Issue Updates

San Antonio College Faculty Senate Updates 12/4/19

Past Updates: 2019— 1/23 | 2/19 | 3/25 | 5/9 | 8/23 10/7 Senate Website

SAC Updates

No Piper Professor Election This Year: Unfortunately, we did not get the required three faculty members willing to go through with the nomination process this year.

Spring 2020 Faculty Survey: Due to delays, feedback from the psychometrician on our faculty survey did not arrive until mid-November. Senators worked quickly to review this feedback and make adjustments to the survey; however, given the late date in the semester and our desire to get maximum participation, the Senate decided to administer this faculty survey at the beginning of the Spring semester rather than the tail end of this Fall semester. Look for this survey on January 27, 2020.

Tenure Update: The SAC Faculty Senate reaffirmed its Spring 2019 Resolution supporting the revival of tenure, and Dr. Vela in conversations with Senators has been supportive of bring this topic back up for consideration via the EFC. Your Senate President has pushed hard at the United Faculty Senate to make this topic an EFC charge; however, one college and Senate President has not been supportive of moving forward at this time. I am hopeful we can address this college’s reservations and initiate a Work Order from UFS to EFC at the Jan. 31, 2020 EFC meeting

Faculty Compensation: TCCTA will soon be publishing the December 2019 Messenger results from the 2019-20 Survey of Faculty Salaries and Supplemental Benefits. The district Faculty Compensation committee will review this data and make recommendations for a salary increase for next year. The UFS will be lobbying for this salary increase directly in its meeting with the Chancellor and other Vice Chancellors in December and January (in time for this information to be entered into the budget discussions for next year).

NOTE: Faculty should be receiving the 3% raise approved last summer starting in January 2020.

Items following up from Senate’s 10/3 Meeting with Dr. Vela, Dr. Blackwood and Academic Deans--see Senate 10/7 update for notes from that meeting

Promotion Process: This Fall the Faculty Senate made our administration aware that our college’s implementation of the Promotion process had problems. Dr. Blackwood formed a committee made up of Chairs and Faculty Senators to review our promotion process and come up with recommendations for improving it. This committee has completed its work, and the Senate will review these recommendations in the Spring. We anticipate that many of the issues faculty faced in the Promotion process this year will be addressed.

Old Buildings and Deferred Maintenance: The Senate is supporting Dr. Vela’s efforts to lobby for more funds from district for “deferred maintenance” by compiling faculty testimonials about issues with old buildings needing maintenance and how it affects faculty and students. These faculty testimonials will be paired with building data. If you have not shared your story of problems in your building, you can here.

Coordinators: The Senate continues to fact-find on issues facing Coordinators regarding their work load and job duties.

Faculty Evaluation of Chairs: The Senate continues to support our college following District Procedure D.7.1.1 which requires faculty to evaluate Chairs. Your Senate has repeatedly expressed this concern to Dr. Vela and Dr. Blackwood, as well as the entire CET, and its willingness to develop a process for this evaluation So far, there has been no response or movement on their part.

Active Shooter Safety Concerns: On 11/20/19 the Senate sent a letter of concern to Dr. Lovato our VP of College Services and Janae Johnson Director of Risk Management expressing concerns voiced by faculty after our last active shooter incident when many people were outside during the lockdown and there was poor coordination between our campus police and the San Antonio Police. Dr. Lovato and Janae met with Senate representatives and were very responsive to these concerns. Read the Senate Letter of Concern.

United Faculty Senate

2019-20 Priorities for 2019-20

Faculty Evaluation: The UFS sponsored a faculty survey and the SAC Faculty Senate sponsored a listening session gathering faculty views on our current faculty evaluation system and Faculty 180. 112 faculty from across the district responded. 81.2% agree that the faculty evaluation process and model being used should be improved. 54% of respondents disagreed that Faculty 180 is an easy tool to use. Significant Themes that emerged from SAC faculty responses include:

• Too time-consuming
• Needs to be simpler/Needs to be streamlined
• Confusing/Lack of clarity
• Too redundant/repetitive
• Not user-friendly
• Wide differences in the amount of time faculty take to complete Faculty 180
• Too many categories
• Questions of validity/relevance
• Faculty Evaluation system should be aligned with Promotion
• Lack of feedback
• Preferred old system—lost features in current system
• Faculty 180 program performance issues
• Read the entire set of themes with faculty comments

The UFS is compiling faculty feedback from all five colleges and generating a report to present at its December 11 meeting with Chancellor Flores and the other Vice-Chancellors who attend UFS meetings. These recommendations will guide the work to be done in Spring to make improvements in our Faculty Evaluation process (to include the electronic portfolio tool we use).

Faculty Input on the Creation or Revision of Policies or Procedures Effecting Faculty:

The UFS gathered from all five colleges faculty feedback on this new process for faculty input. At a 12/2 meeting, we discussed all this feedback and made recommended changes to this process. UFS will present the revised version of this proposed process to Dr. Flores and other Vice-Chancellors who attend UFS meetings on December 11^th.

Executive Faculty Council Updates

End of Course Student Evaluation Survey (Fixing the problematic current student survey)

The Phase I recommendations for a new general end-of-course student survey was presented to SLT (previous TLT and PVC). SLT has accepted the new 15 question survey, hopefully to be implemented in Spring 2020. Phase II work on new surveys for clinical and workforce classes has not begun. Read the EFC Phase I Recommendation Report for a new End-of-Course Survey.

Leadership Framework (Creating a district-wide leadership model framework with outcomes)

EFC has officially ended its work on this charge. Recommendations created by the EFC as well as a separate group headed by Rodell Asher will be folded into the Experiential Learning Initiative. Dr. Garza, the current college President on EFC, has requested faculty involved in the original ad hoc committee to join on the district committee working on Experiential Learning. Our district still values leadership, but with Leslie gone the vision behind this effort, particularly related to Covey, is gone. Read the EFC Recommendation Report on the Leadership Framework.

Visit the SAC Faculty Senate Website: https://www.alamo.edu/sac/about-sac/leadership/councils-and-committees/faculty-senate/

San Antonio College Faculty Senate Updates 8/23/19

United Faculty Senate and Executive Faculty Council Positive Updates

Faculty Compensation: As part of the general wage increase, all faculty will receive a 3% raise effective Jan. 1, 2020.

Pay Raise for Lab Instructors: The administration and Board have accepted the EFC’s recommendations to increase the pay for lab hours in a phased approach to move toward 1-1 equivalency for payment for lecture hours. Effective Jan. 1, 2020, all lab hours will be paid .75 of a lecture hour. This will require the hiring of approximately 40 new faculty district-wide. The intent is to move to .85 once colleges have adjusted to the shift to .75 in a year or two. Then a year or two later move to 1-1.

Paid Sick and Emergency Leave for Adjunct Faculty and Part-time Staff: Through lobbying of the UFS, this new benefit for adjuncts and part-time staff was passed by the board last Spring. The new benefit goes into effect this Fall on Sept. 1, 2019.

New Priorities for 2019-20 Work (from UFS meeting with Administration 8/16/19)

Faculty Evaluation: The UFS in collaboration with administration will be initiating a review of how we do faculty evaluation, including the tool Faculty 180, with the goal of improving the process for all stakeholders. Our SAC Faculty Senate Resolution Concerning Faculty 180 helped to make this happen!

Faculty Input on the Creation or Revision of Policies or Procedures Effecting Faculty: The UFS also in collaboration with administration will start this Fall to create a process whereby faculty are included in the development and revision of policies and procedure effecting faculty. Recent issues around the Communications policy, revisions to the Promotion procedure, and possible changes to employee evaluations point to the need for some consistent way to include faculty in this process.

SAC Updates

1^st Senate Meeting: The first Senate meeting of the year is Friday, August 23^rd from 1:00-3:00 in the Faculty Lounge in Loftin Student Center. The Senate will be formulating its goals for the year at this meeting. All faculty are welcome to attend.

Fourth Fridays for Professional Development: Our administration has given its support to the SAC Faculty Development Design Team’s recommendation to set aside time one Friday of the month for departments and disciplines to hold faculty development. Also, other faculty development offerings can be offered at that time. This set aside, regular time will make communication and scheduling around professional development much easier. More will be shared about this new recommendation soon.

Fall 2019 Faculty Survey: The Faculty Senate will be crafting a new survey to gather faculty views in September. This survey truly guides our work, and with a strong response rate to the survey, we can use the survey more effectively to represent your views to administration.

Update on Resolution Supporting Faculty Status for Chairs:

No movement seems to have happened this summer to revise policies around the faculty status of chairs. At least, we have expressed our view that it is important that the Chair for a department be a faculty member and not solely an administrator. We will monitor this situation. –see 5/10/19 Resolution on Chairs Status

United Faculty Senate Updates

Tenure: After the SAC Faculty Senate passed its resolution supporting the revival of tenure last Spring--read the Resolution—the issue is now before the United Faculty Senate where it will be making its case this Fall to administration.

Faculty Pay from Grants—Finally an explanation!

Linda Boyer Owens and her HR Team have put together an explanation for why we must calculate faculty pay for grants by “work load hour” units rather than stipends. We can blame stricter reporting requirements for reporting work and pay in the Affordable Care Act and new requirements from the Teacher Retirement System for this change. The distict, like many other institution of higher education, faced stiff fines for not reporting correctly if this change was not made. Alas, stipends I believe are a thing of the past. –see HR explanation of Faculty Grant Pay

Executive Faculty Council Updates

End of Course Student Evaluation Survey (Fixing the problematic current student survey)

Approval of the EFC’s recommendation for a new survey stalled at the end of last semester when the TLT requested more work to done on the draft survey. The Phase I work on the new general survey should be completed this Fall, while a new ad hoc committee is formed to generate new end-of-course surveys for PTE and Clinical and possibly online classes. If you teach PTE or classes with clinical and practicum classes and would be interested in serving on this ad hoc committee, let Lennie Irvin know: lirvin@alamo.edu

Leadership Framework (Creating a district-wide leadership model framework with outcomes)

It looks like the EFC’s work on this project will be complete. What is likely to happen at this point will be the TLT will review the EFC recommendation and the recommendation from 2018 Student-Focused Principle-Centered Leadership committee to formulate a recommendation for this Leadership program to the Board. I can say that this framework, either way, will not be Covey-centered.

Fall 2018 Faculty survey Report Complete

On 3/19 the Faculty Senate delivered to the College Executive Team its report on the Fall 2018 Faculty Survey presenting faculty views on the following issues: 4DX, Tenure, Class Size, Faculty Evaluation, Faculty Development, 70% PGR and Faculty Improvement Plan, Learning Outcomes Assessment, Scheduling, Adjunct Sick Leave, District Budget/Administration, Faculty Compensation, Faculty Morale, and Faculty Perceptions of the Senate. The Senate will now begin to work with the administration to address these issues (some are already being worked on as indicated below). We hope to meet with the CET as a Senate to discuss the report and its findings and suggestions.

–read the report

Proposed Communications Policy

The revised and finalized version of the two new Communication Policies were presented to the Board at the Trustees at the 12/11 meeting by Kristi Wyatt. The two new policies-- C.4.1 (Policy) Communications on Behalf of the College District and Colleges and C.4.1.1 Communications on Behalf of District Support Operations (Procedure)--were passed by the Board.

Two key points need to be made about these Board Policies:

1) The key criteria about whether a college or district employees needs to coordinate their communication with the news media or not is whether they are speaking “on behalf of” any of the colleges or district.

2) In the policy on Communication on Behalf of District Support Operations, key language was inserted in the section on “Contact with the News Media and Student Media: “DSO employees must direct all news media request regarding District decisions, policies, programs, initiatives, projects or events to the District Communications Office. This does not prohibit the expression of opinions to the news media by employees, in their capacities as individuals or private citizens. Employees may initiate or respond to media requests regarding their research, teaching, scholarship or professional expertise or matters of public concern.”

The general consensus from the United Faculty Senate is that this language is acceptable—and much better than the originally proposed version.

Faculty Pay from Grants

United Faculty Senate with Administration 1/18/19

Problems related to paying faculty from grants was discussed at this meeting. It seems we may be stuck with calculating pay to faculty by “work load units” for grants due to ACA reporting requirements. Apparently, the District has been threatened with multi-million dollar fines for not meeting the reporting requirements. Still there are problems caused by using work load units for pay. Linda Boyer-Owens promised to get grant administrators together to review the situation in November, but has not done so yet. Robert McKinley, VC of Economic and Workforce Development, voiced interest in assisting to solve some of the problems with grants. He has experience from how UTSA dealt with their grant situation. To this point, all we can say is that the administration is aware of the problem, but nothing has been done as of now. We hope that some movement will happen this Spring. Link to complete Fact-Finding from all five colleges on the issue of payment to faculty from grants.

EFC News

The new Faculty Fellow who will help guide the work of the EFC and represent faculty to administration and the Board is Mr. William Thorton who is a faculty member from St. Philip's College.

Also, the EFC now has a email account with which to email all faculty about it's work: efc@alamo.edu. Visit the EFC website: https://www.alamo.edu/efc

End of Course student evaluation survey

The ad hoc committee met on 11/19 and is reviewing the recommendations to attempt to produce a new final report early in the Spring Semester. So far, the ad hoc committee has been reviewing the work done last Spring to see what has been finished and what work still needs to be accomplished. The goal is to have the report done in a timely fashion so it can influence changes to the end-of-course survey for next Fall.

(see the original EFC Charge and Work Order).

Faculty Initiated Withdrawal Form

This form has seen some positive changes with the inclusion of student information at the top of the form, but the main structure remains unchanged and is confusing. In particular, the last comment box is ambiguous. Dr. Railey was made aware of the status of the edits to the form, and we requested that continued changes still be made. See the 10/3 Recommendation sent to Dr. Railey, Vice Chancellor of Academic Success.