Do you want to know what's REALLY going on in the District? Read this:

The DCCFA Council met with Chancellor May on Friday, October 5^th.  As we discussed the state of the District and our colleges, our conversations centered mostly around the following categories:

·       8-week courses

·       Student Centric Network Implementation

·       10 Year Up or Out & Professional Development

·       Follett Book Program.

8-week courses:

At District, fresh analysis is taking place as more research is studied over the idea of 8-week courses.  The research comes from the College of Charleston which implemented an 8-week schedule about seven years ago and has experienced higher student success from this change.  We also have our own data from RLC, NLC, and EFC who all currently offer 8-week courses during the Fall and Spring semesters. 

There has been rumor circulating around the District that EFC is at a 100% 8-week schedule, however, this is not true.  For Fall 2018, EFC is at 60% 8-week courses and plans to be closer to 80% 8-week courses in Fall 2019.

Chancellor May indicated that the decisions regarding length of classes is a campus-level matter.  However, we have strong data that shows, in most courses, students prefer the 8-week schedule.  The District wants the colleges to have options and to be flexible with trying new approaches to scheduling to improve the success of our students.

As of now, about 18% of our students do not complete the courses they sign up for.  We can do better than this!  We need to focus on where we are losing students.  In addition to more flexible scheduling, the District hopes the Follett Deal will put books and needed supplies in our students’ hands on the first day of class improving their possibility of success in the courses from the very first day of class.  The District also wants students to be able to finish any degree or program within two years.

Finding the perfect solution to scheduling will take up to ten years.  As of now, the District is looking into ways that students can give their preferences in addition to the colleges.  No one currently owns this process.  The District wants to make sure that both students and faculty are not hurt in the process of change.  We will all have input, and there will be better communication.  The key word is collaboration.

The colleges can expect information sessions coming from District very soon regarding scheduling possibilities and the data that supports a flexible schedule for students.

Student Centric Network Implementation:

On September 4^th, at the Board of Trustees Committee Meetings, a presentation was shared titled “Implementing a Student Centric Network”.  This presentation was shared across the District over the next month.  The DCCCFA created a blog post about it as well:  http://dccfa.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-dccfa-is-your-associationyour-voice.html

This presentation has received good and bad feedback from faculty.  The Chancellor helped dismiss a lot of speculation, assumption, and paranoia surrounding this presentation.  First, this presentation was developed from data collected from the Boston Consulting Group meeting with faculty, the Faculty Council, staff, and administrators.  In addition to meeting with faculty, the group was given our Faculty Climate Survey results, committee reports on load (created by the Faculty Load Research Group), and a survey that they created and had faculty complete.

The two phrases that have caused the most concern were “High-Performing Faculty” and “Current faculty members may choose to leave instead of adjusting to new policy”.  In giving feedback to the Boston Consulting Group via survey and focus group, many faculty reported that equity is very low when it comes to workload, class load, extra service, committee work, student service, and other forms of institutional service. Ironically, then, much of the Boston Consulting Group’s focus on these items regarding faculty performance came from their research of faculty talking about other faculty.  The Chancellor wants the District to do a better job in the future capturing data about equity in terms of workload, extra service, and institutional service, and he is strongly committed to equity and fair treatment of faculty.  The Chancellor said his goal is to make all of our faculty great.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of variance across the colleges, and District hopes that master faculty and professional development will help with this.  There is NO plan of weeding out any faculty.  We do need more rigorous standards in evaluating faculty and teaching.  The Chancellor wants this initiative to be “faculty-led”.  We will always need new faculty and master faculty to make our colleges and District continue to grow and succeed.

Regarding extra service, questions in the research came from faculty mostly.  Faculty claim extra service is not divided equally or by any logical or merit-based system.  The District researched these concerns and found them to be generally true.  We will see this become more equitable because soon it will be inputted electronically and not by hand anymore.  The process of scheduling should become more transparent, logical, and equitable.

Main Goal:  The Chancellor wants to have the best faculty in front of our students.  The Chancellor, District, and colleges under no circumstances want any faculty giving grades away that are not rightfully earned by students.

As of now, the Boston Consulting Group is not writing any policy.  An RFP will go out for implementation assistance for the various phases of this student centric network implementation plan, and District will accept bids from several consulting groups.  However, BCG has done good, thorough work, and BCG does want to do continued business with DCCCD.  As new policy is being written, District wants to have faculty involved in that draft review process, and the Chancellor wants to continue his practice of submitting completed policy proposals a month in advance to the Board prior to the Board voting on that item the next month.

The full Boston Consulting Group Report will soon be made available to faculty.

To learn more about how faculty have been involved in the process of developing the Student Centric Plan, please follow the following links to the DCCFA Blog:

Faculty input with the Boston Consulting Group during the development of the Student Centric Plan:

http://dccfa.blogspot.com/2018/02/flrg-report-9-faculty-council-meets.html

Faculty input regarding evaluation processes:

http://dccfa.blogspot.com/2017/09/update-on-faculty-evaluation-system.html

Faculty input regarding scheduling and load:

http://dccfa.blogspot.com/2017/09/flrg-report-8-final-recommendations.html

10 Year Up or Out & Professional Development:

The 10 Year Up or Out Policy only applies to faculty hired in Range 1 or 2 after September 1, 2015.  The policy requires affected faculty advance one salary range within their first 10 years of employment. Furthermore, in order to be eligible for a 10-year milestone raise, one must have achieved that range advancement within the first 5 years of employment.

That range advancement is required to maintain one's employment with the District, and can be achieved either through education or through an approved discipline-specific development plan (where one credit hour would be equivalent to 16 clock hours) {see DEA (LOCAL) for full policy}. If faculty opt for the discipline-specific development plan, they are supposed to come up with a plan with their dean to be documented and submitted to HR. Unfortunately, there are no guidelines from the District on how to do this. While some have already done this in the District, some have not been able to create such plans due to lack of procedures to guide the faculty and deans. There is a possibility for professional development and other institutional service activities to count towards this, but procedures need to be developed.

The District wants to meet with the Faculty Council and more faculty to whiteboard ideas to develop a strong process.  This plan was meant to grow and develop faculty to better enhance student success.  The District does not see this policy that would lead to all faculty getting Ph.D.’s.  The District wants there to be several packages to choose from.

A first step will be making sure there are Professional Development Centers at each college.  Ideally faculty will be able to take Professional Development courses at all colleges in our District just like our students are able to take our courses at any campus.  We will also see more offerings and opportunities come out of LeCroy.

In the process of researching the procedures for changing ranges, it was discovered there are a few terminal degrees equivalent to Ph.D.’s currently in Range 1 and 2.  One such example would be the Master of Fine Arts.  This is currently being evaluated by the District, and we should see a solution to these terminal degrees being excused from this requirement and/or be moved into the appropriate range based on the content of the degrees.

Faculty have also wondered why the District has not provided tuition reimbursement when advancing in salary range via education. In the past, the Faculty Council recommended to the Chancellor that receiving a raise when advancing a range was preferable to tuition reimbursement, since that raise would forever be built into a faculty's salary and would compound with future raises. The Faculty Council is interested in exploring whether faculty currently have those same preferences

Follett Book Program:

At the September 4^th, Board of Trustees Committee Meetings, the District presented a program that it had already developed with Follett to the colleges for the first time. {Please see the attached file for the original Follett Program PowerPoint.}  Since this program is still in the early stages, we do not have all of the details regarding how the program will work practically as of now.  District within the last week formed a committee to work out all of the details regarding implementation of the program.  Faculty will be represented on this committee.  Brett Dyer (NLC FA President & Art Faculty) and Shaun Gilligan (CVA FA President, DCCFA President, and Government Faculty) are both on the committee, along with Dr. Shawnda Floyd the current Vice President of Instruction at NLC and Dr. Greg Morris the current Vice President of Instruction at ECC.

There are a lot of details to be worked out, but as of now these are some of the things we know:

·       CFO John Robertson will oversee implementation.  For a proposed Summer I 2019 rollout, we have until March, effectively, to work out the implementation plan specifics.

·       Faculty will still be able to choose their textbooks, and will have the same range of choices they have now.

·       Digital books will be encouraged since they help to drive costs down, but hard copies and a print-on-demand option may be available.

·       There will be an additional fee most likely for printing unless the students print themselves.

·       OERs are still encouraged, and more resources from District will be put towards this.

·       Submission of textbook orders by the deadlines will be crucial in the process.  

·       This will help with 8-week classes insuring students have books/materials in hand on the first day of class.

·       Tentatively, once students register for classes, they will have access to their online “book shelf”, and they will be contacted where and when to pick up any printed or hard copies of texts or materials.

·       We may be able to negotiate lab kits for courses that may require blueprints, art supplies, and lab equipment, etc.  Regular supplies like notebook paper, pens, pencils, etc. will not be included.

·       All students will be charged $20/credit hour that will be added to their tuition to cover this service.  This charge will be applied to all courses whether textbooks (free or not) are required or not.

·       Even after this tuition increase, DCCCD students' tuition and books cost will still be substantially less than the other "Big 6" Community Colleges. {Please see slide 6 of Follett Program PPt Update}.

In the recent past, faculty were included in the discussion for a plan like this: 

http://dccfa.blogspot.com/2016/06/discussion-with-chancellor-about.html

In Closing:

The Faculty Council knows there are a lot of changes happening constantly at our colleges and within our District.  We ask faculty to be flexible, involved, and confident that their voice is always welcome and heard.  Please know the Faculty Association, YOUR association, will always support and fight for faculty rights and academic freedom.

We also believe the District and Chancellor want what is best for our students.  Did you know that Chancellor May was a first-generation college student, and he would not have been able to finish school without the care and support of his professors?  This is one of the many reasons why he is so focused on the student experience and having the best faculty.  Many of you might also recall that Dr. May also started his educational career as an adjunct faculty member at Cedar Valley College.

The Faculty Council wants to encourage us all to collaborate to better the experience of our students, improve their success, and create the strongest and best college district in the nation.

Thank you for all that you do!