Skyline College Academic Senate has approved the following goals for the 2023-2024 Academic Year:
State Guidance & Curriculum:
- Examine the California Community Colleges Diversity Equity and Inclusion – CCC DEI Curriculum: Model Principles and Practices.
- Evaluate procedures regarding program creation and collegial consultation
- Explore the impact of reducing units as a college-wide community with the New IGETC pathway (AB 928).
- Works towards implementing AB1111 to meet state-wide legislation for the New Common Course Numbering System (AB 111)
- Placing Courses into Disciplines
- Exploring the Viability of Interdisciplinary degrees
Student Support:
- Work collaboratively with administrators to help students onboard into the appropriate courses for their intended Major pathway.
- Including onboarding for new, continuing, and returning students
- Increase student success & access to higher education through course material cost reduction and prioritization of Zero Textbook Cost courses:
- Prioritize ZTC instructor assignment (both FT & PT)
- Normalize timely course material reporting by instructors to ensure students, EAC, Library, and counselors have accurate and complete course material information (even if it is free-to-access material) so students have info & resources on day 1
- Normalize adoption & use of low & no-cost materials
- Increase awareness & outreach regarding ZTC course availability during the matriculation & registration processes (COUN)
- Establish ZTC degree and certificate pathways for student completion
- Ensure that students are awarded college credit for validated college-level skills and knowledge gained outside of the classroom. Credit for Prior Learning (CPL)New Explorers Program
- Increase awareness regarding the challenges with the new Student Success Link that impacts counseling faculty and inherently impacts student experiences (as related to class registration, WebSmart, WebSchedule, and access to campus accounts) and eventually be rolled out as a potential early alert system to all instructional faculty as well)
Student Grading:
- Develop discipline-specific equitable grading rubrics (i.e., lab rubrics for different stem courses)
- Explore Grading for Equity principles and sharing best practices and examples
- Normalize the practice of providing access to students for regular grade updates throughout the semester (especially before the withdraw deadline)
Department Coordinators/Chairs:
- Explore the creation of department coordinators for departments that do not currently have coordinators.
- Explore rules/responsibilities for department coordinators so that it is fair across the campus in charge of Program Review (PRU, CPR, ARR)
- Further explore the faculty coordinator position and learn from the current models to develop a clear definition and scope of the role and duties.
- Exploring the creation of Department Chairs: Head of Comprehensive Program Review (CPR)
Adjunct Participation:
- Increase communication about awareness of opportunities for participation, collaboration, and advocacy for part-time faculty members.
Onboarding & Evaluations:
- Examine evaluation procedures/forms for Instructional Designers and other non-instructional faculty (AFT in negotiation with new forms)
- Mentor faculty new to the accreditation process and partner with those who are single faculty members in their department
- Examine the CPR process to support small programs better and define the role of departments in the process.
Flex:
- Explore policies regarding what people can do to meet flex obligations
- Explore scheduling of flex days that work best for faculty participation (tied to the academic calendar and tied to AFT)
Committees and Points:
- Work to develop a procedure for tracking faculty committee membership/participation/campus involvement and create standards for committee reporting, engagement, and length of terms of service (replacing compendium, Tracking Committee Membership)
- Gather feedback from faculty about their experience with the “pilot point system” and deliver this feedback to AFT
Other/Miscellaneous:
- Normalize the use of the Academic Senate Gathering Norms
In addition to working collaboratively towards our goals this academic year, Senate has made an effort to crank up the fun in senate meetings with a themed meeting once a month. For the month of October, we held a costume contest.
Thank you to everyone who showed up in costume and to our esteemed judges: Jennifer Merrill, Rika Yonemura-Fabian, and Kathy Zarur. Shout out to Dean Chris Gibson for giving permission to Academic Senate President Lindsey Ayotte to dress up as him for the contest! In the end everyone was deemed a winner!
Article By: Lindsey Ayotte
Photos by: Cassidy Ryan and Rika Yonemura Fabian