Faculty Council Names Standing Committee Chairs; Adopts Strategic Approach to Advocate for Current Emerging Faculty Concerns in One College Environment

The DCCFA Faculty Council met via video conference Thursday, June 4, 2020, to inaugurate the new Council term and to discuss a number of pressing issues that faculty across the District have raised in recent days and hours. The June 4 meeting minutes are located at this link.

DCCFA Standing Committee Chairs Named

In order to take a strategic approach to issues that are shared by faculty at many or all of the seven colleges, and in accordance with the DCCFA Bylaws, the Council prioritized the naming of its members as ex officio chairs to the seven standing committees of the DCCFA, as follows:

Budget & Finance: Keith Baker (North Lake)

Communications: Wade Hyde (El Centro)

Convention Planning: Ryan Pettengill (Mountain View)

Instructional Goals and Academic Freedom: Jennifer Hudson-Allen (Brookhaven)

Membership: Tommy Thompson (Cedar Valley)

Political Information: Matt Hinckley (Eastfield)

Welfare and Benefits: Carlos Martinez (Richland)

The Council members all agreed to submit to the respective committee chairs, the names of the members from their respective campuses, who have been elected to serve on these seven DCCFA committees.

Council Approach to Instruction in the One College Model

In past years, the Faculty Council met monthly with the seven academic vice presidents, in a group called The Instructional Leadership Team (TILT). Over time TILT also included several District Office personnel who helped to manage curriculum and other instructional issues at the District level. In Spring 2020, the instructional vice presidents indicated they wished to disband TILT, as instruction for the combined Dallas College would soon be supported by a Provost supervising seven Vice Provosts, each of whom would support a “School of” organized around a particular Guided Pathway. The dissolving of TILT therefore has left a gap in the structural means by which the Council effectively can represent faculty interests in discussions about instructional matters across the District. Consequently, the Council today agreed that it intends to establish a precedent to meet with the current Interim Provost, Dr. Linda Braddy, and continue that practice when the new Provost is named. President Ryan Pettengill agreed to take the initiative to that effect. In the meantime, though, the Council is aware of the numerous issues and concerns that are being raised by our members all across the District.

Enrollment Management Practices

The Council agrees that it supports a District-wide approach to enrollment management practices, particularly during a time when we are all teaching online and campus distinctions are, by necessity, in many cases becoming less apparent. However, the Council also believes that “one size fits all” approaches are not appropriate. For instance, the Council takes very seriously faculty concerns over decisions that are being made to combine sections, stack/bundle sections (or not), and/or cancel and move students to sections offered by other instructors at other campuses. The Council also agrees that not all academic disciplines – or even courses within a given discipline – should have the same enrollment thresholds to “make.” Certain courses in certain disciplines, such as studio art courses, some journalism courses, private music lessons, and co-ops and internships, among many others, need to be handled more like many CTE courses, where individualized instruction is the foundation of the particular student experience. In addition, different courses in various CTE disciplines also are different, where lab safety and industry accreditation concerns must prevail. Likewise, developmental studies and ESOL courses must consider that students need additional individual attention. In all cases, therefore, the Council maintains that faculty subject matter experts must be consulted before deans or the current academic vice presidents, make unilateral decisions to cancel or combine sections.

Because these enrollment management decisions are being made absent faculty subject matter expert input in many programs and disciplines across the District, the Council agreed to address this on a District-wide, systemic basis. First, President Ryan Pettengill intends to engage with District senior leadership to make the case for additional faculty empowerment in enrollment management decisions. Second, the entire Council will press these concerns when we next meet with the Chancellor on June 12. Third, the two Council members on the Rapid Response Team, Carlos Martinez and Wade Hyde, will continue to articulate these concerns with the Provost during the numerous times the RRT meets each week.

Working across the District with Colleagues in our Disciplines

The Council agrees that, along with enrollment management decisions, many other issues require the attention of faculty subject matter experts. As such, the Council strongly advises all DCCCD faculty – not just the individual campus curriculum committee reps, but all faculty in a given program or discipline – to engage with their colleagues in the same discipline/program at the other campuses. There are many issues where consistency and uniformity is appropriate, and in those cases the Council believes the faculty subject matter experts must make those determinations. At the same time, there are instances where the same course is used by different programs at different campuses serving different cohorts of students to be trained for different jobs or careers in different industries. Again, in those cases, it is faculty subject matter experts who need to articulate the reasons for those differences. The greater the cooperation and agreement within disciplines and programs across the District, the easier it is for the Faculty Council to represent those interests broadly when we advocate on our members’ collective behalf.

Faculty Professional Development

The Council agrees with previous work done by previous Councils, specifically, that faculty professional development is, first, separate and different from training required by federal, state, or local laws (such as FERPA, ADA, Title IX, etc.), and second, consists of two broad categories: advancing pedagogy and/or advancing or maintaining subject matter expertise and/or professional certification or licensure. The Council also agrees with the principle that professional development that improves us as teachers and/or advances our subject matter expertise, ought to count toward advancement on the faculty salary range scale, from Range 1 to 2 and from Range 2 to 3. The Council intends to continue to make these arguments as task forces and advisory committees are formed regarding faculty professional development.

Dual Credit

The Council also agrees that a District-wide, systemic approach is needed to deal with Dual Credit issues and concerns, in keeping with the recommendations issued in the faculty-generated Dual Credit Report that the Council delivered to Dr. May earlier this year. Until all dual credit operations and reporting relationships are centralized under one leader at District Office, we anticipate that issues and concerns will continue to arise. Consequently, the Council agreed that Jennifer Hudson-Allen, who both will chair the DCCFA Instructional Goals and Academic Freedom Committee and also serves on numerous District-wide dual credit committees, would represent the Council in advancing faculty concerns about Dual Credit at the District level. As such, Jennifer is representing emerging faculty concerns regarding the “dual credit facilitators” that have been requested to be added to many summer courses. Jennifer will investigate this particular request in more detail and report back to the Council.

Committee and Task Force Membership

The Council discussed the ongoing concern that many faculty feel they are being left out of conversations that are culminating in decisions that affect teaching and learning. Many faculty have expertise in particular areas, often outside of their teaching field, and are willing to help the District advance our shared interest in these areas. Recognizing that the District is moving at a quicker pace than even in recent years, and especially compared to a decade ago, the Council agreed to prepare and maintain a shared spreadsheet of areas where we anticipate work needing to be done, and within each a list of faculty who have particular experiences or expertise in those areas. Therefore, the Council encourages members who have an interest in a particular area, to reach out to their respective faculty association president, to say, “I’d like to serve on a task force or committee that might be formed on (this issue).”

Communications

The Council also discussed the desire for all faculty at all campuses to have equal access to information. Consequently, the Council agreed that, while Jennifer Hudson-Allen would take Council meeting minutes in her capacity as Secretary, and while Wade Hyde would take the lead on overall Communications strategies as the chair of the DCCFA Communications committee, Matt Hinckley would take the lead in writing posts to publish to the Advance Blog, that the respective Council members could also separately send to their members via email. Until a new DCCFA.org web site is published, and as faculty still become accustomed to the Faculty One Stop site on SharePoint, the Advance Blog will be the primary means by which the Council broadly communicates its work with the membership at large.

What's Ahead

The Council next plans to meet at 12 noon Friday, June 12, before its monthly meeting with Chancellor May at 2 p.m. The Council also remains in constant contact with one another via email and group text messaging, ensuring that we are able to respond as quickly and thoroughly as possible to emerging concerns, while leveraging and sharing the diverse array of expertise, experiences, and interests that each of us individually brings to the Council.

New Task Forces Succeed DELT to Address Distance Learning

The pace and scope of change across all levels of the DCCCD has accelerated, even as we respond to events and circumstances that are outside of our control. Over the past few years, the District has increasingly taken a strategic approach to Distance Learning, as various stakeholders have negotiated differences in philosophy and practice. Among the positive changes has been Chancellor May and Chief Innovation Officer Tim Marshall developing a model where users – faculty and colleges – are empowered at the strategic level, and entities such as District IT and LeCroy Center evolve to support student learning regardless of modality. As part of this ongoing evolution, the Faculty Council engaged with instructional leaders from all seven colleges and with the LeCroy Center on a Quality Scorecard initiative, which identified areas of good practice as well as areas where improvement is needed, in distance learning.

Among the recommendations to arise from this ongoing conversation was the decision to sunset the Distance Education and Learning Technologies committee (DELT). Because of its composition and the fact that it had been commissioned by the Vice Presidents Council, DELT focused on a wide variety of issues related to technology and learning, but tended to focus its reporting upward, and often to LeCroy Center. Over time, DELT was not able to devote necessary attention to certain vital operational issues, and in those cases where solutions were developed, they were not sufficiently or equitably communicated to faculty at the colleges. In addition, strategic issues often were not addressed, and thus strategic decisions were made by LeCroy Center leadership without significant or broad faculty input. In short, the all-encompassing increase in Distance Learning, and the use of DL technologies in campus-based instruction, proved too massive for DELT alone comprehensively to address.

In response, the Quality Scorecard project recommended that a Quality Scorecard Steering Committee be constituted, to include representation from faculty, instructional leaders, student services, IT, and LeCroy leadership, specifically to address improvement in a wide variety of areas related to distance learning and the use of DL technologies for campus-based instruction, at the strategic level. Among the types of issues to be addressed by this group would be identifying and promulgating best practices in course navigation, online orientation, training, and success measures.

Meanwhile, to address the user-level issues, the Quality Scorecard project recommended, and the Faculty Council and Academic Vice Presidents also endorsed, creating the Information Technology Users Group (ITUC). This group has two charges:

1.       To advocate for the users of instructional technology;

2.       To reconcile the suggestions/needs of various stakeholders including instructional leadership (including faculty), technology leadership, and those helping to advance the outcomes of the Quality Scorecard project.

Among other stakeholders, ITUC will include a faculty member from each college. ITUC also will communicate consistent messages regarding learning technology to stakeholders, including and especially faculty, at each college. Among the types of issues for ITUC to address are how to use specific technologies to solve specific problems, such as when a feature in Blackboard isn’t working properly, or identifying building block solutions that might help numerous users.

Having played a role in the process that created both the Quality Scorecard Steering Team, and ITUC, the Faculty Council is hopeful that both groups will be of benefit to faculty as we continue to improve how we serve our students.

New Core Curriculum Review Committee Formed to Study Proposed Changes to 090 Component Area Option, and Proposal to Remove Non-Science Major Science Courses from the Associate of Science Degree

At the October 16 meeting of The Instructional Leadership Team (TILT), the Academic Vice Presidents and the Faculty Council agreed to re-convene the Core Curriculum Review Committee (CCRC) to study a proposal to revise the 090 Component Area Option of the Core Curriculum, and a proposal to remove “Non-Science Major” science courses from the Associate of Science degrees, in response to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board removing courses from the DCCCD Core beginning in Fall 2018.

Specifically, the THECB has expired Math 2342 and Math 2442 from the ACGM, and thus those courses must be removed. Second, and more significantly, the THECB has mandated that first year foreign language courses and sign language courses may not be included in the DCCCD Core Curriculum. This effectively means that, absent changes, students entering the DCCCD in Fall 2018 or thereafter would only be able to take a Speech class (SPCH 1311, 1315, or 1321) and a Physical Education course (PHED 1164), to complete the 090 Component Area Option of the DCCCD Core.   Of the 15,894 DCCCD college students who completed the Core Curriculum in 2014, 2015 and 2016 academic years, only 3,251 (20%) completed the Core with a Speech course—80% of the students took other courses that are now not able to be used to meet Core 2014 requirements in Fall, 2018 and later catalogs.  With the only option to complete the Core with Speech and Physical Education, it is projected that many fewer students would choose to complete the DCCCD Core and thus complete an Associate degree. Despite the data above, it could also mean that students will opt to compete the Core with us, using the only courses available to them in SPCH and PHED. This would push course need beyond our capacity.

Given these two possibilities, TILT agreed that the CCRC would be co-chaired by Shawnda Floyd, Vice President of Instruction at North Lake College, and Matt Hinckley, President of the Eastfield College Faculty Association. Floyd has served as a member of CCSST from 2014-2016 and has extensive experience working with the Guided Pathways initiative whose work will inform the CCRC. Hinckley co-chaired the Core Curriculum Steering Team from 2011 to 2014, and the Core Curriculum Review Committee from 2013 to 2015, and also has worked with Guided Pathways.

In keeping with the process and membership standards set by previous CCRCs, the CCRC will be composed of one faculty member from each of the nine Learning Categories of the DCCCD Core, plus one faculty member from each of the pre-Core disciplines of Learning Framework, Computer Literacy, ESOL, Developmental English, and Developmental Math. The CCRC will also add additional STEM, Allied Health, and CTE faculty to form a subcommittee to study the recommendation for the change to the AS degree. Faculty will be invited to participate by the co-chairs, and will be chosen to ensure a broad and diverse spectrum of perspectives, disciplines, longevity, ethnicities, and that all seven colleges, are represented. The co-chairs will use technology to ensure that faculty commitment to this initiative is not overly burdensome or time-consuming. To augment the knowledge base available to the CCRC, the CCRC will also include the following individuals: Nancy Faris, District Director of Academic and Student Records; Anna Mays, Associate Vice Chancellor for Educational Policy; Joyce Williams, Associate Vice Chancellor for Workforce Education, Meredithe Greer, District Director, Curriculum Management; Don Perry, Executive Director, Compliance & Policy Formation & THECB Liaison; a Core Objective Assessment expert from one college; and an instructional dean with significant Core Curriculum experience from one college. Executive Vice Chancellor Justin Lonon will serve as ex-officio to the CCRC.

 

Charges to the CCRC:

The CCRC will be charged to:

1.            De-emphasize concerns over individual disciplines, colleges, and enrollment patterns, in favor of a global and network approach focused on student success and preparing students to succeed in transfer and in the workforce, to take a broad view of the organic whole of the Core Curriculum to develop, and provide opportunities to assess the student attainment of, the six Core Objectives (critical thinking, communication, empirical and quantitative skills, teamwork, social responsibility, and personal responsibility);

2.            Review research materials provided by the District Office for Educational Policy, including 60x30 Goals, and the Guided Pathways initiatives;

3.            Review foundational, philosophical, and historical documents and perspectives for the 2009 and 2014 Core Curricula and Core Revision process, including relevant AAC&U principles for general education learning and assessment.

4.            Review THECB requirements for the Texas Core Curriculum and study emerging trends from the THECB and other public Texas community colleges and universities.

5.            Conduct information gathering efforts electronically from discipline committees and faculty at all seven colleges to obtain broad stakeholder input, and consider input from major Dallas County employers provided through the Office of Workforce Education;

6.            Provide a set of recommendations for the 090 Component Area Option, and the inclusion or exclusion of non-science major science courses from the AS degree prior to January 29, 2018, for the Vice Presidents Council and Chancellors Staff to review and approve in advance of submission to THECB for possible adoption in the 2018-2019 DCCCD catalog. The CCRC is not to recommend any changes to any of the Foundational Component Areas of the Core.

In the coming days, CCRC Co-chairs Shawnda Floyd and Matt Hinckley will work to identify and recruit a broad and representative sample of faculty, with no less than two and no more than four faculty from each college, to populate the CCRC. The CCRC tentatively will convene for a first meeting on or around December 1, 2017, and a second meeting on or around January 19, 2018. Stakeholder District discipline committees should expect to receive charges in early December. Questions can be directed to Anna Mays, Shawnda Floyd, or Matt Hinckley . Academic Vice Presidents also can provide background information to their respective faculty.

Pre-Convention Update

In accordance with bylaws approved at the 2016 DCCFA convention, designed in part to increase member participation in all facets of the governance of the association, the Faculty Council this year undertook a process to accept budget requests from the seven standing committees that were developed during the Sept. 22 standing committee meetings. It should be noted that the DCCFA bylaws now stipulate that all seven college chapters must elect their representatives to each of the seven standing committees, a practice that previously was not uniformly followed in all seven college chapters.

The Welfare and Benefits committee, chaired by CVCFA President Shaun Gilligan, submitted these minutes of their 9/22/17 meeting, as well as this list of compensation priorities for 2017-2018, and a longer compendium of compensation concerns. The Welfare and Benefits committee did not have any specific requests from the DCCFA budget.

The Instructional Goals and Academic Freedom committee, chaired by MVCFA President Margo Silva, submitted these minutes of their 9/22/17 meeting. The Instructional Goals and Academic Freedom Committee did not have any specific requests from the DCCFA budget.

The Communications committee, chaired by RLCFA President Matt Henry, submitted these minutes of their 9/22/17 meeting.

The Political Information committee, chaired by EFCFA President Matt Hinckley, submitted these minutes of their 9/22/17 meeting.

The Convention Planning committee, chaired by BHCFA President Bill Hammerschlag, submitted these minutes of their 9/22/17 meeting.

The Membership committee, chaired by ECCFA President Pam Crawford, and the Budget and Finance committee, chaired by NLCFA President Brett Dyer, submitted these minutes of their 9/22/17 joint meeting.

The Faculty Council has reviewed the recommendations of the committees, and in accordance with the bylaws that require it to publish a proposed budget 30 days before the association convenes for the annual convention, hereby publishes this proposed budget for fiscal year 2017-2018.

The final budget is subject to change, per new information that may be received between now and the November 10 convention, the final membership totals to be tabulated at the convention, as well as pending a vote to approve by the members gathered at the convention. Questions about the process, the committee reports, or the convention, may be directed to your respective faculty association president, and/or your local college chapter representative on each standing committee.

DCCFA Standing Committee Reports

The DCCFA standing committees gathered on October 7, 2016, and the Bill J. Priest Institute for their annual meeting. Each committee was charged with reviewing the draft of the changes to the DCCFA Bylaws (see this post for more information) and with reviewing the previous year's report, discussing past and current issues, and generating a new report for the Convention on Nov. 11. The reports of each of the committees is provided here for the entire DCCFA membership to review prior to the Convention.

Report from Welfare and Benefits

Report from Political Information

Report from Communications

Report from Membership

Report from Instructional Goals and Academic Freedom

FLRG (Faculty Load Review Group) Update #3: BRAVO Subcommittee Update

The Faculty Load Review Group (FLRG) next meets Monday, Nov. 7. The BRAVO subcommittee co-chair Shirley Thompson has published this report to keep faculty updated on the work of this group:

The BRAVO subcommittee of the Faculty Load Task Force had its first in person meeting this past week and have outlined our next steps to move forward on our task of examining the various teaching modalities.  Our charge is to try to determine the best methods for ensuring student success and equity in teaching responsibilities across the identified modalities (Distance Learning, LGI’s, Small Group Instruction, Dual Credit, Lecture, Lab, CO-OP, etc.)  Our first steps were to outline current practice in terms of what is happening at various campuses in the way of establishing a faculty member’s load and what is in our district documents such as HROGs concerning load for these various modalities.

I’ve linked the current survey we sent out last week with the responses we’ve received so far.  Our survey was built by taking the questions we were charged by the Task Force to answer.

Please send your inquiries, thoughts, comments to your campus representative to be sure your input comes back to our next meeting on Nov. 16^th.  Shortly after that meeting you will get another update.

We’ve identified several pieces of information we need from each campus:

1.     How did your campus come up with course section max numbers?  For example at my college the max for history & government is 35 while the max for MATH classes is normally 25.

2.    We also think having a list of rooms, by campus, with fire code capacity and discipline set maxes would be good.  For example, a room might have a fire code capacity of 30, but the set up the subject area wants is 25 due to the layout of the furniture and activities the students are expected to do during class.  We are developing a form for this part of the request and will send that out in a couple of days. Audra is sending a copy of the form used at CVC and Shirley and Eddie are going to pare it down to get only what we need for our purposes.  Once that is completed we will send it out to the committee.  In the meantime it would be good to talk with your institutional research people about a project coming their way.

3.    I’ve linked the spreadsheet created by the responses we have so far from our list of questions assigned to our group by the Faculty Load Task Force.  I’ve arranged the order of responses by campus.  I have several from CVC that are not on this list.  I need to add them to the spreadsheet and will resend when that’s complete.  Without those we have 86 responses so plenty to read in your spare time. The goal here is to start getting the big picture so we can drill down at our next meeting on November 16^th from 2 – 4 pm at the District Office.

4.    We discussed having the curriculum committees establish course section maxes. To do so, we need a charge written for them to respond to in January during faculty return week. This would be at the course level not the subject level.  For example some English classes might have a max of 20 others a max of 25 depending on the number of graded papers expected.

5.    Included in the discussion was the DL pay grid and the fact that having this separate practice of paying for extra students, and not letting the class make with full pay for less than 15 is problematic because of the inequities created between lecture and DL compensation .  We are looking for a means to have a simplified assignment of load and extra service.

6.    We looked at the pay/load allocation for Co-Op students and have asked that each of us talk with some Co-Op instructors to see if they think the load/pay assignment is fair.

Our Colleague Specialist on the committee noted how having a grid to determine load % or pay amount is preferable to having a document that can be interpreted multiple ways. Our goal is to try to simplify the guidelines and practices used across the district for load. Included in this discussion was the idea of using contact hours for pay/load whether the course is for load or extra service.

In regard to the question about “significant overloads” affecting teaching quality, a suggestion was made that perhaps we should consider a policy of allowing extra service work to be evaluated instead of regular load classes if the faculty member has more than a two course overload. Not a requirement, just an option if the dean chooses to do so.

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