Ventura College Academic Senate
Thursday, October 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:
	
	Anderson, Lisa – Math & Sciences
	Chen, Albert - Social Sciences & Humanities
	Gardner, Ty - Math & Sciences
	Guillen, Guadalupe - Student Services
	Haines, Robbie - Math & Sciences
	Lange, Cari – Senate Secretary
	Morris, Terry – Health, Physical Education & Athletics
Mundell, Meridith – Alternate, Career and Technical Education
	Muñoz, Paula – Student Services
	Parker, Jennifer - Career and Technical Education
	Pauley, Mark- Senate Treasurer/ Curriculum Co-chair
	Pollack, Deborah - Senate Vice-president
	Pourmoghim, Salomeh - Communication & Learning Resources
	Reynolds, Andrea - Social Sciences & Humanities
	Schoenrock, Kathryn - Communication & Learning Resources
	Sezzi, Peter – Senate President

	The following guests were present:	
	Calote, Robin - President
	Cowen, Will – Athletics Director	
Ha, Bryan – FACCC Rep.
Hull, Becky – Student Services
Porter, Bob - Social Sciences & Humanities

II.	Approval of minutes
a.	Motion to approve the minutes from October 7, 2010 was made by Guillen and seconded by Pollack. Motion carried 13-0-0. Pourmoghim and Muñoz  were not present for this vote. 

III.	Acknowledgement of Guests
a.	Bob Porter, Political Science Professor 
Please see discussion under VI a below.

b.	Bryan Ha, FACCC Membership Director 
Mr. Ha made a presentation to the senate about the significance of faculty joining the FACCC in order to help fight any potential statewide mid-year budget cuts. 

c.	Will Cowen, Athletic Director 
Please see discussion under VI b below. 

IV.	Announcements
a.	Senate Elections
Senate elections will be during the first week of November. Due to Haines running for a Senate office, Gardner will replace him on the Elections committee. Anderson and Gardner will organize, conduct, and tally the ballots for the Senate elections during the first week of November.

V.	President’s Report
a.	Administrative Council report
Sezzi reported out that Admin Council consisted of primarily postmortem on the State Accreditation Team visit. Sezzi emphasized that faculty, administration, and the district really need to step it up in the area of SLO development and assessment. 
	Schoenrock suggested that the college considers hiring a faculty member to serve as the SLO Coordinator because SLOs pertain to curriculum, so this should not be an administrator position. While others readily agreed that this is a faculty matter, after discussion, consensus was that we would have a difficult time finding a faculty member from within who would have both the experience and the willingness to take on this position. The idea of hiring a consultant was then discussed, and consensus was that this may be our best option. 

VI.	Study Sessions:
a.	Team Teaching (B. Porter)
Bob Porter made a presentation to the senate on his experiences with and the value of the team teaching or student cohort approach to education. Key persuasive points from Porter’s talk were that Moorpark College currently has a strong team teaching program, students who work in these “cohort” groups have a high retention rate, and that both students and instructors report great overall enjoyment. 
Porter asked that the Senate form a task force to explore the possibility of establishing a way to aid instructors on developing team taught curriculum and developing a formalized program for it. He would like to have a small group of faculty and administrators travel to Evergreen College in Washington to attend their workshop program on team teaching during the semester. It is Porter’s hopes that this group of faculty could then train other interested VC faculty.
Possible suggestions for funding include the VC Foundation Grant, Professional Development money, and Title V. 
Reynolds moved that the Senate approve the formation of a committee with Porter serving as Chair and Jennifer Parker as Vice Chair to explore the development of a team teaching program. Gardner seconded. The motion unanimously carried, with Muñoz not being present for this vote.

b.	Priority Registration for Student Athletes (W. Cowen)
Will Cowen and Becky Hull were present to talk with the Senate about allowing priority registration for student athletes. The presentation detailed the requirements to participate in community college athletics, NCAA and NAIA academic transfer requirements, current and potential registration issues for student athletes, and the projected impact of allowing priority registration for this group. Both stressed that this privilege will not supersede current groups of students who receive priority registration. 
The Senators agreed to talk with their colleagues about granting this privilege to student athletes.  This item will be a first and second reading action item at the next senate meeting. 

c.	Accreditation Post Mortem on College Recommendations
Robin Calote was present to brief the senate on the State Accreditation Team’s recommendations for VC. 
i.	Student Learning Outcomes
Based on the informal recommendations made in the Accreditation process, Calote stressed that it is highly likely we will be visited again next year, perhaps even as early as Spring 2011, and we will be asked to show measurable progress the area of program-level SLO development and assessment. Therefore, we need to spring into action. This could include using handbooks and models developed by other community colleges that are fully accredited. Likely we will be hiring a full time person to oversee this process.
Since SLOs do involve curriculum, Calote wants this to be a faculty-driven process. She asked that the senate organize a task force to immediately begin the process of reviewing existing handbooks, models, etc. Sezzi, Gardner, and Pourmoghim agreed to serve on this task force and begin the process. 

VII.	Campus Committee reports
a.	Curriculum Committee report
Pauley reminded the Senate that there is a Nov. 1 deadline for curriculum update. All curriculum that needs to be updated must be at level 4.0 or higher in Curricunet in order to be offered in Fall 2011. 

b.	Sabbatical Leaves Committee report
The deadline for sabbatical proposals is November 1.

c.	One Book, One Campus report
Pollack commented that the One Book, One Campus program received a verbal commendation from the Accreditation Team, and reminded us about on-going activities supporting The Botany of Desire.

VIII.	Action Items
a.	AP 4250 – Probation (Second Reading)
This item will be moved to the next agenda. 

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