October 8, 2024
Attendance
In-Person
- Amstadter, Logan
- Bagwell, Geoffrey
- Butcher, Jacob
- Carlson, Bobbi
- Case, Emma
- Coffey, Jeff
- Daily, Bev
- Dalsanders, Christie
- Deffe, Cindy
- Deyo, Robert
- Dimick, Susan
- Dubois, Rick
- Eggerman, Jason
- Fadeley, Megan
- Flock, Barb
- Franklin, Jackie
- Goffinet, Renee
- Green, Sabina
- Guthrie-Martinez, Megan
- Kier, Laura
- Livingston, Tony
- Lopez-Schindler, Lenora*
- Martin, Melinda
- McCoy, Jennifer
- Megow, Lyn
- Moorhead, Ronda
- Morrow, Corrine
- Nelson, Thomas
- Newcomer, Tybre
- Nix, Jason
- Pearson, Michelle
- Rambo, Bill
- Roe, Timothy
- Satake, Katie
- Stack, Brian
- Throop, Judith
- Williams, Lisa
- Woods, Laura
On-Line
- Anderson, Amy
- Anthony, Jared
- Bailey, Ian
- Browning, Kristen
- Campbell, Holly
- Cartwright, Ben
- Cary, Chris
- Clemons, Katie
- Commers, Ken
- Compton, Renee
- Condon, Jill
- Connolly, JoAnne
- Cosner, Rebecca
- Cuisinier, Eddy
- Cusack, Jessica
- DeBolt, Katella
- Doyle, Diamond
- Drake, Leigh Anna
- Edwards, David
- Eikum, Kim
- Gamble, Anna
- Hanson,Callie
- Hawkins, Jennifer
- Hein, Valorie
- Henry, Chad
- Hudson, Stacey
- Johnston, Landon
- Jones, Tina
- Krestian, Kenneth
- Lackey, Ray
- LaPlante, Roger
- Litzenberger, Julia
- Mackleit, Christine
- Mandler, Ken
- McCormick, Cameron
- McKirdie, Rob
- McLean, Scott
- Michel, John
- Moore, Michele
- Morgan, Heather
- Moser, Heidi
- Murphy, Helen
- Nemri, Kamilia
- Nemri-Weber, Rabab
- Osborne, Diana
- Pelham, Alex
- Rasmussen, Angela
- Roewe, Liz
- Schoonover, Steven
- Schone, Micaela
- Smith, Angela
- Steele, KayDee
- Stephens, Samantha
- Trujillo, Cindy
- Volkmann, Natasha
- Wanke, Colette
- Wash, Shawn
- Weaver-Forsman, Britni
- Whitmire, Kami
- Wolfsen, Amy
- Wylie, Mark
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 2:45 p.m. by Bev Daily.
Minutes and Finance
Approval of Minutes
Jeff Coffey motioned to approve the minutes; Melinda Martin seconded. The motion passed.
Treasurer’s Report
| Income | Expenses | Total Assets End of Month | |
| June 2024 | $9,290.72 | $7,958.81 | $259,999.75 |
| July 2024 | $4712.38$ | $41,350.82$ | $223,361.31$ |
| August 2024 | $111.36$ | $458.59 | $223,014.08 |
Bobbi Carlson motioned to approve the June treasurer’s report; Jason Eggerman seconded. The motion passed.
Bill Rambo motioned to approve the July treasurer’s report; Jeff Coffey seconded. The motion passed.
Rick Dubois motioned to approve the August treasurer’s report; Jason Eggerman seconded. The motion passed.
We are planning on presenting the budget for this year at our next senate meeting.
Old Business
Bargaining
Bargaining on the Master Contract resumed this year on September 25. So far, we have had four bargaining sessions. We are continuing the general pattern of meeting to bargain on Wednesdays at SCC and then bargaining on Fridays at SFCC. There was also a meeting of the Bargaining Commission on Tuesday October 1.
At the end of last year, both sides agreed there were some things that made sense to implement in the fall, as it is the start of a new academic year. A joint list was agreed upon, and this list was forwarded to AHE President Bev Daily and the Chancellor for consideration of an MOU (memorandum of understanding). This MOU was signed over the summer. It is important to note that the items contained in the MOU were implemented this year, but they are still subject to change during bargaining, and they are also still subject to ratification by AHE membership and approval by the Board of Trustees at the conclusion of bargaining. Most of these were discussed in more detail last year when tentative agreements, or “TAs” were signed for these. The items contained in the MOU to be implemented this year were as follows:
- Updated student evaluation forms. These contain updated questions and will be the same set of evaluation questions for both in-person and online courses. They involved the efforts of many stakeholders, and we appreciate all those who contributed.
- An updated adjunct class observation form. This form will replace older forms that both sides of the bargaining table agreed were outdated. The form is only required for adjunct observations, but it can also be used for observing full-time faculty if you wish to use it. It would replace Appendix L-1 in the current Master Contract.
- An updated observation form for counselor/librarian non-instructional work. We worked closely with counselors and librarians on this, and it should be a great improvement.
- Updates to Article 25 (Corrections). This allows corrections faculty to utilize their DOC trainings for step advancement along with some other changes.This article has already been reopened for bargaining this fall due to a few things that came up over the summer.
- An increase to the early retirement notification in Article 15. This was discussed last year, but to review, the main change is that it changes the early retirement notification from $6,000 to being either $6,500 or 8% of a faculty member’s annual salary (whichever is greater) for notifications by November 1. For notifications by February 1, the early retirement notification amount is $3,250 or 4% of the faculty member’s annual salary.
- The ability of long-time annualized faculty to apply for a sabbatical of one quarter. Just like tenured faculty, these faculty must have been employed full-time for at least six years.
- An update to Article 8, Section 13 to clarify that the AHE VPs will receive 33.33% release time paid for by CCS each year. This has been past practice for a long time, but was previously subject to language in the contract that said each year it had to be agreed upon. This formalizes long-standing past practice and makes it so the AHE President and Chancellor don’t have to discuss release time each year.
- Updates to Article 18, Section 5 relating to club advisor compensation and duties. This was also discussed fairly in-depth last year, so it’s being included here mainly to note that it was part of the MOU signed over the summer so that it could be implemented this fall rather than having to change everything midyear in terms of expectations, compensation, etc.
AHE and CCS agreed that we want to make sure that the Board of Trustees is updated on the new student evaluation questions. There will be a combined explanation that will be added to probationary faculty members’ packets to explain the changes. Basically, we want to make sure that the changes to the evaluation questions do not harm tenure-track faculty, but rather help faculty receive better feedback from students.
We are making progress and all signs point to us being done this fall. However, we are steadfast in our belief that all issues need to be explored and are not going to rush to meet any kind of artificial deadline. Some topics we are still exploring are artificial intelligence, electronic recordings, PFML, and compensation. We are also working to update Appendix N, which is the document given to students that explains the student concerns process. The goal is to make it a more student-facing document. As a reminder, we often share very general topics in these updates because there is a need for candid and fluid conversation at the bargaining table. We have signed several tentative agreements so far this quarter. The first was related to Article 18, Section 6, and increases the stipends for coaches. Another is related to Article 19, Sections 6 and 7, which clarifies how advancement via the tenure step occurs when that tenure step occurs at “the gate.” Another tentative agreement relates to Article 4, Section 14 and provides clarification about when AHE approval is (and is not) required for the combining of classes.
There was a question about continuing to utilize the ESL student evaluation forms. Bev asked to set up a meeting to discuss how to proceed with these.
SFCC Reorganization
There was a meeting in the spring, but President Messina is moving forward with bringing in a new associate dean who will supervise the library faculty along with other learning support services. The librarians need to be the majority of the faculty on the screening committee for this position. At this point they are moving forward with this part of the reorganization of that division because they believe everyone is happy with the changes.
There was an email that was sent out that Dean Goodman will be out on PFML for most of the quarter. Chris Pelchat will be taking over the Allied Health and Business and Human Services Division as the Dean “on the ground.” Elodie will still be working some remotely and will be supporting Dean Pelchat.
For the rest of the reorganization, if you have objections or need clarification now is the time to voice your questions or concerns. Faculty need to let administration know if you are unhappy with the proposed changes. You can also email Bev with any concerns. Administration may get the impression that everyone is happy and supportive of many of the changes; if that is not the case, now is the time to share those concerns with administration. This is likely your last opportunity to share your opinion regarding the proposed reorganization.
Adjuncts, tenure-track, or annualized faculty can send any concerns to Bev, although if comfortable, faculty can also reach out directly to administration. Tenured faculty should send concerns directly to President Messina.
Please also keep in mind that it’s not always an easy comparison to look only at the number of faculty in a division. Some faculty are concerned about the number of people one dean has. Remember though that this dean will primarily be supervising faculty, while other deans may have CTE programs, grants, etc. that are a different kind of work.
There is concern that the number of administrators has gone up while the number of faculty has gone down. AHE is concerned about continuing to add more administration positions.
Zoom
Some faculty members are able to attend senate because of Zoom, so the executive board would like to continue offering Zoom as an option for faculty to attend senate. In order to continue utilizing Zoom, we need faculty to feel safe attending and sharing what needs to be shared. Please respect each other by not recording in any way the senate meetings. Further, please respect each other by not sharing anything from these meetings with anyone who is not in attendance. The only exception to this is a senator may share information from these meetings to other AHE members within their senate group.
New Business
Bylaws – Senators at Large
For quite some time now, we have been electing the “Senators at Large” each fall to one-year terms. Part of the reasoning on this was that only senators can hold the office of Senator at Large (which is not the case for other positions), and senators might change each year. However, the bylaws state that all terms for elected members of the Executive Board are 2-year terms.
We elected our current Senators at Large last fall, and after discussion the Executive Board would like to propose extending their terms one more year. Essentially, they would serve 2-year terms (as stated in the bylaws) and then new elections for Senators-at-Large would occur in the fall of 2025. All three Senators at Large have agreed to stay on for one more year.
Bill Rambo made a motion to codify that the senate will continue with the current Senators at Large for this year and then elect new Senators at Large next year. Cindy Deffe seconded. The motion passed.
Title IX
Over the summer there were changes to the Title IX process at CCS. There is new board policy describing these changes. There is a new federal law which requires all faculty to complete Title IX training every year.
There were some Title IX reports this summer. Bev and Jason worked with CCS to improve the process on our campuses. These include adding some empathy to the messaging, providing individuals with resources, receiving timely responses, and generally characterized by more compassion.
Several faculty have reached out to the state EAP program and have not heard a response. Some faculty have had horrendous experiences and then waited weeks to hear back. We need to do a better job supporting faculty.
Training
Trainings have been moved out of the HR office and are put under the Office of Culture and Talent Development, which is under Grace Leaf. Jim Mohr works in this office and is taking the lead on much of the work involving trainings.
Thank you for participating in the listening sessions last spring. There were some good ideas and Grace is asking her office to work on updating some new trainings. There will likely be some more practical trainings, such as more practical incident response trainings. Grace’s office is working on moving the trainings into Canvas. These will likely include some micro trainings and other more current approaches to providing effective trainings.
For those who need in-person trainings, on Monday October 14 there will be a security training in the morning at SCC and in the afternoon at SFCC. This will count for tenure-track faculty.
There is an in-person screening committee guidelines training October 21 from 3-4:30 in Building 6 in Ballrooms A and B.
There is an active shooter training November 18 from 8:30-10 at SFCC and then from 3-4:30 at SCC.
Every new faculty member will need to do an in-person training for FERPA/Ethics. Watch for those to be made available soon.
Adjuncts have to select two trainings to complete. They can be in-person or online.
When you attend in-person trainings make sure you sign something to verify that you were there.
Trainings should be updated weekly in OTHRS.
AHE is working on making sure a process is in place for corrections faculty to receive credit for their DOC trainings.
When you have completed a training in Linked In, take a screen shot in case the documentation of trainings does not fully connect through HR. Make sure the screenshot shows the left side where it indicates you completed the training.
Tenure-track and annualized faculty must complete their trainings in-person until you have earned your first step.
Administration Salary Updates
The legislature only provided a 3% for administration. The chancellor went to the board and asked for an additional 4% salary increase for administrators last year, and an additional 3% this year. These are above and beyond what was authorized by the legislature. The presidents of both campuses were given an additional 12% increase. These salary increases were to try to get administration salaries in line with the administrator salaries in the Puget Sound.
AHE shared data on the administrative salary increases. The amount of local dollars spent was about $471,038. The year before the amount that was spent was about $550,000 on raises for administrators. These are ongoing costs, which add over a million dollars spent on administrator salaries every year.
Faculty salaries are currently about $4,000 below the state average. This is after the COLAs the legislature approved for faculty. AHE believes that local money should be spent to get compensation for faculty in line with state averages since there has been so much money spent on administrator salaries.
AHE cannot negotiate or bargain on behalf of classified staff. Faculty, acting as individuals, can reach out to their legislators to ask for support of classified staff. This cannot happen utilizing CCS resources, meaning that you can only use your personal phone, personal email, or other personal resources when talking with your legislator.
Student Conduct & Incidents
There has been a significant increase in student conduct/incidents on our campuses over the past few years. The incidents have increased each of the past five years. There has been increases on both campuses, but there has been more significant increases at SCC than SFCC.
Please make sure to have policies in your syllabus if you want to protect against student conduct issues. For example, if you want to prevent students from utilizing generative AI in your classes please include a statement to that effect in your syllabus.
Please submit reports of student conduct issues in your classes. This helps the colleges track patterns of issues that may be occurring in multiple classes, and it also helps you document issues that may lead to an impact on a student’s grades. Please submit a report every time you have a student conduct incident in one of your classes. You can always indicate this is informational and you don’t want the student conduct officer to pursue action if you choose to handle it yourself.
You can fail a student on an assignment for a student conduct issue, but you cannot fail a student for the entire class for a student conduct issue. You can make that recommendation, but that determination must be made by the student conduct officer. A student can end up failing a class because they missed enough points from failing an assignment(s) that they have not earned enough points to pass the class. Please remember students have due process as well and can appeal your actions to the student conduct officer.
CCS is also looking at some of the WACs related to student conduct and may be updating policies accordingly.
A lot of faculty are hesitant to put in a report because they don’t want to get a student in trouble. The flip side is that students who have a report filed are often able to get help and support that they need. The student does not automatically get in trouble; it is about figuring out what they need.
Faculty are better protected by filing a report because then the student cannot grieve the faculty’s decision at this point.
President’s and Vice Presidents’ Reports
AHE President Bev Daily:
Make sure you have swiped your prox card by October 14. If you don’t use your card it will be turned off.
Please reach out to Bev if you missed your paycheck on September 25. At SFCC department chairs were not paid on their first check, but that will be made up on the October 10 check.
Please note anything that goes wrong with lockdown (or other safety) drills and share this with your deans or with your AHE VP or Bev. If students are uncomfortable or have issues with these drills the students should be directed to the Disability Access Services office for support.
Bev will be sending out the current RIF lists, one by name and one by RIF. It will be your responsibility to look at each RIF list and verify that your information is correct.
Many of you received Kevin Brockbank’s email regarding being respectful of different views. Please be aware there will be many different speakers on campus with many different viewpoints. Please do not engage and be respectful of others.
SCC VP Jason Eggerman:
We recognize there were contentious issues and frustrations at SCC last year, especially towards the end of the year. However, a new year comes a fresh start, and there are many new faculty who were not here last year. AHE has a long history of an overall positive working relationship between AHE and administration, and we are committed to continuing that so the college can have a positive and successful year.
We have many new full-time faculty at SCC this year, so there are a lot of faculty gearing up for work on tenure committees. We would encourage all faculty who are going to serve on a tenure committee to attend the training on Thursday of this week.
SLAC is soliciting new members, so you can expect a solicitation for that soon. There is also a call for volunteers for several student clubs, some of which have been vacant for some time.
The AHE VPs and some members of the Membership Committee will be looking over the Senate groups list for SCC later next week. There are some Senate groups who have a hard time sending a senator, so we are hoping some reorganization might help with this. We will be sure to bring any suggestions to those groups. If there is anyone interested in serving as a Senator for SCC this year, please let Jason or Rob know. Similarly, if anyone who was a Senator last year is no longer interested, please let us know.
SCC Extension VP Rob Deyo:
The training list just came out via email from Ben Stevens so look at that and make sure you attend your in-person trainings if you need to.
Please talk with your new faculty members in your departments and encourage them to join AHE. Even those folks who we hired last year. Check in with them, ask how they are doing. You have created relationships with them that we haven’t yet, and we think it’s meaningful to hear about the AHE from the folks who share the same hallways, classrooms, etc.
Rob has moved offices and is in Building 1, Room G122.
There is a tenure meeting on Thursday at 2 pm at SCC. This training will be really valuable so please attend if you are on a tenure committee, especially if you haven’t attended a training in awhile, or if you are a probationary faculty member.
SFCC VP Jackie Franklin:
The Fine Arts Building is now open. The gallery has not yet opened due to construction delays. We are excited for the faculty who finally get to move into their new space.
There is an all-faculty meeting Zoom meeting on October 17. Please attend.
VPL Bonnie Glantz has sent several emails and encourages all faculty to please read them.
Jackie requests that Senators check with their adjuncts to see if they are members. If you have faculty who are not members please reach out to them and encourage them to join AHE, and also find out why they are not members. If there is something we can do better to support these faculty let your AHE VP’s know.
Adjunct Representative Lena Lopez Schindler:
Please check your contracts for the percent of time on your contract. Please email Lena or Bev if you have questions. Your percent matters with regard to benefits and time.
Good of the order:
A faculty member asked has there been clarity on the probationary faculty presentations to the Board of Trustees? Basically, faculty will generally attend together so that they can introduce themselves. This generally is a two or three minute introduction. It is not a big issue and should not be stressful. This does not need to be a formal, powerpoint type of presentation.
Some SFCC faculty are unaware of what committees they are on. You can look back at the email that was sent out last June. Jackie will send out requests for members to put their names in for committees shortly. Please watch for that and
Scott Satake made a motion to adjourn. Bill Rambo seconded. The motion passed. Meeting was adjourned at 4:45.