Phil Sell, Angi Caster, Toni Castro, Jack Harton, Lea Ann Pratt, Moira Fulton, Barbara Hunter, Patricia Haggerty, Eric Baer, Keith Paton, Michael Allen, and Sharon Hashimoto

Bob Hughes, Tim Morrison, and Santana Villa

The meeting was called to order, by the chair, Phil Sell, at 2:40 p.m.

Minutes of the February 1999 meeting were approved as read. Jack Harton made the motion to approve; Eric Baer seconded. Motion passed.

The agenda was approved.

Phil stated that the only thing that needs reported is for FACTC. Last week we met in Olympia with some other community college members and legislators. A program called Exceptional Faculty Award, which is funded by state legislature. Colleges can request up to $100,000 that must be matched by private funds. Funds are to be used to fund faculty professional development or anything like that. It has been in existence for a number of years. Some colleges have acquired quite sizable funds, but HCC hasn’t taken advantage of this. Phil sees pursuing this as a worthwhile opportunity. HCC faculty are quite fortunate as other colleges do not have other resources for travel funds. Angi asked whether this could be ducktailed into the Title VI grant to continue funding for the center.

South Puget Community College will be building a new student center, which is financed with borrowed money and paid back using bookstore profits and student fees. They have added a small amount to the student fees for this purpose. They had to get state board approval and state legislative approval. This student fee increase will go on for a long time period and this has been faced with some discussion. They do not have a student center at this time. Current students have committed current and future students to this $1.90 increase to fees.

Green River Community College has settled on a standard evaluation form to be used across their campus. There will be only one used. Phil noted that he received a copy of it and was not very pleased with the tool. It was quite lengthy, 25 questions. He stated that faculty can ask additional questions but they must ask those standard questions that are listed at a minimum. HCC will be faced with this issue in the coming year.

Legislative Issues, Part-time salaries and Washington Online were also discussed.

Dr. Command was unable to attend due to another obligation. He sent a written report that was e-mailed previously to the members.

Jack announced that the Board of Trustees voted to give a couple faculty members tenure, Wendy Swyt and Angi Caster.

Phil reported that Ruth Windhover is out of the hospital and is healing very quickly. She may be back next week possibly.

Report for FACTC was included in the chair's report above.

Santana Villa reported the smoking issue has continued to be addressed. ASHCC has established temporary lines between 10 and 15 feet from entrances. They will see how people react to these boundaries. They are being tested around the buildings where more complaints have been lodged.

They are also deciding on the Commencement speakers. A committee has been established for this purpose and they currently need two faculty members to serve on that committee. He asked that any faculty member interested should contact the ASHCC office.

Tim reported that they have met and recognized the constructive comments from the last meeting from Patricia. He noted that he has reworked the webpage that is attached to the Faculty Senate homepage. It includes all of the components that they are addressing and what is happening with them. It will give ample opportunity for participation and input. They hope to have that up by the beginning of next quarter. Tim noted that "5 years after and 20 years before" will be the title of the site.

Phil stated that in the last report you noted having strong support of a couple of the items, but not others. The quantitative skills requirement and the American Institutions have been tabled. Phil questioned whether there is a date set for when these issues will drop off the list. Tim stated that he would take this question back to the committee and address it there. He noted that they would try to come to some closure with issues.

Eric Baer reported that they are continuing to investigate the variance in grades from the 0.7 to 1.9. Financial Aid this fall changed their standards from a minimum quarterly 2.0 g.p.a. to a cumulative g.p.a. of 2.0. At one school, Running Start will not grant credit for a student who receives less than a 1.7. Federal Way is not accepting grades less than a C, lower grades are considered to be F’s. Eric noted this as an example of this problematic issue. Eric distributed a copy of the Grade Distribution for HCC’s Fall Quarter. Every quarter there is a grade distribution calculated by the Registrar's Office and the Office of Instruction. This information is also available by department; he noted that he could get it for the next meeting if the Senate would like.

Angi gave the motivation for this look into grades, stating that it came about with Eric and her offering a coordinated study and noted what was considered a passing grade for Writing and what was considered a passing grade for the Sciences. There exists quite the variance between these two in particular. Phil added that this came from the discussion of Academic Standards.

Angi stated that she is still collecting information, two people haven’t responded from Student Services. Keith noted that Athletes have a grade requirement of a 2.0 cumulative to participate. A lot of students have their education funded by private industry. Boeing, in particular, requires a 2.0 g.p.a. Angi noted that disparity does exist, and posed the question of what to do next. Moira Fulton recommended that the departments see this information and how they compare with the campus statistics. Jack commented that context is needed. A faculty forum could be used to create this context.

Eric reminded the senate of the ad hoc committee's focus, being the 0.7 to 2.0 issue. Departments have different interpretations of this acceptable range. He noted that we as Faculty Senate need to promote standardization of this scale.

Angi posed that the senators should take back the information to divisions and departments. It may not be real focused if we have a faculty forum without any groundwork put in place. Eric and Angi will distribute a copy of the main form and the each department to the appropriate department, along with a memo asking the departments to discuss this and it’s implications. The memo will note the disparity in acceptable grades and comment on the other information that has already been collected on this issue.

Copies of the revised constitution were distributed before the meeting by e-mail. Changes were made only in Article II—B and C, and E was added.

Phil noted that Article I is the same as it was in the previous constitution. Article I was approved.

Phil noted that this is the purpose and the mission statement for the senate.

Item A is essentially what the contract says.

Item B is different than before and there are legitimate objections from administration so Phil changed the wording to serve as an advisory board to the instructional college of curricular issues. Eric asked if Instructional Council would continue in its current role. Phil commented that it would, unless administration asks the Faculty Senate to do it. Eric then went on to ask if administration intended to ask Senate to do that. Bob Hughes explained what Instructional Council currently does and what it would mean to take this on. He noted that its main responsibility is to review those courses being added to the catalog, and to verify that they do not conflict with other courses currently being offered. Bob went on to state the council reviews all course changes and looks for conflict and represents their division in that conflict. Bob gave examples of some of the conflicts that the Instructional Council addresses. He gave a detailed description of the current process and how it functions. He noted that this process needs to be completed by 10 faculty members. He questioned whether this group should come from the Senate. He noted that it needs to be representative of the divisions; this group is definitely representative. Appropriateness of a course is not decided here, that is decided at the division or department level. Phil commented that he thinks that this is a division chair decision. Bob noted that this varies from division to division. Clarifying discussion followed.

Item C is included to provide a place where these different committees came in and reported instead of just keeping it on a committee by committee basis. The Senate would serve as a filtering device and standardized reporting body for committees. The Senate would be able to track activities of the committees and make information more accessible to the faculty at large. Phil noted that the Senate didn’t want to be responsible for the different committees and that no good purpose was served by the way that this could be inferred as previously written.

Item D is somewhat of a "catch-all." It is here because there isn’t any other place to hear these issues. The Senate would serve as sort of a screening committee to see if items of concerns were worthwhile to pursue or should they be taken some place else. Phil noted that Dr. Command thinks that this function is very important.

Item E is made it purposely vague, because we don't know if funding would be available for this. It would be advantageous to faculty morale to provide this.

Article II was approved. No opposition was stated.

Phil summarized Article III, stating that membership is limited to tenured faculty, includes the President of the college and the Vice President of Instruction. It has been suggested to reword this to say Vice President or his designee, which is the language used in the contract.

There will be two tenured faculty from each division; one of which would be a department coordinator and another tenured division member. Jack asked if we are going to still require the department coordinator even if we don’t ever take over the role of the Instructional Council. Phil stated that it is possible. Moira question what would happen if the coordinator's term in office didn't balance with the Faculty Senate term. Phil noted that this was a good question and noted that this could cause problems. Patricia questioned whether this was valuable to add another responsibility to the coordinator position. Eric also voiced the concern of the coordinators already being overburdened. Barbara Hunter noted Diana Bender’s feedback that this might limit the department coordinators' participation in other areas. Phil noted that Faculty Senate participation would be voluntary. Eric questioned what would happen if there were no coordinators who volunteered. Further discussion followed. Moira made a good point for terms of coordinators and their eligibility. Angi made a motion to strike the department coordinator off the membership. Michael seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Phil noted that the issue regarding the Instructional Council is no longer an issue, due to the requirement of the 10 faculty being department coordinators.

Michael stated the language in Article IIIA is not clear and the wording needs to be consistent. Noting that in Article IIIA it states full-time tenured and probationary faculty, he states that then throughout the remainder of the article it states tenured faculty. Discussion followed as to how this wording should be clarified.

Patricia proposed that we have a third ex officio, Vice President for Student Affairs. This could add a different perspective that Faculty Senate needs. She sited examples of standards that we passed by the Senate but could not be implemented for 6 years. She wanted someone who could lend knowledge to these issues that the senate addresses. She sees this as a need that is foreseeable in the future. Angi agreed with Patricia's statement of the need for increased communication. Phil stated that the idea was to create more of an academic senate; he noted that he doesn’t see this as an argument to include them in the senate. He noted that there is a Student Affairs Council that should handle these issues.

Another question raised that part-time faculty would not have representation on the Senate. Phil commented that the part-time issue has been brought up a number of times. History has shown that they don’t seem to have different academic concerns than the full-time faculty. The part-time faculty have different employment issues which are not our focus. Discussion followed regarding part-time representation.

The issue of limiting to tenured faculty was addressed. Michael commented that the Business Division is opposed to limiting to tenured faculty. Michael commented that as this article is currently written, 30% of full time faculty would be eligible to sit on the senate. If we are comfortable with this, let’s deal with this other issue. Eric noted that his division's opinion was mixed on this issue, as were Sharon and Angi's division.

Michael moved to remove all references to tenured faculty and to change it to full-time faculty in Article III. Eric seconded the motion. Discussion that followed the motion questioned whether this would include full-time one-year appointments as well. Eric amended the motion on the table to say full-time tenured and/or probationary faculty. Angi seconded the amendment. The vote on the amendment to the original motion was a tie at five for the amendment and five opposed. Phil voted for the amendment to break the tie. The amendment was approved. Discussion followed regarding the motion as amended. Eric Baer called for the question. Motion failed.

Phil ended the discussion of Article III and asked if we could schedule a special meeting on March 31 to conclude the discussion and approval of the constitution revision. It was agreed by the senate membership to meet for this purpose on March 31, the first Wednesday of Spring quarter.

Phil noted that this is a designer degree to allow students taking a very specific set of courses such as engineering, but it doesn’t have the depth and breadth that the A.A. Option A has. This was not discussed further in this meeting due to lack of time.

Phil distributed copies of this and copies from the current catalog on the general degree requirements. This was not discussed further in this meeting due to lack of time.

The Faculty Senate meeting was adjourned at 4:34 p.m.

Lea Ann Pratt, Faculty Senate Secretary

4/12/99