Santa
Barbara City College
Committee on Teaching and Learning
Minutes
April 8, 2002
3:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Present:
P. Guenther (Math), D. Kiley (Library), M. Lawson (Senate Liaison), G. Lewin
(Chair), J. Millward (English), M. Muraoka (Health Tech.), J. Pike (LSS), P.
Zwehl-Burke (Fine Arts), J. Ullom (Admin. Liaison), C. Solberg (History).
Excused: Susan Broderick (Acad. Support), Pat Chavez-Nunez (ESL/For.
Lang.), Jodi Simpson (Sciences/Tech)
On Sabbatical: Debbie Mackie (Counseling)
The
meeting was called to order at 3:00 p.m. by Gerry Lewin and the following announcements
were made:
1. The library is having a book sale on April 22nd. Please buy books on the
day of the sale. The prices are generally $0.50 for paperbacks and $1.00 for
hard cover.
2. There is a new Committee on Online Instruction and a CTL representative has
been requested to attend the meetings on the 2nd and 4th Fridays from 12 to
2. Pam Guenther will be the rep for the rest of this semester.
3. Alyson Bostwick will be presenting a Stress Management workshop on April
25th from 12:00 to 1:00 in Library 146.
4. Jerry Pike and Alyson Bostwick will be presenting a repeat of the Test-Taking
workshop on May 16th from 12:00 to 1:00 pm.
It was suggested that faculty might also be interested in some of the items
in the Test-Taking workshop so Jerry may present some of this workshop for the
committee at some future meeting.
Professional
Development Cross Functional Team Report:
Gerry Lewin and Jack Ullom discussed a proposal from FEC concerning the future
of Professional Development on campus. (See hand-out.) Part of the proposal
is a Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) that works in conjunction with the Instructional
Tech Resource Center. A new position is being proposed with this. There would
need to be a TLC Coordinator. The proposal so far is that this person could
be any faculty member, who will then sit on the FEC committee, but does not
have to be a current FEC committee member. This position would come with 15
TLU's release time over 10 months (so the person would still be teaching). It
would probably involve 60% release time while teaching two classes. The responsibilities
would include coordinating flex, orientation, and taking over the Faculty Development
Seminar. Jack pointed out that it is projected that 58% of our faculty will
be retiring over the next five years, so lots of new training will be needed.
This position would need to have clerical support, and it has been suggested
that it might be shared with the senate.
The
money for Professional Development is tied to the compressed calendar; more
flex days are needed to get the flex activities and professional development
really going. There is a similar position held at Palomar college (one of the
colleges that has been visited in the ongoing effort to improve Professional
Development). The faculty member there gets 80% release time and there is a
four-year limit in the position. It has been suggested that the position might
have a three year limit at SBCC. At College of the Canyons, the position is
a classified position with a faculty consultant and an advising committee (that
meets once a month) for "gnarly" issues that come up.
This is still in the "idea stage", so it is not really defined where
the college would come up for the money for this position. It seems as though
at least a half-time secretary would be needed and then the funding for the
a faculty member to teach the classes from which the flex time coordinator would
be released. At this point, the FEC is interested in feedback.
It
was then asked how the faculty member would be selected. Jack Friedlander choose
the FRC director from applications, so it may be done similarly for this position.
Curtis
Solberg expressed that faculty may reject the idea of money being spent to support
what is perceived as an administrative position, even if it goes to a faculty
member. Doing this may go against the efforts of the IA. Even though we say
this is a win-win situation and we want to work together, he asked if there
has ever been a more disharmonious relationship between faculty and administration.
Pamela Zwehl-Burke pointed out that an important part of the discussion that
was missing was the emotional impact of faculty feeling the administration is
not responding to their needs.
Concerns
about violating the 50% law were then voiced. Jody Millward pointed out that
any release time counts as administrative. A study was done recently and the
college was not in violation of the law, but it was suggested that it be looked
at more regularly so that this position would not help SBCC violate the law.
This means as an institution, not more than 50% of our time can be spent on
administrative tasks, and release time is categorized as such.
The
FEC wants the TLC coordinator to be a teaching faculty member, rather than an
administrator. It appears that a full-time faculty member would be eligible,
but an adjunct would not. Jerry Pike expressed that an adjunct teacher should
be able to fulfill the duties. This person may report to Marilyn Spaventa. It
was suggested that this person might report to Mark Ferrer instead. Also, it
was requested that the committee have more clarification about the whole plan--how
does it fit in with current professional development activities, the growth
in development in teaching and learning areas in the future, and where will
the money come from?
Looking
at the diagram, it appears online teaching is equal to non-online teaching.
The members of the committee emphasized that more teachers actually teach in
a traditional classroom and we need a proportional amount of professional development
activities for them. We also need a third category to be served, those who are
in a traditional classroom but who would like to have a choice about using technology
to present in the class. Mimi noted that we need to have the equipment in classrooms
to make that choice possible.
Grassroots
Project
A brief discussion about the survey for faculty then followed. The purpose of
the survey is to clarify perceptions/misperceptions with respect to initiatives
such as increasing student success and professional development. Please think
about and bring possible survey questions to the next meeting.
The
committee also decided that we should compile a list of all of the student success
programs and professional development programs as a starting point for the survey
and to enable us to give meaningful feedback to the Cross Functional Team regarding
the Professional Development Plan. Please send to Gerry Lewin any of the student
success and/or professional development activities going on in your department/division.
Next meeting: Monday, April 22, 2002, 3:00 p.m., in LRC 108.