Upcoming Board of Trustees Election News – Candidate Questionnaire Responses and Upcoming Candidate Forums

The Dallas College Faculty Association recently sent all eight candidates vying for four of seven Dallas College Board of Trustees seats up for election in 2022: 

 

District 1 (unexpired term) 

• Lynn Davenport 

• Catalina E. Garcia 

• Gretchen M. Williams (Incumbent) 

 

 District 2 

• Eugene J. Robinson 

• Phil Ritter (Incumbent) 

 

District 3 

• Paul Mayer 

• Soji John​ 

 

District 4 

• Monica Lira Bravo (Incumbent); unopposed 

Political Information Committee Candidate Voter Guide Questionnaire 

 

The DCFA asked all candidates to reply to the Dallas College Faculty Association Voter Guide Questions, which asked six questions: 

1.    How will your educational background and professional experience benefit Dallas College?

2.    What is the role of the elected Board of Trustees? How does this role relate to your input as an elected trustee?

3.    What is the position of Dallas College within the educational marketplace in Dallas County? What is your plan to continue to improve the quality and availability of educational programs to the citizens of Dallas County?

4.    The last two years have presented numerous challenges to the mission of higher education. If elected, how will you advocate for Dallas College students, employees, and colleges in your dealings with business, the community, other public servants, and voters?

5.    How would you propose transforming Dallas College into the premier workplace for current and future faculty, staff, and administrators? How will you support recruiting and retaining a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce which mirrors the community we serve.

6.    Is there anything else you’d like to add about you or regarding your campaign? 

 

With a deadline of Friday, April 1, six candidates responded. (Because she is running unopposed, Chair Monica Bravo, Place 4, replied she would not officially complete the questionnaire since the guide’s purpose was to help the community make more informed voting decisions in contested races.) 

 

A composite of all candidate responses, along with the original candidate submissions, are now available for review on the DCFA SharePoint site at 2022 Dallas College Board of Trustees Election Information. 

Candidate Forums 

The DCFA is hosting two in-person Board of Trustees Candidates Forums, inviting all eight candidates to participate in both events: 

 

Candidate Forum I – Richland Campus 

(co-hosted by the Richland Campus Faculty Association) 

Monday, April 11, 2022, at 2:00 p.m. 

Sabine Hall (SH 118) 

 

Candidate Forum II – Brookhaven Campus 

(co-hosted by the Dallas College Retirees Association) 

Tuesday, April 19, 2022, at 7:00 p.m. 

Brookhaven Performance Hall 

 

Both events will be recorded and available for post-event review. (Details forthcoming.) Forum II will also be streamed live, as well as recorded, for those who cannot attend in person. Additionally, the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce is hosting two virtual candidate debates via Facebook Events: 

 

1. Candidate Forum: Dallas College District 2 - Monday, April 11 @ noon – 1:15 p.m., featuring candidates Ritter and Robinson 

2. Candidate Forum: Dallas College District 1 - Wednesday, April 20 @ noon – 1:15 p.m., featuring candidates Davenport, Garcia, and Williams 

Election Information 

Early Voting 

The first day of early voting begins Monday, April 25, running every day through Tuesday, May 3, with varying hours. Dallas County voters may vote at ANY county voting location, including all seven Dallas College campuses.  

 

Election Day 

Election day is Saturday, May 7, 2022, where citizens vote at their home precinct location from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. CDT.  

 

Voter Information 

If you are unsure which Dallas College district you reside in or where you vote on election day, visit Dallas County Voter Lookup. You can also view a sample ballot for the upcoming information. For a complete list of early voting locations, visit Dallas County Early Voting Information (although, at this time, a finalized, comprehensive list of polling sites isn’t available). 

 

For additional information about the candidates, the DCFA Candidate Voter Guide, the upcoming DCFA Candidate Forums, and how and where to vote, please use your personal email to contact Wade Hyde, ex-officio chair of the Political Information Committee, at wade@wadehyde.com or any PIC member. (It is inappropriate for Dallas College employees to discuss political matters directly impacting the institution while using Dallas College resources, other than communications like this, for general information purposes only.) 

ADA Accommodations Process Updates

Dear faculty,

The Employee Relations team in Human Resources has updated the ADA Accommodations website and processes. The SharePoint site for ADA Accommodation site contains information and links to the new ADA Accommodation Request Form. Please use this new Dallas College ADA Accommodations Microsoft Form to submit your initial accommodation request for Fall 2022. (The form is also available on the ADA Accommodation SharePoint page.)

 

Once HR representatives have received your request via the Microsoft Form, they will reach out to you with the official forms to process your request.

 

If you have any questions or need additional information, please reach out to your DCFA campus president.

 

DCFA Faculty Council

Tommy Thomspon, DCFA President, Cedar Valley (tommythompson@dcccd.edu)
Margo Silva, DCFA Vice President, Mountain View (mrsilva@dcccd.edu)
Josh Rose, DCFA Secretary, Brookhaven (joshuarose@dcccd.edu)
Keith Baker, DCFA Treasurer, Northlake (kbaker1@dcccd.edu)
Andrew Tolle, Eastfield (andrewtolle@dcccd.edu)
Wade Hyde, El Centro (whyde@dcccd.edu)
Jennifer Baggett, Richland (jenniferbaggett@dcccd.edu)

Invitation to Join DCFA Regular Monthly Business Meeting on March 11, 2022

The third DCFA Council Monthly Business Meeting of Spring 2022 is scheduled for Friday, March 11 at 12:00 p.m.

This meeting is scheduled for after our provost meeting so that we can provide up-to-date reporting on anything that comes up in that meetings (in addition to regular business).

Here is the link to the meeting agenda. Below you will find the meeting links along with call-in/passcode information.

Time: 12:00 p.m. on March 11, 2022

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/96016480264?pwd=WGhFemw2bzljMktTVHhqSWtZRHk3Zz09

 

Meeting ID: 960 1648 0264

Passcode: dcfa2022b

One tap mobile

+13462487799,,96016480264#,,,,*422153252# US (Houston)

+12532158782,,96016480264#,,,,*422153252# US (Tacoma)

 

Dial by your location

        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

        +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)

        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

Meeting ID: 960 1648 0264

Passcode: 422153252

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abmnwJXlT

Invitation to Join DCFA Regular Monthly Business Meeting on February 25, 2022

The second DCFA Council Monthly Business Meeting of Spring 2022 is scheduled for Friday, February 25 at 3:00 p.m.

This meeting is scheduled for after our provost meeting so that we can provide up-to-date reporting on anything that comes up in that meetings (in addition to regular business).

Here is the link to the meeting agenda. Below you will find the meeting links along with call-in/passcode information.

Time: 3:00 p.m. on February 25, 2022

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/96016480264?pwd=WGhFemw2bzljMktTVHhqSWtZRHk3Zz09

 

Meeting ID: 960 1648 0264

Passcode: dcfa2022b

One tap mobile

+13462487799,,96016480264#,,,,*422153252# US (Houston)

+12532158782,,96016480264#,,,,*422153252# US (Tacoma)

 

Dial by your location

        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

        +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)

        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

Meeting ID: 960 1648 0264

Passcode: 422153252

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abmnwJXlT

IncludED meeting follow up from Follett

Dr. Greg Morris, Senior Vice Provost, Academic Services, shared the following message with the DCFA Council to let us know that our feedback at the November 15, 2021 meeting with Follett helped them ensure Follett implemented the following changes to their ordering processes. See the message he shared from Stacy Zapko, Group Vice President at Follett. Please note, before sharing this we confirmed that “estimated enrollment” in the paragraph below refers to the course cap optimum, not to their own internal estimations.

“Good Afternoon Dr. Floyd and Dr. Morris - I wanted to thank you again for our IncludEd meeting and discussion.  As I committed to in the meeting, Ryan [Livengood] and I collaborated with our store team and corporate team to increase the “buffer amount” (ordered quantity) of physical course materials to be 10% above estimated enrollment and handled it systematically rather than store by store. This should greatly improve the slowdown we experienced in some courses where there may have been significant add and drop movement and will help ensure students recently added have their materials more timely rather than waiting on students who dropped to return them.

Ryan and I also had a follow up discussion with our Publisher Relations Team to discuss the issue with some publishers offering multiple listings/ISBNs/options for the same items. Ryan has drafted an email that will go out to the largest publishers to seek their assistance in removing possible duplicate listings or streamlining the process to reduce confusion. He will keep us posted.”

 

The message above was originally sent in December, so should have been applied to the purchases for this spring semester. 

 

As of January 28, we’ve been told that chairs and deans were given access to the back-order lists and should be communicating with any faculty whose adoptions have been affected by any delays. If your students are reporting delays in getting their physical materials, please check with your chair to confirm Follett is reporting the same delay.

 

If your course has physical materials and you are experiencing unreasonable delays this spring, please reach out to the IncludED faculty champion for your School for follow-up assistance this semester, and also send the information to your DCFA campus president so we can compile a list of the continuing issues. Make sure to include the full course ID, section number, and if possible, forward any messages from the bookstore or from students regarding the problem or delay in their receiving materials so we can continue to follow up with Follett on your behalf.

Invitation to Join DCFA Regular Monthly Business Meeting on January 14, 2022

The first DCFA Council Monthly Business of Spring 2022 is scheduled for Friday, January 14 at 3:00 p.m.

This meeting is scheduled for after our provost meeting so that we can provide up-to-date reporting on anything that comes up in that meetings (in addition to regular business).

Here is the link to the meeting agenda. Below you will find the meeting links along with call-in/passcode information.

DCFA Welfare and Benefits Committee Meeting Minutes from Dec. 2 Now Available

Minutes of the Dec. 2, 2021 DCFA Welfare and Benefits Committee Meeting are Now Available at this linked file on the DCFA SharePoint site.

DCFA Update - December 6, 2021

Dear Faculty,

We hope your finals week goes smoothly!  Below are some important updates we have on some recent events and situations here at Dallas College. If you have questions about any of them, please reach out to your campus representative.

 

URGENT: BlackBoard test settings change

Tech support has confirmed a change was made to the eCampus/BlackBoard test settings that they (Dallas College tech team) did not know had been made. They are working to find out why it was changed and whether it can be returned to its original state, but in the meantime, this is to let you all know that you need to check your “test” settings for any final exams or other assignments you are giving through eCampus. If you use the “Force Completion” setting, but do not normally use the “Set Timer” option with it, the “set timer” option was automatically turned on and set to 60 minutes (so basically now the Force Completion setting cannot be used alone – it can only be used with the timer).  This is obviously a problem if your intent was to allow students more than an hour to complete that assignment, so you will need to edit the test options and change the time to something longer.  If you normally use both “Force Completion” and “Set Timer,” you should be fine, but we recommend checking to confirm your time length is still the length you selected, just in case.

 

Board of Trustees and Faculty Contracts

If you did not listen into the special Board meeting on Thursday, December 2, we strongly encourage you to listen to it before tomorrow’s Board meeting when they will vote to remove the rolling aspect of our contracts. The Board members were pretty open about their opinions of faculty and how they see us in this meeting, and it is helpful to hear it yourself rather than hearing what others take from it. Although a transcript is available, the transcript was auto-captioned live, so contains errors and doesn’t show who is talking, so listening directly provides a clearer picture. The meeting also shows how Dr. May and Dr. Lonon fit into their roles and how much power the Board wields over them. Please also notice that they specifically state that even if they leave in 3-year contracts as an option, the Board of Trustees will be looking to see them used sparingly, rather than as the norm for faculty contracts. Specifics of this intent would be built into the procedures developed in response to the new Board policy, so faculty need to pay attention to those processes and advocate for a voice in developing those procedures with administration wherever possible.

 

Please make plans to listen into the Board of Trustees meetings tomorrow as well. These meetings are open to the public, so if you want to attend, you are always able to do so. Based on how the last meeting ended, there is a possibility they will continue to discuss whether to shorten our maximum contract length to only 2 years if Trustee Flores brings it up again. They meet at the Dallas College administration building downtown (see the link for where and when).  The work sessions begin at 10:30 a.m., with the regular board meeting scheduled to start at 4:00 p.m.

 

Campus Holiday Luncheons

Please make plans to attend the holiday luncheon at your campus, even if you only stop in for a short visit.  For many of us, it is our first real opportunity to gather as a campus community since the pandemic, and I know it would be nice to see everyone.  Make sure to RSVP – the forms are still open as of this morning!

 

Adjunct Faculty Templates

As many of you have heard, there was a request from administration, primarily led by Terry DiPaolo, to have curriculum committees develop template for the “top 20” courses (those with the highest enrollment and number of sections typically offered each semester).  This request was made without inclusion of faculty in the development of the instructions, requirements or timeline and included a first deadline of December 17 for a significant amount of work to have been completed and decisions to have been made, all without compensation for the faculty asked to do the work. Faculty from the Curriculum Committees themselves, the Schools reps, the Faculty Association, and other groups reached out to various administrators questioning how the decision was made and why faculty were not included in developing the timeline and format for this development project, as well as how these templates would be used once completed (i.e. the “mandatory for all adjuncts” element that takes away their academic freedom).  Some of the curriculum committee chairs scheduled a meeting with Terry DiPaolo and Greg Morris on Friday, December 3, to which the other chairs of “top 20” courses and DCFA President Tommy Thompson and DCFA Vice President Margo Silva were also invited to attend. Minutes of this meeting were written and shared by Jennifer Siemantel, Chair of the Biology CC. As it stands right now, our understanding is that the December 17 deadline has been cancelled and the curriculum chairs and administrative leadership are planning to meet again in January to continue this conversation and develop a plan that addresses the stated need without sacrificing academic freedom or asking faculty to develop templates without proper compensation. Please reach out to your curriculum committee representative for more information if you haven’t heard anything from them and your discipline is one of those listed in the minutes file as having a “top 20” course.

 

Over-Enrollment Compensation

Over-enrollment compensation for any faculty who qualify will be paid in your December paycheck. You should have received an email from AST before Thanksgiving providing you with a link to review your over-enrollment calculations and report any errors you saw. A few faculty noticed that the “hold-harmless clause” did not appear to have been applied properly in their over-enrollment total and reported that error.  Dr. Greg Morris confirmed that the hold-harmless clause should have been used in these cases and AST is reviewing the calculations for all faculty to ensure anyone whose over-enrollment was accidentally miscalculated will be recalculated with the hold-harmless clause taken into consideration. For your reference, the hold-harmless clause refers ONLY to when courses were allowed to run with fewer than the normal course minimum due to documented need, so this miscalculation should only have affected a small number of faculty. For example, if a course whose normal minimum is 15 is allowed to run with only 9 students in it, the hold-harmless clause says that this section will be treated as if it did reach the minimum of 15 students. This clause exists because if Dallas College decided the course was necessary for students, the faculty member should not be penalized for agreeing to teach a course that did not meet the minimum. The clause says that this course will be treated as though it did reach the minimum, so the SACH (student ACH) should have been calculated as though the course had 15 students in it, not 9, when comparing to the course ACH for over-enrollment pay. 

 

New DCFA Council Members

Per an election held when the prior Eastfield campus Faculty Association president and vice-president stepped down, the new EFC president is Andrew Tolle and the new vice-president is Patrick Patterson.  Brookhaven campus Faculty Association president, Jennifer Allen, has been on temporary leave from the Council and her role as campus president since August 2021. Because she has decided not to return for the spring, and Peggy Mason, Interim BHC President, has decided not to continue in this role, Brookhaven will be represented on the DCFA Council by Josh Rose for the spring 2022 semester.