Ventura College Academic Senate
Minutes
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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 – Math & Sciences
Arquilevich, Gabriel – Communication & Learning Resources
Corbett, P. Scott – Social Sciences & Humanities 
Guillen, Guadalupe – Student Services
Haines, Robert – Math & Sciences
Hendricks, Bill - Social Sciences & Humanities
Lall, Sumita - Communication & Learning Resources
Lange, Cari – Senate Secretary
Mitchell, Nancy Rae - Career & Technical Education 
Pauley, Mark – Senate Treasurer
Pollack, Deborah - Senate Vice-president
Sezzi, Peter – Senate President

The following guests were present:
Cobos, Terry – District Office
Fiumerodo, Gigi – Faculty Professional Development Committee 
Hardy, Jaclyn - Communication & Learning Resources
Pierce, Nancy - Health, Physical Education and Athletics
Prell, Ted - Faculty Professional Development Committee

II.	Approval of minutes
a.	Motion to approve last meeting’s minutes was made by Arquilevich, and seconded by Hines. Motion was approved 9-0-2 with Lange and Mitchell abstaining.

III.	Guests
a.	Terry Cobos – Field Trip & Volunteer/Guest Speaker Forms 
	Terry Cobos was present to explain to the senate the substantial changes made to the Field Trip and Volunteer/Guest Speaker forms, as well as the new vehicle and transportation procedures. Cobos noted that the policies and procedures were not substantially remodeled; simply the forms have been somewhat modified and consolidated.
Among the more substantial changes are:
● volunteers and students may no longer operate district vehicles. The exception is golf carts, which may be driven by students if they have on file the appropriate release form.
● a new employee personal vehicle release form which needs to be completed one time (and updated if pertinent information changes) and kept on file for when a personal vehicle is used for work related business. 
● long term volunteers need to be fingerprinted (may be done on each individual campus or at the district office).
● there is now an optional “standard agreement” that may be signed by any guest speakers appearing on campus (may be signed the day of the presentation).
● there is an update to the newest batch of student field trip and excursion forms that now includes emergency contact information. Forms should be available in e-format soon.
● one set of student field trip and excursion forms may be used for the entire semester for a particular class or club, if the dates and locations of all the activities are known. The instructor holds onto all of the forms until the completion of all excursions and then submits the forms to be held on file. (Note that all trips and excursions are still subject to approval of the division dean. Request to do an excursion or field trip must be made 10 working days prior to the outing. This also now includes off campus club activities.)

b.	Gigi Fiumerodo – Faculty Professional Development Funds 
	Gigi Fiumerodo was present to explain the Faculty Professional Development Committee’s proposal for redistribution of faculty travel funds. Fiumerodo noted that the contract stipulates that each campus is allotted travel funds equivalent to $100 per each full time faculty member, not that each FT faculty member is individually given $100. It is ultimately up to each individual campus president to determine how the allotted funds should be distributed. 
	Under Ventura College’s current system of assigning each FT faculty member $100, about 50% of the contract granted faculty funds go unclaimed and are returned to the district’s general fund. Last academic year, this resulted in $6,271 being returned to the district. The Faculty Professional Development Committee wishes to devise a system to better use these faculty travel funds, so that faculty is reaping maximum benefits from our available money, and not returning unused funds to the district’s hoppers. 
	The Faculty Professional Development Committee has proposed a system whereby the funds are pooled into one collective account and distributed through an application process. Through this alternate system, which has been successfully implemented at Oxnard College, it will be possible to rollover unused funds over from year to year. An employee “opt out” option will be available for those faculty members wishing to retain $100 travel funds, but will disqualify them from applying for additional travel money during that academic year.

IV.	Action Items
a.	BP 4026 – Philosophy and Criteria for International Education (Second Reading)
	Motion to approve this Board Policy was made by Arquilevich and seconded by Pollack. Motion unanimously passed.

b.	Resolution on Faculty Professional Development Funds (First Reading)
	In support of the proposed system discussed above, the Academic Senate Executive Committee drafted the following resolution:

		Whereas, the Academic Senate recognizes and values professional development, and;
		Whereas, the Academic Senate authorizes the Faculty Professional Development 			Committee to develop and administer for the fiscal/academic year 2010-2011, the 			pooling of the contractually-obligated $100 professional development funds as stated in 		section 8.7D of the AFT 1828-VCCCD Contract for the purposes of faculty 				travel/conference grants (hereafter called “the Program”), and;
		Whereas, the Faculty Professional Development Committee will create and develop for 			the Program the application procedure, process, and decision making criteria that will 			allocate the pooled faculty professional development funds, and;
		Whereas, the Academic Senate authorizes the Faculty Professional Development 			Committee to create an opt-out policy for faculty not willing to participate in the 			Program who will then only be eligible for an annual allotment per the contract 				language of section 8.7D;
		Therefore, Be It Resolved, that the Faculty Professional Development Committee will 			administer the Program for the 2010-2011 fiscal calendar and that the Program be 			evaluated on its effectiveness no later than the second Academic Senate meeting of 			March 2011 to determine if the Program shall be continued.
		General consensus among senators was that this sounded like a superior alternative to 			our current allocation model. Senate members were asked to discuss this proposal with 			their respective departments, as it will be an action item for approval at the next senate 			meeting to be held Feb. 4, 2010.
c.	Resolution on the Importance of Value of Sabbaticals (First Reading) 
	This item will be discussed next Senate meeting.

d.	New DRAFT of AP 4021 – Program Discontinuance (First Reading)
	DCSL completely disregarded the Academic Procedure 4021 approved by the Academic Senate on Oct. 1, 2009 and drafted a new program discontinuance procedure. Seeing as program discontinuance procedure is completely in faculty purview, and the DCSL proposed procedure excludes faculty involvement to some extent, general consensus among senate members was that this newer version of AP 4021 should be rejected.
	Senate members were asked to discuss this item with their respective departments, as it will be an action item for vote at the next senate meeting.

e.	New DRAFT of AP 4100 – Graduation Requirements for Degrees & Certifications (First Reading)
	This new draft largely reflects a rewording clean up effort to more accurately align AP 4100 with our current catalogue description and policies. This item will be voted on as a second reading action item at the Feb. 4, 2010 meeting.

V.	Information/Discussion Items
a.	Faculty & “Finals”
	It was brought to the attention of academic senate that one department’s dean sent an e-mail to their faculty stating that all faculty are required to be present during finals week to administer a final exam. Senate agreed that contractually, faculty are paid for 17.5 weeks of instruction. However, senate would like to clarify that while faculty must be available to students during finals week, they are not required to administer an exam at that time.

VI.	President’s Report
a.	Administrative Council report 
i.	Printed schedule
	V.P. Ramiro Sanchez has made the executive decision to no longer provide print copies of the class schedules for future semesters. Senate discussion brought up the following concerns: many students do not have regular access to a computer, some students (such as EAC or ELL students) are not comfortable or able to access computer schedules, print schedules are more convenient for students to use during the first week of class while they are moving from class to class trying to add waitlisted classes, students will be less likely to find potentially interesting classes outside of their usual area of study, and VC’s previous attempt at a paperless class schedule was ultimately rejected.
	Alternate suggestions included making the print schedule “cost neutral” by charging a nominal fee for each print schedule. Further, Moorpark recently switched to a paperless class schedule, and our senate concluded that we should wait at least one year to see how the system ultimately works for MP before adopting it for our own campus. 

b.	DCHR, DCSL, DTRW, DCAS, DAWC
i.	DCHR
1.	Local equivalency committees 
	As part of the accreditation process, Human Resources is in the process of reviewing every employee’s file to verify that employees have the minimum degree required or have an equivalency on file. During this process, it has been discovered that a fair number of employees without the minimum degree required also do not have equivalency reports on file. To deal with this situation, the academic senate presidents met with Human Resources to devise a review process for employees without equivalencies on file. Equivalency for any identified employees will be determined by an ad hoc committee within the individual’s campus department (or sister department if at least two faculty members are not available to determine equivalency).  This is expected to occur mid-February. 
	General consensus among senators is that this seems like a fair process.

2.	BP 7205 – Employee Code of Ethics Task Force report
	This Board Policy is going through DCHR and we will see it at the next senate meeting.

ii.	DCAS
	Report is that the district will be spending out of the reserves account to some extent where they are legally and fiscally able to do so. However, if our campus’ budget shortfall exceeds 5 million, we may be asked to cut about 30 additional sections for the 11/12 academic year. 

VII.	Vice-President’s Report
a.	Honors Program at Ventura College
	A committee has been formed to work with President Calote on the development of an official academic honors program at Ventura College. The next meeting will be Tuesday January 26, 2010 at 2:30 in the Admin Conference room. It is an open meeting for any interested parties. 

b.	One Book, One Campus report
	Pollack noted that Muhammad Yunus, author of the One Book selection Creating a World Without Poverty will be speaking at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Center on 2/26; about 66 free tickets will be available to VC students.  The One Book committee is also planning film screenings, posters, and a panel discussion from mid-February to mid-March. 

VIII.	Campus Committee reports
a.	Curriculum Committee report
i.	Report from Task Force on Degree Requirements
	District is pushing to have the number of required units for degree completion readdressed and potentially lowered in order to make it easier for students to complete a specific degree. Since this academic matter is fully in faculty purview, we need to discuss and determine what we value more as a college, General Education or number of completed units in order to make a firm statement to the district board on this matter.

b.	Core College Design Team reports
	The Core College Design Team reports will be ready for first report by mid February. 
c.	Accreditation Team report
	Please see notes under the establishment of Local equivalency committees. 

IX.	Adjournment
	This meeting was adjourned at 3:25 p.m.