February 28, 2020 Meeting

Agenda


TAFT COLLEGE

Governance Council

 

February 28, 2020

12:10 pm –2:00 pm

Cougar Room

 

AGENDA

 

Facilitator:           Julian Martinez

Timekeeper:       Dr. Michelle Oja

Recorder:             Sarah Criss

Minutes:              Sarah Criss

 

  1. Approval of Minutes from February 7, 20209 Meeting                                                         5 Minutes
  2. Evaluating the Effectiveness of APR Based Resource Allocations Requests (Xiaohong Li) 30 Minutes

 

  1. APR Process for Governance Council Prioritization (Sharyn Eveland)                                  25 Minutes
  2. APR Cycle Discussion (Sharyn Eveland) 40 Minutes
  3. Information Item: Academic Senate (Sharyn Eveland)                                                 10 Minutes

 

Call for Facilitator and Timekeeper

Facilitator:

Timekeeper

 

Next Meeting:    Next Governance Council:

March 13, 2020

Minutes


GOVERNANCE COUNCIL MINUTES

February 28, 2020

 

Members Present:      Severo Balason, Xiaohong Li, Sharyn Eveland, Kanoe Bandy, Julian Martinez, Mike Mayfield, Michelle Oja, Kamala Carlson, Justin Madding, Michaela White, Sergio Gomez and Whisper Lynn Null

 

Members Absent:       Debra Daniels, Brock McMurray, Leslie Minor, Heather del Rosario, Andrew Prestage, Joe’ll Chaidez, Bruce Ferguson, Renae Ginther, and Marty Morales

 

Guests:                            Brandy Young

 

Facilitator:                       Julian Martinez

Timekeeper:                  Michele Oja

Recorder:                        Justin Madding

 

Call to Order:

 

The meeting called to order at 12:10 p.m. by Julian Martinez.  The Council agreed to change the Agenda order as reflected below.

 

  1. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes from the February 28, 2020 Governance Council meeting were reviewed and approved by consensus.

 

  1. APR Process for Governance Council Prioritization (Sharyn Eveland)   

Governance Council will be scoring and ranking APRs in the month of March.  We have a rubric for the purpose of scoring.  Eveland said that this review of the APR Process and rubric is to inform first time users and serve as a refresher for everyone else who has scored before.

 

Eveland briefly recounted the purpose and process for Annual Program Review.  Faculty position requests are processed through the Academic Senate, Classified positions are processed through the Classified group, and non-personnel resource allocation requests are processed through Governance Council for scoring and ranking.  The Governance Council’s ranking is submitted as a recommendation to the Superintendent/President.  Eveland explained that requests may or may not be funded depending on availability of funding regardless of rank, but the ranking prioritizes requests if funding is available.

 

Eveland referred the Council to the 2019-20 APR scoring rubric (attached to the minutes) and reviewed each section in detail.  In particular, Eveland explained purpose and function of the 1, 3, 5, 8, 13 scoring scale, and how that relates to the scoring guide on page 2 of the rubric.

 

Questions arose regarding the nature of evidence for APRs.  Balason said that evidence does not necessarily need to be quantitative.  Eveland agreed that evidence may also be anecdotal.  Qualitative and quantitative evidence is appropriate.

 

Mayfield said that some APR goals are good ideas that do not score well, but they may still get funded because the goal and resource is necessary.

 

Young said that we were still scoring APRs before the current rubric was adopted, but we used much smaller criterion and scale.  She said that the criterion and scale of the current rubric are much more effective for scoring.

 

  1. Evaluating the Effectiveness of APR Based Resource Allocation Requests (Xiaohong Li)

 

Li said that we annually conduct an evaluation of the effectiveness of our prior year funded APR resource allocation requests.  We conduct this evaluation so that we can know for ourselves how effective our efforts are, and for the purposes of accreditation.  Furthermore, we said that we would conduct these evaluations in our last accreditation follow up report so we will continue to do so.

 

Li referred the council to the evaluation spreadsheet provided (attached to the minutes).   She pointed out that for half of the funded goals the APR initiator did not provide outcome data in their current year APR.  She asked how we deal with that issue.  Oja said that Geoffrey Dyer would research and retrieve the data himself.  Eveland said that we are not going to do it that way because it is not sustainable.

 

Li asked how we are going to evaluate these funded items.  Oja said that she is still not sure what we do with the information provided.  Mayfield said that we review the information provided and evaluate it for any impacts.  He said that the information from that evaluation is for our own use and for the purposes of accreditation.  Bandy recommended that author of the funded APR item make comments on the evaluation form.  Eveland agreed with Bandy.  Eveland also stressed that Governance Council does not retrieve the data for the results; Governance Council evaluates the data and results reported.

 

Governance Council agreed by consensus to the following:

 

  1. IR will ask the initiators of the funded APRs to respond to the evaluation form. Responses will be due to IR on March 13th, and IR will present all results for evaluation to the Governance Council on March 27th;
  2. SPC will make recommendations to Governance Council on the process, forms, and role of Governance Council in evaluating funded APR resource allocation requests. SPC will report to Governance Council with their recommendations on March 27th.

 

  1. APR Cycle Discussion (Sharyn Eveland)

The discussion of the APR Cycle rises from, among other reasons, the frequent issue where we have an APR resource request that is funded near the end of the year and the money cannot be spent or the activity cannot be performed with enough time to have results to evaluate in the next APR cycle.  Do we stay with a 1 year cycle?  Do we change to a 3 year cycle, or a 7 year cycle with annual update?

 

Young asked why we originally chose a 1 year cycle.  Eveland said that the cycle used to be longer, but that we chose a 1 year cycle because there was a breakdown in performing program review due to employee turnover.    Since we collectively agreed that program review is important, we instituted 1 year reviews to ensure it occurred.  It was intended to be a short term solution but has become an institutional practice.

 

Mayfield asked if there is any requirement that we have a 1 year cycle.  Young said no.  The requirement is that APR be regular and ongoing.  Mayfield said that too much of a gap could cause people to not see outcomes.

 

Oja said that she wants a 7 year cycle with annual updates.  Mayfield asked if there would be still be opportunity for annual funding requests.  He said it would be not be possible to plan 7 years out.

 

Young said that one of the original goals of the annual cycle was to align with our annual budget development cycle.  How would changing the cycle period affect that alignment?

 

Li praised the efficiency of a 3 year cycle with annual updates and a comprehensive review on the 3rd year.  Bandy said that she does not like comprehensive program review because it was a ton of work.  Bandy is also concerned with an extended cycle in case of more immediate needs.  Oja said that the problem with annual cycles is that it takes more than one year to show changes in student success rates.  Bandy agreed that success rates do not change overnight, but said that should at least be an annual check in in the cycle.  Young pointed out that Criterion #5 on the scoring rubric addresses benchmarks, timelines, and assessment.  Balason said that he likes the idea of a 3 year cycle with annual check ins.  Young added that we follow a 3 year cycle on many of our institutional plans.

 

Eveland said that what she is hearing is that Comprehensive Program Review is a ton of work and should be avoided, but that an annual review cycle is not enough time.  Perhaps a combination of the two systems would be better.  Bandy said that our current APR system is less than a comprehensive review, but more than an annual check in.

 

Eveland suggested that we refer the timeline and APR process to SPC and Academic Senate for review and recommendations.

 

Carlson said that her only concern is that we know our current process and it is manageable and opening up the process to suggestion from everyone could actually make things worse.

 

Bandy said that she likes the annual cycle, but perhaps we could look at revising the forms to add the annual check in.

 

Gomez recommended that we table this discussion and continue when the members who are absent today are in attendance since they also have an interest the APR cycle.

 

Governance Council agreed by consensus to the following:

 

  1. Continue the discussion of the APR cycle at the next meeting.

 

  1. Information Item: Academic Senate (Sharyn Eveland)

 

The Academic Senate has been very busy working on the following:  Institutionalization of Guided Pathways and the responsibilities of the various AS committees; dual enrollment; distance education; and many other subjects.

 

Bandy said that she is very anxious to see data resulting from AB705 placements.  Her athletes course pass rate is suffering due to AB 705 placement.  If the athletes, who typically outperform the general student body, are suffering, how much more is the general student body suffering?

 

Other:

 

Young said that APR scoring is due to IR on April 3, 2020.  If any of the new members have questions on scoring, please contact IR.

 

Bandy asked if we are going to have a GC Retreat.  She said that the impact of AP705 would be a good topic, but we may not have enough data.  Eveland said that she and Daniels briefly discussed whether to have a retreat and agreed to further discuss at their next meeting.

 

Next Meeting:  March 13, 2020 at 12:10 p.m. in the Cougar Room

Facilitator:          Mike Mayfield

Timekeeper:      Xiaohong Li

 

Meeting Adjourned:  1:57 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by:  Justin Madding

Reminder—Please forward future recommended agenda items to Deb Daniels and Sharyn Eveland