The Academic Senate Constitution identifies the Senate�s purpose and mission: to promote the development and maintenance of high standards of teaching and education; to share in the determination of the goals of the college and in the fulfillment of these goals; to promote the welfare of the entire faculty and to represent the entire faculty in its academic and professional relations with the district; to facilitate communication among the entire faculty, classified personnel, student body, college administration, and the governing board of the district; to make recommendations to the college administration and governing board concerning the academic and professional matters enumerated in the Title 5 of the Educational Code; to concern itself with any legislation relative to the welfare of the college; and to do all that is necessary and proper to achieve a realization of the purposes of the Faculty Association it represents.
The Academic Senate is the voice of the faculty when it comes to matters of academic and professional relations. Membership is comprised of 18 faculty representing all faculty, both full-time as well as Associate, and all areas of instruction, including Counseling and Student Development. The Senate�s membership also includes representation from Student Life and the Classified Senate. Meetings are held on the first and third Wednesday of the month, and special assemblies and forums are held throughout each semester. The Senate supports and encourages campus participation in activities of college-wide significance such as Student Equity and Achievement Programs, Educational Master Plan and Strategic Direction, Mission/Values/Code of Ethics, the ongoing Accreditation process, Student Learning Outcomes, CTE Taskforce, statewide grant initiatives, and other efforts. California law and Ed Code are constantly changing. Butte College's Senate and Curriculum leadership try to remain abreast of developments by regularly attending plenary sessions, regional workshops, and annual institutes provided by the statewide Academic Senate. The Butte Academic Senate currently operates in accordance with the bylaws, and needless to say in many capacities with various roles and responsibilities in relation to all aspects of the college. Members of the Senate Executive Committee regularly attend the statewide meetings mentioned above, and all share responsibility for disseminating information gained at these meetings as well as from the local Senate�s activities to the Faculty at large, classified staff, students, and Administration. The Academic Senate Leadership Team also includes the Curriculum Chair, the SLO Coordinator, and the Professional Development Coordinator, all of whom work hard in support of faculty and the Strategic Direction of the college. Curriculum Committee The Academic Senate has oversight for all curriculum and educational programs on campus (a role clearly established through law, Ed Code, and AB 1725). The vast majority of this oversight is handled by the Curriculum Committee and Curriculum Tech Review Team, which operates as an autonomous subcommittee of the Academic Senate under the leadership and guidance of the Chair. As stated above, California law and Ed Code are constantly changing, especially in regard to curriculum standards and in addition, changes to educational programs (expansion, AA/S-T development, Curriculum Review process, Guided Pathways efforts, AB 705 implementation, etc.) is never ending. The Curriculum Chair�s diligent work with the Curriculum Tech Review Team and program faculty, along with attendance at statewide Senate sessions, is essential.
Last year we continued to receive an additional 20% reassign time for the Academic Senate Executive Committee.
This additional reassign time has enabled us to 1) bring on a student development faculty as an Executive Committee member and 2) adequately compensate our Secretary and Treasure for the work that they engage in. Just the obligations outlined in the bylaws for these two positions amount to about 5 hours per week. The workload extends beyond those outlined obligations, though, and so in reality, the workload extends to 6 or 7 hours each week. As the institution has worked on enrollment growth, strategic direction priorities, and especially diversity, equity, and inclusion work, the Academic Senate Executive Committee has been at the forefront of these efforts.
The work of the Academic Senate is integral in all Strategic Direction efforts, whether it is reviewing and approving Administrative Procedures, discussing and passing resolutions on diversity, equity, and inclusion matters, appointing faculty to serve on college committees, reviewing and improving hiring procedures, the list could go on. Our focus on the 10+1 Academic and Professional matters and our role as the official, recognized voice of faculty on these places us in the middle of all of this work. It is hard to imagine that there is much that we do that is not in support of the Strategic Direction.
The Academic Senate does not engage in a Program Review.
Strategy 1 - Campus Committees Database
Database tool for tracking the activities and membership of campus-wide committees, and that will facilitate making information on committees easily accessible to all faculty and staff.
In Fall 2018, the Office of Planning, Research, and Organizational Development spearheaded work on a Campus Committees Database. While promising progress was made initially by using Colleague for this purpose, complications encountered in early Spring 2019 have put the work in jeopardy. An alterntive tool may be required for the database.
California Ed Code requires the local Board of Trustees to establish procedures to ensure participatory governance, and clarifies that participating effectively in district and college governance is shared involvement in the decision-making process. Ed Code further calls on the Board to shall establish standards and procedures to ensure faculty, staff and students the right to participate effectively in district and college governance.
The effectiveness of the college's participatory governance processes is notably limited by the inability of constituency groups to reliably track committee activities and membership. Negative effects include: miscommunications and mistrust; delays in making and implementing decisions; under-utilized knowledge and untapped diversity in thinking; and disconnection by too many members of the larger campus community.
Strategy 2 - Faculty and Staff Badges
Identification badges for faculty and staff.
The Academic Senate first requested faculty and staff identification badges nearly ten years ago. The primary reason was, and still remains, campus safety and the ability for faculty and staff to identify themselves to authorities and students during a crisis situation. Since that time, the need has twice emerged out of Great Teachers discussions. The Associated Students has also brought this issue forward to the Academic Senate, expressing support for identifications but also expressing concern and frustration over utilizing their equipment and time to provide badges. In Spring 2018, the Associated Students Board renewed its support with a unanimous vote. The Academic Senate has approached the Classified Senate, and they too have expressed support for faculty and staff identification badges.
Strategy 3 - Increase Senate Exec Reassign Time
Increase total Academic Senate Executive Committee reassign time, currently 120%, by an additional 10%.
The distribution of Academic Senate Executive Committee reassign time is: 60% President; 40% Vice President; 10% Treasurer; 10% secretary. We are requesting an increase of 10% specifically to support the efforts of our Treasurer and Secretary. The current allocation of 10% to these two positions is problematic. If split between Fall and Spring, each benefits little, if any, from a mere 5% reassigned time (which equates to 1/2 of one class for a typical 3-unit lecture class). Using the full 10% in either Fall or Spring facilitates participation in Senate-related work and activities in one semester, but not the other. An increase of 10%, bringing the total Executive Committee reassign time to 130%, would allow both the Treasurer and the Secretary to rely on 10% reassign time for both Fall and Spring.
Over the past few years, with an increasing number of campus committees, increasing demand for Executive Committee participation in campus planning, and enormous state and federal changes that require leadership from the Senate, the Senate Exec has been stretched very thin. Delegation of assignments seems reasonable, but with a mere 5% per semester of reassign time allotted to the Treasurer and Secretary, there are serious limits to expectations that can be placed on these two Exec members. Further, the lack of meaningful reassign time for both Fall and Spring has made it difficult to recruit new members to the Exec team.
Strategy 4 - Add stipend for an additional Associate Faculty Senator
Provide an additional stipend for an Associate Faculty (currently around $1500) to serve on the Academic Senate.
The Academic Senate Executive Committee is proposing a reorganization to the Academic Senate in order to improve constituency outreach and feedback. This reorganization...centered around the college's 5 Communities of Interest...would require an assitional Associate Faculty senator to 1) preserve the current ration of full-time to Associate, and 2) to ensure Associate Faculty in the student developement areas have an opportunity to serve and contribute.
These requests do not require an augmentation to the Academic Senate budget, but do require resources (personnel and financial) of other campus units that have expressed support for our Goals and Strategies:
We are currently receiving some additional funding with the addition of Brandy Thomas to the Execuitive Committee. This was not necessarily a planned increase however, and only happened because Student Services is allowing her to use some of her hours for Senate. Whether the funding for this has come from Instruction we do not know, but we know it has not come from the Senate Exec reassign time as of yet, and we appreciate that. Brandy will be leaving, however, and so there is the possibility that, without additional support, the Executive Committee will have to reallocate it's existing reassign time and/or scale back the amount of time and effort it can devote to institutional efforts.