Faculty Management Committee
Members: Tim Crowley, Nancy Cowett, Tom Richard, Dan Boyd, Greg Thompson, Ron Fitzgerald, Paula Flora, Larry LaPlante
Faculty Compensation Proposal – President Crowley responded to the draft of the Faculty Compensation Proposal dated 10/06/09. He questioned item (c) wording in the fourth paragraph that refers to students taking an online course. Currently the college does not offer structured online courses. Courses offered by the college are videoconferencing to off campus locations and there is no protocol for online course.
Greg Thompson recommended that the language referring to online courses be removed and clarified once online courses are in place. The committee agreed to this recommendation.
President Crowley asked for clarification on the process for students auditing courses. The question is who approves a student’s request to audit.
Nancy Cowett read to the Committee the portion of the Student Handbook that references auditing a class. President Crowley followed up with the registrar on the approval process. Currently, student need only apply to audit a class and are accepted into class on space available. There is no additional approval process.
President Crowley and the committee agreed that the audit process needs to reviewed and revised.
Greg Thompson noted that currently three faculty are impacted by combined student numbers in lecture classes. He suggested that students who teach these large classes should received additional compensation.
President Crowley responded that the number of faculty impacted would be a dozen or more when including the nursing faculty who do videoconferencing to off campus sites.
Betty Kent-Conant stated that while the nursing faculty is limited to the number of students in a clinical setting, the lecture have no student limits. The nursing teaching load varies among the faculty but overall is class hours and contact hours are evenly assigned.
Because of the uniqueness of the nursing teaching load, President Crowley and Betty Kent-Conant will discuss how the Faculty Compensation Proposal would impact the faculty.
President Crowley stated that he agreed with the basic concept of the Faculty Compensation Proposal and will research what the financial impact would be to the college.
The management and faculty agreed to try to come to an agreement this proposal prior to spring semester.
NMCC Faculty Association Items Identified for the Faculty/Management Committee – Chuck Kelley distributed NMC Faculty Association Items Identified for the Faculty/Management Committee. Items one and four, Faculty Compensation Proposal and Online Course Delivery were previously discussed.
Chuck Kelley stated that Overload Pay has not changed since 2000. At that time it was agreed that the pay would be indexed over time.
President Crowley responded that this was a system issue not a campus decision on how overload pay is determined. .
Chuck Kelley clarified that other college in the system pay overloads at different levels than NMCC and that Faculty are not looking for the scale to be adjusted depending on experience and credentials. The Faculty Association is requesting that overload pay be increased automatically every few years rather than waiting ten years for a large increase.
President Crowley agreed to review the college’s and system-wide overload pay.
Chuck Kelley raised the issue of the demand on instructor’s time with more students and less equipment. He reported that he had requisitioned additional trainers and was turned down.
President Crowley reported that in the last three years the college has purchased approximately $1 million dollars in equipment with college, foundation, and grant funds. The question from the faculty was where was the money spent?
President Crowley will forward a list of equipment purchases to the department chairs to share with the faculty.
Chuck Kelly commented that the faculty want to have more input on class caps. He suggested the class caps be lowered so the faculty and Dept. Chairs can use the caps to balance the numbers in the various sections. He said currently with the 18 cap there may be 15 students in one section and 8 students in another section. There will continuing discussions on this issue.
Chuck Kelley also reported that the faculty are resistant to counting seats the Friday before classes start as a result of class caps being increased at the last minute.
President Crowley responded that it is important for student to have a place to sit when they have enrolled and paid for the class. Counting the seats (as in chairs) is to assure all the students will be accommodated when they arrive for class. Chair counting is more of a facilities (space and number of seats) concern, than a result of caps being adjusted. President Crowley also pointed out that instructor should have a say if caps are changed to accommodate more students in a class and that often times the request comes from the instructor.
Betty Kent-Conant asked that additional chairs be purchased the nursing classrooms as some of the chairs are unsafe and have been discarded.
Faculty have also requested more input on the class schedule. Faculty asked that the schedule be finalized earlier. Chuck Kelley reported he did not get his schedule until just before school began. Greg Thompson did not know that his lecture and lab days had been changed to other days until just before the start of classes. His schedule work better before the change. Betty Kent-Conant reported that the medical assisting class Greg is referring to was changed because the clinical is dictated by the area medical facilities.
President Crowley responded that the course schedule is being developed a year in advance of classes, earlier than ever before.
Nancy Cowett suggested that schedule changes because of unforeseen circumstances may continue to occur right up to the start of classes, but it would be helpful for the faculty to review the schedule prior to it being published for student scheduling.
Faculty also asked that TBA classes be schedule to accommodate the full-time faculty schedules. Faculty would like earlier notification of what and when the TBA classes are scheduled. This may not always be doable as sometime sections are added just before the start of class.
Use of personal/sick time in less than full day increments was not discussed at this meeting.
President Crowley and Chuck Kelley will try to schedule a meeting time on December 16 between 10:00 – 12:00 a.m. prior to Christmas break.
The meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully recorded, Last changed: Apr 13 2011 at 3:19 PM Back |
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