The DCCCD Student Centric Network

The DCCFA is your Association, your voice. The Council is comprised of those elected to represent your voice.  There has been significant change occurring at the district level that affect us all.  The Council is encouraged by developments in the environment of problem-solving with our participation.

We have shared many accomplishments recently as part of The Instructional Leadership Team (TILT).  Many of the recommendations made by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) were based upon the Council meeting with BCG and our work adopted from information provided by our Faculty Load Review Group (FLRG).  We also actively worked on Student Progress Reporting (SPR), and we are continuing to assist with the ongoing implementation of Professional Development (PD).

While it is clear that there are underlying beliefs by both administration and faculty which speak to the need for improved communication and understanding regarding faculty performance and scheduling preferences, the Council is committed to interfacing with District administration on these topics. Chancellor May has signaled he will engage with us on the topics that will affect faculty most directly, and he has been transparent with us regarding his overall vision and plans. The proposed timeline for many items to be developed is included in several spots in the “Implementing a Student Centric Network” presentation; please see link below.

DCCCD Student Centric Network Implementation Plan

 Several items that affect faculty directly are expected to be developed over the next three years. It will be incumbent upon us as a Council to be actively involved in this process. The Council, of course, welcomes any questions or concerns from our constituents, as our duty is to express the opinions and priorities of our members.

As the Chancellor’s recommendations for a “Student Centric Network” have been made public, there has been some concern about the possible centralization of some services within the District. There has been no direct avocation of moving to a singularly accredited entity. The colleges remain individually accredited. The overall goal from both the Faculty Association perspective and the administrative leaders are to have collaboration and utilization of systems and infrastructure and increasing the efficiency of classroom management and scheduling.

Our collective voice is important as members of our organization. If you have not yet joined or renewed your membership, please do soon.

Student Progress Reporting Procedure

The 2018-19 Academic Year marks the initial year of the Student Progress Reporting system, implemented as a result of the Board of Trustees revisions to Policy EGA (LOCAL), which among other things establishes that the District "shall provide periodic course reporting" on student performance and that such progress reporting "shall be conducted in accordance with administrative regulations promulgated by the Chancellor." Over the Summer, the SPR Implementation Team – which was chaired by El Centro VPI Greg Morris, and included Faculty Council members Shaun Gilligan, Brett Dyer, Carlos Martinez, and Ryan Pettengill – worked to design the SPR system and a progress reporting schedule that would be most effective from a pedagogical perspective to enhance students’ chances for success. The District administration has adopted the recommendations of the Implementation Team for this prototype year.

As per those recommendations, the reporting schedule will vary depending on the length of the class:

●        Courses 15 weeks or longer will have TWO student progress reports. The first report will be between weeks 5 and 6 and the second will be between weeks 9 and 10.

●        Courses 5 weeks to 14 weeks long (including 8-week courses) will have ONE student progress report near the midpoint of the course.

●        Courses 4 weeks long or less will have NO student progress reporting requirements.

Faculty will be notified two business days before your class’s progress report period(s) begin by e-mail to notify you about the upcoming reporting period(s). You will then have two weeks to submit your progress report for each student. More information on the specifics of the SPR system, and instructions for use can be found in the below attached files.

-One-pager instructions for SPR
-Student Progress Reporting Slideshow

If you have questions, please contact the student progress contact at your college (listed below) or the faculty helpdesk at helpdesk@dcccd.edu or by phone at 972-669-6460.

College	Contact(s)	Email	Phone
Brookhaven College (BHC)	Bob Smith Scott Sires	BSmith1@dcccd.edu ssires@dcccd.edu	972-860-4169 972-860-4362
Cedar Valley College (CVC)	Tim Xeriland	txeriland@dcccd.edu	972-860-8239
Eastfield College (EFC)	AZ Bashet Jason Busbin	AZBashet@dcccd.edu JasonBusbin@dcccd.edu	972-860-7158 972-860-8362
El Centro College	Marco Martinez	MAMartinez@dcccd.edu 5ftlc@dcccd.edu	214-860-2287 214-860-2157
Mountain View College	Steve Sosa	SteveSosa@dcccd.edu	214-860-3600
Northlake College	Kristopher Copeland Matthew Dempsey David Evans Tim Samuels	kristophercopeland@dcccd.edu mdempsey@dcccd.edu devans@dcccd.edu Samuels@dcccd.edu	972-273-3482 972-273-3500 972-273-3561 972-273-3364
Richland College	Andy Tubbs Susan Long	ATubbs@dcccd.edu slong@dcccd.edu	972-238-6141 972-238-6981

Welcome Back!

Hello Colleagues,

Welcome back, or for the first time, to a new academic year at the Dallas County Community College District. With anticipation to serve you, your Faculty Association Presidents look forward to the exciting year ahead. Appreciating the work of the Presidents before us, we continue to champion a number of issues in the interests of our faculty and the community we all support. As everyone returns today, we want to share with you the initiatives on which we have been working, and we want you to know we are ready to serve you.

Whether with our Chancellor, administration, Human Resources, District legal counsel, committees or our Board of Trustees, our agendas remain full, laboring to co-create or clarify policies and procedures on the following important issues:

·         10 year up and out,

·         Range advancement,

·         Conflict of commitment,

·         19-hour professional development,

·         Faculty hiring process,

·         Dallas Promise,

·         Boston Consulting Group recommendations,

·         Dual Credit,

·         Student Progress Reporting,

·         Accessibility to instructional materials,

·         Guided Pathways to Success,

·         Deans Academy,

·         Learning management system,

·         Faculty Bootcamp, and

·         Matters brought forward by faculty.

We recognize change is both constant and can be difficult at times, however ours’ is the responsibility to participate in the activities that involve faculty and instruction, and to do so with you in mind. Our commitment to you is to seek your input, understand your concerns and to work diligently to improve not only the lives of our students but also of you, the District faculty.

Please know our goal is to make your experience as rewarding as possible. Our doors are open to you and we look forward to seeing you throughout the year ahead.

Your participation is paramount to every accomplishment that lay before us; to make headway on the items above the District recognizes that our posture is a unified, district-wide voice. We encourage you to contact your college faculty Presidents if you have specific questions regarding any of the above issues.

Yours in Service,

The Dallas Community College Faculty Association Presidents

BCG Presents Results of Research on Faculty Load, Compensation, and Course Scheduling

At the June 5th Finance Committee Meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Boston Consulting Group presented the results of their research into faculty load issues in the DCCCD. The Power Point presentation for that report can be found here.

Thematically, the presentation focused on how inconsistent/unclear/inaccessible HR practices, lack of clear accountability for managing faculty load, a disconnected data infrastructure, and misaligned organizational incentives form the context for problematic behaviors within our HR system, leading to inequity and inefficiency in utilizing resources.

While the presentation did not delve into specific recommendations from BCG to solve these problems, the presentation did identify five key context areas that need to be addressed: 1) Establish clear policies to develop, approve, and communicate policies that are equitable, consistent, and clear; 2) Define schedule management to institute a system and process for managing faculty scheduling; 3) Update HR management policies to implement policies and procedures to recruit and retain diverse, high-performing faculty; 4) Build data infrastructure and systems to support change; and 5) Optimize course scheduling to optimize sections and room utilization by projecting system-wide student demand to develop a master schedule and match faculty and rooms to the schedule.

The Board of Trustees will review this information again at a June 25th workshop, and potentially move towards recommendations at that point.

The Faculty Council is engaged in ongoing communication with District administrative leaders on what the next steps in this process will be, so that we can continue to provide our input into how to overcome the inequities in faculty load and compensation identified by the Faculty Load Review Group (FLRG). We look forward to working with the Chancellor and the Board to clarify the information included in the BCG report, as we all work toward our common goal of student success. The Council will continue to keep the DCCFA membership updated with any additional information and developments. Should you have additional questions or concerns, please contact your campus Faculty Association President.

Newly-seated Faculty Council elects officers

As reported in this post from May 8, the 2018-2019 Faculty Council consists of:

Scott Sires, Brookhaven College
Shaun Gilligan, Cedar Valley College
Stacey Jurhree, Eastfield College
Pam Crawford, El Centro College
Ryan Pettengill, Mountain View College
Brett Dyer, North Lake College
Carlos Martinez, Richland College

The seven members of the DCCFA Faculty Council met Tuesday, June 5, to elect officers.

Shaun Gilligan was elected DCCFA President.

Pam Crawford was elected DCCFA Vice President.

Ryan Pettengill was elected DCCFA Secretary.

Brett Dyer was elected DCCFA Treasurer.

The new Council will designate a member to be responsible for writing and editing future posts to the Advance Blog.

DCCFA Attorney Advises Faculty that They Can Sign Their Contracts

As detailed in the Advance Blog post of Monday, May 14, the DCCFA Faculty Council asked long-time DCCFA legal representative Frank Hill to review the revised language recently introduced to the DCCCD faculty contract.

The Council is pleased to report that Mr. Hill has reviewed the language, and late Wednesday, May 16, told us he has no concerns with the language, and that we need not worry about signing our contracts. Specifically, Mr. Hill said it is most important and significant that the revised contract language does not diminish our rights to due process.

The Council looks forward to engaging and productive dialogue with the new Chief Human Resources Officer, and other senior District Officials, to ensure that future contract and policy language revisions are the result of robust stakeholder input in keeping with the principles of shared governance.

Again, based on consultation with our legal defense attorney, the Council believes all faculty safely can sign their contracts if they have not already done so.

As a reminder, the Council secured an extended deadline of May 31 for faculty to sign their contracts, and the college HR offices have been directed to allow faculty to sign and return their contract electronically, or via mail or fax, if they are unable to do so in person.

If you have additional questions, please contact your college faculty association president.

Message from the DCCFA Faculty Council Regarding Faculty Contracts

Several faculty at several colleges have raised concerns both with the delayed timing, and some changes to the language, of our faculty contracts. Both issues are connected, and this message is intended to explain the situation as well as how the Faculty Council is addressing it.

First, the outgoing Chief Talent Officer, who is retiring August 31, presided over some changes in the faculty contract language. A copy of the recent template for faculty contracts is available at this link. Her efforts to change the language began recently and, given the extensive alterations and need for detailed review by District legal personnel, explain why the contracts were delayed.

Second, and of more concern, the outgoing Chief Talent Officer did not consult with stakeholders – including and most especially faculty, the Faculty Council, or the DCCFA President – before making these changes.

Third, the District HR Council discussed a communication strategy regarding the delay and timeline for making contracts available to sign, and decided that each college HR office would handle it on their own. This process is emblematic of the structural problem with human resources operations in the DCCCD. Specifically, each individual location/college is empowered to communicate HR policies in its own way, which invariably leads to confusion, inequity, questions, concerns, and wasted time. (Incidentally, equity and consistency are the reasons why the Faculty Council speaks with one voice through the DCCFA Advance Blog.)

The Faculty Council learned Wednesday, May 9, that contracts were delayed but were coming soon and would be available for faculty to sign at their colleges (but did not have any advance notice of the changes in the contract language), and that a message would be sent to faculty from their location HR office to that effect. Between Thursday, May 10, and Friday, May 11, some college HR offices sent messages to their faculty that their contracts were ready. Some colleges, on the other hand, still have not received such messages as of today, Monday, May 14. Of the messages that were sent, some had varying dates, and one message had no information other than a subject line indicating that contracts were available. Further, the HR Council deliberately decided to exclude the use of MyPortal. The Faculty Council believes this was a poor decision as it shut off a uniform and frequently accessed powerful communications channel.

DCCFA President Bill Hammerschlag received a copy of the amended contract language on Friday morning, May 11. He immediately asked members of the Council to review it with him, and provide comments. Council members – some of whom were grading, some of whom were preparing for graduation, and some of whom were traveling – did their best to review the language, and sent their questions and concerns to Bill. Based on the number of questions, the Council on Saturday, May 12, passed a motion authorizing Bill to have DCCFA legal representative Frank Hill review the contract language. Bill has now done that as of today, Monday, May 14, and is awaiting a reply. In addition, the Council has contacted District leadership. They share our concerns and we will work with them toward both short- and long-term resolutions.

In the meantime, understanding that the spring semester has ended and some faculty are already traveling, we have secured an agreement to extend the contract deadline through May 31. Options are being provided for those who cannot personally visit a college HR office before then. Because we do not yet have an opinion from our attorney, the Council is officially neutral with advice on whether or not individual faculty should sign their contracts. 

Rather, our official position right now is, “Be cool” and “Don’t panic.” This is not an emergency. It is the latest in a long line of HR issues that we are confident we will begin to resolve thanks to the new Chief Human Resources Officer, who has said she wants Faculty Council input into all HR issues that affect faculty.

This is an evolving issue that the Faculty Council continues to monitor during the transition to the new Council on June 1. Your Council operates under several long-standing DCCFA principles, including that “we are the voice of reason.” We don’t act hastily or impulsively. We think a problem through and try to solve those problems logically, rationally, and cooperatively. It has served us well for 41 years, and is why District leadership, including the chancellor, respects the Council and the DCCFA.

Meanwhile, if you have specific questions about this or other issues, you may address them to your current Faculty Association president: Bill Hammerschlag, Shaun Gilligan, Pam Crawford, Matt Hinckley, Margo Silva, Brett Dyer, or Matt Henry.