San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493

Minutes of
General Membership/Executive Committee Meeting

September 12, 2012 at CSM

EC Members Present:

Dan Kaplan, Teeka James, Lezlee Ware, Thomas Mohr, Victoria Clinton, Anne Stafford, Michelle Kern, Lin Bowie, Masao Suzuki, Rebecca Webb, Elaine Francisco, Alayna Frederick, Jamie Marron, Jean Rule, Lisa Melnick, Eric Brenner, Elizabeth Terzakis, Nina Floro, Katharine Harer, Sandi Raeber-Dorsett, Lisa Palmer, Jing Wu, Lisa Boceri, Sarah Powers, Chip Chandler

Meeting began: 2:33

Facilitator: Rebecca Webb

Timekeeper: Lezlee Ware

 

1. Welcome and Introductions

2. Information Item: San Mateo County Community Colleges Foundation request; Presenter: Tom Mohr

Tom is on governing board of the foundation.

Currently provides $440,000 year for student scholarships; $700,000 yearly to support various programs.

Asking for the AFT to contribute to the fund

1) as faculty, we know value of education and needs of our students

2) we appreciate what creates community

Teeka: If we were to donate, can we earmark the funds?

Tom: “Many people do exactly that.” It is his understanding that we could earmark it how we like.

It could be a one-time or ongoing donation.

Rebecca: We will discuss and vote at a later time.

3. Statements from AFT (non EC) members on Non-Agenda Items

Lisa M.: Expressed her thanks, as a part-time faculty member, to our negotiators

Jamie: Also expressed her thanks. Would like to get grievance training; points out that silence doesn’t mean lack of interest.

4. *Minutes of May 9, 2012, and August 24, 2012, AFT meetings

May 9th minutes item 9: We removed the PERB charge about the SLOs.

May 9th minutes were approved by unanimous vote, pending Dan’s addition.

August 24th minutes were approved with 3 abstentions. Anne Stafford and Lisa Palmer (for Monica Malamud)

5. ACCJC issues

Accreditation issues/conference call regarding Ron’s comments about the ACCJC on opening day.

Scott Lay has a questionable position on accreditation.

Question: does a lawsuit or legislative hearing on the work of WASC make sense?

Barbara Beano (executive director of ACCJC) rejected or ignored all previous complaints

Bob is convinced that ACCJC can be sued successfully:

1 Recent City College accreditation criticizes their board of trustees. But that is an elected body, which is outside of the purview of WASC

2 According to the CA Ed code, there is supposed to be a process—warning, etc. Instead, suddenly the college was told to create a plan for closing down. ACCJC cannot adopt policies that are flagrantly opposed to the CA Ed code.

3 In fact, City College cannot go bankrupt. The Ed Code says that if a college is about to go bankrupt, the state takes over. If bankrupt, the college would be put into receivership by the state, so the college would not shut down. This has happened recently to other CCC.

We should look at the Marty Hittelman document, which we were emailed.

Katharine: Have we spoken to the leaders of AFT 2121 at City College?

Dan: It would be the district, which has an interim president.

Masao: I’m being asked to assess every section and to write a PLO for a program that doesn’t exist.

Brenner: The union needs to be strong and principled on the SLO process.

What can the union do? Part-timers shouldn’t do it unless they’re getting paid. The VPI at Skyline has decided that part-timers should be paid for SLO work.

Decision: we will return to this at the next meeting to figure out how to proceed and communicate issues concerning WASC.

 

6. Voting Rights for Part-Timers (continued from May mtg.); Presenter: Teeka James

Part-timers are being asked to provide syllabi months in advance of teaching a course.

Sarah: the issue is whether or not faculty must use a rhetoric, or whether one could create his/her own. The consensus was that some sort of rhetoric must be used.

Anne: concern about syllabus approval situation at Skyline

Katharine: faculty has been involved and has tried to make it reasonable; syllabi were reviewed by the dean and sent back with corrections; the issue was about ensuring consistency, so that students are all getting the same instruction. Faculty tried to regain control. Now, with a new dean, not sure what will happen. Voting rights issue came up last week—unanimous decision that part-time faculty can vote. All syllabi do get reviewed by FT faculty.

Rebecca: we should push back against consistency; it reflects the current move toward standardization

Lisa M.: the tone was negative—an assumption that PTers weren’t as competent as FT faculty

Elizabeth: it sounds like extra-contractual evaluation; we already do that as part of the evaluation process

Katharine: resistant to standardization but Connie Beringer says that well-written and comprehensive syllabi protect against student complaints.

We will continue to monitor this issue.

 

7. Propositions 30 and 32

Alayna has been an educator for 20 years and has done much advocacy. We have been under attack; these two propositions will affect the quality of our working conditions.

Prop 30 will increase income tax on wealthy people.

Unions proposed the ‘millionaires’ tax to fund education. Will bring in about $9 billion in the first year and about $7 billion in subsequent years. If it doesn’t pass, community college funding is in trouble.

Elizabeth: concerned about linking education and law enforcement. How do we know it’s going to go to public education rather than police?

Answer: It protects existing funds for law enforcement; new revenues will go to education.

Prop 38 will tax everyone, with the money going to K-12 education. 10% will go to early care in education.

CFT is neutral on prop 38

Prop 32 is a deceptive proposal that claims to remove special interests but actually limits how unions can advocate. It will give more power to corporations, who already outspend us 15 to 1. “Corporation” is narrowly defined in California, so they can still contribute. Only ATT says no to Prop 32 because it collects political contributions from employees. CFT sees it as the first step in removing political voice of unions.

CFT’s structure (yes on 30; no on 32). New organizer (Jessica) comes from Wisconsin. Dividing state in half; designating regional teams.

Teeka: We need to work on communication and garnering participation.

Katharine: But we’re trying new strategies and improving.

Rebecca: Can we bundle advocacy with other issues that we will be promoting (tabling)?

A: yes

CFT advocate has signs, etc.

Most recent polling for Prop 30 55-60% positive

No on Prop 32 down 32%

Annie Stafford: Can we post around our offices?

Dan: It’s a gray area.

Elizabeth: Do it and see what happens.

Dan: Prop 32 has been defeated twice over the last 10 years. Corporations are able to raise money in a different way, so they have more ability to get this passed.

If 30 and 38 both pass, the one that gets the most votes will go into effect.

Seeking point people to work with CFT on this issue

Masao: we also should partner with students on this issue

Teeka: we should put together a working group that includes Dan, Teeka, and one chair from each campus

Dan: the Community College League sent out a resolution on Prop 30 and sent it to the chancellor and it will be on the next board meeting agenda; students will likely get involved at that point. The chapter chairs should do it. All three campus co-chairs agreed.

Elizabeth thinks it should just be the millionaires’ tax and that this is a sell-out.

CFT has a support system in place

Alayna Frederick, CFT Political Organizer

7a. COPE (Committee on Political Education) Chapter revitalization

Dan paraphrased what’s on the website concerning COPE chapter.

Treasurer: Karen Olesen; funded through payroll deductions.

It has about $6,000 in the account.

Proposal: in the context of working on Props. 30 and 32 and preparing candidates to run for the board next year, we might want to revitalize. The money is spent on candidates running for the board of trustees. Also funds were used to oppose Prop 209.

Katharine: we should think about this in combination with Board of Trustees candidate issue

Dan: we should keep it separate; use these funds for donations to issue campaigns, too.

Dan: would like someone from the EC to be the president of COPE—think about it

Teeka: we will think about it and return to it

Rebecca: interested candidates contact Dan Joaquin Rivera and Dan Kaplan

8. Discussion of candidate search for the 2013 Board of Trustees election;  Presenters: Dan Kaplan and Joaquin Rivera

Dan: around 1996 we spent a summer interviewing people. We haven’t done it since. We need to go into the community and find candidates. The Board of Trustees is having a public hearing tonight to receive input on “at large” versus “by district” college Board elections—if it will be district elections that would be less expensive, which will make it easier for less wealthy to run a campaign

Lin: has run into people who think that the district needs fresh blood—she’s working on encouraging them and encouraging them to meet with (some of) us

Rebecca knows people who might be interested

Lin: it costs about $250,000 to run for an at-large position

Dan: we should solicit interested candidates and bring their names to

Dan and Teeka; we should put together a subcommittee of the EC to interview candidates. There are two openings; one candidate running for re-election is friend of the union

 

9. Use your AFT addresses daily; Presenter: Teeka James

We really need to keep our communications private.

Katharine: we should get everyone to contact us via the AFT email account rather than via smccd

Anne: We should explain to people that they should use our AFT accounts

 

10. Workload survey update (part of the PT parity campaign); Presenter: Teeka James

Monica asked Teeka and Joaquin to take over

Trying to assess how much time is spent doing teaching vs. non-teaching work

1) Should the survey be anonymous?

2) Should we ask which committees faculty are on, to make sure that they are being accurate?

3) Should it branch into a fulltime and adjunct path from the beginning?

Lezlee: Why should it be anonymous or not? Also, if we wanted to follow up, it would be helpful to know who answered it. We should have a question about other questions that should be asked.

Rebecca: It seems like it would be useful to get more information (identity, status, etc.). Agrees with branching; TurboTax as a model.

Sarah: Many PT faculty fear that things will be used against them if they aren’t doing enough hours of outside work. Could putting a name be optional?

Teeka: if it’s not anonymous, the validity of the survey changes. We should think about our purpose: finding out how much of the job is non-teaching.

Chip: The answers don’t necessarily fit the boxes. Too ambiguous; each department has different tasks.

Teeka: Monica wanted to keep with the language of the contract; Teeka feels like it needs a lot of re-working to make it clear.

Anne: it should be anonymous; she leans toward not listing committees; suggests that we each try to fill it out and then we will see the problems.

Teeka: We all need to be more involved in crafting it; send suggestions to Teeka about the basic design (multiple choice?). Please get it back to her within two weeks; she is aiming to get it out this semester. It will be mentioned in the Advocate.

11. Performance Evaluation Task Force (PETF) update

Teeka: met with Chip, Joaquin, Diana Bennett and Leanne Shaw because the district wanted to do an orientation for the PETF taskforce

Meeting coming up on Friday with Lezlee, Nina, Tania Beliz, and Elizabeth.

1) AFT urges that the committee be allowed to make its own timeline

2) Get perspectives from a variety of faculty constituents

3) Senate wants monthly updates and accurate minutes posted in a timely manner

4) The committee should do research on MOU, history of last trust committee

5) Work toward strong materials that will last several years

6) Contact people should be Teeka, Joaquin, Dan, Chip and perhaps a part-time representative who has contract knowledge Lezlee Ware, Elizabeth Terzakis, Nina Floro

13. District Shared Governance Council report; Presenter: Dan Kaplan

Teeka: has agreed to represent the union at district shared governance council; Monica will do it next year.

The Senate is drafting rules and regs on academic freedom. Teeka will email draft and make sure that we communicate our ideas at senate meetings. We want to get academic freedom in our next contract. Teeka James

14. EC members attendance at meetings of the Labor Council, Board of Trustees, and Bay 10

Dan: Every two weeks Dan goes to meetings of the Board of Trustees; he would like more of us to attend. Also attends monthly Labor Council meetings; we’re urged to attend. Bay 10 meets monthly as well, in the East Bay.

Teeka: maybe we can each volunteer to attend one of the meetings

Look for sign up sheet next time.

 

15. Statements from EC members on Non- Agenda Items

None.

 

Meeting adjourned: 5 p.m.