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!

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.