Illinois Community College Faculty
Association
Executive Committee
Friday, January 29, 2010
4:15 pm
Capital Room
3000 South Dirksen Parkway
Crown Plaza Hotel, Springfield, IL
I. Call to order by Kathy Westman at 4:15 p.m.
Present: Bess Kershisnik, Mike Phillips, Jacque Mott, Dave Palmer, Linda Hefferin, Kathy Westman, Kevin Westin, Leo Welch, Julie diLiberti, Bruce Myers, Dave Seiler, Brian Durham (Guest)
II. Approval of Minutes
Mike made a motion to approve the minutes of the last meeting, Kevin seconded the motion and motion was approved.
III. President’s Report (Kathy Westman)
A. New members of the Executive Committee were introduced and a warm welcome is extended to Julia diLiberti, Bruce Myers and David Seiler.
B. It was determined that Mike Phillips will add a link to the ICCFA website to include minutes of the past meetings.
C. Kathy will be preparing the Spring ICCFA newsletters to be electronically distributed March 1st. Items to be covered include: Conference; research grants; workshop grants; scholarships; call for proposals. Any additional information should be sent to Kathy.
D. ICCB will soon be sending out billing for ICCFA to all community Colleges. Forty-one institutions paid dues last year. Elaine Johnson of ICCB will be directly contacting the seven colleges which did not pay dues. These are: College of DuPage, McHenry County, Morraine Valley, Morton, Richland, Highland and Truman. The ICCB Trustees have indicated that they expect full compliance.
E. The formal ICCB meetings have been moved to Thursdays and the renovation of the ICCB building is 25% completed. It may be a while before we can hold our meeting in the ICCB building
F. Retreat – The ICCFA retreat will again be coordinated with the ICCTA conference on June 4th. It will be in Springfield at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel. ICCFA will pay for the hotel for our executive committee members and their families.
G. MIS/Research Advisory needs a new appointment from our executive committee. This group compiles data and advises community colleges about information technology issues. They help to establish reports which validate many of the data collection procedures/problems on our campuses. They have not met for several years and are currently on-hold with meetings. They usually meet as needed.
H. Program Advisory – Brian Durham runs this group and Linda Hefferin is the appointment member from our executive committee. This Advisory group administers rule changes and monitors how these changes impact the community college system.
I. Mike Phillips is appointed to the Developmental Education Advisory Committee which will meet February 5.
J. Upcoming Meeting Dates are at 5:00 p.m. on March 5th, April 23rd . The retreat will be June 4th and 5th, 2010 until about noon.
K. Academic Freedom – Leo noted that there are new updates to the law and recommends that we disseminate this language to be included in upcoming contract negotiations (please see language attached
L. Kathy Westman thanked Leo for his tireless work on this legislation.
IV. ICCB Report – Brian Durham
A. P20 Council – This new Council was convened as part of a national movement to build seamless education from grade school to graduate school. They have met twice in Chicago. It was formed as a Statutory Act so Perry Buckley is on the committee to represent unions. Kevin was nominated by ICCFA through the ICCB to be placed on this Council. As yet, we don’t have a faculty representative on it although Miguel del Valle, the President, is open to faculty involvement. Their next meeting is March 26th in Chicago and Kevin is still interested in being appointed. The Executive Committee is directing our President, Kathy Westman to investigate Kevin’s appointment to the P20 Council. Discussion continued about the goals of the P20 Council and Brian feels that it will support the similar projects that are already underway (American Diploma Project, etc.). Dave Seiler suggested that the dual credit issue may come forward in the P20 council and feels we should have strong input.
B. Dual Credit – Faculty concerns over the dual credit programs were raised, among these issues included: (1) many dual credit students don’t come to community college but go directly to universities; (2) repetition reinforces knowledge; (3) textbooks (who buys them in the high schools); (4) vetting curriculum; (5) re-requisites on courses and (5) decorum and expectations of the college experience in the high schools. Brian suggested that we request a specific agenda item for our next meeting and he will have the appropriate ICCB staff person attend and make a short presentation.
C. Race to the Top Application - $200-400 million was given to States to reform high schools and raising teaching standards. This grant included $4 million for College and Career Readiness for Community Colleges. This is enough for 15 institutions to apply for this grant.
D. IAI – the 4-year institutions have not been honoring the program, so the different discipline panels will be approaching the 4-year institutions individually and ask the public institutions to sign on for specific courses in the majors. Three years is given to each discipline panel to do this work with the ultimate goal to develop legislation. It was noted that locally elected trustees can be a strong political force on this movement. Brian informed us that there is a 5-year review of all IAI approved courses and now they have an automated way to randomly select institutions and courses to evaluate. An important change in procedures is that the disciplinary panels will not reject a course that doesn’t meet the learning objective on their first review and that the community colleges have until the next review to correct the content or mistakes. Linda Hefferin is the ICCFA representative to the IAI Steering Committee and needs to be added to their membership roll. A new director of Academic Affairs for IAI is being hired soon by Brian.
V. ICCB Liaison Report (Kathy)
A. Budget and Finance Committee
a. Kathy attended this meeting and reported that 5-6 community colleges are in jeopardy of closing. Three or 4 of those are in severe trouble as of fall 2010. The State has paid all community colleges their payments through the second quarter but there will undoubtedly be delays with the 3rd and 4th quarter payments. It was noted that Universities get paid monthly but community colleges are quarterly payments. Senate Bill 2548 by Representative Demuzio asks to change vouchers for community colleges from quarterly to monthly.
b. The ICCB passed a motion to have the Trustees and the President’s Council meet with the State Comptroller to help the whole community college system weather its difficult period. It’s believed that the system needs remedy and that community colleges who receive “state bail-out” monies to help them survive will require that those colleges develop good strategic plans for the future colleges develop a strategic plan to ICCB.
c. One remedy for the financial crisis is Senate Bill 2016 which states that community colleges can establish a line of credit where they would borrow for a period of time until the state pays their contributions.
d. Adult Education programs including Adult Secondary Education, GED Preparation programs have no local tax support. Currently, 58 programs could potentially close their doors. These programs can only collect federal or state funds for their survival.
e. Leo noted that if you trace the annual reports of community colleges, you will see that the percentage of monies spent on instruction are diminishing as they are being cut over the years.
B. House Bill 4972 by Soto allows reimbursement of expenses for student trustees to be made easier.
C. External Affairs – The ICCB Newsletter is expected to publish its Spring/Summer issue. We should be adding the upcoming conference and call for proposals to their publication.
D. ICCB President’s Council – Has developed a budget task force in order to make public the budget crisis issues.
E. Vic Henderson is a new ICCB Board Member
F. ICCB Trustees – Have developed a new program call “What have you Done for me Lately”
G. Variable Tuition – Charlotte Warren of Lincolnland discussed how variable tuition was a way to improve programs. Many Nursing and health related programs pay 1-1/2 or 2 times the tuition as others at the same community college. Ms. Warren feels that the extra tuition goes into strengthening these programs. The ensuing discussion by ICCFA Executive Committee members included the following points: (1) This practice diminishes the mission of community colleges to provide affordable education to everyone; (2) This practice penalizes certain groups of students; (3) many other programs with lab components are being threatened. Discussion will continue at upcoming meetings.
VI. Executive Vice President’s Report (Linda Hefferin)
Conference Report:
A. Linda issued a completion report on last year’s conference.
B. We want to continue the great diversity in the conference presentations this year. She suggests that everyone on the Executive Committee personally ask faculty members to submit proposals for the conference.
C. We will use tracks again for the program
D. Everyone should bring theme ideas and suggestions for keynote speakers to the next meeting. Deborah Bragg of U of I and Morton Grubb were suggested as keynotes. The Executive Committee will discuss other possibilities via e-mail.
E. Calls for Proposals will be one electronically this year. Mike and Linda will develop the form on the website.
F. We will continue to offer CEUs for all our sessions.
G. Leo suggested that we keep the proceedings of our conference recorded and put on the website, so we have a history of our presentations.
H. Jacque suggested that we work on providing a Green Conference.
A. Kevin reiterated that the 3rd and 4th quarters are in jeopardy of being paid by the State.
B. By law, community college board members are not allowed to be on county board or in the county clerk’s office because they are conflicting tax bodies.
VIII. Membership and Delegate Assembly (Bess) – no report
IX. Secretary’s Report (Jacque) - no report
X. Treasurer’s Report (Dave)
A. Balance currently is $19,380 and he will email the committee of updates once he received the February statement
B. Dave will mail out W-9 forms to all community colleges
XI. Committee Reports
A. SURS Advisory Committee (Leo)
The membership advisory committee had an emergency meeting regarding the University of Illinois furlough policy. A furlough policy can’t be initiated unilaterally without going to the unions. He explained that if you are put on furlough some time within the last four years before your retirement, your salary does down which effects your retirement pay. The question was raised as to whether a faculty member in this pre-retirement situation could make more payments into SURS to offset their loss of salary. This committee is investigating this with SURS. Leo noted that there are differences between furlough, lay-offs and pay-cuts. He also mentioned that the law states that if you are taking a furlough day, you can not work, this means that you could be locked out of your office/institution. Eastern Illinois University’s Board just completed a furlough policy up to 24 days. Leo reminded us that pensions are always under attack by the State. Discussion ensued if the State of Illinois goes bankrupt. In this instance the State Supreme Court may provide exemptions or solutions.
Some institutions are threatening layoffs of faculty.
This committee will meet February 18th, 1:00-4:00 at Elgin Community Colleges
All faculty should be looking at the legislative page on the website. Mike will add more to the academic freedom area of the website. He will add the information on the Enrollment and Completion Trends in Illinois Community Colleges.
Clarification about both the research grants and the workshop grants was made. Jacque will get the descriptions and applications forms out immediately. Application forms will be put on the website.
J. Foundation Scholarship Committee – Kathy proposes we develop a committee to follow up on the scholarship monies in that account.
Everyone was reminded that faculty can become alumni of the Illinois Community College Foundation for $25 for 2 years. We should encourage our faculty to join
Upcoming Meetings::
March 5,
2010, Crowne Plaza, 7:00pm,
April 23, 2010, Crowne Plaza, 5:30pm,
June 4 & 5, 2010, Retreat, Abraham Lincoln Hotel, 1:00pm the 4th until 11:00am the
5th.
Respectfully submitted,
Jacque Mott
Attachment
Suggested Academic Freedom Contract Language reflecting
the new state laws::
In accordance with 110ILCS 665/10-140, all faculty and staff members are free to communicate views on any matter of public or private concern to any branch of the state or federal government or any member thereof provided that the employee does not represent that he or she speaks for or on behalf of the community college unless otherwise authorized. Faculty and staff members may also: