Attendance:

Call to Order:  The meeting was called to order at 2:48 p.m. by Jason Eggerman.

Minutes and Finance

Approval of Minutes 

Russell Schluter motioned to approve the May minutes;  Shawna Shelton seconded. The motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report 

	Income	Expenses	Total Assets End of Month
May	$9,589.59	$44,682.85	$230,236.18

Geoffrey noted that expenses were notably high this month because AHE paid the District for their portion of the release time for the AHE President and Vice Presidents. Each VP gets 33.33% release time, and AHE pays for one-third of each VP’s 33.33% release. The AHE President has 100% release time, and AHE reimburses the District for half of it. The reimbursement is at the adjunct rate plus benefits. Jason and Bev both noted that some local unions either have no release time or have much less release time. Having release time allows time to problem-solve with administration and work with members. Barb Flock motioned to approve the May treasurer’s report. Melinda Martin seconded. The motion passed.

Old Business

Bylaws Review Process

Article 11 (Commissions) and Article 12 (Standing Committees) were distributed for review with proposed amendments from the May 26 Executive Board meeting.

For Article 11, Jason noted that he spoke with Bev (as a past AHE President who has handled grievances) and Scott Satake (Grievance Coordinator since 2021). The Grievance Coordinator language was amended to clarify that the coordinator assists the President with the grievance process versus handling it on their own. Most other amendments in Article 11 were minor edits or structural changes such as adding headings. The amendments for Article 11 are shown below. As before, green font signifies additions, red strike-throughs are deletions, and blue font is existing language being moved from one place to another.

A member asked why the Bylaws still refer to the union as CCS-AHE if the District is now Spokane Colleges. Jason and Bev explained that CCS (Community Colleges of Spokane) AHE is still the union’s legal name as a registered non-profit. It is also the name registered with PERC (Public Employees Relations Commission) and with both WEA and NEA. Changing our name would cost money and is not an easy process. There is also no guarantee the District won’t change their name again at some point in the future. For now, our Master Contract and Bylaws will continue to refer to the District as Spokane Colleges and the local union as either just “AHE” or “CCS-AHE.” A member commented that the District should pay the cost for CCS-AHE to change their name if it is important for them to have the names match.

Bradley Hein made a motion to amend Article 12 as presented. Bev Daily seconded. The motion passed. 

The Bylaws review is complete for this year. Jason thanked everyone for their engagement in this work and emphasized the importance of periodically reviewing governing documents. He mentioned it is likely we will be looking at the AHE Constitution next year. Unlike Bylaws, which can be amended by the Senate, amendments to the Constitution require a vote of the full membership.

Elections SFCC VP Results

Barb Flock, Chair of the Elections Commission, announced that Shawna Shelton has been elected the new SFCC Vice President. Shawna’s term starts July 1. Jason thanked everyone at SFCC who voted for the high voter turnout. He also thanked both Shawna and Michelle for being willing to run.

New Business

Canvas Incident Debrief

A handout was distributed for the PowerPoint from a presentation given by Christine Van Winkle, Chief Information Officer (CIO). She gave the presentation at the Board of Trustees meeting on May 19 and also at the SCC faculty forum on May 21. A member noted that the Canvas incident occurred after SFCC’s May faculty forum and that there was not another one scheduled for spring quarter. This was perhaps why the presentation was not also given at SFCC.  Jason shared that the CIO mentioned that they had followed guidance from the State Board of CTCs to hold off on messaging during the incident, but in hindsight, they now realize that getting messaging out to faculty and students would have been a better plan. Jason mentioned that members can also find information about the incident in the emails sent by Chancellor Brockbank on May 14 and May 29. Jason will send the PowerPoint from the CIO’s presentation to all members.

HSI Safety Training

There is interest by administration to implement structured safety trainings for liability reasons. The way this process is currently being approached is as follows: First, District staff do a walk-through of a particular building or work location to identify possible safety hazards. Second, once possible hazards are compiled into a list, District staff meet with the dean over that area to review which ones might apply to faculty. Sometimes department chairs or program leads are also involved in those conversations, but that depends on the dean. Third, faculty would be asked to complete an inventory to identify which hazards apply to their work. That way, only relevant trainings would be assigned.

The proposed trainings are online from HSI (a third-party platform). Administration has said they chose this vendor for ease of tracking the trainings and because the trainings are OSHA approved. Most trainings range from about 7 minutes to about 30 minutes in length. Sample training titles include things like: “Compressed Gas Safety (26 minutes),” or “Ladder Safety (16 minutes),” or “Eyewashes and Safety Showers (7 minutes).”

The amount of training faculty would be assigned depends on their specific work. For many faculty who teach in traditional lecture environments, there would be very little applicable training. However, for some faculty who work in labs and shops, the amount of training would be significantly more. There is also a distinction between first-time training and ongoing yearly training. For example, AHE has seen estimates in some areas where District might want to assign 11 to 12 hours of one-time (first-year) training. However, subsequent years might have only 2 to 3 hours of yearly training.

The main conversation that still needs to occur with administration is about compensation. Many of the faculty who will likely be assigned higher amounts of trainings work in labs and shops and have a high number of student contact hours per week. For example, there are 25 hours of student contact each week for faculty in Category F. That is compared to 15 hours of student contact for lecture classes in Category A. Those faculty with the higher number of student contact hours do not have office hours as part of their workload. Jason has reached out to faculty in areas of TechEd and Science to get their opinions on what is a reasonable amount of training. He will share that information with administration when they meet on Friday. 

A member asked about whether Corrections faculty would be included in any discussions about compensation for safety training. Since Corrections faculty have their own training requirements through DOC, and since those trainings are part of the contract with DOC, it is a separate issue and different conversation.

Another member noted that it would be helpful to have a specific person trained for each building. Several buildings have safety requirements that are specific to the space, and faculty expressed concerns that the District safety office is not equipped to understand the specific safety elements in each program or building. 

Another member noted that in previous conversations with the safety office, they were initially assigned over 40 trainings. They expressed how unreasonable this felt. In a more recent conversation, they were assigned around 20 trainings, which they still felt was excessive and unreasonable. 

Members noted that, in industry, all mandatory training occurs on paid time. Another member asked if this was being done mainly to check a box, or if this was being done because the goal was to truly provide meaningful safety training. The impression several members shared is that they feel this is mainly about liability and checking a box to say that the District is providing safety training. 

Another member asked about the possibility of having HSI training(s) go towards step advancement. Jason noted that some of the safety trainings are less than 10 minutes long, and some are only 3 minutes. Most trainings for step advancement are longer than that. Bev pointed out that in prior years, a request was made to have the District develop a base safety training that could apply to most faculty and could be counted towards step advancement. Then, more unique or specialized trainings could be used to supplement that base training. This suggestion has not gotten traction with the District, but AHE will suggest it again.

Fall Preview

Jason talked about some items or priorities that are on the horizon for next year. One example would be to explore the creation of a handbook for the Elections Commission. The Bylaws contain critical information, but a handbook could provide more detailed timelines, email templates for nominations or announcing results, and other practical guidance for future Elections Commissions. Barb will reach out in the fall to the other members of the Elections Commission for input on next year.

Another priority next year will be to get at least one of the standing committees up and running. Jason pointed out that our Bylaws call for a Membership Committee, an Adjunct Issues Committee, and a Social/Courtesy Committee. These are places where members who are interested in specific areas can get involved in AHE. 

Jason also gave a heads-up that in October, the Senate will need to discuss how many delegates they would like to send to WEA-RA in Tacoma.  For at least the past 10 years, WEA-RA has been held locally in Spokane. This means we have budgeted only $200 to $300 for parking and some lunch. Sending delegates to Tacoma for several days will be substantially more expensive, so the Executive Board and Senate needs to think about how many funds will be allocated for this when they create the budget next Fall.

Next year will be the second year of our three-year Master Contract. This means that next year AHE will be gathering data and starting preparations for the next round of bargaining. Members can expect to see more small surveys next year. Next year will also be the time when we form the Bargaining Commission, so members should start thinking about it now if they might be interested in that work.

President’s and Vice Presidents’ Reports

AHE President Jason Eggerman:

AHE is still working through the grievance process regarding administration’s attempt at an involuntary transfer of a faculty counselor from Colville to the main SCC campus. The grievance has been advanced to Step Two, which means the Step One response from the SCC President was not satisfactory, and the grievance has now been appealed to the Chancellor. 

There are two pre-RIF conversations still ongoing at SCC. One is the Pharm Tech program. For that pre-RIF, AHE, the faculty, and administration have had the contractually required meeting, and the notes from that pre-RIF meeting have been summarized and sent to the Chancellor for review. The Chancellor decides whether or not to initiate the RIF process. For Pharm Tech, there is a new cohort starting in the Fall, so any RIF (if that occurs) would not happen until the end of academic year 2026/27. The other RIF is related to a certificate program, Hospitality, Tourism, and Event Management (HTEM). This would not result in the RIF of any faculty. The meeting about this program with AHE, the faculty, and administration will take place June 23. The pre-RIF notes from that meeting will then be summarized and forwarded to the Chancellor for review. 

Jason thanked the membership, Senate, and Exec Board for the words of encouragement he has received this year as his first year as AHE President.

SCC VP Tim Roe:  

The interim BHIT dean will be Andrea Reid. 

Tim gave a shout-out to Jackie Franklin as she completes her final AHE meeting as the SFCC VP. She cares deeply about her students and the faculty. He also gave a shout-out to Bev Daily for her continued support over this past year for her encouragements and sage advice. A thanks to Jason for his work this past year as he stepped into the role of President. 

Tim congratulated a retiring Senator, Tony Livingston, and thanked him for his service to AHE over the years as a senator and on our bargaining team.

Tim encouraged everyone to reach out this summer if anything comes up.

SCC Extension VP Rob Deyo:

Rob gave a reminder for full-time faculty to complete their required trainings and turn in their summary of professional development before June 30. Even if faculty are not due a step, they still need to turn in a summary of professional development each year. 

Position Updates:

• Dean of Rural Education – Katie Kleinhesselink will start on July 1. Jeff Williams will be returning to Corrections
• Rural Psych – this position is open until filled

Rob congratulated the following faculty on their retirement:

• Linda Buff
• Brian Briggs
• Kathy George 

Rob thanked Jackie for her service as SFCC AHE VP.

SFCC VP Jackie Franklin:  

The presidential search begins on June 23. Committee members are Dave Keller, Ursula Helflick, Laura Woods, Britni Weaver, and Michelle Pearson. 

SFCC faculty need to continue to communicate through their chairs and deans as well as the AHE.

Adjunct Representative Lena Lopez Schindler:

The last day for two-year averaging forms to be completed is June 12. Also, a reminder to download your Canvas courses.

Good of the order:

Jason thanked Jackie for her years of service as the SFCC VP. He highlighted Jackie’s important contribution of getting new SFCC faculty involved in AHE leadership. Bev Daily and Ronda Moorhead also thanked Jackie and spoke to her important contributions to AHE and SFCC. A gift was presented. 

Michelle Pearson made a motion to adjourn.  Shawna Shelton seconded. The meeting adjourned at 4:12 p.m.