May 6, 2008

Present:  T. Crowley, A. Punches, L. LaPlante, B. White, G. Thompson, N. Cowett,

   B. Kent-Conant

Absent:   D. Boyd

The meeting was convened at 4:05 p.m. by facilitator, A. Punches, with B. Kent-Conant acting as recorder.

1. It was the consensus of the group, based on the agreement last year, that the meeting notes would be termed as such (rather than minutes) and that they be made available for employee distribution through the library posting as is the practice of other committee minutes.  Alan will ask Joyce to send the current meeting notes from March 26, 2008 to Kim for posting as they have been approved by this committee.

2. Alan reported that he had sent to the employee distribution list the clarification for the agreed-upon academic calendar for 2008-09 and 2009-10.

3. The discussion for the proposal to place the Student Opinion Surveys (SOS) was the next item on the agenda.  The department chairs have supported the concept of placing these surveys on line and this committee further discussed and listed areas of benefit and concern.  Among those listing for benefits include, but are not limited, to the following:  economic benefits as they could be placed on the portal and the associated costs of the current process would go away; the decrease in “person power” to analyze the results which requires knowledge for the software used to accomplish that now; and the timeliness of results to the individual faculty.  It was emphasized that the data were not part of the faculty members’ evaluations but rather information strictly for the individual faculty’s use.  The questions of concern about the on-line surveys from around the table were: getting the student participation for completion of the surveys, the validity of the data, and how the comment section would be done.  Among the various suggestions for what ”carrot to dangle” were to hold grades pending the completion of the surveys, building it into the course syllabi as a requirement of the course, tying completion to the registration process, and having a window of time in which this would be done.  The group endorsed the concept for investigating the development of on-line surveys via the Portal.  There is also a suggestion to routinely review the questions contained in the survey form.

4. The status of this academic year’s surveys was the next point for discussion.  

Currently the data is in raw form from the Fall, 2007 semester.  Since the departure of D. Butts, there is no one with the knowledge to use the software to compile the data into the analysis format.    The issues of confidentiality of the information for student protection is of concern if the raw data is dispersed to the faculty members as is the amount of time it will take for that data to be compiled by hand.  As this is the only data for this academic year, there are questions about the accreditation requirements for program data and useful information for faculty to address in their respective courses.  Alan will check the current scanning process and how the current data could be done and aggregated for faculty use.  It was the consensus of the group that we must protect the confidentiality of the students with any resolution steps we may consider.

      5.   Compensation for delivery of distance education via polycom.  There was a discussion on the use of polycom for delivery of course content to distant sites.  It is necessary to use this method of delivery in order to reach persons in rural areas who might not otherwise be able to travel to this main campus for academic work.  It is also an area in the college accreditation process that speaks to the need for equivalent instruction in both on and off-campus sites.  The many challenges and  questions of how the process works and considerations of compensation were discussed. 

Currently the department providing this instruction is the Nursing and Allied Health (NAH) department.  The nursing faculty is delivering its program to both WCCC and to HHEC.  This semester there is one general education course being delivered to the HHEC as well.  Questions of what is fair compensation, equitable compensation to all who deliver instruction in this mode, increased workload, and course capacity were listed.  It was the recommendation (through consensus) that there be an opportunity scheduled in the fall semester for the nursing faculty to do a demonstration to faculty and staff  for the process of connection, delivery of content [involving PowerPoint, Elmo document camera, and other strategies] for approximately 20 minutes or so.  This would create a better understanding of how the course content is delivered using a variety of strategies and methods during a regular class hour.  After that demonstration there would be further discussion by this group for the compensation to faculty who provide instruction in this manner.

      6.   Administrative days:  Alan has posed the question for allowing his 1 and 1/2 days to be spread out during the semester.  Traditionally ½ day is devoted to mandatory safety training and the other day addresses several areas.  If the time were to be spread out throughout the semester, there would be need to cancel classes, in many instances, in order for faculty to attend. It was the consensus that much of the informational sharing could effectively be accomplished through e-mails and that the safety training also could be done on-line rather than in person.  The ultimate purpose for these administrative days are so that faculty are ready for students on the first day of classes.   

The meeting was adjourned at 5:36 p.m.