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

Tim Morrison

The meeting was called to order, by the chair, Phil Sell, at 2:39 p.m.

The minutes from the meetings on March 10, 1999, and on March 31, 1999, were provisionally approved. Phil stated that corrections or additions can be made at the next meeting. Eric made the motion; Angi seconded. Motion passed.

The agenda was approved. Phil stated that reports will be given only when they have something new to say to the Senate. An e-mail was sent out informing committees of this new procedure for Senate meetings. It stated that if a committee wants to address the senate, they should contact a member of the Executive Committee to have it placed on the agenda for the next meeting.

Tim Morrison stated that he would like to make a few recommendations for future senate consideration. He also stated that he would be presenting a plan for what the committee would like to do next year. He began by giving a quick review of the proposal for curriculum reform by the CO2020 taskforce. He noted that he would comment on each and offer a recommendation on how we should proceed.

The first new piece of the AA degree as presented in the CO2020 report was the Coordinated Studies link class, connected course requirement. This course is in a way being piloted in the College In a College program. The cabinet has presented some concerns about the logistics of it. The Coordinated Studies committee has been working on a proposal for this implementation of this requirement. The Curriculum Committee’s recommendation is that we let the Coordinated Studies committee continue to work on this proposal. We would like to do this over the course of the next year and allow for some dialog with the cabinet over this issue and flush out some of their concerns.

The next new piece mention is the diversity and globalism requirement. This senate passed a proposal to have this requirement be a part of the AA degree. Tim reported that last week, a committee forwarded a list of eight classes to fulfill this requirement. The diversity and globalism requirement will be part of the AA degree effective this fall.

Another piece is the Skills Application requirement. This included a quantitative skills application requirement and a writing skills application requirement. Both consisting of ten credits that required an application of the skills involved. Tim referenced previous reports to the senate where he had reported that they had polled the Math and Science departments, not much enthusiasm and support was found for the quantitative skills application component. The committee would like to set this component aside.

Tim noted that the writing skills application component met with enthusiastic response by the writing department. Wendy Swyt is convening a group of interested faculty from across the campus of implementing a writing component in their classes. The curriculum committee proposes that we use the experience of this group over the coming year to gain insight and examples for how this component might work. He noted that in fact it may go in another direction, possibly not as an AA degree requirement. Wendy received very positive responses to her proposal and it could prove to be quite a core group in terms of experience and leadership.

Another component is the Practicum Capstone Application Signature Performance Portfolio. This is already a part of some Occupational Programs and with the College In a College program. He noted that it is vague in its description and looks to be problematic as it is written. The committee would like to inform faculty of this component and give faculty an opportunity to give input and provide leadership and energies in moving this proposal along. They would like longer to work on this component.

The other component was that all AAS students should complete the Skills Requirement (the Quantitative Skills Application and the Writing Skills Application), the Coordinated Studies requirement, and take five credits from one of the three of the divisions. The various program coordinators have been polled and a great diversity of the requirements and little room for added requirements was found. Tim also noted that no one has really stepped forward to champion this idea and that they don’t see a desire from the departments of wanting to make these changes. The committee proposes that this be set aside indefinitely. He noted that the senate should consider proposals submitted by the individual departments and programs.

The American Institutes requirement is another component addressed by the committee. The Social Sciences division has not come to any shared vision on how this requirement would work. The Curriculum Committee wants to see this also set aside indefinitely.

In addition, the cabinet suggested a change to the quantitative skills requirement. In essence making this requirement a quantitative skills application requirement. Currently it requires a Math class above 100 or a Philosophy 120 class. The cabinet’s proposal was to make any class that has Math 97 as a prerequisite and satisfies the guidelines laid out by the ICRC, satisfy the quantitative skills requirement. The classes could include a class in Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry, or a broad range of other classes, mostly in the science division that use quantitative reasoning. The Curriculum Committee has not discussed this proposal and is not ready to make any recommendations on this currently. This would be something that we could pursue next year.

Another issue to be addressed could be the change in the distribution of credits in the AA degree. Discussion followed and some confusion existed whether it was a reduction of credits or departments that the credits come from. It was agreed that there needs to be clarification in how this will work. Tim noted that he will seek clarification on this point. Phil stated that this has serious implications for administration and the cabinet in terms of enrollment, so he encouraged them to focus on this next year. Phil commented that Jack Bermingham and Bob Hughes have both expressed concern in regards to this. He was not sure if this concern was for or against. Tim requested that concerns be forwarded to the committee.

Tim stated that they plan to make the committee’s work and current state of proposals in process more generally known, using the Faculty Senate’s website as a central focus. They will try to recruit comments and the energies of people who might be interested in pushing some of these issues forward next year. The revisions to the webpage will hopefully be up and viewable by the middle of this quarter.

Phil stated a few observations as to the lack of response by the science division, probably because most of their courses already have a math component to them. Tim agreed that it is almost needless to add the quantitative component. Phil noted that it would almost be a needless burden to other parts of the campus if we tried to force it into other classes. Discussion followed about the skills application components and, in particular, on the merits of a writing skills application requirement followed.

It was noted that the Curriculum Committee recommended that we set aside the quantitative skills applications requirement, the American Institutes component, and the AAS requirement. Phil stated that the AAS requirement should be addressed by the senate in some manner. Tim noted that Gina Huston has done a sizeable amount of data collection on this and it is available to the senate.

Eric Baer made the following motion; Angi seconded.

Discussion: It was clarified that the motion was to bring these to closure for now, but that they could be revisited in the future. Michael noted that the AAS requirement was part of the committee’s recommendation, but was left out of the motion. Eric noted that this was done purposely, since it was noted that the Senate would like to have discussion on this particular issue.

Phil noted that the revised constitution was approved by the senate at the March 31, 1999, meeting.

1. Letter of Transition

In the packet, each member has a letter of transition. When the constitution has all of its approvals, this will be enforced. Editorial comments were made to the handout. No substantive changes were made on the original letter. It shall read as follows:

Angi made a motion to approve the letter as edited. Vickie Ropp seconded the motion. Motion passed.

2. Faculty Ballot

Lea Ann stated that a faculty ballot had been distributed to the senate and needed approval to be used for the faculty vote on the proposed constitution. The current constitution and the proposed constitution are both accessible from the Senate’s homepage at http://flightline.highline.edu/senate/. Ballots will be distributed to the faculty on Friday, April 16, 1999, and will be due to Lea Ann at MS 18-1 by Wednesday, April 21^st. A link on the webpage was made to the ballot, per discussion the link will be removed and where a faculty member can access a ballot will be noted instead. The senate approved the ballot.

Phil also commented that he had previously stated that he would make a list of the changes from the current to the proposed constitution. Phil noted that there are so many changes from the current to the proposed constitutions that this would be a lengthy and quite difficult task. He stated that he would not be doing this because he cannot objectively do this. He reminded the senate to encourage all faculty to vote.

College 100 has been suggested by some people as being a degree requirement, and by others as being a requirement for suspended students. Vickie noted that the issue hadn’t come from her, but she has taught this course. She clearly sees the benefit and value of this course, but does not see it being a degree requirement, not all students need it.

Discussion as to when this should be used followed. Toni noted it hasn’t been used as a requirement for suspended students, but it has been discussed as an option to use by the Scholastic Review Committee. There has been recommendations made for students to take College 100. Toni stated that there is such variance in each of the College 100 courses currently offered and there would need to further discussion in terms of what type of course it would need to be. Questions were raised as to which division do these come from and whether there was a course adoption form.

Jack reported that Derek Greenfield is going to be doing research on the impact of freshman seminars and the impact that they have. Toni and Moira stated that we should look at John Gardner and the University of South Carolina, since they were the institution that really started the freshman seminars and have built quite a good reputation and program. Toni encouraged the senate to look at it as a retention tool instead of as a punishment. Discussion followed as to its merits. Toni noted that those teaching it should share resources and work toward some standardizing of the different classes. Discussion followed as to whether the course should be more generalized or customized by the individual instructor.

Phil advised that we table this for now, but he encouraged Angi and Eric to incorporate this in their academic standards discussion. Next fall, we would like to have Derek share his findings from his summer’s research.

Phil reported that the state board is currently promoting an Associate of Science degree. Their hope is that it will eventually be offered at all community colleges. The reason being the difficulty that students have transferring to 4-year schools with the traditional AA degree, especially in the sciences. The Science Division has put together a proposal for an AS degree, which follows the state guidelines as currently stated. They sent it to us for action. Discussion followed on the merits of having this degree. Eric noted the crucial importance that it has for students in Geology area. Clarification was given on why it was needed and how it would benefit students, allowing them more flexibility in their scheduling of sequential science courses and their other degree requirements across the four years. Concerns noted by Vickie Ropp and Keith Paton were that as proposed there has no speech/communications requirement or physical education requirement.

It was questioned on how this AS differs from the AA Option B. Phil noted that the AA degree option B leaves it up to the student to design their own degree, with little institutional control. Phil stated that this is a difficult thing for him. The AS degree would help spread out the requirements, not avoid them. Phil commented that students essentially don't need the degree, it just serves to ease the transfer. It is almost an automatic entry into the colleges per the articulation agreements that are currently in place.

The question was raised as to whether there are other community colleges currently offering AS degrees. Phil stated that he will research this and bring back his findings to the next meeting. Eric noted that colleges in California do have the AS degree. Phil requested that Keith and Vickie come with motions to include the requirements for communication and physical education next meeting. Phil noted that the Associate of Science degree will be an action item at the next meeting.

Phil noted that there needs to be some kind of institutional control here. This option is taken a lot in the Engineering Department, as well as in the Business Department. Concern was expressed at the lack of institutional control with this option. He asked the senators to please read the college catalog and the information on the AA Option B for discussion at the next meeting.

The Faculty Senate meeting was adjourned at 4:05 p.m.

Lea Ann Pratt, Faculty Senate Secretary

4/15/99