Ventura College Academic Senate
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Campus Center Conference Room

I.	Call to Order
	This meeting was called to order at 1:35 p.m. The following senate members were present:
		
	Algiers, Kammy –Substitute rep., Math & Sciences	
	Chen, Albert - Social Sciences & Humanities
	Gardner, Ty - Math & Sciences
	Guillen, Guadalupe - Student Services
	Lange, Cari – Senate Secretary
	Mitchell, Nancy – Career and Technical Education	
	Morris, Terry – Health, Physical Education & Athletics
	Muñoz, Paula – Student Services
	Pollack, Deborah - Senate Vice-president
	Reynolds, Andrea - Social Sciences & Humanities
	Schoenrock, Kathryn - Communication & Learning Resources
	Sezzi, Peter – Senate President

	The following guests were present:
	Corbett, Scott – History
	Garey, Judy- Theater
	Keebler, David- VP, Business Services  

II.	Public Comments
	There were no public comments at this time.

III.	Approval of minutes
a.	December 2, 2010
Motion to approve the minutes from the previous Academic Senate meeting was made by Muñoz and seconded by Reynolds. Motioned carried 10-0-1, with Mitchell abstaining.

IV.	Acknowledgement of Guests
	Round table introductions were made.

V.	Announcements
a.	VC Foundation / Osher Foundation Matching Grant for Scholarships
Sezzi announced that in January all faculty will receive an Academic Senate Scholarship donation form. He remarked that we will be able to get the three times matching bonus from the Osher Foundation if we are able to secure an additional $2,000 in donations by the end of this academic year. This will allow us to permanently offer via an endowment two $500 scholarships beginning next academic year. Sezzi further commented that he will personally make a $200 donation to get the campaign started. 

VI.	Study Sessions
a.	Campus & District Budgets – David Keebler
	Keebler was in attendance to make a brief presentation to the senate about the process of budget development and to inform us of the projected status for the fiscal year 2012 (FY12).
	Keebler gave us a brief idea of how the process of budget development is done at VCCCD. While most community colleges are on a two year budget cycles, our district is on a one year budget cycle that runs from July 1-June 30. We must have a board approved budget each year in order to carry out such functions as releasing employee pay cheques.  The general time line for budget development is as follows: 
December- Large level objectives are identified for the following year and rough budget is formulated.
January-April- Release of the state governor’s budget allows for modification of the budget proposed in December. 
May- The tentative budget is submitted to the DCAS for review and approval.
June- The tentative budget is submitted to the Board of Trustees for final approval.
Sept-Oct (Varies, could be earlier) – “Actual” budget adopted by the Board of Trustees after state budget is approved in Sacramento. 
	According to Keebler, it will be difficult to accurately predict the impact of the governor’s current budget, which includes a $400 million cut to the Community College system, on our future budgets. For example, the current governor’s proposal has student fees increasing by $10 per credit unit to help offset some of this decrease in funding. This off set will leave us facing only a 2.23% ($3.7 million) deficit in the VCCCD. However, this does not take into account loss of funding from temporary tax increases that are set to expire this June. Overall though, Keebler does not feel that this is as dire as it may sound due to the fact that we made significant cuts last year in anticipation of draconian cuts appearing in this year’s budget which did not materialize. Keebler did note if we receive a negative growth factor, that our full time obligation (FTO) for full-time faculty will most likely be “re-set” downward but that we would most likely continue with growth faculty positions nonetheless. 
	The positive news is that, due to good long term financial planning, Keebler does not anticipate that we will be affected as dramatically as most other Community Colleges. Keebler reminded the Senate that last fiscal year VC made a 5% reduction in anticipation of the state budget, which turned out to be more of a reduction than was mandated by the state. Due to this, Keebler was able to restore one time funding for equipment and supplies in FY11 (which will be “cut” from the FY12 budget to help us meet the new 5% reduction goal) and there will be no anticipated layoffs in FY12.   Furthermore, we have approximately $1.6 million in reserves for fiscal emergencies, discussions are occurring at DCAS to recommend that the Board begin dipping into unallocated reserves to mitigate any anticipated deficits. 
	Keebler then candidly addressed faculty hiring. He strongly advocates for quality instruction, and recommends that VC hire FT growth positions in order for us to meet our 50% state obligation. He implied that in order to do that in these economic times, it may mean a reduction in work load for PT faculty. Finally, we were told that Keebler will be working with the CRC and department chairs on redefining each program’s “efficiency” (525) number, because any FY12 cuts to programs will be based on which classes are struggling to meet their goal as opposed to across the board cuts to all divisions/departments.

b.	Professional Development Activities under the Title 5 Grant 
Judy Garey, Scott Corbett, and Ty Gardner were present to give a status update on the progress being made by the SLOOG committee. It is the goal of SLOOG to have each instructor assess a SLO for each class they are teaching this semester. SLOOG will be working with Professional Development to provide workshops, support, and guidance to instructors in preparing the SLO forms and in developing and applying unique and useful assessment techniques. The Summer Institute will also focus on development and implementation of SLO assessment.  

c.	Academic Calendar
As noted in Senate meetings from last semester, there has been a considerable amount of concern recently expressed by faculty over the academic, or instructional calendar. Sezzi took the time to hold a round table discussion on what concerns we have heard about the calendar. The top concerns seem to be:
-Lack of consistent break periods, in particular the winter break being pushed back nearly a week. This impacts programs like nursing that traditionally offer retention courses during this time block, as they will no longer be able to do this. It was also mentioned that in addition to being a morale killer for faculty, a shortened winter break is inconvenient for many of our students who travel to Mexico during this time.
-The questionable necessity of and placement of Spring break. 
- The “cross days” scheduling of finals. In the newest version of the finals schedule, several classes have their final slated for a day that the class does not meet (ex: TTh 10:30 am classes have their final scheduled for a Monday). This is not conducive to our students, many of whom must plan their work schedules around their regular school schedule and may not be able to realistically make an alternate school day.
- Working “dead days” into the final schedule so that finals run M-F, allowing all students a more equal opportunity to prepare for their exams and allow for more consistent scheduling. 
It was motioned by Algiers that a task force be developed to look at the academic and professional matters related to our instructional calendar. This task force would address the issues above (and others, as necessary) and report back to Senate no later than the last Senate meeting of this semester. Any recommendations that may be adopted by our Senate will be formally transmitted to the AFT 1828 prior to the union and management developing the 2012-13 instructional calendar. Further, we discussed that such a task force should specifically include a student and nursing rep, plus any other interested party. Pollack seconded this motion which then unanimously carried. Sezzi requested that Algiers take the initiative to set up meeting times, and requested a report out at the second senate meeting in April. 

VII.	President’s Report
a.	VC Faculty Satisfaction Survey – 2011 edition
Sezzi requested that we gather input from our colleagues on which questions they would like to see added, removed, or modified from last year’s satisfaction survey. The modified questionnaire will appear as an action item next Academic Senate meeting. 

b.	Administrative Council report
i.	Textbooks
Sezzi reported that Keebler had mentioned at a previous Admin Council that we could save students a significant amount of money if we offered to rent textbooks to them through our campus bookstore. After some discussion, it was suggested that the senate have a task force to look at the possibility of changing the bookstore’s current traditional model to that of a rental (with option to buy) program. It was generally agreed that we should address our bookstore’s business plan and seek a way to allow our students to get the books they need for prices that are competitive with the on line market. Gardner suggested a pilot rental program for Fall 2011 to determine loss rate and viability. General consensus was that this is something we would like Sezzi and Keebler to consider. 

c.	Board of Trustees meeting report
Sezzi reported out about the open forum interview to fill the BOT vacancy. At the conclusion of the interviews, Bernardo Perez was appointed to fill the vacancy on the Board. 
Sezzi will invite Trustee Hernandez to the next Academic Senate meeting.
Finally, Sezzi informed us that the Board moved all reports (Academic Senates, Classified Senates and Student Representatives as well as Board members and Board Subcommittee reports) to the end of the Board of Trustees meeting agenda. Meznek agreed to review this reordering of the agenda in a month to evaluate its effectiveness.

d.	Consultation Council report
Nothing to report at this time.

e.	DCAS
Much of the discussion that occurred at DCAS (including many of the handouts distributed thereat) were discussed and disseminated during Keebler’s discussion of the District and college budget. However, Sezzi also distributed a handout that he did not go over on structural deficits but that he asked all Senators to bring back to the next Senate meeting.

VIII.	Campus Committee reports
a.	Curriculum Committee report
To help ease some amount of alleged confusion by students, the Curriculum Committee will be addressing degree and certificate programs that have classes listed as “recommended” to determine if the class would more appropriately be listed as “required”. They are considering clarifying what “recommended” means in the college catalogue.

b.	Campus Resource Council report
CRC reported out on the status of the FY11 budget. Please see study session ‘a’ above.

c.	One Book, One Campus report
Pollack reported that a Survey Monkey sent to all faculty and staff resulted in 17 responses with recommendation of 13 non-fiction and 18 fiction books to be considered for Fall 2011 One-Book selection. Pollack will form a senate subcommittee to determine the chosen text and to begin developing campus wide supporting activities. 

d.	Student Learning Outcomes Oversight Group report
Gardner motioned that the Student Learning Outcomes Committee  membership composition be modified to include: 
- one (1) faculty members from each division, one (1) of which must be teaching basic skills (presently there are six (6) divisions)
- faculty SLO facilitators, as ex-officio, non-voting members (presently there are two (2))
-one (1) administrator, as an ex-officio, non-voting member
	Schoenrock seconded these modifications. Motioned unanimously carried. 

e.	Task Force on Learning Communities report
Nothing to report at this time.

IX.	Action Items
a.	Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Toolkit (Third Reading)
It was noted that this document is a work in progress and that the Senate has reviewed and commented on it several times. However, this item will remain on the agenda as a placeholder until a final draft of this document is ready for final approval by the Senate. 

X.	Adjournment
	This meeting was adjourned at 3:35 p.m.