning Monday through Friday. Currently, all of the employees in the SSC are part-time employees and limited to 29 hours per week. Conversation with these employees revealed that they have set schedules, not able take additional hours or report to work by 8:00AM. Therefore, a suggestion was made to utilize work study students in the SSC at 8:00AM.
At this point, a student worker would only be hired to assist in the SSC and Testing Center if it is supported by the faculty. Presently, work study students are not being used in the SSC. In the past, we did use a work study student for a brief period last year and Joy Adams reported that it was very helpful to the Center. However, some faculty were not comfortable with students assisting with the testing since the students were taking some of the classes.
Currently, the SSC employs part-time workers who are also taking CVCC classes. There is no formal policy in writing but the existing practice used with these part time employees (students) is as follows:
If the employee is enrolled in a class for which an instructor requests a proctored test by SSC personnel, then that individual is not to handle the tests in any way (i.e. not give out the test or collect the test).
This same procedure was used in the past and can be used in the future when utilizing work study students in the SSC.”
Recommendations to the College Governance Committee:
Submitted by Jessy Hogan