AHE Minutes

April 8, 2025

Attendance

In-Person

  • Amstadter, Logan
  • Anselmo, Paula
  • Bem, Greg
  • Campbell, Holly
  • Carlson, Bobbi
  • Clark, Sam
  • Coffey, Jeff
  • Compton, Renee
  • Cuisinier, Eddy
  • Daily, Bev
  • Deyo, Robert
  • Dimick, Susan
  • Edwards, David
  • Eggerman, Jason
  • Fadeley, Megan
  • Flock, Barb
  • Franklin, Jackie
  • Goffinet, Renee
  • Guthrie-Martinez, Megan
  • Hein, Bradley
  • Kier, Laura
  • Lopez-Schindler, Lenora
  • Martin, Melinda
  • Megow, Lyn
  • MitmaMomono, Christina
  • Morrow, Corrine
  • Pearson, Michelle
  • Roe, Timothy
  • Satake, Katie
  • Satake, Scott
  • Stack, Brian
  • Throop, Judith
  • Vogel, Rob
  • Williams, Lisa
  • Woods, Laura

On-Line

  • Anthony, Jared
  • Bailey, Ian
  • Bjerke, Joy
  • Cary, Chris
  • Case, Emma
  • Cavegn, Ambrose
  • Clemons, Katie
  • Condon, Jill
  • Cosner, Rebecca
  • Cusack, Jessica
  • DeBolt, Katella
  • Deffe, Cindy
  • Drake, Leigh Anne
  • Dubois, Rick
  • Fick, Karen
  • Gamble, Anna
  • George, Kathy
  • Henry, Chad
  • Hudson, Stacey
  • Johnston, Landon
  • Jones, Tina
  • Keller, Dave
  • Kovarik, Camille
  • Kuhle, Teya
  • Litzenberger, Julia
  • Mandler, Ken
  • Martens-Haworth, Megan
  • McCoy, Jennifer
  • McLean, Scott
  • Moore, Michele
  • Moorhead, Ronda
  • Morgan, Heather
  • Moser, Heidi
  • Murphy, Helen
  • Nemri, Kamilia
  • Neuville, Mark
  • O’Sullivan, Mikey
  • Pelham, Alex
  • Pelham, Sabra
  • Rasmussen, Angela
  • Roewe, Liz
  • Smith, Angela
  • Steele, KayDee
  • Trujillo, Cindy
  • Ugaldea, Ben
  • Wanke, Colette
  • Weaver-Forsman, Britni
  • Wizner, Angela
  • Wolfsen-Norton, Amy
  • Wylie, Mark
  • Zirotti, Laurent

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

Minutes

Approval of Minutes 


Jeff Coffey motioned to approve the minutes; Bobbi Carlson seconded. The motion passed.  

Treasurer’s Report 

IncomeExpensesTotal Assets
End of Month
January$13,936.61$6,929.01$249,438.33
February$9,202.44$2,574.86$256,065.91
March$9,279.18$9,438.43$255,906.26

Geoffrey Bagwell motioned to approve the January treasurer’s report; Scott Satake seconded. The motion passed.

Melinda Martin motioned to approve the February treasurer’s report; Brad Hein seconded. The motion passed.

Lena Lopez Schindler motioned to approve the March treasurer’s report; Jeff Coffey seconded. The motion passed.

Old Business

Communications

We have decided that we are not going to use the Hustle app because it does not have the features that we need. We are currently looking at other options that would support texting for simple communication.

WEA Grant

We have two more get-togethers scheduled. Please watch for invitations for those and consider attending. The dates and other details will be shared soon. The previous events have been fantastic, so please join us!

One will be at Wellpinit in early May, and the other will be on May 29.

Contract Ratification

The new contract has been ratified by both parties and will go into effect July 1. The $1000 stipend for annually contracted faculty will be included in your May 10 paycheck. For step requirements, be sure to meet the requirements for step in the current contract. Those who are in their first two years need to complete their trainings in person.

Legislative Update

NEA is fighting federal legislation that will hurt higher education. This includes trying to protect the Department of Education, maintain academic freedom, protections for particular groups of faculty, public service loan forgiveness, limitations on what students can learn, and protections against fraudulent colleges. We are particularly concerned with potential limits on academic freedom or limits on what students are allowed to learn. NEA will continue to work to try and protect these areas. One other concern is without the Department of Education, who will be responsible for evaluating FAFSAs and how financial aid processes will work. 

At the state level, April 27 is when the session is supposed to be completed. If it goes into an extended session, this costs extra money, so with budget shortfalls we hope that they do not go into an extended session.

An email was sent out by Bev with some state updates to your personal emails. Please get your personal email to AHE so we can include you in these updates.

There is a proposal in the house that would fund only 77% of our COLAs, which essentially acts as a budget cut.

The Senate is proposing to change how our COLAs are determined, meaning that our COLAs would be lower each year. This would mean smaller COLAs on an ongoing basis. This would be similar to what is happening to administration and K-12 teachers.

There are cuts proposed in both chambers with higher cuts for the universities and lower cuts for the community and technical colleges. There may also be some cuts to financial aid/grants, which will negatively affect our students.

Today is the deadline for all bills to come out of Ways and Means, so we will have a better picture later this week when we see what comes out of that committee.

Please send your personal emails to your AHE VP (from your personal email to their personal email) or to Bev so that you can be included on updates. We promise to only send updates sporadically on important issues.  Please email them from your personal email to jfranklincpa@gmail.com; robdeyo@hotmail.com; or jasoneggerman@gmail.com. 

Calendar Committee

The Calendar Committee met on March 17 and then again on April 2. The faculty members were Bev Daily, Natasha Volkmann, David Larsen, Jason Eggerman, Michelle Grover, and Jaye Hopkins. For the administration, the members included Fred Davis, Jaclyn Jacot, Jeff Brown, Zoya Zhuk, Bonnie Glantz, Rhondie Voorhees, and McCall Faddeley. The committee reached consensus on academic calendars for 2027-28 through 2031-32. These have been sent out by AHE President Bev Daily, and there will be an online vote to approve them that will be open from Tuesday April 8 until Monday April 14 at 8:00 PM. They have also been forwarded to the Board of Trustees for consideration at their April meeting, and we expect that the Board will approve them. If there are any questions about the process, the guiding principles, or the decision-making for these calendars, please feel free to contact one of the faculty on the Calendar Committee. There are also minutes from both meetings, so you are welcome to contact us for a copy of those minutes if you’d like to see them. 

Elections

The following AHE positions will be elected this year:

  • President
  • Treasurer
  • Secretary
  • Adjunct Representative
  • SFCC Board of Trustees Rep
  • SCC Extensions Board of Trustees Rep

You can nominate yourself or submit someone else’s name for a position. Please submit your name to Scott Satake.

Anybody running for a position should submit a 200-500 word personal statement outlining their interest in and background related to the position to Scott Satake. You can also add your picture to the bio if you would like to in order to help us connect your name and face.  

Nominations and bios should be sent from your personal email to Scott’s personal email at ssatake35@msn.com.

New Business

Bookstore

The bookstore taskforce has been meeting and looking at options for potential vendors for our campus bookstore. There was representation from across both colleges. Four vendors have been invited to come and give their proposals in person next week.

Vendors will need to be able to provide traditional textbooks, but also a variety of course materials, including things like laboratory supplies or other locally produced materials.

We are considering many factors that impact both faculty and students. We want to ensure that students have access to the variety of materials that they need, as well as consider costs. 

There are considerations for integration with Canvas and ctcLink. 

There is also an interest in more swag and college materials.

There won’t be a perfect solution for everyone, but we hope to lower costs for students and have more flexibility for faculty and students.

We have also talked with other colleges in the northwest and learned about what has worked well (and not worked) at other schools. 

It has been a good process and we are excited to see the final result.

NCHE

A group of your AHE representatives attended the national higher education conference associated with NEA.

Tim Roe talked about a project that NEA has put together that provides us with a large amount of data. We are able to utilize these dashboards to help us determine what we should be asking for and to help us justify our requests. This could be useful both locally within CCS and when working in Olympia. A couple important insights are that nationally we are losing tenured positions in moves toward more contingent faculty. Also, our salaries are going down in terms of spending power. We can look at some creative ways to understand how our salaries actually impact our actual spending power rather than just considering the dollars and cents. The good news is that we are doing better locally than the national averages, but we still have work to do and we can use this data to support that work.

Greg Bem shared that we are doing a lot more than other schools, and we are ahead of the curve in terms of addressing AI. There was a roundtable on decolonizing higher education, and there was a great conversation about how we can do a better job of including marginalized individuals and make higher education more accessible.

Bobbi Carlson talked about a session that focused on better serving and supporting people who are neurodivergent. This certainly includes our students, but also had a significant emphasis on supporting neurodivergent faculty. There were many helpful things that came out of this, including being clear and direct, being mindful of your environment, and assume good intentions. Often individuals will mask neurodivergence, so don’t be afraid to ask. This goes back to assuming good intentions from our colleagues and supporting each other more intentionally.

Geoffrey Bagwell discussed the value of connecting with faculty from other colleges around the country. One example is that New Mexico has made it so that all community colleges in the state are free, making them accessible for all students. The flip side is that they are working on their first faculty contracts in the state right now. So it was helpful to learn about areas we can work on and also areas in which we are doing well. The foundations are really important to protect colleges. There are significant concerns with the potential federal increase on taxes related to foundations. We have opportunities to better understand and work with our foundation.

Rob Deyo talked about learning about a contract negotiation where administration hired and included a lawyer, which cost the college about $200,000. We are happy with the systems we have in place that avoid issues like that. Other schools have adjuncts that are not part of their union at all, which can lead to lots of issues. Overall, I am happy that we have a strong contract and a great group of faculty to work with.

Jackie Franklin talked about the fact that most faculty are very happy as teachers, but get unhappy with contractual parts of their jobs. This is why the union is so important. The union keeps our jobs a great place to work because it allows faculty to focus on teaching.

Jason Eggerman reported about a session he attended where faculty from California were discussing a new law that was passed. The law allows unions to sue for temporary restraining orders (TROs) on behalf of members, which has started to cause concerns and confusion for some locals in California. The main point of the session was advocating for unions to work closely with legislators when advocating for new legislation, since laws that are vaguely written or not fully understood can end up causing confusion.

SPDA vs PAR

A document was shared showing the main differences between the “Summary of Professional Development Activities” (SPDA) and the “Professional Activities Report” (PAR). There has been some confusion on the difference between the two, with most of the confusion being around what is or is not required on the annual SPDA, which is submitted by full-time faculty for step movement. 

The SPDA is submitted annually for step movement as part of the requirements in Article 19 of the Master Contract. It replaced PIU/PDUs and pertains to professional development. It is not about service to the college. The contract states that it needs to include “at least one professional activity” for the year “representing skills improvement, maintaining currency in the area(s) of professional responsibility, demonstrating community activism or service, and validating the importance of life-long learning.”  It can be in the format of the faculty member’s choosing, meaning there is no required format. It can be turned in to your Dean any time before June 30, and the Dean does not evaluate it. They may not critique it or give suggestions, and they only check it off as being completed for step advancement. It could contain only one item such as one TLC/CETL training attended, one community event, one conference attended, one book that was read, etc. That is all that is required on this annual report for step advancement by full-time faculty.

The PAR is related to the 5-year evaluation/review process after tenure (or for annualized faculty in their fifth year). It can be in the format of the faculty member’s choosing, and needs to be submitted to the Dean one week (two weeks starting next year) before the formal evaluation meeting for your 5-year review process. The Master Contract states that the PAR will contain information, “such as, but not limited to: service to the district, college, division, or department, leadership positions, committee membership, conferences, workshops, training, professional organization activities, travel, reading, text review, curriculum development, community service, or work experience relevant to the discipline or assignment.”  The PAR is a document that can be evaluated by the Dean and can be critiqued as part of the 5-year evaluation or review process.   

Committees

The SFCC campus committee list will come out from Jackie so please respond to her. District committee requests will come from Bev. Jason and Rob will handle the requests at SCC. The list of committees at SCC is still being developed by administration. Please check the committees you are currently on to see if your term is up because you would need to put your name forward to continue on that committee (if you would like to). Please keep in mind that we have a responsibility to serve on campus, so please put your name forward if you are not currently on any committees. Also, please plan on participating and representing all faculty from your area on the committees you are assigned to serve on.

President’s and Vice Presidents’ Reports

AHE President Bev Daily:

The art building is a disaster. The people who are in the arts building need to be taken care of. The contractor was a year late, and there are still many problems that need to be fixed. There are many ongoing problems, and AHE is continuing to push administration to get the building fixed.

I have talked with Dr. Brockbank about budgets. While we are waiting to see what happens in the legislature, we are also waiting to see what happens with the update to the allocation model. We need to continue building enrollment across both campuses. 

In terms of DAS issues or concerns, faculty do not negotiate with students. It is important for faculty to explain to the DAS office what you need and how that affects a particular accommodation.  You can work toward a solution that works for both you and the accommodation  and DAS can communicate expectations to the student. For example, if there is an accommodation for flexible due dates, you can add in clear requirements or expectations (such as a particular grace period or window). Be sure this is settled at the beginning of the accommodation. You do not need to allow assignments to be turned in at any point in the quarter. You can negotiate with DAS, but not with the student. The laws and court rulings are changing, which require more accommodations. You cannot tell a student no to an accommodation. But you can negotiate with DAS to determine what an accommodation may be that will work with you and the student.

SCC VP Jason Eggerman:  

The VPI finalists are on campus this week for interviews and forums on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please consider attending the forums and filling out the feedback. President Martin made a request to emphasize answering the specific questions on the feedback form. For example, if the form asks for strengths and weaknesses, be sure to list or describe specific strengths or weaknesses. General comments such as, “This person is my favorite,” or “I like this person the best,” are not considered by the administration in their decision-making process, as those comments don’t provide meaningful feedback about what was asked.

Department chair elections will be coming up for some departments soon. Please contact us if you have questions about the election process or about department chair duties. 

SCC Extension VP Rob Deyo:

Be sure to complete your annual trainings and submit your professional development reports to your dean. An email with a vote on the new calendar will be coming out from Beverly.Daily@Washingtonea.org with the subject of CCS Calendar vote.  The vote will close on 4/14 at 8 pm.  Please vote!

SFCC VP Jackie Franklin:  

Please come to the all faculty meeting on April 15 at 2:45 pm. You will get lots of information about the budget. We need your participation.

Adjunct Representative Lena Lopez Schindler:

An email about annual averaging will go out to adjunct faculty on May 6. All adjuncts should fill out this form. Please remind adjuncts to fill out that form. You can reach out to Lena with any questions about that form. The deadline is June 13. All adjuncts absolutely need to fill out this form.

Good of the order:

Barb Flock made a motion to adjourn. Eddy Cuisiner seconded. The meeting adjourned at 4:38 p.m.