Academic Affairs Cluster
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ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE OF CPC
M I N U T E S
August 6, 2008
1:30 p.m.
Facilities Conference Room
ATTENDANCE
PRESENT
Administration
Dr. David Humphreys, Luis Rosas, Dr. Ann Tomlinson
Faculty
Nabeel Barakat, Carmen Carrillo, King Carter, Sally Fasteau, Jonathon Lee, Evelyn Lum, Lauren McKenzie, Dr. Stanley Sandell, June Smith, Jim Stanbery, Mark Wood, Bradley Young
CALL TO ORDER
Luis Rosas called the meeting to order at 1:30 p.m. in the Facilities Conference Room.
I. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
The agenda was accepted.
II. ADOPTION OF MINUTES
The minutes for the meeting of July 16, 2008 were accepted with the following addendum: The program review retreat will be held on August 22.
III. BUDGET AND ACADEMIC PLANNING
Luis Rosas stated that the college has been having meetings and discussions about its current budget situation. The task of this committee is to try to work in a data driven environment, culture of evidence, to make some very difficult decisions to really reduce the academic program and to put the maximum amount we can on the table for a reduction that has to exceed $1.5 million. Mr. Rosas went on to say that proportionately, it is doable but it is going to hurt and we are not the only ones that are going to be doing this but we are the ones that can provide one of the most significant effects because of the strength of the hourly program.
He also noted that he would like to keep the base that we have. Mr. Rosas distributed a copy of “Section Count and FTES—Planning Worksheet” covering the last three years showing how the academic program gained upwards of 700 FTES within two years. We gave up 300 FTES this year to form a bigger base last year which ends up hurting us. We started off at 6, 185 FTES in 05/06 and we have 6,923 today which is a 5% increase each year. We did not grow our average class size which is about 31. We would like to see the average class size pushed up naturally by the reduction of our low enrollment classes. We offer about 1,000 classes per semester. The initial target is to identify about 100 classes that have the lowest enrollment. Some of those are needed for program certificate completion and some contribute to the comprehensive nature of the college. If, for this semester, we forego all of the specialty courses that pull our average class size down, it would save $4,500 per section. By having 100 sections come off the schedule, we would be saving about $450,000--our contribution from this cluster for fall.
Dr. Tomlinson went on to elaborate on Mr. Rosas’s presentation by stating that there are a number of colleges in the district that have a deficit of about $1.7 million and the chancellor directed us last year not to have a deficit in excess of $1.5 million. He recognizes that by the time he gave us that mandate it was already January. This year we have to start cutting before January. Harbor College has a deficit of about $3.3 million. That means we have to bring that $3.3 million down to $1.5 million, for a reduction of nearly $2 million in expenses. We are going to try and offload as much as we can to grants and special funds and we must be really careful that when we are planning activities that we are not adding additional costs to Program 100. The chancellor has given us a directive to present a plan by August 27 to reach our reduction target of $2 million. Mr. Rosas stated that the Chancellor expects this to include possible program eliminations. Dr. Tomlinson distributed a spreadsheet developed by going through through the schedule and calculating the number of full time and hourly faculty in each discipline and by division, to show FTES production and factor of revenue generated from FTES in comparison to the cost factor.
June Smith suggested an additional column showing cost/benefit ratio—that is, costs as a percentage of revenue generated. She also stressed that program viability studies must be done according to our approved process.
Mr. Stanbery stated that in terms of today’s meeting the main focus was that part of the minutes of the previous meeting that stipulated “all divisions going back and meeting with their faculty and bringing back a plan for efficiency improvement. Efficiency reports need to be tied into the planning they have already been doing. The planning process must be tied to allocation of resources and should be data driven.” The idea was that those reports would be submitted prior to this meeting and distributed to committee members so they could be reviewed before today’s meeting. Some of the divisions have not completed their reports but are asked to do so as soon as possible in order to meet the August 27 deadline.
Dr. Humphreys emphasized that fall classes need to be cancelled as soon as possible in order to cause the least disruption to students. On the other hand, he emphasized that divisions should not cut classes arbitrarily but include a rationale with their recommendations as a key part of the decision making process.
Jim Stanbery recognized the need for promptness but also underlined that divisions should not decide cuts before the cluster has had its chance to weigh relative priorities, or divisions having higher “low enrollment” averages may wind up cutting larger classes than divisions with smaller “low enrollment” averages retain, and that, for comparable reasons, clusters should not mandate cuts unilaterally before CPC has reviewed priorities in comparison college-wide.
IV. ITEMS FROM THE FLOOR
No items from the floor.
V. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 3:10 p.m. The next meeting of the Academic Affairs Committee of CPC will be held on Wednesday, August 13, at 2:30 p.m. in the Facilities Conference Room, at which time divisions will submit the efficiency assessments called for on July 16, and cluster priorities will be determined.