Academic Affairs Cluster

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

OF CPC

MINUTES

April 15,  2009

2:30 p.m.

Conference Room 219

ATTENDANCE

PRESENT:

 Luis Rosas, Jim Stanbery, Dave Humphreys, Nabeel Barakat, Carmen Carrillo,  Jonathan Lee, Sally Fasteau, Joyce Parker, June Smith, King Carter, Stanley Sandell, Dave Humphreys, Bob Richards, Brenda  Guertin, Mercy Yanez.

CALL TO ORDER

Luis Rosas called the meeting to order at 2:45 p.m. in Conference Room 219.

1.  ADOPTION OF AGENDA

There were no objections to the agenda.

1.  ADOPTION OF MINUTES

After review of the minutes from April 1, the minutes were accepted with two corrections.

Jim Stanbery announced that a discussion needs to be initiated on whether we should add more faculty, and added that whether we add more hires or not should be part of the Educational Master Plan. The State guideline for the Senate is a 75-25 requirement that the District needs to meet.  Colleges that are solvent should be picking up the tab for the additional hires.

Dr. Humphreys announced that there is to be a CPC meeting on Monday April 20, at 3:00 p.m.

A draft of the educational priorities of sow, grow, harvest and plow from World Café were discussed and the suggested priorities are to be presented to the Academic Senate on April 16.

Among some of the items that were labeled as sow were the following:  Develop computer labs, create a property management program, students needing more counseling in CTE Programs, Essential skills development, enhancing disabled students experiences, ground transportation for student/campus activities, Leadership, ethics and professional conduct (sow, grow).

Other ideas labeled under grow were: Recognizing contributions and aligning reward systems, virtual admissions/records process, online advising and tutoring, financial solvency 1,2,3, policy and processes, set examples of following policy, meeting deadlines, lowering costs of textbooks, educating faculty and staff in current ad new technologies, implementing system for faculty web  materials on college website.

There was a discussion on the high cost of textbooks and affordability. Free e-books were discussed as an option, faculty are encouraged to use e-books that are available free on the internet, however it is up to the individual faculty member who can use either part or the whole textbook.  There are various options available to students. They can either read the books on line or print part or all of the textbooks.  Some suggestions that were made:  Kindle - a wireless device and text reader by Amazon.com.  Marginal notes can be written by the reader and it has a calculator included.  Renting books can also help cut costs.