FACTC Winter Meeting
Friday, February 10, 2006
ATTENDEES:
George Neal – South Puget Sound John Clary – Gray’s Harbor
Tom Affholter – Spokane Jason Clizer – Columbia Basin
Tim Keely – Tacoma Mark Doerr – Spokane Falls
Candace Gentry – Pierce, Fort Steilacoom Jennifer Wu – North Seattle
Leon Khalsa – Pierce, Puyallup Michelle Quinn, Seattle Central
Brad Smith – Skagit Valley Mike Dodge, Olympic
Randy Nelson, South Seattle Diana Knauf, Shoreline
Jim Howe, Lake Washington
Tom opened the meeting, and introduced Jon Clary of Gray’s Harbor.
Diana Knauf presented minutes for the Fall meeting. George moved to approve them with Candace seconding. Minutes were approved with changes. Diana also reported on Tools For Teaching conference evaluations as well. Responses were favorable for workshop topics and for the conference location.
Corrected budget numbers for October were circulated. The Tools for Teaching Conference ended up costing only $400 (net). Only three schools have not paid dues for this year.
Tom now knows which three schools to approach for new representation. Tom will take the “Walla Walla” approach with Wenatchee, so perhaps that will be the location of our meeting next Spring.
Sue Bickley is on sabbatical in Mexico, and will return for our next meeting.
E Portfolio project: CIS is working with experienced faculty (assessment) to choose a platform for portfolios state-wide. They are focusing on parameters and specs at the moment. There will not likely be a mandate to use the platform chosen, but it will be available.
Washington state does not have enough baccalaureate spots and is attempting to answer that need. UW-Bothell has now admitted their first freshman class. Cascadia would like to work more collaboratively with UW-B (who claims they are still committed to transfer students). UW-T and WSU-Vancouver will also be moving to the 4-year model. The key for us is to be sure that these efforts do not cannibalize our own enrollments.
College Readiness Project – This project is sponsored by the HEC Board and focused on English, language arts and science. A handout was distributed, and included the website, click on the links for more information. The project is in the process of defining the competency expectations. Work will be presented to the HEC Board in 12/06. This requires dialogue and coordination among the different levels of educational system. http://www.learningconnections.org/clc/hecb.htm
Transition Math project – A handout distributed, and representatives were asked to share it with the Mathematics faculty. The project is now moving into Phase II. The focus is on outreach efforts to high schools for early assessment so they can get prepared for college math. The legislature will be requested to provide $500,000 for support from supplemental budget. There are also talks with the Gates Foundation for this phase to support collaboration between high schools, CCs and 4-years so student can progress remediation-free. The heart of phase 2 is the regional projects; with true collaboration they can apply for funds to support local efforts. http://www.transitionmathproject.org
Salary increments bill passed and it did solidify the basic commitment, but not funding.
College in the High School bill did not pass, but is likely to be reintroduced next session.
High School completion program – This is for students who have completed everything but the WASL. They need some place to complete their work and that might involve contracting with CC’s or ESD’s to complete that work. This sort of program would be an alternative to the GED. The goal is not to undermine existing programs, rather to give an opportunity to those who need a different path from passing the WASL.
Placement test bill is alive and passed out of committee. It would require OSPI to provide and pay for early math placement testing for ALL high school juniors. They would work with local colleges to establish tests and procedures. This could contribute to less remediation in the long run.
Charlie Earl, Executive Director, State Board of Community and Technical Colleges
We were able to meet the new director on day 8 (with 3 of those days having been in D.C.). He applauded the idea of FACTC. Hale came from Everett CC and highlighted the Teaching and Learning Cooperative at Everett given that it is producing great results. Experiential learning is a big push (ex. Efforts in the community, service learning). Learning communities, hybrid courses, and utilizing technology to reduce visits to campus are great; technology + face-time seems to serve many needs. The role of faculty is becoming more important, not less. It is a more sophisticated job than it has ever been.
The real challenge for all of us is the change in the age demographic. We peak in high school grads in the next couple of years and then it is flat. So, how do we do even better what has always been a niche for us, how do we help adults develop in changing careers, attracting older learners and then helping them obtain success? Earl hopes to help be a part of effectively building a system beneficial for Washington residents. We have a great reputation nationally, let’s keep it and improve it.
Leon pointed out the national movement for accountability in education. If you teach it, prove it. Earl stated that this general movement will certainly continue. He thinks that we have some work to do in clarifying the measures that we are really watching. We have systems in place for assessing that students understand content, although we not appear to promote them very well; we bury our outcome information in a plethora of statistics. We ought to produce clarity in this arena, but not at the cost of relevance. Students’ performance at the universities is a pretty good measure, for example. In professional-technical areas, where there are national standards, first time pass rates are pretty relevant measures. We don’t need new ones.
We need the public, laypeople and the legislature to understand what we do and what we are good at. Bill remarked that it can be done, but it may require qualitative analysis (along the lines of Alverno). Combine that with quantitative data and you have meaningful information. Tom pointed out that anecdotally we often hear that the best instructors people have were at the community college (and they say this after they graduate from colleges or universities). When we approach the legislature we need to stop using the victim-esque approach. We need to counteract that with the successes that we achieve with students. We need to focus on and emphasize the tremendous contribution we make to the state.
Jennifer sent out the RFP for proposals for Distributed Learning. She also mentioned Backpack (offered by BlackBoard) which allows students to download course content so that they may work offline. It would cost the students and WAOL receives a “commission,” but they are investigating how they could take those funds and make the price lower for the students. Upgrades would also cost. The discussion morphed into why the focus on BlackBoard, now that they have purchased WebCT, it is likely that prices will rise. Could there be OpenSource platforms we can use instead? Or, can we get a state-wide contract? These are questions worth investigating.
The group agreed to consider tying the FACTC Focus and Tools for Teaching Conference.
1. The Changing Student – aka Millennials (those turning 18 in the “ots”)
Retention – changing demographics, the lack of academic success for boys issue (see Newsweek magazine).
Faculty Development - funding and creative funding
Whose job is it to give our students a sense of responsibility?
Educational fads and technology. Which new tools enhance our teaching?
2. Quality instruction – what does that mean? How do we provide models for part-time faculty? How do we know when an instructor is not doing a good job and what do we do about it? What about post-tenure review – can it have teeth? Affiliate status. Skills standards for prof-tech and could academic transfer faculty learn from this? What are decent professional development approaches? What are our standards for part-time hiring? Is there increasing pressure to de-professionalize teaching? Are students qualified to evaluate faculty? What are the standards for hiring associate faculty? How do we support part-time faculty effectively. Part-time faculty evaluation – who does it?
What do we call community college teachers?
3. Controversial topics in the classroom – intelligent design, how do we reconcile the values of our students with clashing content, what are the boundaries between a student’s religious sensibilities and our content?
Campus governance. College preparation. Baccalaureate degrees at the community college
Last night’s discussion generated support for the “changing student” because so many of the other topics can fit under that (college readiness, what technology works for them, WASL crowd and how they affect us). Jim proposed and Candace seconded. Quality of instruction for FOCUS and The Changing Student for Tools For Teaching. Mike called for the question, and the motion was approved unanimously.
The forum is currently down due to changes in the website service provider. Tom and Jason suggest that we move to a BLOG format that could be simpler. Additionally, if people are not using it, why bother? We need to model appropriate behavior AND we need to publicize it for faculty use across the state.
Bill pointed out that the State Board is currently revising their website, partly in an effort to improve communication among the various constituencies across the state. In this change over, there may be a chance to piggyback on the State Board website and that would give us access to some of the tools we would like to use. Tom will email all of us some update ideas and then we can look at it for the short term.
Lake Washington’s new Redmond Satellite Center is our primary choice with our back-up being Highline. Mike moved, Jason seconded, and the motion for locations was unanimously approved.
Jason, Diane P., Diana K. plus whoever else is interested will coordinate again. However, we also need to consider whether we handle the processing ourselves or farm it out to a conference center. Tom will write the web backing if we go that direction. Jim will check with his conference center to see if they could handle this and how much it would cost. Mark suggested increasing registration up to $10 to cover registration costs ($35), and it was suggested that we give the committee the authority to make those determinations. A motion was made by Mark and seconded by Mike. The motion passed.
Meeting adjourned.