HWFC

HW Faculty Council Candidate Statements (Fall 2016 Edition)

It is my pleasure to fulfill a request put forward by our current HWFC to share the statements of our three colleagues who have been nominated and agreed to stand for election to three-year terms on the Faculty Council. There are two open positions.

I share these in the order that I received them.

Kristin Bivens, Associate Professor of English

This past August, as I started my 10th year at HW in the English department, I took stock of various opportunities I had participated in and others I had not. For example, I served as CAST coordinator, along with Kamran Swanson, for 2016. As part of my CAST duties, I organized (along with Kamran) FDW in August and various CASTivities throughout the spring semester (and now, the fall semester). I think my biggest contribution has been hybridizing and digitizing CAST content and recording CASTpod interviews with and for HW folks.  I was happy to use some of the tech skills from my PhD in technical communication and rhetoric as CAST coordinator and for FDW.

Serving faculty as CAST coordinator was a gratifying experience, but when I was recently nominated for FC, I thought this was another opportunity to continue to serve faculty and faculty interests.  As we approach an important crossroads as a district and college (a new chancellor, a new contract, and re-accreditation), I would like to use my experience (spring 2016) working on an all-District team of English faculty to create a new writing placement. My experience called for skills of argumentation and persuasion to ensure the best writing placement test was chosen for our students. I think my experience on this all-District team will also contribute to serving as the criterion chair for integrity for re-accreditation, as well as your FC representative.

Megan Ritt, Assistant Professor of English

Those of you who know me know that I’m passionate about many things (including Game of Thrones, the Oxford comma, and french fries). Another subject I’m passionate about is teaching and the well-being of our students. A lot of what we can do for them is reliant upon not just our content-area knowledge but also our knowledge of education itself, our academic freedom, and our ability to share in the governance of our school.

I want to serve on Faculty Council because I want to put my passion to good use. As a teacher of argumentation, I will listen to the many disparate voices of our faculty and help us reach informed conclusions. Serving as CAST Coordinator in 2014 and 2015 helped me see the importance of being involved on the school-wide level. I am eager to learn from those who have gone before me and to help provide a voice for the faculty and by extension, our students. If I am chosen to serve on the Council, I’ll bring my passion for teaching, my writer’s ear, and my Oxford commas. Thank you for your consideration.

B. Kamran Swanson, Assistant Professor of Humanities (Philosophy)

The Faculty Council is expected to represent the views of full- and part-time faculty, to support positions that preserve and strengthen the academic integrity of the institution, and to work with administration to foster an environment of shared governance. In my first three years of serving on Faculty Council, I have learned what it means to do this effectively, and I am excited to do so more frequently and effectively for another three years. I feel privileged to work among a community of experts, tremendously varied in their knowledge, experiences, and perspectives. I believe that the best version of Faculty Council draws upon these differences, encourages rational dissent, and sets an example for our administration, our students, and our larger community, to exercise a government of free thinkers with competing views. I believe it is possible to do this without losing a clear voice, and I hope my various statements to administration and faculty have demonstrated this over the past few months and years. If reelected to Faculty Council, I intend to continue putting into practice that which I’ve learned before.

 

 

Reminder: Vote for FC4 Reps

Voting is happening right now in your department office for the two candidates running to represent Harold Washington College at Faculty Council of the City Colleges of Chicago (i.e., FC4).

Just in case you read this but not emails, here are the bios of the candidates, as presented in the HWFC email you received from HWFC President Jess Bader:

Hello Faculty,

We are excited to present the two candidates who have been nominated for the district level Faculty Council (FC4). Check out their bios, and be sure to vote next week. The polls will be open from Monday through Friday September 28th – October 2nd.

 

Phillip Vargas

My name is Phillip Vargas, and I am an Assistant Professor and Co-Chair of the Department of Physical Sciences. I teach both general education courses and program level physics courses. I have been teaching at HWC since Fall 2010, and believe I have worked on many projects that have positively contributed to the college. What I have enjoyed most in working on these projects has been meeting and collaborating with other dedicated faculty members. After serving as a substitute FC4 representative for the last few months I believe my voice on FC4 can help to improve the dialogue between the colleges and with district office. If elected, I would be honored to represent HWC in this capacity.

 

Jennifer Meresman

I’ve always been passionate about public education and feel very lucky to be a full-time faculty member at the Harold Washington. I first formally studied public education as an American institution when I wrote my undergrad thesis on public schools as a site for teaching civic engagement in order to strengthen democracy. This theoretical study led me to want hands-on experience teaching in a public school, so I then taught special education middle school math in Oakland, CA for three years. Although I immediately found that I loved working with students, I realized a middle school was not the right place for me, so I got a Master’s degree with the explicit goal of teaching at the community college level. After completing a Master’s in Humanities at the University of Chicago, I got a full-time position in the English Department at Harold Washington in 2006.

In 2011 I joined Reinvention, and I focused my time there on the redesign of the tenure process. I was passionate about this project because I see tenure as both an incredible opportunity and responsibility that both enables and obligates faculty to participate in shared governance, directing the course of public education. Through the two-year redesign, I got an opportunity to work with both administrators and faculty across the seven colleges, and became committed to strengthening relationships between all of these parties, ensuring that we are working together towards a shared mission.

Faculty Council Candidates: Personal Statements

Per request from Michal Eskayo, here are the candidates for HW Faculty Council. Voting is open all week–watch your mailbox for your ballot.

Hello faculty,

We are excited to present the three candidates who have been nominated for the Harold Washington College Faculty Council. Check out their bios, and be sure to vote next week. The polls will be open from Monday through Friday.

 

Luke Belz

I am writing to seek your support for my nomination as a Faculty Council member at Harold Washington College. Since the Fall semester of 2011, I have been a full time faculty member of the Mathematics and CIS Department and, as of Spring 2014, I was awarded tenure. I have taught a variety of classes ranging from Beginning Algebra up to and including Calculus. Also, I have participated on college wide committees such as the CAST and Curriculum Committees along with departmental committees such as the Developmental Education Math Committee and the Calculus Committee. Currently, I am on the District Wide Faculty Council. Each day I look forward to and enjoy working with my students and all my colleagues throughout the college. If given the opportunity to be a Faculty Council member, I would do my best to be the voice of all faculty members and address their concerns so that we can continue to maintain the high standard of education for our students.

 

Stephanie Burke

I am a photography instructor in the Department of Art and Architecture here at Harold Washington College. As a newly tenured faculty member at HWC, I am very interested in being an active member of our school community. I am the co-founder of the Fine Arts Integration Committee, the faculty advisor for the Council Of The Arts, HWC’s art club, and co-organize student programming on an ongoing basis, including the annual off campus student exhibition and the Arts Transfer Fair. I am looking forward to contributing to and learning from Faculty Council.

 

Phillip Vargas

My name is Phillip Vargas, and I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Sciences. I teach both general education courses and program level physics courses. I have been teaching at HWC since Fall 2010, and believe I have worked on many projects that have positively contributed to the college. What I have enjoyed most in working on these projects has been meeting and collaborating with other dedicated faculty members. I believe Faculty Council will offer additional opportunities to work with a committed group of faculty members toward improving the college and I would be honored if elected.

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning-ish feature (that sometimes shows up later) , presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

This Week’s Updates: Since the last update, the 8th annual Meet and Greet happened, which (I hear) was a great success; special thanks goes to Jennifer Armendarez and Rachel Iannantuoni for organizing and hosting!

The other big news is that the April HWFC meeting will be Tuesday, April 18th at 4pm in room 1046. All are welcome and invited. See you there!

Last Week’s Questions: None.

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning-ish feature (that sometimes shows up later) , presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

This Week’s Updates: Lots of stuff to report this week (which is why it’s late!)

1.8th Annual Meet and Greet: Social Co-Chairs and awesome people Jenny Armendarez and Rachel Iannantuoni (pronounced: Yan-a-TOE-ni) have decided to revive a tradition started by the late great Isabelle Belance to get the school’s faculty (full-time and part-time alike) in a room together for a little frivolity and grousing and morale boosting and music and convo. I’ll let Rachel and Jenny give you the details:

[This year’s HWC Faculty Meet & Greet will be on]Wednesday, March 28th, 2-5pm in room 1115. As usual, we look forward to meeting any new faculty and encourage everyone to stop by! Music will be provided by the first one who gets to the audio jack with their IPOD/MP3 Playlist.

Some games will be available and if there is enough interest, a Words With Friends competition! Potential topics of conversation for the event: March Madness, Spring Break Destinations and the usual investigatory conversations about who is the Realist!

Food, like paper, is no longer provided for College activities, so we are asking those who are interested to bring their specialty dishes or contribute to a fund for cheese/fruit platters.

Please RSVP to Rachel by Mon, March 26th regarding whether you would like to bring a dish to share or contribute to our cash food fund–contact new faculty member Rachel Iannantouni:  RIannantouni@ccc.edu, ext. 5616.

For more general information please contact Jenny Armendarez at jarmendarez@ccc.edu, ext. 5898.

2. Budget Request: At our last HWFC meeting, we discussed whether to ask for any Budget lines though the office of instruction and, after some discussion, came to a consensus (of sorts) on three:

A) Release time for the President of Faculty Council (every President does a TON of work, meeting attendance, communication, and more; plus we figured that this would be a way for the administration to formally recognize the value and importance of Faculty Leadership);

B) A Chunk of Money for Funding Annual, Faculty-Driven, Curriculum Related Events and Festivals (a few years ago, some of us kicked around the idea of a kind of ad-hoc Arts Council that could disperse money to groups and faculty who want to do special events (i.e. Latino Heritage Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, etc.). In the past, Faculty have had to choose between unsavory options like: 1) raiding/begging for scraps from a department budget; or 2) going through Student Government (putting some of us in the weird position of asking students we were teaching to fund our special projects and also led to difficulty for fall events given that SGA usually takes a few months to get settled and funded and going (by the time they held a meeting, it was often too late for some of the events); or 3) pleading with and administrator to release the hounds, as it were, which put the groups asking for money in the spring at an advantage relative to those who asked in the fall (unless it was all spent, in which case the people in the spring went begging elsewhere). So the hope is to set up a mechanism/application process whereby faculty would apply to Faculty Council for the funding for these types of events and FC would approve/recommend approval (not exactly sure how it will work yet).)

C. Some Cash for Hosting Faculty Wide Speakers/Events Related to Curriculum (e.g., ICCB, IAI, Programs), Academic Issues, etc.

We are happy to report that all three requests made it into the draft budget anyway. We’ll see if they make it from the draft into the approved budget sometime soon.

3. Joint Union-Faculty Council Meeting: Next Tuesday, March 27th, from 3:30 to 5pm somewhere (assume room 1046 unless you hear otherwise) there will be a joint faculty council/union meeting to discuss the proposal to change the tenure process AND the work that the same team has done on a proposal to change the Post-Tenure Review Process (which is contractual). Watch your email for more information on this as it develops.

4. Emergency Plan: I’m sure you were all as pleased as I was to see that, in response to the Tribune investigation kerfuffle, the district”s emergency plan, which includes the college specific emergency plans, has been submitted to the state, per state law, as of March 19th (as reported in your email on March 19th). Unfortunately, they are about the only ones who know what it says…I mean, am I crazy to think that the biggest threat to our college is the fact that, by their own admission, most of our faculty don’t know what to do in emergencies and don’t know how to access the information? The gates are going to be “great” and all, but unless they have magic powers, they’re not going to be very helpful. Raise your hand if you have a safe key and an index card in your classroom when you’re teaching (you know, those two things that you’ll need for a lockdown in the case of an active shooter or something awful like that). Better yet, ask that question at your next meeting (departmental or otherwise). I believe it was three years ago, or so, that Faculty Council asked for LARGE PRINT signs with the security number on it to be posted in each classroom. Still waiting. (sigh).

Last “Week’s” Pressing Questions: Anonymous asked: Does anyone know are CCC classes being taught at Chicago high schools? I have no new information on this besides what I wrote in the comments last time. Anyone else?
Everything else, especially the stuff I got wrong or missed, in the comments please

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning-ish feature (that sometimes shows up later) , presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

This Week’s Updates: We’re still working on a date for a joint Union/FC meeting, but it should happen in early March sometime. Of more urgency is this from HWFC Rep and Grievance Chair Anthony Escuadro:

With one more week to go until the contract survey is closed on March 7, there have been only 8 responses to the survey questionnaire. Of those 8 people who responded, six are from full-time faculty, one is from a full-time professional, and one is from a part-time professional. In other words, this small group of eight people will have an immense say in what concerns and suggestions get relayed to the Union leadership about the upcoming contract.

There’s still time to make your voice heard at [Dave here: the survey is hosted on a Google site which anyone with access would be happy to send you or give you–you do NOT need to sign up with Google for anything in order to fill out the survey! I do not want to post it here, though, so as to control for takers and fakers.]. The survey should take around 15-20 minutes to complete.

If you are one of those eight people who have completed the survey, thank you [you’re welcome!]. If you have been waiting to voice your thoughts on the upcoming contract, now is the time. And if you have some ideas or opinions on the upcoming contract, but for whatever reason you don’t want to complete the survey, let us know why so that we can make improvements to the way we get feedback from the Union members.

So, just in case it is helpful to see an example, my own answers when I did it were as follows:

Areas that I’d like to see addressed:

1.Increased funding for professional development (higher levels of tuition and conference reimbursements)

2. Distance Learning/CDL sections, especially the section on Intellectual Property Rights

3. Gender neutral language

4. Other stuff that I’d be happy to see addressed:
~An improved statement on Academic Freedom
~Faculty Evaluations (Post Tenure Review)
~A solution for Team Teaching
~Department Chair Duties (Stipend/more release time? The departments are huge relative to their past on account of the adjunct explosion. Combine that with turnover and tons of new administrative duties and the chair job has become nearly impossible for most of them)
~Fix the academic calendar so spring M/W classes don’t meet only 30 times, compared to 32 for T/Th in spring and 31 for M/W and T/H in the fall.

I’m sure that there are many of you who have even better ideas. I hope that you’ll share them with our union leadership who in just offering this survey has already done more to solicit information from the membership about contract negotiations than I’ve seen since 2003. Let’s show them that their efforts are appreciated…

Last “Week’s” Pressing Questions: None.

More next week, I’m sure.

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning-ish feature (that sometimes shows up later) , presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

This Week’s Updates: There was an HWFC meeting between today and the last Faculty Council Corner, but I missed it so I don’t have a ton of updates for you except that:

~The Council met with Michael Maltenfort and Charles Ansell to discuss the proposal for revising the Tenure Process and various aspects of it. The Reinvention team, which includes our Jeni Meresman, will be gathering feedback on the proposal and working out the forms and details over the next three months. Go HERE to check out the proposal and see the schedule for feedback meetings, and if you see something, please go to one of their meetings (see below) and SAY something. At the meeting they asked us to share this:

To all CCC full-time faculty members,
A new tenure process is coming, and those of us leading this effort are interested in getting feedback on the new materials as they are created.  All full-time CCC faculty members are invited to join in this process.
At minimum, everyone is welcome to look at the documents which are well on their way to being finalized.  They will always be available at http://faculty.ccc.edu/mmaltenfort/REI/ (this Web site will be periodically updated with new materials) and if you have any comments on these, you are always welcome to contact Michael Maltenfort (mmaltenfort@ccc.edu) and Jeni Meresman (jmeresman@ccc.edu).
If you wish to be more involved, we would like to get feedback about our recommendations and new documents as they are created.  Our work this semester is to create all rubrics and models that will be used to measure faculty effectiveness, revise observation forms and student feedback forms, and design the curricula for the all-college orientation and the Tenure Assistance Program seminar.  If this sounds like something you would like to help with, please join our Review Team.
We especially encourage stakeholder organizations (FC4, college faculty councils, union leaders) to send a representative to the Review Team.
Much of the work of the Review Team will be done through Blackboard, but we also ask that you attend our meetings, which are Friday mornings, 10:00 to 12:00, at the District Office (Room 641) on the following dates:
February 24
March 16
March 30
April 27
May 11 (or possibly May 4)
If necessary, you may join us instead by phone.
If you would like to join the Review Team, please contact Michael Maltenfort (mmaltenfort@ccc.edu).
Thanks!
—Michael (and Jeni)

~In other Meresman-related news, Jeni Meresman volunteered to serve as an FC4 representative for the remainder of Ellen Eason Montgomery’s term, and she was approved by the Council.

~In other English Department news, the department is building (and circulating) a draft about the new copier situation for other departments to consider signing onto. More on that when we have it.

~The council is working on coordinating with the Union leadership (through our shared leader, Anthony Escuadro) to schedule a joint meeting to share and work on issues that relate to both. More on that when we have it.

~The State of the College happened in a new format. Reviews seem generally positive (as you saw here and here)

~GradesFirst is coming. FC4 met with Anne Brennan about it and THIS is what they saw.

Last “Week’s” Pressing Questions:

~Kamran asks:  “What are the details of Malcolm X being converted to specialize in Health Care services? Specifically, what kind of degrees will Malcolm X now be offering? Does this mean the school will no longer provide an AA? Will departments/programs not directly related to Health Care services (history, philosophy, arts, astronomy, business, etc) be eliminated, relocated, reduced, or unchanged? On a related topic, if one school per year is converted to a particular industry, shouldn’t we be receiving information on what these will be? Don’t know; don’t know; don’t think so; don’t think so, but maybe eventually; they’d probably say no, since ‘ours is not to wonder why’ etc. Should be interesting though.  Still and all, while poking around yesterday, I found this (scroll down to read the comments) and was gratified to see so many voices of former students sticking up for what we do. I think if the Mayor and company drift toward the more radical possibilities of what they’ve proposed they may end up with a sh*t storm of pushback from the hundreds of thousands of students we’ve successfully served over the years. I mean, if they really believe that 7% number, they’re going to be in for quite a surprise.

There was also this about the building of a new Malcolm X college in the current MX parking lot–just announced this week, with this tidbit:  “He will make upcoming announcements about the focuses at other campuses, the mayor said.” The same announcement here also includes this:  “Other colleges will focus on information technology, hospitality, high-tech manufacturing and business.”  So, counting Health care and logistics, that makes six. Sounds like a great contest/pool opportunity. 2 variables, with five sub-variables each–that makes for hundreds of possibilities (more than a thousand? who knows the formula for that; help me out) for complete sets doesn’t it? I guess if we have to wait, we might as well play…

Post any additional questions (and responses) in the comments please.

Faculty Council Meeting Reminder

Just a reminder that our first FC meeting of the spring will be today at 4pm in room 1046. All are welcome and invited.

The first item of business will be a discussion of the proposed changes to the Tenure Review Process. If you’d like to see the current state of the proposal, you can go HERE to get the details of what’s being proposed.

(As I’ve said before, this is a project that is near and dear; it was almost four years ago that I first drafted a proposal for changing the tenure process and showed it around to people, a few of whom said, “I like it, but it’ll never happen.” Others tried to make something happen. It took awhile, but here we are and it looks like something may actually happen. So for anyone who says, “Nothing ever changes,” I say, “Voila.” I say it very, very slowly, but still…)

Michael Maltenfort, one of the architects of the proposal, will be joining us for questions and discussion.

See you there, we hope.

 

 

Faculty Council Corner

This Week’s Updates: There’s a lot of stuff flowing downhill from FC4 this week, but I’m not yet ready to post it here. Suffice it to say, though that we remain semi-desperate to find some faculty who are willing to serve on the District Wide Faculty Council (FC4). They meet on the last Wednesday of every month at 3pm (I think), usually at Malcolm X, and HW is supposed to have three elected members and one appointed by HWFC. As of right now, one of our elected members (unfortunately for us, but due to good things for her) had to resign and has been replaced by appointee (and awesome person) Jess Bader. Another of our elected members is on Sabbatical this spring and still needs a substitute for the rest of the semester. A third of our elected members notified us this week that she won’t be able to continue serving on FC4, given her duties with Reinvention and so also needs to be replaced. Rosie is our HWFC appointee.

In other words, we have two of four possible votes on the District wide council accounted for and two that need appointing. Any and all interested parties are encouraged to contact one of your HWFC reps. Appointees must be full time faculty but need not be tenured. Let us know if you’re interested.

As for the rest more info will be flowing through the Curriculum Committee and your email in the coming days, I’m sure.

Last “Week’s” Pressing Questions:

~Realist asked: “What should we do about all the talk from Rahm regarding City Colleges? Is my faculty council talking about this at meetings?” In regard to the former, I think that is a question that we’ll be taking up over the next few months in conversations at Faculty Council meetings, at and after the State of the College address, at department meetings and beyond. In regard to the latter, I can say that “Yes” we are talking about it, but we haven’t had a meeting yet (first meeting, 2/14 in room 1046 at 4pm). I’m sure it will be a point of discussion. We might even have some crucial information by then so we can discuss it knowledgeably.

~Mathissexy asked: “Did you have a problem this semester with the textbooks for the class and our bookstore? In particular, were the correct books there for the student and, more importantly, were there enough of them?” My answer (affirmative) was the only one. Anyone else want to weigh in? After the public beatd0wn that Hector received at the Beck’s sponsored luncheon (and subsequent meetings, etc.), I presume that people who are satisfied (or not) would want to post an answer. No?

Post any additional questions (and responses) in the comments please.

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning-ish feature (that sometimes shows up later) , presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

This Week’s Updates: Nothing much new this week. We are, however, semi-desperate to find some faculty who are willing to serve on the District Wide Faculty Council (FC4). They meet on the last Wednesday of every month at 3pm (I think), usually at Malcolm X, and HW is supposed to have three elected members and one appointed by HWFC. As of right now, one of our elected members (unfortunately for us, but due to good things for her) had to resign and has been replaced by appointee (and awesome person) Jess Bader. Another of our elected members is on Sabbatical this spring and still needs a substitute for the rest of the semester. A third of our elected members notified us this week that she won’t be able to continue serving on FC4, given her duties with Reinvention and so also needs to be replaced. Rosie is our HWFC appointee.

In other words, we have two of four possible votes on the District wide council accounted for and two that need appointing. Any and all interested parties are encouraged to contact one of your HWFC reps. Appointees must be full time faculty but need not be tenured. Let us know if you’re interested.

Last “Week’s” Pressing Questions: Nary a one. Nothing, that is, except for what the Mayor’s speech means for our colleges. I guess that one counts. Nothing else, though.

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning-ish feature (that sometimes shows up later) , presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

This Week’s Updates: With the first week of classes in the book, I hope everyone’s semester is off to a rousing start. Nothing much new this week that my addled brain can remember, but there’s still last week’s news, which was ably summarized by Jen Armendarez as follows:

  • ID’s for entrance will be necessary in the future
  • Other concerns shown by the survey will need to be addressed
  • Our next HWFC meeting will occur on Feb. 14th from 4-5 in room 1046

Last “Week’s” Pressing Questions: Hellokitty asked a series of questions related to what appears to be a new HWC Mission Statement. I had hoped to find out more about this, but have barely managed to keep up with the first week basics on account of a new writing scheme that I’m trying, which has required some front loading of work and thought. It’s definitely on our radar though and will be addressed once I/we find something out about it. Promise.

UPDATE: It’s been changed back! The stuff about Reinvention is still there, but clearly broken off from the Mission Statement and serving an elaborative purpose. More soon! (In the meantime, thank Don and the team for the quick response!)

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning-ish feature (that sometimes shows up later) , presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

Last “Week’s” Pressing Questions:

The Realist asked: Um, what came of the meeting and/or the unofficial holiday faculty gathering? Just wonderin’…

Taking the second part first, there was fun and frivolity (and beer and tequila) and no major injuries (to my knowledge) except to Jenny Armendarez’s bank account because she got stiffed with the bill (so if you were there, slip her a finsky this week to make her whole, or give it to me and I’ll give it to her. Honest.

As for the first part, you might be wondering, “What meeting?” This one, of course, with the Prez and the VC of Security and the Chairs and the HWFC and so on. It happened on December 8th. Backtracking a little to the results of the security survey, after a brief discussion, HWFC agreed that it probably made the most sense to send the full results to interested parties rather than post them for general consumption, so if you are a faculty member watch next week for an email with the results attached or, if you want it sooner, send one of your FC reps an email and we will send you what you seek.

The short summary of key findings from HWFC Secretary, Anthony Escuadro, looks like this:

1. 90% of the respondents feel HWC is a safe environment, but roughly 3/4ths of those who held this view think it can be improved;

2. Roughly 75% of the respondents did not experience any immediate or potential threat to their safety this semester; that number dropped to 65% when asked to consider other situations that made them feel uncomfortable about their safety;

3. A clear majority of the faculty that responded do not know how to access emergency plans and crime information;

4. Half of the respondents heard about or experienced a situation in which security was summoned to a classroom to address disruptive behavior; 86% of these respondents believed the security staff quickly and effectively removed the disruptor from the classroom.

Many faculty made suggestions, which Jenny A. ambitiously compiled into both a pie chart and a wordle for analysis (and a table with the full responses for ease of analysis). Her analysis of the suggestions yielded the following: 26 wanted more visible security; 23 wanted more information, drills, training; 15 people made no suggestion or said that security is doing a good job; 11 wanted limited access to the building; 3 wanted security phones in each classroom; and 9 were coded as Miscellaneous (e.g. there should be cameras and call boxes in the stairwells as well as call boxes in the bathrooms).

One thing we did not get from the survey was a clear and compelling argument against taking action to tighten up building access; we didn’t exactly discover a consensus, either, but Don was clear in his first meeting with us that his bias was toward action and he had explained why.

I got to the meeting about 15 minutes after it started owing to a simultaneous DEC meeting, and when I got there the Council (mostly Domenico) was presenting the survey findings, to Don, VC de Lopez, Chiaka Patterson (DO), the rest of HWFC and a couple of Department Chairs (Sherry and Sammy were there, and Domenico obviously, but I think that was it). Metoyer may have been there, too, but in silent mode if he was.

The meeting went for about an hour, and our discussions afterward (in the hallway, at the bar, by email over the next few days) were mixed. We were probably a little underprepared in that we had no plan for presenting our survey information and agreed, later, that we should have (we plead: “Finals Week”). There was confusion/frustration expressed by various people for various reasons, but primarily owing to one moment about halfway into the meeting, when the Vice Chancellor said that the “gates” (he kept resisting that word and using another, but I don’t remember what it was) were “a done deal” after telling us/letting it slip that they’d already made plans for us to get “Easy Lobby” (which is some sort of temporary ID software thingy, I think). Clearly, from the comment and his approach to the meeting that is what they were to him–speaking for myself, it seemed to me that he believed he was there to sell us on the decision he’d already made (which he didn’t do very well, at that).

There was disagreement among us about whether the same was true for Don (and whether if it weren’t he’d be overruled), but those ended up being counterfactual speculations since we had no case against their installation other than that they didn’t seem to address the primary concerns and issues that arose in the survey (and so other interventions were much more urgent (and much more cost effective)). Educating faculty and students about basic security plans, equipment, phone numbers, etc., seemed to us to be the first priority, and the situations identified by surveyed faculty were much more likely to involve students than non-students. Further, there was some concern that the “gates” might give people a false sense of security.

We discussed our general sense that faculty (at least) are generally uninterested in the topic owing to the dearth of feedback on the proposal and lack of push back to Chairs, us, or anyone. One suggestion was that perhaps the apathy was borne of a sense of futility (see: “done deal” above). One rep described the meeting thusly: “it was in the interest of making a top-down security mandate appear to be carried out with our input and consent.” The apathy on the topic seemed to surprise a lot of us and struck all of us, I think, as important to understand.

In later discussions, another rep expressed hope that automating the lobby access will “free up security resources to be distributed on the upper floors/library, where there seems to be a greater demand,” and we all hoped that the lobby system wouldn’t be what one HWFC rep called “a form of security theater.”

Both in the meeting and after, we discussed the possibility of another survey–this one “shorter, and more focused on the changes in lobby access” but the idea got no love from the admins and a mixed reception from the Council.

It’s clear from what we saw in the survey that faculty have security and safety concerns that will not be addressed by the gates, and the most frustrating part of the meeting, for me, was that our guests kept trying to suggest, ridiculously, that the one thing (the “gates”) would help with the other (the faculty’s actual security concerns) and/or that non-relevant comparisons or analogies were good grounds for the actions they were interested in taking. But that’s really neither here nor there. The key thing is that, come August, you’ll need your ID to get in the building and so will students. There will surely be more opportunities to give input on relevant aspects of the policy, the design and more down the road, and we all hope that if you are interested and/or offered the opportunity to provide feedback, that you will. It’s important.

If I have missed anything or unfairly emphasized/failed to note any ideas of importance, I trust that my colleagues will provide addenda in the comments, or send me email corrections for amending the above.

At least we can take some solace in the fact that it could be worse. Their solution for Truman is to build a big fence.

This Week’s Updates:

~Officer Elections: Officer elections were held at our meeting in November, and the officers (Rosie, Me, and Anthony) were all re-elected (President, VP, and Secretary, respectively). Huzzah, to all.

~Our first meeting of the spring term is scheduled for Tuesday, February 14th from 4-5pm in Rm. 1046. All are welcome and invited. Watch your email over the weekend prior for the agenda.

~Over the next few weeks, the HWFC will be compiling our priority list for spring. If you have any ideas, please send them along. For the moment, some key areas include FC4 representation, continued Reinvention updates, and rank promotion. I’m sure there will be more (copiers/printers come to mind as a likely candidate, not to mention purchasing, advising, registration, and the other “key processes” that all need/needed some attention as of the last State of the College address. Post your ideas in the comments.

See you in the hallways, and have a great semester!

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning feature, presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

Well, it happened again–the late week delay, only this time it started on Tuesday morning…so sorry about the delay. I trust that y’all managed to fill your day without me.

Last Week’s Pressing Questions:

This one from the Realist regarding the HWFC meeting with the Provost:

~Were you given a new date? Yes. Rosie rescheduled us for November 15th. I’ll have an update after the meeting.

This Week’s Updates:

~This Tuesday is our November Faculty Council Meeting (3:30pm in room 1046). All are welcome and invited. It will feature formal (and informal) expressions of gratitude for the service over the past few years of Kamilah Sanders and Chris Sabino, the seating of our two new Council members (Jen Armendarez and Chao Lu), officer elections, free popsicles, and the wit and wisdom of Domenico Ferri. Should be an exciting meeting. Watch your email for the agenda.

~Rosie, with absolutely no help from the rest of us, has arranged for an update from the HW members of Reinvention. They’ll be visiting us on Tuesday, November 22nd (3:30, room 1046) to talk about their work, their plans, and Spring Reinvention. My understanding is that Anthony will be roasting a turkey for the occasion (and hopefully it will have Oyster! If not, I won’t complain, but I will be a little disappointed). So come and have an early Thanksgiving with your Faculty Council and Reinvention team!

 

Faculty Council Corner

Faculty Council Corner is a regular Thursday morning feature, presenting an open thread for you to bother your HWFC members with pressing questions (or for us to post the pressing questions that you have). Also, you can expect this to be the forum where we post regular updates about what is happening with Faculty Council and when.

Last Week’s Pressing Questions:

This one from the Realist:

~Can y’all ask the Provost ’bout electronic submission of mid-term grades? Yes. (Would that they were all so easy.) Thanks for the suggestion

This Week’s Updates:

~My high hopes to have lots of information to share about our meeting with the Provost were dashed on Tuesday when we learned, gathered together 15 minutes after the meeting was to have begun, that the Provost was unable to attend, having been called into another meeting. Ahem.

Thus, I have less to update you on this week than I’d hoped.

~Jess Bader (Art) has graciously agreed to serve out Theresa Carlton’s  (Math) term as HW’s FC4 rep starting in November through the rest of the year. Welcome aboard, Jess–it’ll be great to have you there as a voice for faculty. My understanding is that Jane Regan (Art) was also willing, but may have schedule conflicts in the spring. I’ll let you know more as I know more.

~If anyone knows of anything else, please post it in the comments.