ReinQuestion? appears every Thursday and is an open thread for members of the HW and CCC community to post questions about the ongoing Reinvention. Any and all questions are invited, and anyone who knows an answer to any question posted is encouraged to answer it in the threads below.
At our meeting with three faculty members from the Faculty and Staff Development Task Force on Tuesday, we got some answers to our two lingering ReinQuestions:
~Who is the “union leadership” with whom the Professional and Staff Development Task Force is working? According to Alicia and Franklin, they are in regular contact with Perry Buckley about the direction of their research and discussions.
~Can’t the approval and reimbursement process for faculty professional development funds be streamlined (and is there a task force working on this one)? Hopefully. This was raised at the discussion, and it sounds like it has been one of many consistent themes across the colleges that they have visited.
And thanks to everyone who participated in the HWFC PD survey. I’ll be going around this afternoon to make final collections. We had 70 in hand by the time of the meeting and there were some interesting preliminary findings. Conferences and Professional Reading/Journals were named most frequently as “sources of valuable professional development” in the last year, followed by Courses, Peer Feedback/Visitation, and Student Evaluations (all tied).
61 of 70 faculty stated that HW should provide professional development to adjuncts that would help them prepare for and make progress toward full time teaching jobs. 39 of those 61 stated that HW does not currently do so.
Once I get them all tallied up, I’ll post the results here. At the meeting, Franklin and Alicia reminded us a couple of times to tell y’all that there will be another survey from them within the next 2 to 3 weeks asking for more information, ideas, and suggestions with respect to some of the ideas they are formulating.
In the meantime, what questions do you have about Reinvention this week?
The Harold Lounge 
Thank you PhiloDave and all parties involved for providing answers to our questions. In light of recent developments and based on this week’s answer from Alicia and Franklin, here’s my question:
Why are these task force members in regular contact with Perry Buckley?
What goals would our union president be trying to achieve and why isn’t this communication more transparent to ALL union members? It almost sounds as if Alicia and Franklin are reporting to Perry, not because they want to, but because they have to. It’s as if he wants to stir the pot too, and I have no problem with this endeavor. Go for it union president!
However, transparency would be most appreciated.
Perhaps I am not reading the response correctly, and I take full blame for my ignorance. However, if I am reading this right, an elaboration on last week’s answer and a response to this week’s question would be most appreciated.
Tanks!
They are willingly checking in regularly with Perry, Realist, as well as with other union members; furthermore, lest we forget, they are also members, and committed ones at that. They are trying to be transparent with the leadership (and they are more than willing to be transparent with the membership–that was the aim and reason for the focus group).
If you or anyone got the sense that anyone mentioned has anything but honorable intentions, a desire to follow along with what is happening to stay informed and provide accurate, helpful information about contract related areas and proposals from what I wrote, the fault is entirely mine.
My sense is that everyone discussed above is on the up and up–trying to do their best to come up with helpful solutions to important problems related to Faculty Professional Development so that we can get the resources we need to do our jobs better (without jeopardizing freedoms and processes that currently help us do our jobs well).
I don’t think there’s an issue here.
Thanks for the clarification PhiloDave.
Fault is all mine on this one. My ignorance shines through on a cloudy day.
Disregard my question.
I’m lookin’ at a half full Reinvention glass (instead of half empty), that’s why I wanted to know more.
It appears the task forces are focused and doing more that was expected in these few short weeks.
Power to the peeps.
No worries, Realist. You ask great questions, and receive clarifications with an integrity and generosity of mind that are rare and impressive.
Always a pleasure to discuss things with you…