San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493
Minutes of
General Membership/Executive Committee Meeting
Wednesday, February 13, 2013, at Skyline College
EC members present: Chip Chandler, Vicki Clinton, Salumeh Eslamieh, Nina Floro, Katharine Harer, Teeka James, Dan Kaplan (Exec. Secr.), Michelle Kern, Monica Malamud, Sarah Powers, Sandi Raeber-Dorsett, Joaquin Rivera, Anne Stafford, Elizabeth Terzakis, Lezlee Ware.
Other AFT 1493 members present: Grace Chen, David Locke
Guests: Zev Kvitky (CFT field rep)
Meeting began at 2:36
Facilitator: Katharine Harer
1. Welcome and introductions
Not necessary, as everybody who was present at the beginning of the meeting knew everybody else.
2. Statements from AFT (non EC) members on Non-Agenda Items
None.
3. Minutes of January 16, 2013 AFT meeting
Approved unanimously.
4. PT parity campaign: status of email to all PT faculty
Sandi Raeber-Dorsett, Vicky Clinton
Sandi distributed a draft of an email that will be sent out to PT faculty. The goal of the email is to encourage PT to participate in focus groups, in order to gather information so as to come up with contract proposals that would strenghthen contract language around PT issues. Sandi requested everyone to send feedback on the email text.
It was suggested that we ask our CFT field rep for help setting up conference calls, since it’s difficult for PT to meet in person, and email exchanges may not be as fruitful as synchronous discussions.
5. PT parity goals discussion
In our district, we are trying to determine what the parity goal is in terms of the teaching component. It is problematic to ask and expect PT to do program review and hiring justifications, for example; we should not depend on a PT to get this work done. It’s good to encourage PT to participate in tasks other than teaching, but it seems more appropriate to pay PT for these tasks on a stipend basis.
6. Workload survey update: flyers, posters, tabling
One hundred and twenty faculty have already started filling out the survey, and 93 completed it already.
Some EC members have been working on the design of a flyer and a poster. Dan will have them printed. They will be posted at various locations in the three campuses.
Chapter chairs at each campus will organize the efforts to get faculty to participate in the survey (posting flyers/posters, tabling, etc).
7. Status of our demand to negotiate Board policies, including Academic Freedom and8. District Shared Governance Report
Teeka James, Joaquin Rivera
Teeka and Joaquin met with Harry Joel and Ron Galatolo on January 30th. Harry Joel was very willing to work with AFT on these policies. They were able to reach agreement on three policies:
2.10. Nondiscrimination
2.60. Resignations
6.35. Academic Freedom
In addition to becoming Board policy, the Academic Freedom policy will be incorporated in our contract, with the caveat that it is not subject to arbitration.
Joaquin is now preparing proposals on other policies, such as computer privacy issues, intellectual property rights and freedom of speech. We are making good progress in all of these. Union and district are not far apart in their positions, and our negotiator is confident that agreement will be reached on several additional policies in the near future.
Ron would like to start negotiations right away; the District is in a good financial position, and there is more financial stability due to the district becoming basic aid. The District would like to have a settlement before the end of the fiscal year because this would allow the District to plan for the future more accurately. We need to decide on the non-economic issues for our re-openers.
9. MOOCs
DEAC’s meeting today included the topic of MOOCs on its agenda. Elizabeth was at this meeting with her students, who had voted to do this as a class field trip, because they want to inform themselves about issues that may impact their education. Salumeh attended the DEAC meeting as well. Salumeh reported that for the MOOCs agenda topic, DEAC invited a representative from Udacity to make a presentation. This representative showed examples from Physics and Math and said that there is a lot of peer interaction among students in the courses. The Udacity representative also answered questions:
Question: What about Humanities and Social Sciences courses? A: none yet.
Question: What is the role of faculty in the long term? A: the role of faculty will change.
Question: What is the success rate in these MOOCs? A: 15% in a MOOC offered by Stanford
Some of the points brought up during our discussion:
– Courses need to go through Curiculum Committee. If faculty don’t do them, then they won’t happen.
– MOOCs as currently conceived do not align with Title 5 (“frequent and effective contact” between professor and students?)
– If other colleges offer MOOCs, why can’t we just accept transfer credit for them, instead of offering them in our district?
Peter Bruni and a faculty member have been asked to create a pilot MOOC in our district.
MOOCs are being discussed in other forums:
– At the last DAS meeting, Dolores Davison, from the Academic Senate for the California Community Colleges, said that the state Academic Senate will probably be taking up the topic of MOOCs.
– CFA is supportive of MOOCs.
– The Board held a study session on MOOCs on January 9th.
10. 2014-2015 Academic Calendar survey. Compressed Calendar.
Joaquin Rivera
Some issues that were brought up when discussing previous academic calendars:
– Length of winter break
– Split finals week
– Later start in August
– End before Memorial Day or go into June
– Number of flex days
– When to schedule flex days
– Compressed calendar
Joaquin will be putting together a survey to poll faculty on these issues and others as necessary, in order to get input for the design of the Academic Calendar 2014-2015. Please send any ideas for this survey to Joaquin. In the survey, it may be useful to include information about the process of designing an academic calendar and about the trade-offs that are involved (for example, a later start in August with our current semester length means that finals will be right before the holidays, trying to end by Memorial Day forces us to start by a certain date in January).
11. Performance Evaluation Task Force update
Nina Floro, Lezlee Ware, Elizabeth Terzakis
At the last meeting of the PETF there was a misunderstanding regarding the inclusion of SLOs in the Dean’s Assessment; at this time it has been decided that SLOs will not be included in the Dean’s Assessment. PETF members voted on whether SLOs should be included in the faculty self-assessment (yes: 5, no: 1).
Currently, there is inconsistency among the campuses regarding what documentation needs to be turned in when a faculty member is being evaluated.
PETF has a draft of student surveys to be used for faculty evaluations.
In terms of satisfying ACCJC, the report will state what the PETF has been discussing. However, anything that the PETF decides will have to be ratified by the faculty and approved by the Board.
12. AFT 1493 CCSF resolution
Teeka James
Teeka showed a petition that has been circulating in San Francisco, demanding that Parcel Tax (Prop A) revenues be spent in the manner they were intended.
Dan participated in a meeting called by AFT 2121 yesterday. He spoke at this meeting and his remaks were very well received by attendees, who also urged him to mobilize faculty in our district in support of City College of San Francisco.
Dan drafted a resolution in support of the struggle at CCSF. It was approved unanimously. AFT 1493 will forward this resolution to the San Mateo Central Labor Council and urge them to pass a similar resolution.
13. CFT Leadership Conference Report
Teeka James, Dan Kaplan
The current focus of the CFT is the “Campaigning for Quality Public Education”. CFT is asking locals to contribute to this campaign by discussing what constitutes “quality public education”.
Randi Weingarten gave a very inspiring speech on Thursday evening. A union activist from the Chicago public schools talked about their experiences organizing a strike. Bezemek’s workshop on legal issues focused on accreditation and the ACCJC.
Suggestion: work on increasing our union membership, by having a modest and achievable goal per semester.
14. AFT summer party / scholarship fund raiser planning discussion
Executive Committee
Tabled to next meeting.
15. Statements from EC members on Non- Agenda Items
We had a great meeting.
We need to have a committee to analyze workload survey results.
We need readers for the scholarship applications.
Meeting adjourned 5:07 p.m.