Attendance:

Call to Order:  The meeting was called to order at 2:45 p.m. by Jason Eggerman.

Minutes and Finance

Approval of Minutes 

Michelle Pearson motioned to approve the April minutes;  Holly Campbell seconded. The motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report 

	Income	Expenses	Total Assets End of Month
April	$9,474.96	$2,121.43	$265,329.44

Rob Vogel motioned to approve the April treasurer’s report; Shawna Shelton seconded. The motion passed.

Old Business

Bylaws Review Process

Jason emailed the proposed amendments for Article 10 (Commissions) one week in advance to all senators and alternates who had previously provided a personal email address. These proposed amendments were intended to align the Bylaws with existing bargaining commission practices. There were no comments or questions submitted by senators or alternates during that one-week review period. Jason reminded the Senate that this section of the Bylaws underwent extra layers of review by past lead bargainers (Bev and Scott) and then by the most recent contract’s bargaining team. The Executive Board then reviewed the proposed amendments on Tuesday, April 28, made two small edits, and voted unanimously to endorse the amendments as presented. The proposed amendments to Article 10 are shown below. All amendments are for Section A (Bargaining Commission), and there are no proposed amendments in Section B (Elections Commission). Green font signifies additions of new language. Red font with a strike-through signifies removal of language. Anything in blue indicates existing language being moved.

Article 10 Proposed Amendments

Susan Dimick motioned to approve the Article 10 amendments as presented. Lyn Megow seconded. The motion passed. The last two articles that will be reviewed by the Executive Board at their Tuesday, May 26 meeting will be Article 11 (Coordinators) and Article 12 (Standing Committees). Any proposed amendments from those articles will be presented at the June Senate meeting. Jason thanked the Senate for their diligence and patience in reviewing our Bylaws this year. He emphasized that although not the most exciting work, it is critical to the long-term health of AHE to periodically review and update our governing documents. 

Elections

Barb Flock, AHE Elections Commission Chair, announced the candidates for each position.

SCC Vice President: For SCC Vice President, Tim Roe had previously been nominated. Barb called for additional nominations three times from the floor. Shawna Shelton made a motion to close nominations for SCC Vice President. Laura Kier seconded. The motion passed. Bill Rambo made a motion that, seeing there was no competition, the Senate accept Tim Roe for SCC Vice President by acclamation. Brad Hein seconded. The motion passed.

SCC Extensions Vice President: For SCC Extensions Vice President, Rob Deyo had previously been nominated. Barb called for additional nominations three times from the floor. Scott Satake made a motion to close nominations for SCC Extensions Vice President.  Holly Campbell seconded. The motion passed. Bill Rambo made a motion that, seeing there was no competition, the Senate accept Rob Deyo for SCC Extension Vice President by acclamation. Bobbi Carlson seconded. The motion passed.

SFCC Vice President: For SFCC Vice President, Michelle Pearson and Shawna Shelton had previously been nominated. Barb called for additional nominations three times from the floor. Lyn Megow made a motion to close nominations for SFCC Vice President. Lena Lopez Schnidler seconded. The motion passed.

SCC Representative to the Board: For SCC Representative to the Board of Trustees, Barb announced that there had not been any nominations. She then called for additional nominations from the floor. Rob Deyo nominated Greg Bem. Greg Bem accepted the nomination. Barb then called for nominations two more times from the floor. Melinda Martin motioned to close nominations for SCC Representative to the Board of Trustees. Logan Amstadter seconded. The motion passed. Bill Rambo made a motion that, seeing there was no competition, the Senate accept Greg Bem for SCC Representative to the Board of Trustees by acclamation. Katie Satake seconded. The motion passed.

For the position of SFCC Vice President, electronic ballots will be sent out to SFCC members. The email will come from Jason’s WEA email address. Please be sure to vote by Friday, May 22. 

New Business

Bargaining Rights and Contract Change Processes

The Master Contract is a collective bargaining agreement between an employer (the Spokane Colleges Board of Trustees) and a labor union (CCS Association for Higher Education or “AHE”). Collective bargaining agreements require the employer to bargain only with the exclusive bargaining agent. In this case, that is our faculty union, AHE. There have been incidences of faculty, staff, students, and administrators having conversations about changing aspects of the contract, including the student concerns process. The student concerns process is a negotiated working condition in Article 3, Section 24 of the Master Contract. As such, conversations about changing parts of this process that occur outside of the normal bargaining process amount to “side bargaining.” Jason reminded the Senate that side bargaining deviates from legally recognized processes for collective bargaining.

It is normal to have opinions on various aspects of the Master Contract, and AHE welcomes open discussion among its membership. Jason reminded the Senate that each time the contract is open for bargaining, the bargaining commission and Executive Board make efforts to gather data through listening sessions and surveys. That data shapes the priorities of what topics are brought to the bargaining table. Faculty are also always welcome to contact their Senator or AHE leadership to share input on the Master Contract. If there are areas of the contract that folks are unhappy with, AHE leadership and the AHE Senate want to hear about it directly. However, any desired changes should not be debated in places where there are administrators, classified staff, or students. Those are not the appropriate venues for those conversations.

In summary, faculty who have thoughts or ideas about changes to the Master Contract should give their input through AHE’s recognized processes. Administrators should do the same through their appropriately official avenues. Since classified staff and students are not party to the Master Contract, there is no reason for them to be involved in such conversations.

A faculty member had questions about working with students in a committee and trying to make changes that impact students. Jason acknowledged that faculty may hear from students about things related to club advising or the student concerns process. If faculty develop their own ideas about proposed changes to the contract based on those conversations, they are welcome to bring them forward as a member of the union during bargaining feedback or surveys. However, it is important not to blur the lines where we begin to think of students as a party to the Master Contract. It is a two-party contract between faculty and the Board. 

Faculty Guide to Records Retention

Jason distributed copies of a draft document from the Business Office related to records retention guidelines. This is something AHE has been asking for over the past few years, so we would like feedback. The idea is this would be a document faculty could use as a quick reference related to records retention policies. Senators were asked to send any feedback or questions about the document to either Jason or their unit’s Vice President (Jackie, Tim, or Rob) by Friday, May 22.  Jason will also send the document out to membership.

To clarify, these are minimum retention guidelines. If your accreditation requires longer, then follow their guidelines. Please send any specific questions or comments to your VPs or Jason. We are looking for things that are not clear, things that are missing, etc. All questions and comments will be compiled and presented to the Business Office so they can refine the document for next year.

WEA/RA Report Out

Greg Bem eloquently reported on his impressions of the WEA/RA convention and how important it is to be there to represent higher ed.   

Shawna Shelton reported on the magnitude of WEA’s ability to collaborate and facilitate change.  Higher education was not well represented, but was welcomed. Shawna will be attending the NEA conference in July.

President’s and Vice Presidents’ Reports

AHE President Jason Eggerman:

There is a solicitation for three faculty from each college to participate in a new District DAS Advisory Board. The goal is to strengthen collaboration between faculty and DAS as well as to support student success while maintaining academic standards. If interested, please email Jason by May 22.

The District office is working to finalize and update a fire safety policy/procedure. One topic of conversation was whether all employees needed to be required to take fire extinguisher training. The anticipated policy/procedure is likely going to be that only certain employees who might reasonably need to do so will be asked to take the fire extinguisher training. The District policy will likely be that anyone who hasn’t taken the fire extinguisher training may not use a fire extinguisher. Instead, the expectation will be that they evacuate and alert authorities. Jason gave a shout-out to Nicole Hannah and Sayed for their work on this and their open engagement of feedback from AHE during the process.

eLearning Director Ben Whitmore sent out an email on April 21 with a request for feedback on the proposed Canvas Course retention policy. The proposed policy would keep course shells in active status for four years. After that time, they would be archived and unavailable to faculty. Please review Ben’s April 21 email and consider providing feedback or questions by May 22.

There was a nationwide Canvas security incident that left Canvas unavailable for part of last week. The Chancellor sent an email about this on Monday, May 11, and has acknowledged that communication, or the lack thereof, during the incident was unacceptable. Other institutions sent out text alerts, email updates, or had banners on their websites. When Jason spoke to the Chancellor, Kevin expressed deep frustration that there was no messaging to students and faculty during the incident. He also said the District will be reviewing their emergency management communication policies. In his email, the Chancellor stated: “our main concern right now is guarding against potential scam/phishing emails aimed at all Canvas users – including students. These messages may threaten to misuse your information unless you pay them money or log into an account. Do not engage but please do report the email to IT.” Jason gave a shout-out to eLearning Director Ben Whitmore and his team, who no doubt experienced some extra hours and stress. We are fortunate to have such an outstanding team of eLearning professionals.

Rick DuBois suggested to all faculty that if they have not done so already, they should change their Canvas password. He also mentioned that exporting gradebooks is a good idea. That way, if another event occurs, your grade data is saved and can be reimported. It is also possible to export entire course shells.

There was conversation from members agreeing that the lack of communication was frustrating. Several commented on how their children in local K-12 districts got frequent updates. Others commented how difficult it was to receive multiple angry emails from students and being unsure how to proceed. There was consensus that there needs to be a better plan for how to alert employees, students and faculty on how to address situations like this in the future. 

At the Chancellor’s Town Hall on Wednesday, May 6, Chancellor Brockbank stated that by 2034, “Spokane Colleges will operate as one integrated institution under a single accreditation across multiple campuses, organized around student pathways rather than institutional borders.” Jason encouraged everyone who hasn’t watched it yet to watch the Town Hall recording on YouTube for more information and for Kevin’s answers to some of the questions that were raised. 

On Friday, May 8, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee met at SCC. This meeting was in response to the February letter from AHE to the Board of Trustees and the survey conducted by the District about the mission, vision, and values. The Steering Committee was tasked with developing two alternate mission statements. Those two statements, along with the current mission statement and the proposed mission statement that came out of the branding project, will be reviewed and voted on by stakeholders. Our assumption is that the mission statement receiving the most votes will be forwarded to the Board of Trustees for approval, along with the new vision and values that were already proposed. 

The four mission statements up for consideration are:

·  Spokane Colleges provides all students with an excellent education that transforms their lives and expands their opportunities.

·   Spokane Colleges enables all learners to stride confidently into their next chapters.

·  Spokane Colleges prepares students to pursue their goals, strengthen their futures, and contribute to thriving communities.

·   Spokane Colleges equips students to discover, pursue, and achieve their goals. 

Please note that the first option is the current mission statement, but the group added “Spokane Colleges” to the beginning of the statement and changed “to provide” to “provides” so that all four options were parallel in format. Please watch for emails from Dr. Lori Hunt for more information on when there will be formal feedback sessions. Those emails should also have details on when and how the vote will occur.

After exhausting our avenues of informal problem-solving, three grievances have been delivered to SCC President Dr. Jenni Martin related to the proposed involuntary transfer of a tenured counseling position from Colville to the main SCC campus. Although Article 6, Section 1, Paragraph E does state that involuntary transfers can occur, AHE believes the decision was arbitrary and capricious and was made in a way that lacked due process. As part of our proposed remedy for the grievances, we are seeking to open Article 6, Section 1, Paragraph E for bargaining so that more details can be negotiated about timelines, processes, parameters, etc., related to involuntary transfers that might occur in the future. President Martin has until Friday, May 29 to provide a formal response. If the response is not satisfactory, the next step in the grievance process is an appeal to the Chancellor.

Jason shared a copy of the full-time faculty salary scale for 2026/27. As part of the last contract bargain, there will be an additional $1,000 per step added after the 2.6% COLA. As a result of the additional $1,000, full-time faculty salaries will see increases between 3.5% and 4.0% next year (depending on the step). Jason also highlighted a recent NEA salary report where one of the key findings was that faculty salaries in states with collective bargaining are higher than salaries in states without collective bargaining. The report found this was true for both members and non-members of unions in those states. 

SCC VP Tim Roe:  

For committee solicitations, AHE collects the names of interested faculty and then forwards those names to administration. You should hear from administration, either way, about committees you put your name in for over the coming weeks. There will likely be some additional committee opportunities in the fall. 

We are in the screening process for both the Trades High School Assistant Dean and BHIT Interim Dean.

Faculty contracts for annually contracted faculty are being mailed out this afternoon. Please watch for those, and reach out to AHE if you have not received your contract by the end of next week. Be sure to get your contract signed and returned before the deadline.

SCC Extension VP Rob Deyo:

Rob gave another reminder that step requirements for full-time faculty need to be completed by June 30.  If you are due a step increase in the Fall quarter of 2026, you need to complete required training(s).  Even if you are not due a step in the fall, you need to submit an annual summary of professional development activities to your Dean by June 30. This is an ANNUAL requirement. Reference Article 19, Section 4 for more information or reach out to your VP if you have questions.

Position Updates:

• ABE Tenure-track position: Finalists have been forwarded and second interviews are this week.
• Rural Psychology Tenure-track position: Interviews taking place this week and next week.  About 20 applicants with 5 being interviewed.  
• Dean of Rural Education: Campus forums were held for the three finalists and a decision should be made soon.

Recent NEA data shows improvement in Washington 2-year college faculty salaries.  Here are the highlights:

• In 2020, Washington ranked 17th in the nation for 2-year college faculty salaries with an average salary of $69,547.
• In 2025, Washington ranked 6th in the nation for 2-year college faculty salaries with an average salary of $92,507.

This data highlights the importance of the portion of our dues that goes to WEA.  WEA staff fight for salary increases and it shows in the data.  

SFCC VP Jackie Franklin:  

President search names have been submitted and decision is in process.  The associate dean names were submitted.   The committee list was turned in, although Jackie will be sending out more emails to solicit more volunteers.

Adjunct Representative Lena Lopez Schindler:

Two-year averaging form guarantees if you are averaging 50% or more work load you can be eligible for summer benefits. The form will be important for adjuncts to fill out.  Adjuncts should submit the form and let HR do the math. The benefits office sends this form out to adjuncts. Adjuncts should apply for summer unemployment benefits beginning Monday, June 22.  Email Lena for more information.  Adjuncts are encouraged to be union members.

TLC & CETL Adjunct CoP Benefits and Unemployment for Adjuncts 

Good of the order:

Rob Vogel made a motion to adjourn.  Barb Flock seconded. The meeting adjourned at  4:28 pm.