Minutes of SSCC Faculty Senate
May 13, 2009

Members Present: Mike Hickey (Co-President), Joe Garcia (Co-President), Heidi Lyman (Secretary),  Rick Downs (Applied Academics), Jeanne Horan (Part-time Rep), Christopher Harris (Culinary Arts), Van Bobbitt (Horticulture), Don Howard (Counseling), Suzanne Quillian (Applied Academics), Jane Harness (Basic and Transitional Studies/ABE/GED), Patience Browne (Applied Academics), Jennifer Evans (Tech Ed/Business and Short Term Training)

Guests:   Lynne Dodson (District President), Annette Stofer (District President Part-Time Faculty), Allen Stowers (Political Action Chair) 

Members Absent: Randy Nelson (FACTC), Esther Sunde (Library), Gila Burton-Curl (Communications Co-Chair), Sindy Jo (Nursing), Jason Cromwell (Georgetown Apprenticeship Programs), Doug Clapper (Ground Transportation), Tom Mayburry (BAS Hospitality Management), Ed Stegall (Air Transportation), Martin Sauer (Applied Academics), Ryan Dorman (Basic and Transitional Studies) Erik Gimness (Basic and Transitional Studies/ABE/GED),  Sandy Newman (Basic and Transitional Studies), Jian Zou (Grievance Chair), 

Meeting convened at 2:00 pm, chaired by Mike Hickey

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The April 23rd minutes were discussed and edited, they were approved with these edits.

UNIT REPORTS

Tech Ed/Business:
Jennifer Evans mentioned that they are gearing up for next quarter.  They do not know how much money they will have so they do not know what classes will run. This last quarter, no short term training courses went other than truck driving. There was also a coding error made in worker retraining.  Mid-year they did not get some money they thought they would. The coding error lost them $750,000. They will get less than a quarter of that back.  We used to be the premiere school in the state for worker retraining. Another problem was that students were taking courses before they paid for them under the pretense that the money would come through.  

BATS:
Jane Harness said there have been some issues about students logging on to the computer.  The ABE students do not have to pay the tech fee of thirty dollars to access computers at school.  However, now they cannot log on because of this.  Jane has students with waivers, some who need to pay and some who don’t.  She does not know who is who nor can she help them in class.  We need to get Donna Miller-Parker involved with this issue to get it resolved.  On another note, BTS has been proactive with the budget.  The curriculum committee has restructured course offerings in the fall.  Full-time instructors have to teach twenty hours per week.  Part-time instructors would lose two hours a week and go from twelve to ten hours per week.  

Counseling:
The counselors are busy as usual.  Here at SSCC we have just three counselors while SCCC has eight full-time counselors.  They have been putting on their workshops and continue to ask faculty to advertise them in their classrooms.  Mike Hickey mentioned there should be some way to e-mail this to students.  Is there any way we could have an e-mail list for “all students at SSCC”?

Horticulture:
Van Bobbitt mentioned that security is making regular visits to the arboretum now, including James Lewis.  Van said this is a very busy time of year for them.  He is working with the plant sales in addition to regular activities. There is also work with outside communities “work with natural systems” called permaculture.

Culinary:
Christopher Harris mentioned that the Culinary Arts Department will go to four-day work weeks this summer.  This will reduce some of the costs of running all the ovens for an extra day. 

Applied Academics:
Suzanne Quillian mentioned that the English 101 faculty had their retreat.  They discussed the mission statement for English 101.  They also tried to find ways to better connect ESL classes to those in Academic Programs.  They would like to cohesively advance the same agenda and clarify pathways.  Mike Hickey will meet with Sara Baldwin with these ideas. 

Patience Browne mentioned that she feels if furloughs for instructors are made mandatory that they should be instructional days to make an impact.  Non-instructional days would be completely invisible as that work would get done anyway.  There is also a problem with the number of contact hours in the hybrid anatomy and physiology course.  The number of contact hours is not sufficient and it is not transferring to some universities. Patience will provide for information on this as soon as possible.

 OLD BUSINESS

Grievance Update:
The last few years the chefs in Culinary Arts were being paid less than they should have.  They have been working fifty minutes more a week than they are contracted to. A fifteen minute break is supposed to happen and it does not.  Currently they are taking a forty-five minute lunch break for both students and faculty. This will reduce by ten minutes a day thus the fifty minutes per week.  It is a level-one grievance at this time.  As far as back pay, Jean Hernandez has asked Lynne Dodson if she could have more time on this. 

Frank Post’s arbitration will be on June 8th.  There are also grievances on summer rotation for math and for the SAT prep program that was cancelled without consulting faculty.  

Chancellor’s Budget Committee recommendations:
Lynne Dodson said that administrators said they would take the same percentage cut as all of us would.  Lynne also mentioned the importance of making the furloughs visible.  If we do not do furloughs, positions will be cut more drastically.  Sabbaticals have been proposed to be eliminated for the next two years.  This counts as money saved by faculty.  Reserves account for ten million dollars.  Administrators said they will be using this.  Shortening the calendar is still being discussed.  We do have more instructional days than most colleges in Washington.  The June State Board meeting has the declaration of a financial emergency an agenda item. College presidents in the state already voted on going ahead with the state of financial emergency. 

Library etiquette update:
Signs have been posted asking students to keep the noise level down.  This is still on on-going problem.

IT  Update:
The virus issue seems to be a lot better now.  Kelvin James and the IT committee have met.  Currently there are no administrators on this committee but maybe there should be.  Jennifer Evans said that she is having a problem with students deleting desk top icons on the school computers.  It is not easy to get them reinstalled.  Jennifer will update us with this at our next meeting.

Administrative Assistant Update:
Carol Martin is still working as much as she can and continues to be very upbeat.  We continue to keep her in our thoughts and prayers.

May 6th Board meeting update:
See budget under New Business

NEW BUSINESS

Executive Board Elections:
Executive Board elections need help stuffing envelopes.  They also need people to run for e-board positions.  If interested in running let Traci Li and Fran Kato know.  (SP??) 

Budget- short and long term issues:
On the bargaining table right now are furloughs and early retirement.  Neither of which are huge money savers.  There is some uncertainty about how over the past few years that both NSCC and SCCC were not as well managed as SSCC.  SSCC was much more proactive with the budget issues than either of these other schools.  Yet since we are a district SSCC must also suffer from the more severe budget issues.  Jill Wakefield did tell Gary Oertli that we will not have a financial state of emergency in this district.  

Meeting adjourned at 4:00 pm. 

Minutes submitted by Heidi Lyman

The Faculty Senate at South Seattle Community College is an action-oriented body. It gives voice and focus to the broad scope of faculty concerns, ideas, and needs that relate to the education and training of our students and to the working relationships within the campus community. The Senate reflects a dynamic, professional spirit; and it promotes respect and the free exchange of ideas and information.