Academic Affairs Cluster

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE OF CPC

M I N U T E S

March 19, 2008

2:30 p.m.

President’s Conference Room

ATTENDANCE

PRESENT

Administration

Dr. David Humphreys, Bobby McNeel, Luis Rosas

Faculty

Nabeel Barakat, Carmen Carrillo, Joy Fisher, Joyce Parker, Jim Stanbery, Mark Wood, Bradley Young

CALL TO ORDER

Luis Rosas called the meeting to order at 2:40 p.m. in the President’s Conference Room.

I. ADOPTION OF AGENDA

The agenda was accepted as presented.

II. ADOPTION OF MINUTES

The minutes for the meeting of March 5, 2008 were accepted as presented.

III. ACTUAL IMPLEMENTATION OF CLUSTER PLANNING PROCESS

Jim Stanbery noted that the focus of this meeting is to move closer to developing the basis for this committee’s recommendation to CPC on how to implement the agreed-on planning process as fully as possible this current year.

1. April 2 unit plan submission date.

Dr. Humphreys will send out an e-mail reminder of the submission deadline.

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1. Implementation of program review schedule.

At the last meeting there was some discussion identifying divisions who were supposed to be making program review submissions last fall or in the spring of 2007 or 2008. Dr. Humphreys’ goal, as soon as possible, is to have all submissions in one place so he knows exactly what has been submitted and what hasn’t. After further discussion, there was consensus to move the dates forward again by two years. Mr. Stanbery noted that it is less important what the dates are than that the dates decided are both enforceable and then enforced. Mark Wood emphasized that any programs whose reviews are due from ’07 to ’09 ought to have them done before the mid-term report is due next March including both SLO’s and some assessment to prove that we are moving ahead in this process.

There was consensus that the position of this committee is that the program review manual is in force, including all of the new language concurred in by administration and the Senate, with the exception of the one passage still contested.

1. Regular agenda item for status updates on above.

Dr. David Humphreys will have a regular 5- to10-minute agenda item at every committee meeting to provide updates on the status of submissions due. In answer to the question of what the submission process will be, it was agreed that electronic copies should be sent to Dr. Humphreys or Dr. Blackburn and that hard copies should be given to Kerry Keener in the Office of Academic Affairs.

1. Possible recommendations to CPC.

Mr. Stanbery directed the members’ attention to an excerpt of the 2006 Self Study-Thematic Overview concerning the agenda of the CPC . "Give College Planning Council meetings the planning focus they need by completing cluster operational plans sufficiently functional to enable CPC to reach its decisions within the framework of the College operational plan and through the ongoing review of that plan." Mr. Stanbery welcomed the attendance of the CPC co-chairs at the meetings of this committee and hoped an agenda format can be agreed on that is fully satisfactory to them. The idea would be for this committee to function the same way also once we get a cluster plan in terms of which we can conduct our discussions and make our decisions.

Dr. Humphreys gave a PowerPoint presentation entitled "Planning Process-In the face of a $3M deficit, is there any practical value in strategic planning?" Dr. Humphreys stated this was a real question in the minds of many. Mr. Stanbery cited the Chancellor's recent statement at the forum held here on campus that he expects every college to make the most astute possible assessments of what pattern of offerings will do the most to bring us growth but within our budgetary limits. Mr. Stanbery noted that those kinds of considerations, and they relate to offerings, are the kinds of things we are trying to get at in our own academic planning.

In answer to the question of at what point budget constraints seem to require cuts impacting very real obligations to our students, Mr. Rosas responded by

stating that the obvious thing we have for that scenario is viability studies and that

you cannot even talk about what programs to put on a chopping block without

convincing viability studies behind those discussions.

It was agreed that there are a lot of reasons that we should be doing planning even

in a constricting fiscal environment. Carmen Carrillo stated that the most import

reason is that we need to continue towards the goal of student success regardless

of the funding.

Dr. Humphreys went on to say that we have established the fact that planning is

important but possibly only a certain level of planning, and that if there is value to

getting a cluster plan and moving that cluster plan into a college plan, how does

the institution give this enough importance in people's minds so that it actually

happens? How do people come to see real value to be got out of that?

After some additional discussion, Dr. Humphreys went on to recommend that at

our last meeting in April we develop a cluster plan. When the unit plans come in, Dave Humphreys, Kristi Blackburn, Luis Rosas and Jim Stanbery will sit down and look them over to try and get some idea of how to shape that plan.

IV. ITEMS FROM THE FLOOR

No items from the floor.

V. ADJOURNMENT