Highlights from the February Board Report

Highlights from the Board Report is a monthly regular feature that highlights what one person finds to be important from the most recent Board Report. We read it so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

I haven’t done one of these for awhile; sorry.

I had one drafted for December, but then I started to get too worked up over the December District Office hiring (14 new district positions (including two new Vice Chancellors and a Procurement officer (all $100,000+, and of the 14 positions, 6 were not even in the budget released only four months earlier–see it’s happening again). How many new faculty? Five.) And that’s after November  added a new Associate Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management, and  January was better (Nine DO hires, including a promotion for Alvin Bisarya (or at least an extra 10 G’s), four of which were new positions, which I think (but amn’t sure) means unbudgeted, but they hired 32 faculty across the district including 7 at HW), but, regardless, I digress. February is the point today.

The report from yesterday’s Board Meeting is up and available. (Whatever else is true of our District people, they’ve become lightning fast at getting those board reports up!). And, though there’s no notice of it in the Board Report, yesterday was Martin Cabrera’s last meeting as Chair of the board (check out the Union Google Group to see the nice things Perry had to say about him and his rein in the big chair); Mayor Emanuel has recommended Paula Wolff to be the new chair (an appointment that Perry called “Historic” which is exciting. Let’s hope. In any case, congratulations to Dr. Wolff.

~Nothing from HR or Academics, but there’s some stuff about money (and apparently there was a discussion about FY2013 Reinvention Vision, Goals and Objectives. I’d like to see that…maybe it’ll be on the Reinvention Blog.

~Contract Renewals are up–congratulations to Samar, Luke, Tony, Janette, Joe, Sarah, Erica, Megan, Kwok-Tuen (Ray), and Philip on their 2nd contract, and triple congrats to Yev Lapik and Paul Wandless on achieving Tenure! Looks like things went better at the other colleges this year than in some past years, too (though, in the Google Group, you can read Perry’s note which seems to suggest that there were some shenannigans around “lost portfolios.”

~No more post-retirement lifetime  medical/dental/vision coverage for people who have served 7 or more years as district officers, and no more 100% coverage for current district officers. Wayne is sad this morning.

~There were some personnel moves. The big news? No new Vice Chancellors this month. Hallelujah. HW had a couple of hires (welcome aboard Daryl Tolbert (Business Advisor–don’t know what that is; probably part of the 10000 Businesses thing?) and Raeann Caldwell has a new gig as a “retention specialist”). Also, a bunch of new faculty across the district (five at Daley (two in Humanities!)). Donna Williams is moving to Malcolm X, but otherwise there were no separations for us this month.

~We’ll be getting something called Early Alert to help with advising;

~Polly Hoover addressed the Board in regard to the CASH-to-ROI program (Worst-name-ever award winner) that was piloted at Daley and is soon to spread to the other colleges. Her speech is a really, really well argued one and important for faculty to check out (especially those engaged with Developmental Ed). Make sure you CHECK IT OUT.

If you think I missed anything important, please toss it up in the comments.