Ventura College Academic Senate
Minutes
Thursday, 23 August 2012      MCW-312

I.	This meeting was called to order at 1:34 p.m. The following senators were present:
Chen, Albert—Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities
Enfield, Amanda—English and Learning Resources
Forde, Richard—Career and Technical Education
Guillen, Guadalupe—Student Services
Haines, Robbie—Senate Secretary
Horigan, Andrea—Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities
Kim, Henny—English and Learning Resources
Lange, Cari—Senate Vice President
Mitchell, Nancy—Career and Technical Education
Morris, Terry—PE/Athletics, Communication Studies, Foreign Languages, and ESL
Pauley, Mark—Senate Treasurer, Curriculum Co-chair
Rose, Malia—Mathematics and Sciences
Sandford, Art—PE/Athletics, Communication Studies, Foreign Languages, and ESL
Sezzi, Peter—Senate President
Wendt, Patty—Student Services
The following guests were present:
Jones, Mary—Student Services
Muñoz, Paula—Student Services

II.	Public Comments
Muñoz notified senators of upcoming Faculty Symposium on 21 Sept 2012 in Oxnard. 

III.	Introductions & Acknowledgement of Guests
Sezzi notified those in attendance about the need for additional faculty members on various committees. 

IV.	Approval of minutes, 3 May 2012
Forde motioned to approve, Lange seconded. Minutes approved 7–0–2 with Wendt and Rose abstaining. 

V.	Study Sessions
a.	VC Academic Senate Goal Setting for 2011-2012
Sezzi solicited written goals from senators. Goals will be compiled by Sezzi and discussed at a future meeting. 

b.	VC & VCCCD Accreditation reports
Sezzi updated senators on status of both reports. Sezzi was happy to announce that administration’s willingness to involve each campus’ Academic Senate President in the development of these reports was highly involved, encouraged and appreciated. This is a marked difference from the manner in which last year’s Accreditation follow-up reports were developed. One additional part of the District report, relating to the Accreditation Commission’s concern about Board performance, is still being written and should be available in a few days. Sezzi described the corrected Commission letter to Robin Calote, which explains why we are working on this when the remaining problems appeared to concern the District only. For the reports that are due, most of the work has been done. College recommendations 6 and 8 were briefly discussed, it was opined that the BRC should be mentioned in part 6. Sezzi will re-evaluate these to be sure they are clear and accurate, adding BRC as requested. 

VI.	Action Items
a.	District & College Committee Appointments
The difference between defined and undefined membership was discussed. It was noted that the Senate needs to appoint people to certain committees. 

The CPC membership and meeting schedule were discussed. Sezzi suggested affirming for the CPC spots for which there was “no contest” (i.e., more people interested than spots available) and a mechanism was discussed for appointing others if there is competition or if there are too few volunteers. Sandford volunteered for CPC. CTE representative for CPC will be discussed at the next meeting after candidates have briefly justified their candidacy. Senators agreed to confirm Becky Hull (Past Senate President), Art Sandford (General Ed faculty), Ty Gardner (General Ed faculty), Bob Moskowitz (General Ed faculty), and Eric Martinsen (General Ed faculty/instructor of Basic Skills).

DCAA: There are 4 candidates for three slots. Sezzi will request a 1-paragraph justification of candidacy from each, then senators will vote at next meeting.

DTRW-SS: Senate will delay action for this committee, because counselling will select representatives at their next division meeting on Sept 4. 

Student Grievance and Student Conduct committees: Sezzi read the following names as faculty interested in being in the “pool” to serve on both of these ad-hoc committees (unless otherwise noted): Ann Bittl, Albert Chen, Marta de Jesus, Sharla Fell, Richard Forde, Cari Lange, Lydia Matthews-Morales, Nancy Mitchell, Ted Prell, Robbie Haines (Student Grievance only) and Steve Quon (Student Conduct only).
	 
Sandford motioned to appoint the faculty names for appointment to the CPC, Student Grievance and Student Conduct committees as read, Horigan seconded. Motion carried unanimously. 

b.	VC Accreditation Follow-Up Report (First Reading)
Pauley motioned to move this item to second reading, Sandford seconded. Motion carried unanimously. 

c.	VCCCD Accreditation Follow-Up Report (First Reading)
Pauley motioned to move this item to second reading, Morris seconded. Motion carried unanimously. 

d.	BP/AP 6200—Budget Preparation & BP/AP 6250—Budget Management (First Readings)
These documents were discussed. Sezzi reported that many apparent changes made to them simply involved moving items from a BP in question to the corresponding AP. Budget difficulties were discussed in light of the fact that the state often does not have a budget at the time that VCCCD is supposed to have one. Sandford motioned to move this item to second reading, Lange seconded. Motion carried unanimously.

VII.	President’s Report
a.	Summer Board of Trustees Meetings report
The six (!) Board meetings since the last Senate meeting in May were described by Sezzi. 

b.	Administrative Council report
David Keebler will soon be emailing the campus about the inventory associated with VC’s accreditation activities. Sezzi suggested faculty respond to that email if they are interested in participating in the inventory of their supplies. 

c.	DCAS
This morning’s meeting focused on the Budget. The outcome of Proposition 30 will be a huge determinant of how we operate as a college for the foreseeable future. The district will face ~$8–9 million cut if the proposition fails; about $2 million are currently set aside to help offset this amount. Cuts, if they happen, will be realized this year. Program discontinuance at VC will probably be minimally disruptive this year, may be contentious next year. Full-time positions may no longer be automatically replaced as they have been in the past. Sezzi pointed out that if Prop 30 fails that in the span of only about 5 years, we’d go from having $25 million on reserves to only about $2 million in reserves available to be spent for the entire district. 

Led by Kathy Scott and Mike Callahan, VC won a Title V single-college grant aimed at improving transfer rates for Latino students. This will fund more tutoring, counseling, and the Reading/Writing center. 

The structural deficit model (Infrastructure Funding Model, or IFM) was discussed, especially in light of the Accreditation Commission’s spotlight on VC requiring us to improve total cost of ownership. It was originally thought that the model would only incrementally be funded and not be fully funded ($4million) for about 8 years. However, over $1 million was allocated to it just this year. The lion’s share of these monies came from breakage in utilities (i.e., we underspent what was budgeted in utilities as a District).  The IFM can only be spent in five areas (scheduled maintenance/capital furniture, library materials & databases, instructional and non-instructional equipment, tech refresh and “other”, which really is a by-word for special accreditation costs, research & development, start-up costs for new initiatives or programs, etc.) it can only be spent in these areas (i.e., these funds cannot be moved to other areas such as instruction, etc.). Sezzi reported that at VC alone $438,000 are available this year for program review. Unspent funds from program review funds can carry over to future years. 

A discussion ensued regarding the State “mandated claims” to reimburse community colleges for things like student health centers, Brown Act compliance costs, etc. Traditionally, the state will pay the entire community colleges system only a fraction of what the system is owed, however, so each college gets only a few dollars. A bill is working through the State Assembly now called the Mandated Claim Block Grant in which the State would agree to pay colleges essentially a few cents on the dollar if those colleges stop demanding what is really owed to them. This is a complicated issue, and senators had many questions that were difficult to answer: What other schools are settling for the lower amount? Would VC get any money if we didn’t settle, but rather demanded what we are owed? Would VC get the entire amount owed us if we waited until the State was solvent again?  Sezzi agreed to gather more information; no Senate position was adopted. 

VIII.	Information/Discussion Items
a.	Senate Dues Drive in September/October
The dues drive is coming next month. In addition to scholarships, this year Senate dues will fund a design competition for a ceremonial mace for graduation. The mace will be designed and manufactured by students, and who the mace-bearer is each year will be democratically decided. Most Senate dues are used for student scholarships; most senate activities are funded by the school.

IX.	Senate Subcommittee reports
a.	One Book, One Campus Committee
These activities will take place in the spring this year. The book selected is Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. Sezzi will try to get free copies for students if instructors who agree to participate. 

b.	Faculty Professional Development Committee
Funds are available to people who did not opt out. The form to request them is on the portal and can also be obtained from Gigi Fiumerodo.

c.	SLO Oversight Committee
The critical importance of doing SLOs was discussed. Communication and quantitative reasoning are the ISLOs being assessed this semester. Training for TracDat was discussed, as was its ease of use. 

d.	Other Senate Committees
There was nothing to report.

X.	Campus Committee reports
a.	College Planning Council
The CPC meets next Wednesday, and the agenda will be distributed to all users soon. The timelines for Program Review have changed a bit, the documents are simpler. The name “Program Review” was discussed in light of the confusing situation that entities which are not programs are reviewed in Program Review. Alternate names were suggested (i.e. Functional Unit Review), but no action was taken. Sezzi suggested thinking about this for possible future action.

b.	Other Campus Committees
There was nothing to report.

XI.	Adjournment
This meeting adjourned at 3:17 p.m.