Glendale Community College Faculty Senate

Meeting of February 23, 2006

Approved Minutes

 

(Please note:  General interest issues or meeting and notifications are listed below in bold to allow them to be located more easily.)

 

I.                    General

 

A.     Call to Order:  A quorum being present, President Carmela Arnoldt called the meeting to order at 2:30 P.M. in the Council Chambers, Senators present included President Carmela Arnoldt, Vice President Jim Reed, Treasurer Jim Daugherty, and Senators Doug Brenner, Paula Davis, Fernando Garcia, Robert Hubbard, David Jenkins, Connie LaBuhn, Johnnie Clemens May, Carlos V. Nuñez, Alicia Ottenberg, Robert Reavis, David M. Rodriguez, and Joy Wingersky. 

 

B.     Introduction of Guests- Including, but not limited to, James T. Abraham,  Doug Desanti, Gay Garesche, Frank Gonzalez, Susan High, KC Hundere, Sue Murray, Vice-Pres Connie Sherman, Michelle Shivnani, Russ Sears, Richard Shortridge, Lyle Walcott, and Steve Williams, and Vice-Pres Fernando Camou.

 

 

C.     The proposed meeting agenda was adopted as amended.

 

D.     The minutes from the January 26th meeting, distributed via email, were unanimously approved.

 

E.      KC Hundere updated Senate on the redesign of Employee ID cards with a better resolution printer.  He circulated examples of these new Employee IDs for Senate to view.  He also informed Senate of a proposal to migrate the GCC domain from gc.maricopa.edu to gccAZ.edu., which is easier and shorter to remember for marketing purposes.

 

F.      Herman Gonzalez made a presentation to Senate regarding IKON services.  He requested feedback from faculty and stated he would send a price sheet to all department chairs regarding different types of copy jobs.

 

 

G.     Treasurer Daugherty reported a balance of $8,968.33 for all accounts.   He reported an expenditure during the month in the amount of $400.00 made to the GCC Mentoring Program.

 

H.     President’s Report-

President Arnoldt informed Senate of the impressive faculty turnout at the Gov. Bd.’s Academic Freedom Strategic Conversation on 2/14/06.

 

Matt Ashcraft suggested that a student worker could scan archives Senate records.  This may be a future agenda item.

 

I.        FEC Report-

Vice-President Reed informed Senate that FEC  passed a motion to earmark all funds saved with the new medical insurance plan for future increases in healthcare costs.

 

The PR lobbying firm has been doing a great job of keeping faculty abreast of all legislative bills of interest.

 

 

J.       Governing Board Report-

President Arnoldt informed Senate that there will be a follow up to February’s Governing Board’s Strategic Conversation on MCCCD’s academic vision at the district office on March 7th from 4-7 PM.

 

K.    Vice President Sherman brought a team of technology people to answer questions regarding blackboard, MIDAS, and Softricity software.

 

A discussion ensued regarding blackboard issues and possible solutions to correct errors for faculty and students.

 

Senator Daugherty provided historical perspective of the current palette.  He then gave an overview of Softricity software and its capabilities to replace our existing palette system. 

 

VP Sherman and the technology team assured Senate that there is funding available to cover the high cost of Softricity.  Senator Rodriguez posed the question concerning the bidding process for this new software.  Senator Daugherty stated that Softricity was a package that would meet and exceed our needs and therefore could be a sole source. 

 

The discussion ended due to time constraints.

 

L.  International Students Program Director Ken Bus informed Senate that it is difficult to recruit international students given their higher tuition.  He also passed out a handout to show cost comparison between MCCCD and other state universities.

 

II.                 Old Business

 

A.     Senator Hubbard introduced Gay Garesche, economics faculty, to speak about the dual enrollment standards.  Ms.Garesche presented Senate with the revised standards which included multiple options for each standard.  Mr. Shortridge, Business and Information Technology Department Chair, stated that there are existing Arizona revised statutes that deal with dual enrollment, and that the standards being proposed are an approximation of the current statutes.  Discussion ensued until President Arnoldt ended the discussion at 4:50pm.

B.     Senator Daugherty informed Senate that the Administrators’ Feedback Subcommittee will continue to meet.

C.     President Arnoldt tabled the discussion for chair term limits until next Senate meeting.

 

                                                                                  

 

III.               New Business

 

A.     President Arnoldt informed Senate that a campus wide meeting took place to discuss a student centered schedule with chairs and faculty.

B.     President Arnoldt encouraged Senate to recruit faculty to run for open Senate seats and for Senate President.

C.     Ruth Callahan informed Senate of an anonymous donation made to initiate an endowed scholarship in memory of Pat Haas.

IV.              Information

 

A.     President Arnoldt informed Senate of the possibility of an Employee Lease Back program; a sub-committee of the District Employees Benefit Committee will examine.

B.     President Arnoldt informed Senate of the potential move of the Counseling Department from Student Affairs back to Academic Affairs.

C.     Vice-President Reed informed that a discussion will take place at the next Department Chair’s meeting concerning members chosen for hiring committees.

 

V.                 Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at 5:25 pm.  Next meeting will be on February 23, 2006.