Ventura College Academic Senate
Minutes
Thursday, February 16, 2012     MCW-312

I.	Call to Order
This meeting was called to order 1:36 p.m. The following senate members were present:
Algiers, Kammy—Math and Sciences
Arquilevich, Gabe—English and Learning Resources
Chen, Albert—Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities
Forde, Richard—Career & Technical Education
Gardner, Ty—Math and Sciences
Guillen, Guadalupe—Student Services
Haines, Robbie—Senate Secretary
Lange, Cari—Senate Vice President
Mitchell, Nancy—Career & Technical Education
Muñoz, Paula—Student Services
Parker, Jennifer—Career and Technical Education
Pauley, Mark—Senate Treasurer
Sezzi, Peter—Senate President
The following guests were present:
Tovar, Antonio—Vice President, ASVC
Sanchez, Ramiro—EVP, Student Learning

II.	Public Comments
No public comments were made.

III.	Acknowledgement of Guests—Alma Rodriguez & Daniel Aguilar, Financial Aid (2:30 p.m.)
Changes to financial aid for next academic year were outlined by Rodriguez and Aguilar. Financial Aid disbursement is now a part of Banner, and the transition to Banner was implemented in 18 months rather than 3 years. Changes to students usage of financial aid information were discussed, including their ability to link aid to personal bank accounts, paper checks (through new vendor), or debit cards; additionally, students can now view financial aid status online through our portal. Many changes were made in a very short time; students are still learning how to navigate them. Changes to satisfactory progress standards were discussed: U.S. Department of Education wanted uniform terminology across schools. Warning status, when student does not meet two standards, was discussed, as was the fact that students can still receive aid during warning periods. Counselors have been affected by a requirement to make an academic plan for students on warning. This plan must be updated every semester now instead of annually. It is now imperative that grades be submitted on time so student’s academic standings can be calculated. Aid to all students can be delayed by the late submission of a few students’ grades so it is imperative that all faculty submit their grades in a timely manner after the end of a semester. Federal regulations now state that funding for a particular class can only happen once after a pass in that class (i.e. retaking a class a student passed once for the purpose of improving a grade.) At least 859 grades were not submitted at VC at the beginning of Spring 2012 and that fact delayed all financial aid for all students. Senators commented that the short time between Fall finals and the Christmas holiday was partly to blame and that the District ignoring Faculty’s preference for more time between Fall finals and Christmas contributed to this problem. Another change is that a student’s aid must now come from the college that the student’s certificate/degree will come from or the college which a majority of that student’s classes come from. A student’s major must be eligible—it must match with what the Department of Education thinks we offer. Senators noted that this has been problematic for EOPS, since they were not consulted and they don’t know how to deal with those students (i.e. are they VC students? OC students?). For certificate programs, Financial Aid must now report gainful employment, length and cost of program, etc. All this data are now posted on the college webpage, in compliance of federal regulations. Various additional changes were discussed, including the decrease from 18 down to 12 semesters’ lifetime eligibility for federal financial aid—6 years only, and that includes all current students without any option to grandfather them into a longer eligibility period. Students attending longer than 6 years will still be eligible for loans and state financial aid but they’ll no longer be eligible for federal grants. Students without diplomas, GEDs, or homeschooling certificates are no longer eligible, and the GPA requirements for Cal Grants are increasing. Additionally, students must now have much higher unmet needs to qualify for BOG waivers. It was recommended that senators share this information with co-workers and students. 

IV.	Approval of minutes—2 February 2012
Gardner moved to approve the minutes from the 2 February 2012 meeting, Muñoz seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

V.	Study Sessions
a.	VCCCD Accreditation status
Sezzi recounted his comments from the last Board meeting, noting that he was not the only Senate President to make strongly negative comments to the Board and Chancellor. It was noted that we at the campuses cannot drop the ball on accreditation issues, like SLOs, if we’re accusing the Board or the District of dropping the ball and standing in the way of our accreditation. It was generally agreed, therefore, that it behooves campuses to make and maintain significant progress regarding SLOs. The report due to the Commission on 15 March was discussed; Sezzi committed to sending drafts of that report to Senate, and he committed to keeping Senate informed of Commission’s response. At Board meetings, Sezzi will hammer home the fact that Senates have a role in this process, and we demand inclusion in the process if we’re to be expected to sign off on the results. The idea was discussed that Chancellor Meznek is not the appropriate person to guide us through the re-accreditation process, because even in the best-case scenario he will retire in June and will therefore not be here when the accreditors return in October. When asked if there is anything faculty can do to help the process or must we just sit back and hope for the best, Sezzi responded that Meznek wants to revise the District’s Participatory Governance Manual, we can address their proposed changes. There seems to be the recognition at the District that better communication with the campuses might be a good idea. Sezzi was told at a Board meeting that Senate Presidents can chime in at any time, wants to get that in writing to improve communications at Board meetings. Faculty have primary voice in curricular questions, Board should address Senate Presidents on those matters before College Presidents. Does it seem reasonable to wait for Board to propose changes, then we comment on them. General consensus is yes. Careful monitoring of Board/District changes was discussed. Sezzi asked when we would decide progress is insufficient and when we would press “the panic button.” Senators requested that there be a timeline for change as well as a timeline for the District/Board’s development of responses to each of the seven of the extant District recommendations. It was noted that a good way to improve communication would be to allow more leniency in addressing items in 300-page agendas before Board meetings. Senators suggested that Sezzi describe to the Board how open our accreditation responses were and note that theirs should be as open and transparent as ours were. Accreditation status will appear on future Senate agendas after the March 15 report and as progress is made on Board accreditation responses. 

b.	Expiration time for Add Codes
The fact that there is currently no expiration on when add codes can be used by students was discussed. It was generally agreed that a good way to handle this is simply to communicate with students, telling them by when add codes should be used. Various reasons were discussed why one campus-wide deadline for add code use wouldn’t work. Individual instructors’ policies on add code usage should be spelled out on syllabi. The possibility of locking down all classes on the first day of instruction was discussed as a remedy for students’ ability to register for a class that they’ve not attended for two weeks ahead of students who have been attending. All students should get themselves on wait lists to prevent this, but being shut out of a class for not following registration protocol seems harsh—a punishment that is out of proportion with the “infraction.” Issues of importance of first day classes, dropping no-shows, normal and inevitable fluctuations during first week of class were all discussed, and counselors opined that the first and/or second class meeting should be considered an adjustment period. Is two-week registration period mandated by law or is it permissive? If mandated, does locking down a class while allowing registration by add code satisfy the law? In addition to locking down classes, doubling the size of the wait list was discussed as a way to solve many problems. It was agreed that we should invite VC Registrar Susan Bricker back to Senate later this semester to answer these questions. 

c.	Institutional Effectiveness metrics for Ventura College
Metrics of institutional effectiveness from CPC were introduced and discussed. It was noted that if we adopt one and decide later that we don’t like it, that metric can be changed later. Senators reiterated that incremental increase in retention and student success is a dangerous goal. Bold portions of Bakersfield’s model were considered to be good in that they apply to institutional effectiveness rather than student success, and the wording of each bullet point text can be modified. Minor modifications were discussed. Sezzi will take suggested changes to CPC. 

VI.	President’s Report
a.	Administrative Council report
Sezzi noted that there was nothing to report. Add codes and financial aid (already discussed) were the two main issues at that meeting. 

b.	Board of Trustees meeting report

Much of this report was discussed during accreditation issues, above. Additional comments included Vice Chancellor Sue Johnson noting that District management will be proposing to the Board in March the closure of all campus cafeterias (other than Oxnard’s, which is the lab for its Culinary Resource Management program) at the close of this Spring 2012 semester.

c.	DCAS report
Sezzi noted that he carried forward Senate’s recommendation of allowing up to 2% site rollover over from FY12 to FY13 and to deficit budget $8 million in FY13. 

d.	Other reports
No other reports were made. 

VII.	Senate Subcommittee and Campus Committee reports
a.	Curriculum Committee report
Sezzi noted that the deadlines for updates to Course Outlines of Record will be staggered to provide relief from busy Fall workloads. He also noted the continued progress of VC faculty in creating SB 1440/TMC-aligned transfer degrees.

b.	Student Learning Outcomes Oversight Committee report
A list of outcomes and categories developed for General Ed SLOs has been generated and it will be discussed in detail at next senate meeting. Gardner also mentioned that the college is exploring purchasing TracDat, a web-based system to manage our SLOs and program review processes. 

c.	Budget & Resource Council report
There was nothing to report.

d.	Other Committees
There was nothing to report.

VIII.	Information Items
No information items were discussed.

IX.	Adjournment
This meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.