Faculty Professional Development Committee Meeting
| Title: | Faculty Professional Development Committee Meeting |
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| Date: | 11/09/2022 |
| Agenda | Taft College Faculty Professional Development Agenda November 09, 2022 12:10pm Science 11
Call to OrderPublic CommentaryAction Items
Information/Discussion Items
OtherAdjournment
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| Minutes | Faculty Professional Development Committee Minutes
November 9, 2022
Members Present: Wendy Berry, Diane Jones, Chris Taylor, Leslie Minor, Ruby Payne, Tabitha Raber, Mariza Martínez, Jon Eigenauer
Members Absent: Julián Martínez
Guests: None
Welcome: Meeting started: 12:11 pm
Action Items:
Motion: Wendy Berry Second: Ruby Payne Passed unanimously.
It was proposed that members approve the possibility of holding this meeting via zoom if necessary because of quarantine or other circumstances. Motion: Chris Taylor Second: Mariza Martínez Passed unanimously.
Leslie Minor raised questions about how PDC solicits requests from entities that would like to hold an event during in-service, and about how the deadlines are publicized. As part of this, the possibility was raised that Jon Farmer would like to hold sessions related to Poker and/or Pope Tech. This led to a discussion of the ways in which faculty and staff are asked for contributions and notified of the deadlines (November 1 for the following January in-service and March 1 for the following August in-service). These notifications are primarily via announcements, though there was discussion of including these in the campus newsletter as well. There was additional discussion about whether or not it was appropriate to have a session on Poker before the issue was bargained on by the faculty association. The possibility of having Jon Farmer present this as part of faculty reports (as an informational item) was also brought up.
Ruby Payne noted that there has been a significant change in the extent to which the Office of Distance Education is interested in providing in-service content. There was discussion and general agreement that it may be helpful to provide the Office of Distance Education with a standing time slot on the calendar for future in-services. It was also noted that in the future, the flex days at the beginning of in-service may be a good time for Distance Education to offer sessions.
In the meantime, Diane Jones will reach out to the Office of Distance Education and determine if they would prefer to cover a different topic (potentially Pope Tech) than the one listed on the current draft of the calendar for the January 2023 in-service.
Leslie Minor raised a question about the Thursday and Friday topics on the January 2023 calendar, and Diane Jones indicated that those items were selected in response to requests for those topics and that the links have been verified and are ready to go.
Diane Jones noted that Tina Mendoza has approved the Wednesday schedule on the calendar and will fill in the remaining details as those are finalized.
A motion was made to accept the existing calendar for the January 2023 in-service Motion: Mariza Martínez Second: Tabitha Raber Passed unanimously.
Information/Discussion Items
Diane Jones thanked Leslie Minor and Jon Farmer for sending out short webinars and other resources, and Tina Mendoza for sending out Friday SLO topics.
Leslie Minor was curious about whether or not faculty would be interested taking part in longer (6-8 week) trainings and development opportunities. There was a general sense that there might be, and that faculty had done so in the past but had been hesitant to request flex time because they were unsure if they would be able to finish the entire sequence. Leslie Minor noted that it was ok for faculty to request the flex time as long as they kept the Office of Instruction updated on whether or not they completed the training.
Other
Diane Jones brought up that the Academic Senate referred a request to this committee to investigate the possibility of offering trainings on a number of topics including: 10+1, minimum qualifications and equivalencies, academic freedom, and curricular issues (including CID, ADT, and Transfer Model Curriculum). It was also noted that the Academic Senate had requested that this material be covered during sessions offered during a January and/or August in-service rather than as professional development opportunities during the term or during the May in-service.
A robust discussion followed in which concerns were raised about the specifics of these requests. There were questions about what exactly Academic Senate was asking this committee to do, particularly given that there are already Academic Senate documents and resources that describe many of the topics in the request.
Tabitha Raber suggested that a canvas shell with a collection of resources related to Academic Senate and other faculty issues and offices would be a useful resource for new faculty. There was additional discussion about the best way to handle the logistics for this, with general agreement among the committee that development of these resources was outside the purview of the Professional Development Committee and that doing so would likely duplicate existing Academic Senate resources. One alternative noted by several committee members was that if this committee were to have a Canvas shell, it could house modules that other entities (such as Academic Senate) could populate with content and maintain.
A motion was made to return the requests to Academic Senate as being outside the purview of the Professional Development Committee. There was brief discussion about the extent to which these requests constituted informational items rather than trainings. Motion: Jon Eigenauer Second: none Motion failed for lack of a second.
An additional set of concerns was raised about whether or not there was time in future in-service calendars for the topics requested. Ruby Payne inquired about the possibility of replacing part of the existing schedule on Wednesday, but Leslie Minor indicated that the existing programming related to Student Learning Outcomes was necessary to comply with board policy and faculty requests. Leslie Minor asked about the possibility of scheduling it during the flex days or in place of some of the existing committee meetings. Ruby Payne noted that the committee meetings during in-service had already been reduced as much as possible and that the remaining committees all had articulated a compelling reason why it was important for them to convene during that week. There was general agreement that for future in-service calendars, it might be possible to set aside time during the flex days. But, concerns were raised that the fall in-service calendars already tended to be impacted and it was unclear how much time or what format Academic Senate was requesting for these sessions. Ruby Payne also made the point that if there was urgent need for sessions on the requested material, they could be offered as part of the May in-service training, with additional sessions during the next January in-service (on a flex day, perhaps) for faculty who did not have a pressing need to attend a session on one of the requested topics.
There was further discussion of the extent to which broad faculty need for professional development opportunities on these topics actually exists. Leslie Minor noted that the policies around Minimum Qualifications and their equivalencies have been a particular concern, which prompted discussion of whether or not these issues could be addressed during the training to be on hiring committees.
As the discussion came to a close, Ruby Payne reiterated that any sessions related to the requested material would be optional sessions for faculty and would not under any circumstances be mandatory ‘All Faculty’ in-service sessions.
At the end of the meeting, Ruby Payne thanked Diane Jones for 17 years of service to PDC, a sentiment that was echoed by the rest of the committee.
Meeting Adjourned: Motion: Diane Jones Second: Jon Eigenauer Adjourned by consensus at 12:51
Next Meeting: December 14, 2022, 12:10 pm, S-11
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