[Speaker 1] (0:00 - 3:14)
Let's go ahead and call this meeting to order at 3.16 and we'll begin with approval of the March minutes. Those have been distributed online. Can I get a motion to approve the March minutes?

I see Dana and Stephen. Any revisions or comments on the minutes? All in favor to approve, say aye.

Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries.

I also want to note that the agenda that was posted on our Faculty Assembly webpage was the wrong agenda. It was a repeat of the March agenda. So I did include some copies of the correct agenda in the hall.

If you want to get one of those you can get it. But I like to start my report with good things. My good thing is that it is Honors Day season.

And so last week I had the privilege to be present when three students received their Honors Day invitations. And it just, it doesn't get old. They got huge smiles on their faces.

One immediately started texting their parent and they're like, wait, what did you say this is? And the other one expressed that they had never been honored in this way. And so, you know, at a time when we're stressed, we're worried about the future with AI, we have changes at the college, all that can be so overwhelming.

But when you see your students huge smiles about Honors Day, it makes it all worth it. So send some good vibes to Breanne, who is putting it all together next week. And remember to show up at the PAC next week around this time wearing your regalia and we'll celebrate those students at Honors Day.

The other thing I want to share in my report is a an announcement from Dr. Norris, who could not be here today, but she asked me to share this. She explained that for years divisions have had scholarship funds that they could distribute. Some divisions would distribute the scholarships based on merit and award them to their Honors Day recipients.

Other divisions awarded by need. Other divisions left the funds unawarded. Administration became aware of some unmet needs, that there are students who are within 15 hours of graduation who are dropped for non-payment and therefore unable to graduate in a timely way.

And so Dr. Norris has changed the pot for the division scholarship fund. Those funds will now be used to help students in their last 15 hours as described above. So this is just an information item, but if you have questions about that or concerns, please email Dr. Norris or you can share them now.

[Speaker 18] (3:20 - 3:21)
It won't start until next year.

[Speaker 1] (3:21 - 4:05)
The question was when does this new change start? It would start in the new budget. So this bubbled up because of budget planning.

Yeah, so I know divisions currently are awarding the scholarships for Honors Day and so that's that's fine, but for next year it'll be different. My understanding is those funds have been moved to a different pot. That pot will be used for students in their last 15 hours who are dropped for non-payment.

Those decisions will be made by I believe Scott Bennett, Kelly Ford Spears, Dr. Norris. Jessica?

[Speaker 13] (4:07 - 4:48)
Could it be, I know you can't answer this, but just for our records, could it be that those students can apply and are awarded a foundation scholarship so the divisions can still pass out? Because our division we give out quite a few $200 scholarships and it's really a big highlight and our students are feel, you know, very validated and supported. So I feel like there could be an option.

I don't know if that's been explored already, but if if we have a foundation scholarship that could support them that might allow us. Sounds like the decision's been made, but I think if that could be considered that because I know our division really loves doing it.

[Speaker 1] (4:49 - 4:56)
Thank you for including that and that'll be on the recording and we'll make sure that the message gets to Dr. Norris to consider for sure.

[Speaker 5] (4:57 - 5:44)
Thank you for saying that, Jessica, because I would like it on the record as well. So we have a B.E.A.R. program in teacher education that the college has supported since 2005-2007 that's a partnership with Goose Creek, Lee College, and University of Houston Clearlake. We used to award five $500 scholarships.

Somewhere that money disappeared that no one can seem to tell me where, why, how, and so the only way that I can give out scholarships is through departmental funds. Otherwise the agreement that we have with the collaboration of this, Lee College no longer gives out scholarships when Goose Creek does and Clearlake does. So that's an issue.

[Speaker 1] (5:45 - 5:51)
Thank you for getting that on the record. We will share that with Dr. Norris too. Another comment up front?

[Speaker 3] (5:55 - 6:16)
I would like this revisited because I think they're still planning for the budget, so I don't think it's a decision that's been made. It's probably made with good intent, but I do think that the greater cause is to bring this forward to educate them about things they probably aren't aware of. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (6:16 - 6:36)
So it will be on the record in the minutes and on the recording, but I will also follow up with an email to Dr. Norris just to express the concerns. Are there any other concerns? Okay, well then we're moving on to the next report.

Interim Vice President Francisca Castillo.

[Speaker 10] (6:38 - 7:00)
Yes, we have unopposed candidates for most of the officers positions and committee chairs. I do not have one for professional standards and chairperson and secretary. So this is the last call for anyone to volunteer.

[Speaker 19] (7:01 - 7:08)
And then we can vote again at the end for secretary.

[Speaker 10] (7:18 - 8:22)
And the good thing is she can only serve one time, right? She cannot volunteer again. So keep that in mind.

Next time, no. Professional standards. Should we finalize this now?

We're not going to need to vote. If this is, everybody's unopposed, so we can just agree. These are the new officers.

Okay, you want to wait till the next, yes, okay. Okay, very good. Nominations for President Chanel Cook, Vice President Mark Solis, Secretary again Kathleen Walker, Professional Development Chairperson Francisca Castillo, Professional Standards Chairperson Cassandra, Recognition and Honors Chairperson Carl Taylor.

Carl, you want to stand up because I didn't know how to go. And Benefits Chairperson Kathleen Pastore, also right here.

[Speaker 19] (8:23 - 8:35)
Any other nominations, guys? Should we then agree? So these are it.

So we don't have to vote again because they're not opposed. Thank you.

[Speaker 10] (8:35 - 8:36)
Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1] (8:37 - 8:47)
Great job. Thank you for the people who volunteered for these positions. Okay, next up we have Interim Professional Standards and Responsibilities.

[Speaker 18] (8:47 - 8:55)
Karen. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (8:56 - 10:30)
Let me get out the information from the board meeting was interesting. I think I'm going to use Will's. Here we go.

I was surprised by the number of minutes that were reviewed. They were very busy in the month of March, but they didn't read them, thankfully. They just approved them.

And then, as I like to provide to you, information for resignations and retirements. And there were two people on that list, and get to that. David Hainline is retiring, and Amanda DeVore is, thank you, resigning.

So those are the only two that were submitted. Thank you. For those that were hired, we have Yasmin Hassan, who is Executive Director of Procurement and Administrative Services, and the other was Anthony Wells, who will be Director of Respiratory Therapy Program.

I'm sure they're getting ready to gear up out in Mount Bellevue, so I thought those were the other two. The only other really significant point to make is that there was a review of a sabbatical request by Curtis White, and he has been approved for that leave of absence. So those are the major things.

They did go through the budget. Nothing really major has changed, so if there was something of concern, I would have brought it forth to you. Okay, any questions?

[Speaker 18] (10:32 - 10:33)
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 1] (10:39 - 11:10)
All right, next we have Interim Benefits, Laura Capson. She's in a class. What time does her class get out?

So, no report. And then Interim Professional Development, Joe Giannakos. He could not be here today.

He's a little busy at the moment, but Kristen Martin does have a question for Professional Development that, Laura, maybe you can answer.

[Speaker 8] (11:17 - 12:33)
Good afternoon. So as many of you know, I'm a full-time English faculty member and the Program Coordinator for the Puente Program. As a part of being a completely trained Puente faculty member, you have to attend an institute called PTI, the Puente Training Institute in Texas.

This year will be May 27th through the 30th, and two regional trainings. The two regional trainings are free, but PTI is not. PTI was at a cost of $1,000.

The national Puente team in California has agreed to reduce the cost to $500 just for Lee College faculty. They have shared with us that if four Lee College faculty members, in addition to myself going, attend, they will adhere to that $500 discount that they're giving us, and it'll be $500 per person. The question I had, it was raised in our Puente faculty advisory meeting earlier this week, is that if there are funds left over from faculty members who did not use all of their professional development funds or any of their professional development funds, could those funds be transferred?

For myself, I have not used any, and I would be happy to allow one of my colleagues to use mine.

[Speaker 18] (12:41 - 12:42)
Okay, who has an answer?

[Speaker 2] (12:48 - 12:53)
It's up to the people who are on the Professional Development Committee of Faculty Assembly.

[Speaker 5] (12:58 - 14:05)
Thank you. All right, so the funds are for the entire budget year, so it won't be until July to where everybody who has traveled once, right, then the money that's left over. So that's a committee, I guess, decision to where Joe has to get together.

If someone has not at all gone, then absolutely, because $900 is what you get, although Dr. Norris does, there is no more other funding than the $900, and I think Joe has shared that with us, but if there are faculty members who have not used the fund, those are probably going to be the ones that go through, because there's always a lot of summer travel, and people are starting, in fact, last week, I think is when we began to get quite a bit of more applications, and it's for summer travel, and so I think your best bet is for those who haven't traveled to try and go first, and then have a conversation with Joe specifically, because he chairs that, and so he'll take the lead on it.

[Speaker 1] (14:08 - 14:12)
Let's get you on the mic, only because this is being recorded.

[Speaker 8] (14:12 - 14:32)
Absolutely, as a part of the MOU for Puente here at Lee College, my cost of PTI is covered, so I have not traveled at all, and I won't be using mine for PTI, and I think one of my colleagues wanted to share something about where she is in terms of her funding.

[Speaker 9] (14:34 - 14:49)
I have $395 left over that I've used out of that, so I would need like an additional $105 to be able to go, and I do teach a Puente course this semester and last semester, so we didn't know how that would actually work within the budget.

[Speaker 12] (14:55 - 15:09)
So I haven't used any, which means I have $900? I don't? Okay, so I guess with, since it's $500, then that would come out of the $900?

[Speaker 5] (15:12 - 15:41)
No, so we don't, we are not funded by giving every faculty member $900. We just get a funding amount, and then the committee years ago determined the most that we would give out is $900, but if people only need $500, we give you $500, but you don't have like, like every person, you have $900 to spend, you can't, that's not the, it's first-come, first-served, thank you.

[Speaker 12] (15:42 - 16:13)
So that's not what I was implying, since Christine is asking, since this is Puente and typically the funding is separate, so I'm asking since it's $500 and I haven't done any travel yet, would that be, is it, is it possible that we would get, we would be able to use that money to travel?

[Speaker 5] (16:13 - 16:44)
Right, so your application that you send in has to, it asks, you have to send how much the registration is, how much everything is, which would then show that it's $500 and some odd dollars, so then Faculty Assembly would then award you $500. They won't award you $900 because that's not, like it asks for what's your accommodation, what are your meals, what are the, it asks you for everything, so they're only gonna fund what it says on there, unless somehow, and yeah, that's all I'm gonna say.

[Speaker 1] (16:48 - 17:14)
But I heard someone say to email Joe and put the request in writing, or if you know you want to go to PTI yourself, put in the request. If you want to go to PTI but you are short $100, I say put in the request, explain the situation, and then if it's first-come, first-served, it makes sense to me, like whatever money's left, they could distribute.

[Speaker 6] (17:15 - 17:59)
Comment? Well I was literally just gonna say basically the same thing as you, which is that I think my approach would just be to put in the request and see if it gets approved. Because I think, I think Joe also knows more about, I know there is something written in somewhere, and maybe this has changed because we're redoing how our funding is handled, but there is something somewhere also about how those funds are applied to certifications and trainings.

So again, I think I would just submit the request and, and see how Joe handles it. Because again, it's not money assigned per faculty, it's just a pot. So just see if you can get access to the pot.

[Speaker 8] (18:04 - 18:12)
Yes, I see a lot of Puente faculty in here today, so I would be interested in the answers, so if you guys could please carb and copy me on those emails. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (18:13 - 18:28)
Thank you for bringing that up. Any other questions for the record about professional development? Okay, next up we have Interim Honors and Recognition, Shamika.

[Speaker 15] (18:31 - 19:05)
The only, the only other update that I have is that we deposited the check of $500. Thank you so much for you all's contributions to supporting students during the graduation period. I know that Jessica is sending it out, or she should have already sent out an email to students who are, who've received services from CEREC, and if they are in need of support in terms of purchasing graduation gowns, caps, or stoles, they can request a voucher from CEREC.

So that's my update. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (19:09 - 19:35)
All right, then moving on to unfinished business, the load proposal slash adjunct pay update. There's probably no change because at the last meeting Dr. Norris said it's all contingent upon the budget that they're working on, and so we'll know more in August. How about William?

This is the non-teaching faculty hours update.

[Speaker 17] (19:43 - 19:56)
Thanks, I have no update. I haven't heard back from Dr. Norris, so that was anti-climatic. Right now I'm awaiting response from Dr. Norris. I haven't sent it beyond that.

[Speaker 1] (19:57 - 19:58)
Good, thank you.

[Speaker 18] (20:07 - 20:13)
Okay, so I'm stalling.

[Speaker 1] (20:19 - 20:24)
The next order of business is the Excellence in Education Award.

[Speaker 16] (20:25 - 20:27)
Laura's there, does she have a report?

[Speaker 1] (20:27 - 20:31)
Do you have your report? No, okay.

[Speaker 18] (20:39 - 20:40)
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 1] (20:40 - 24:29)
All right, so we are on the Excellence in Education Award. In 1969, Mrs. Catherine Warmond, a former student of Lee College and an enthusiastic patron of the college, decided that an outstanding Lee College faculty member and or counselor should be publicly recognized each year. To make this possible, she and the Exxon Education Foundation established an Excellence in Education Award, which Faculty Assembly took over in recent years.

So this is now the Faculty Assembly Excellence in Education Award. Every year, a committee of faculty trustees assures that a proper procedure is followed in selecting the recipients. The trustees appoint an anonymous faculty committee to actually choose the winner.

The faculty committee must use the following criteria in making its selection. Excellence in Education, Professional and Personal Integrity, Effectiveness and Area of Responsibility, Ability to Communicate Enthusiasm for Learning, Ability to Communicate Effectively with Colleagues and Students, Leadership and Development of College Programs, Sincere Concern for Students and Fellow Faculty Members, and Loyalty to Lee College and the community it serves. Two awards are given each year, one to an employee with less than 10 years service and one to an employee with 10 or more years of service.

The awards are $600 each to be used for further education and the recipients also receive a plaque and a medallion. So the first award I'll announce is the Excellence in Education Award for fewer than 10 years. This person, you can guess who it is, this person shares with students her struggles of leaving her home as a very young person, of having to depend on herself, and of being the primary supporter of four children.

She shares her message of hard work, self-reliance, and the necessity of being undeterrable in the pursuit of her goals. She then requires her students to work hard on challenging assignments through every minute of every class of the semester. Students respond by taking every class they can from her and causing her classes to fill within hours of registration opening.

They do things like driving from Freeport after their first day of school wearing their new FRCs to show their company the identification badge. They thank her for believing in them and then they drive back to work the next morning. Since accepting a full-time faculty position, this person has worked tirelessly to improve her effectiveness as an instructor, support her students and her fellow instructors, and make Lee College a better place.

Every semester she serves on multiple standing and temporary committees as well as attending conferences and volunteering for activities to help maintain our Perkins grant accreditation. She organizes Friday workshops for students who have missed classes for work, she takes students on conferences, and she serves as the process technology lead instructor. When necessary, she's here on weekends maintaining and repairing lab equipment so that labs can take place the next week.

It's not so much for any one thing she does but for the entirety of what she drives herself to accomplish and it's for that reason the Excellence in Education Committee is awarding Laura Capson for the Excellence in Education Award for the faculty member with less than 10 years service.

[Speaker 11] (24:36 - 25:06)
You have to come over for a few minutes. I'm like well I guess we can stop they're finished with their plastic making right now. So we're doing making milk plastic and failing miserably part of the scientific method right?

So thank you I appreciate this. This is really very nice, very good to be I don't know partly college and recognized I guess just like everybody else here should be too. Am I supposed to give more of a speech than that?

I don't know.

[Speaker 1] (25:07 - 25:28)
Okay good, wear that back and show your students. Do you want to get a picture today or you want me to come track you down tomorrow?

[Speaker 11] (25:30 - 25:33)
Okay, okay, okay, let's get a hard hat tomorrow so it'll be worse.

[Speaker 1] (25:34 - 26:11)
Okay, Francisco will you take her into the best lighting out there and get a great picture where we can see the plaque? Lighting is so important. Okay and now as the reason why I announced that is that Chanel Cook who was the winner of that award last year she is at a conference today but normally the the winner from the year before is the one who announces.

So at this time I'm gonna call up Regina Barrera. She was the winner last year of the more than 10 years award and we'll have her read the blurb.

[Speaker 18] (26:15 - 26:17)
Let me have you pause for just a second though.

[Speaker 1] (26:46 - 26:52)
Okay, so this person is also at a meeting off-campus so we're gonna get them on the phone.

[Speaker 7] (27:18 - 29:26)
This person shares with students her struggles of leaving her home. This person has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to student success and institutional advancement since becoming a full-time instructor at Lee College in 2007. Inside the classroom she is well respected by her students and has earned recognition for innovative teaching practices through the 2014 Faculty Innovations in Technology Award and two triage SSS Appreciation Awards.

Her students are consistently successful in her courses and typically find success in subsequent math courses reflecting her emphasis on building strong mathematical foundations. Additionally she takes tremendous pride in supporting part-time instructors through mentorship and resource sharing. Outside the classroom she has been a significant figure within both the formal developmental education and currently with MPEC division.

She consistently take a leadership role with developmental and technical math curriculum development. Her leadership during the implementation of HB 2223 directly lead to a successful cross-divisional implementation of co-requisite mathematics. Her work directly supports Lee College's mission to increase student access and success.

This person's combination of pedagogical excellence, curricular innovation, and collaborative leadership has strengthened student outcomes and instructional quality during her time at Lee College. With this, the Excellence in Education Award Committee emphatically nominates Ingrid Wallace for the 10 plus year Excellence in Education Award. Boy, I hear the little yee!

[Speaker 1] (29:31 - 30:55)
Did y'all get all that? Congratulations Ingrid, you have a medallion and a plaque and a $600 check that I'll get you tomorrow. All right, y'all have a good meeting.

All right, so the last item of new business is for us to hear from Pfluger Architects. So we have two representatives from that firm, did I pronounce it correctly? Okay, and they're gonna tell us a little bit about the facility's master plan.

After they speak, it's really important if it's possible for at least 28 of us to stick around in here because we need to do a quote second reading of the trust constitution. So the trust is a parallel organization of Faculty Assembly, it is separate from Faculty Assembly, and this is all a result of Senate Bill 37, but at our last Faculty Assembly meeting we had our first reading, at this meeting we'll approve the constitution so we can get the trust up and running. So if 28 of you, which would be a quorum, if you can stay to the end, that would be great.

Okay.

[Speaker 4] (30:56 - 33:52)
Thank you so much. I'm gonna pull up this. Yes, thank you.

Well, thank you so much for having us today. I'm Jasmin Mendez, I'm a lead designer with Pfluger Architects and I'm here with my colleague Abigail Spears. We are working in the initial stages of our master plan for Lee College, focusing on both main campus here in Baytown and also McNair.

I'm sure you guys know what a master plan is, but I'll just speak about it briefly. It's just a roadmap on how we organize the campus, what are the main improvements we need to make for the next 15-20 years, and how we implement all those changes that need to happen in the long term in the campus. And to achieve that, we are right now in the initial stages where we are gathering feedback from all the main users that use the main campus in Baytown and McNair.

Everybody want to hear from everybody, all the main users, and you as faculty members are one of the most important users of the campus. So we want to gather your feedback today, and to do that we created a survey, that it's an online survey. If you scan this QR code, it will take you directly to that survey.

We have about 15 minutes to complete it, and we are here for any questions you may have. There's a couple of questions. So the survey has two parts.

The first part is related to an interactive map of the campus, and the questions will ask you to pin down different spaces. Like for example, it will ask you, for you, what is the heart of the campus right now? And it will ask you to pin it down on the map.

In some of those questions, you actually can pin two different locations. It will say pick up the two, and then it will have a little text area where you can put comments if you want to. And then the second portion of the survey, it's more like a structured survey with normal questions, where you will have to pick different answers.

And then the final two questions are actually open-ended, where you will be asked to comment on them. Okay, so please let us know if you have any questions, but we value your feedback, and we are now, you know, gathering... Yes, go ahead.

I'm sorry. It'll be great if you can do it right now. The whole idea was to do it right now here, so we can gather all the feedback at the same time.

Oh, okay, yes. Yeah. Okay, yeah, that's something we can definitely do.

We will... Yes, yes, to you.

[Speaker 18] (33:52 - 34:07)
Yes. They're busy already.

[Speaker 3] (34:12 - 34:50)
So when reviewing this information, will it be shared back with us? Because I've been on different committees that have given input to face-to-face meetings, actually, with architects, and the wishes of faculty never became a fruition. And there were a lot of things that happened in some construction, where thousands of change orders went through for different reasons.

So those are all things that would raise my questions as to how to move forward with what you find, and how you stay the course.

[Speaker 4] (34:52 - 35:49)
That is a great question. So we actually have different committees right now within the college. We have what we call the steering committee, which is the president of the college, plus the cabinet.

We also have a working group that we're meeting every two weeks, where we go... That's more like your directive level people, but the steering committee at the end are the group that's going to decide what different initiatives make it to the final master plan. I cannot assure you that everything that's said today is going to make it to it, because it's related to a bunch of different priorities, and the budget that's available, and all those things.

But we are going to report back to them with all your feedback, and then it'll be up to the committee how we prioritize all the different needs and requests from all the different users that we're currently gathering the data from.

[Speaker 3] (35:50 - 36:11)
I say this because we're in the trenches, and a lot of times that doesn't go down to that level, to the need of us to serve our students best. And that's really an important factor in what we do, spending money the way we're going to. We have to be good stewards, but we have to look at what's best for instruction.

[Speaker 4] (36:13 - 36:35)
Absolutely, and that's exactly why we're gathering your feedback today, and we'll continue to do so as we continue to develop the master plan. Thank you. Yes, any other questions?

It won't open? We'll send an email with the link. Yes.

[Speaker 17] (36:38 - 36:42)
How come the survey is asking for my credit card number?

[Speaker 4] (36:43 - 36:45)
And social security number.

[Speaker 18] (41:40 - 41:41)
Well, thank you so much for your feedback.

[Speaker 4] (41:42 - 41:50)
We will review the data. We will send it in an email as well, just to gather more data from more faculty members. But thank you so much for your participation today.

We appreciate it.

[Speaker 1] (42:01 - 42:10)
All right, next on the agenda we have comments by interim president, but we have Dr. Loralaine Worley here as the representative for administration.

[Speaker 2] (42:12 - 42:48)
So Dr. Board asked me to give you an update on the presidential search, and all I can tell you is that Mr. Atkin came to Administrative Assembly last week, and that was one of the questions that one of the administrators asked, and we were told that there was no update at this point, that the board hadn't shared where they were, what their plans were. So I don't really have an update on the presidential search. And I don't really have an update on anything else.

I'm sure you have questions.

[Speaker 20] (42:56 - 43:07)
Cassandra? Thank you. Laura, could you mention the AI policy meeting and see if people have suggestions or input they want to send us?

[Speaker 2] (43:09 - 44:37)
Sure, when's it scheduled? It's next week, right? Next week.

So we're looking at, so let me say that I'm in an AI fellowship, and one of the big areas of discussion is around community college governance with regard to use of AI. And Lee College doesn't have any kind of regulations at this point regarding how any of us use AI. We do have the three AI choices within our syllabus, but so Cassandra, as the distance ed coordinator, is leading an AI policy group, and we've got a couple instructional designers on it.

We've got representatives from the library and Kaylee Villanueva from counseling. And so we're going to be taking a look at it. I have some guidelines and things that were given out in some of the fellowship meetings that we're going to look at as opportunities.

And if you would like to participate, I'm going to say email Cassandra because she has the meeting link. Yeah, if you have suggestions or concerns, feel free to email either Cassandra or you can email me. It doesn't matter, either one of us.

[Speaker 1] (44:40 - 44:42)
Anybody else have a question or comment?

[Speaker 16] (44:46 - 45:07)
Yeah, I wanted to just say that after Senate bill, our last meeting we had last month was actually our first official meeting, a faculty assembly, and that meeting is now available on the website recording. So if y'all are interested in hearing what happened at that meeting, it's going to be posted there and this one will be posted there as well.

[Speaker 1] (45:08 - 46:29)
Thank you. The question I wanted to, or it's not really a question, it's more of a comment that I wanted to relay from some faculty who will remain unnamed, is that they feel that the grade report that's being run is causing undue stress. So there's a report that's run that provides a number of assignments that an instructor has ungraded, and if an instructor has more than 30 things ungraded, they land on this report, their chair, all the classes are on the report, but people who have more than 30 things that they need to grade are somehow highlighted on the report, and the chair is asked to contact that person to see why they have so many things on the report. The solution or the suggestion for whoever runs the report is to worry more about the date of the assignment than the number of assignments that need to be graded, because if a person has 30 students or 30 students between classes and they've just had an essay turned in or an assignment turned in Thursday, then of course they're gonna be on the report Friday, and they don't need someone calling them Monday to say, you sure have a lot of work to do, because they know they have a lot of work to do. And so is there a way that we could tweak the report to be more concerned with time?

[Speaker 2] (46:30 - 48:23)
I can ask Janice about that. So it's run at the end of every month. Okay, it's run, so it'll be run again April 30th, which will be a heavy grading time, because we'll be right before final exams.

If you have merged courses where there are more than a hundred students, then it shows a high mark if you have more than a hundred assignments. If you have regular courses and there it's marked at 30, she and I have talked about could we look at other, and so we're still trying to figure out how we can do it, but also we've, I know I talked about this last time, that we've talked to chairs about it's not about penalty, it's just a, and I want y'all to hear me, it's not about penalty or are you doing what you're supposed to be doing. They too, it's really about the chair should be going in and looking to see, oh was this just an assignment that just was turned in, or has this assignment been sitting there since March, so we said March 31st, has this assignment been sitting ungraded since March 1st.

So I will address it again the next time we have instructional council, I think next week, so I'll bring it up again and indicate. Remember, you know, it's more looking at the length of time. I'm not sure, I can ask Janice if there's a way to look at how that, like the length of time, because she runs it on the end of each month, if there's a category that we can add to help make it not so, it shouldn't be a penalty thing.

I'm sorry. I have, I have 28 students in sociology, so at any given time, I have more than 30 things that need to be graded.

[Speaker 1] (48:25 - 48:49)
And the, you know, the chairs will say this isn't punitive, however, there's a written record, an email, you're on this list, go check your grades, and so even though it feels like they're kind of covering their bases by sending the email and it's just, it's adding undue stress, as mentioned. So hopefully we can find a different way to measure that. Any other questions, comments?

[Speaker 14] (48:56 - 49:37)
Thank you for that, Dr. Lane Worley. I definitely see where you're coming from. I just, to lighten the mood a little bit, I kind of wonder, is the inverse also true?

Like, can I be on the report for spending 60 hours in Blackboard in one week? You know what I mean? Like, I, I just wonder, you know, like from that perspective, like if we're running these numbers with the deficit-based mindset, and I know that's not the intention, then there's always going to be a deficit-based thing to find in the numbers.

But the inverse is also true of if we're looking at this from an asset-based mindset, you know, how many hours you spend in gradebook, or maybe you prioritize a major writing assignment grading over a minor writing assignment grading, and stuff like that. Is that appearing in the report? Because that would be, you know, that would be helpful.

[Speaker 2] (49:39 - 50:18)
There is a column that shows the length of time an instructor has spent in the course, and in the, so that is there. Are they sharing the whole report, or just emailing you? Okay.

Okay, I will talk with them again about not being punitive, and yeah, because I looked at three, my three courses, and one of them I saw, oh, I spent like 30 hours in this course, but I only spent like five hours in this course, which is a, it's an online course where they're doing volunteer work, so there's not a lot of grading at this point.

[Speaker 11] (50:20 - 50:45)
And what about courses and classes where you don't spend hardly time in Blackboard, because your course doesn't call for that? So I liked what your point, how you, what you brought up, but on the other side of that, it's an example class that we both teach, Operations, has like seven grades the entire semester, and three of them are like the first like four weeks, and then the rest of them at the end of the semester, so we don't have to spend time in Blackboard in that course.

[Speaker 2] (50:46 - 51:57)
So the report is run on gradable items, right, for all classes, whether it's, you're in Classic, whether you're in Ultra, whether it's a single standalone course, whether it's a merged course, okay. And when Janice and I talked two months ago about, you know, why is it, because I asked, why is it set at 30 for a single course, because a lot of classes have more than 30 students in them. She said we could change the number, but then the more we talked about it, it was like, okay, so at what number does that number, what number makes sense?

You know, in some divisions, your class only has 20 students. In some classes, you only have seven or eight students. In some classes, you have more than that.

When you have the merged class, you have, that's why it's set at a hundred for a merged class. But it, it should be more that the chair is going to look to see if you have stuff that has been sitting there and hasn't been graded. Not, do you have 30 ungraded things that were just turned in yesterday?

Does that make sense?

[Speaker 9] (51:59 - 52:47)
So then would it be easier just to take that grading number away and just look at time-based only? Because as you stated, each class, I may give three assignments that week for my lower-level div ed, but my 1301, they don't need as many scaffolding assignments. So they may only have one for that week or, you know, one per week or something like that.

And I think the emails that we're getting say, you have a lot of ungraded assignments. They're not saying you've taken too long to grade. So it seems like instead of even giving it some arbitrary number of 30 or 40 or some number that won't really satisfy, I think, any course of high grading, can we just do, you have assignments that have, haven't been graded within the last two weeks of this report.

[Speaker 2] (52:48 - 53:25)
So I can certainly suggest that to the chairs. I did tell them last time that we met that, you know, it's not meant to be punitive and that they, it's really intended for the chair to go in and look and see if there's a problem or not. Right?

Because if the chair looks and says, oh, these were all turned in April 4th, then obviously I don't need to send you an email because, as a chair, I don't need to send you an email because that's only been four days. Right? So it should be incumbent upon the chair to look and see, is this really a problem or is this just normal grading?

[Speaker 1] (53:28 - 53:42)
All right. Well, for the sake of time, we are gonna move on unless someone has a different question for Dr. Lane-Worley. Okay.

So now we're moving on to announcements. Brianne, do you have an announcement about Honors Day?

[Speaker 6] (53:49 - 55:57)
One week from today, everybody. And then it will be off my plate. No.

Okay. So we have identified, you know, a few cases where instructors didn't receive invitations from divisions or students didn't get invitations from instructors or etc. So just, if you never received an invitation you were meant to pass on, go check with your division.

I checked with divisions today about that. And so hopefully that has, is alleviating some of that pass along. We also are doing our individual reach outs to students who have not RSVP'd.

So you can also follow up with students even if you did give them an invitation just to make sure that they RSVP'd, that they understand even what they got the award for. Talked to one student today who was like, yeah they handed me this envelope. I don't know what this is.

You know, that could be student error, student user error. But, you know, just make sure. For you guys, the award ceremony will start promptly at 3 p.m. So if you could arrive maybe 20, you know, minutes or so before that to go backstage in your regalia. Georgianne is gonna be back there to help everybody line up backstage while I'm frantically doing things in front of house. So I'll get y'all lined up, have you walk across the stage, and then you'll be able to sit unobserved in the audience and observe your students getting the awards on stage. Okay, the award ceremony itself, because this is a question that comes up, will probably be done 4.15-ish, 4.30-ish. So that last half hour, whatever, will be a reception in the PAC lobby. So you're welcome to stick around for that, but if you're planning time-wise, you don't need to be there all the way until 5 p.m., right? Okay, are there any questions for me about Honors Day?

[Speaker 1] (56:00 - 56:04)
Okay, well I will see you all there then. Are there any other announcements?

[Speaker 3] (56:08 - 57:34)
Thank you. I believe you all received an email today, a follow-up email, about training for Ultra. And I will tell you that this month, where this is a trial run on these topics, we've had a lot of discussion with the instructional designers, with Paula, Janice.

So we will be offering more than just April, but we're trying out this system of having an hour on a topic. And last night, I had my first training on content. Alex did a great job, and I got a lot out of it.

And so you will have a sandbox. If you haven't been in Ultra, that's being done right now. So each instructional designer is assigned a topic.

Katrin is doing the gradebook, and Rhianna is doing engagement tools. So they're an hour long. We hope that you sign up.

We're going to also next week offer an asynchronous course. So we're giving you lots of options, and we will want your feedback on what works well for you. We have day and evening sessions.

We know some of you will want to knock this out. Some of you might procrastinate, but we're hopeful that we're going to provide you opportunities to have less stress and be able to move forward with efficiency. So feel free to contact the EEC if you have any questions.

Thank you.

[Speaker 18] (57:35 - 57:36)
Any other announcements?

[Speaker 17] (57:43 - 57:50)
If I'm correct, this is your last official meeting as president. So how about just a round of applause.

[Speaker 1] (57:51 - 58:15)
Thank you so much. It's actually been extremely rewarding. I couldn't do it without people like Karen, and Will, and Joe, and Ed, and all the committee chairs.

Shemeika, Dana, y'all have done such a great job. Thank you. And Kathleen.

Kathleen, the best secretary ever. So thank you. Kyra.

[Speaker 9] (58:21 - 58:37)
So for the committees that the people are chairing, if one wanted to be on a committee, how would one do that? Like I don't even know who's on the committees and when they when the members become available, like member positions, not chair positions. That's such a good question.

[Speaker 1] (58:37 - 59:26)
So we will send out the minutes where you have the new officers listed. Clearly, if there is a committee that you would like to serve on, please email that person and let them know that you're interested. Because the members of the committee are designated by the committee chair, and they're looking for people who want to volunteer.

So if any of you would like to volunteer, please just email the contact person, the officer, on the minutes. Okay. Keep in mind, too, that when we start to talk about the trust in a few minutes, which is a separate parallel body, we need officers there, too.

So hold that thought. So at this point, we'd like to adjourn faculty assembly. And if 28 of you can stick around, that would be great, so we can talk.