Hi All Faculty:

A decision by Faculty Council is moving forward to impact the grading notation of NC currently used by Faculty at our November 9th, 2018 meeting.

Motion: Approved

Suspend the use of NC grade effective January 7th, 2019

Need to have acceptable grading alternative in place for Winter term between February 1st and March 1st.

Second Motion: Approved

Additional outreach to include campus wide Faculty feedback in the Faculty Council blog and by email and also facilitated by Faculty Council Members.

Faculty Council Co Chairs

Jessica Alvarado and Lee Imonen

Now that this decision is made – the Non Standard Grading Work Group will be focusing on selecting a grading alternative by February 1st. This means we will be seeking Faculty input now with their own ideas. We will also be requesting input on  posting potential solutions that are being considered. For the remainder of Fall term we are meeting 8-9 a.m. Mondays in Building 19, room 239. The Winter term meeting time and location has not been set.

Dear Faculty Colleagues, 

We want to inform you and solicit feedback about proposed changes to policies about non-standard grades at Lane, especially the NC grade and the Incomplete. These changes were brought to Faculty Council on April 27 by Dawn Whiting, LCC’s Registrar, and Faculty Council will be discussing the proposals again at our May 11 meeting. Please feel free to share your views by commenting publicly on this post or by emailing Aryn Bartley at bartleya@lanecc.edu or Jessica Alvarado at alvaradoj@lanecc.edu by Thursday, May 10, at 5 pm. 

NC: Dawn Whiting, our registrar, has proposed to eliminate the NC grade at Lane. She notes that, while faculty often believe that the NC grade does not have a negative impact on students, it does in fact impact both attempted credits and, subsequently, financial aid. The NC grade, therefore, doesn’t impact GPA, but it does impact a student’s academic progress. Last term, Lane had 557 NCs; the term before that, we had 644. We are the only community college in Oregon that still has this grading option. 

Incomplete: Lane currently has almost 40,000 outstanding Incompletes. Dawn proposes the following changes to the way Incompletes are handled. 1) When an Incomplete is entered into Banner, the faculty member will mark both the deadline for completion and the grade the student will receive if they do not complete expected work. 2) Incompletes will have a recommended completion deadline of one term with an option for a faculty member to extend that deadline up to a year. 3) Banner will be programmed to automatically transfer a grade from an Incomplete to what the grade would have been originally after the agreed-upon deadline has been reached. 4) Both faculty members and students will need to complete and file contracts for Incompletes, including details about expected work and a deadline. 5) The request for an Incomplete should be initiated by the student.

Specific proposed language follows: 

I indicates Incomplete: When a student has satisfactorily completed 75 percent or more of the course work as defined by the instructor and noted in the syllabus, but is unable to finish the remaining required scheduled work due to circumstances beyond the student’s control. An Incomplete grade is not used to avoid a failing grade or if scheduled work is not time convenient for the student. A grade of Incomplete must be made up within one term from the last day of the original term it was taken, but may be extended up to one year at the discretion of the instructor.  A request for Incomplete must be a student initiated request but the approval is at the discretion of the instructor.  Granting an incomplete requires a contract between the student and instructor detailing the work to be finished.  A contract must be filed for each approved incomplete.  The contract must contain a deadline by which outstanding work is to be completed.

It cannot be required that a student retake or audit a course during the term of the incomplete.  When a student enters into an incomplete contract, it is the responsibility of the student to understand the terms of the contract.  At the end of the contract date, the incomplete will convert to a standard grade as determined by the terms of the contract. 

The procedure for submitting an incomplete is as follows:

Student initiates request for incomplete with the instructor.  The instructor and student fill out the incomplete form and both sign, agreeing to the terms of the incomplete contract.  A clear deadline must be written on the contract as well as the grade that will be earned if the student does not complete the required work as noted on the contract. The incomplete form is turned into the department administrator.  When the incomplete is entered into Banner, the incomplete contract is sent to StudentRecords@lanecc.edu and imaged into application extender in SHACRSE [a form in Banner that reports on a student’s grades and courses – ed. note Aryn Bartley].  Enrollment Services will verify that a contract has been submitted for each incomplete issued. For Incompletes that are missing the corresponding contract Enrollment Services will contact the instructor to request the form.  Upon expiration of the contract, Banner will update the student record to reflect the default grade from the contract, if a grade change form is not submitted by the faculty. 

Dawn sent an informative Q/A document regarding these changes, which is attached to the email we just sent out to the faculty. 

At last Friday’s meeting, Faculty Council members were receptive to the proposed changes, but we wanted to communicate those changes to the faculty at large to receive your feedback before we meet next Friday. Again, please feel free to share your thoughts by commenting on this post or by emailing Aryn Bartley at bartleya@lanecc.edu or Jessica Alvarado at alvaradoj@lanecc.edu. 

All the best, 

Aryn Bartley and Jessica Alvarado 

Faculty Council co-chairs

Dear Colleagues,

At Faculty Council’s October 27, 2017 meeting, Vice President of College Services Brian Kelly and Strategic Planning and Budget Officer Jennifer Steele presented on the Administration’s proposed budget timeline for this year. Faculty Council felt the information shared was important enough to pass on in detail to the faculty as a whole in order to:

1) give you a sense of the way the budget process as a whole may be impacted by these changes;

2) share our concerns about the proposed process; and

3) offer you the opportunity to join in this conversation. 

We will synthesize the discussion that takes place here for presentation to the Board during their Thursday, Nov. 9 meeting, so please comment by Tuesday, Nov. 7 at the end of the day. This blog is a publicly accessible document. 

We recommend you use the following documents as resources:

Budget Development Calendar: https://www.lanecc.edu/sites/default/files/budget/budget_development_calendar.pdf

Planning and Budget Development Calendar:

https://www.lanecc.edu/sites/default/files/budget/planning_budget_development_calendar_2017-18.pdf

Standard Data Package:

https://www.lanecc.edu/planning/standard-data-package

NOTE: The remainder of this document has been edited in response to communication from Jen Steele and Brian Kelly, and hopefully is more thorough in its information and precise in its language than it was originally. All quotations below are taken from that communication.

Here are the key aspects of the budget process as presented by Brian Kelly and Jennifer Steele: According to their presentation, based on feedback from last year’s budget process that departments didn’t have enough time to respond to proposed cuts and reductions, the Administration has proposed a new budget process timeline (see above for a simple or more detailed version). According to Brian and Jen, the new timeline is “designed to provide impacted faculty, staff, and students with time and opportunity to engage in impact analysis and consideration of alternatives with administration” as well as to “provide clarity in roles and decision-making responsibilities.”

The timeline is structured as follows: In fall term Institutional Research shares a “standard data package” that includes information on enrollment, completion, demographics, etc. for programs and services. (This document has already been circulated; see above for the link.) Institutional Research and planning staff will “provide an orientation to the data for deans, directors, and faculty engaging in program review, hold open ‘drop-in’ sessions, and also provide individual or group consultation and additional data/analysis to departments and program review teams.” In January, if cuts are deemed a necessary consideration, the Administration will circulate a list of potential program and service reductions and investment options. During winter term, time will be set aside to analyze any impacts of cuts/reductions and to gather feedback from campus stakeholders. The Board will make decisions about program/service investments/reductions on March 30.  The first draft of the budget of the Budget Development Subcommittee (which includes faculty, staff, students, and management) will be forwarded to College Council on April 1.  

Here are our takeaways. As currently proposed:

1. The Administration will develop their list of program/service reductions with the promise of conversations with impacted program/service faculty, staff, and students and (as yet undefined) input sessions focused on “impact analysis” throughout winter term.
2. Decisions about program/service investments and reductions will be made separate from budget decisions.
3. The Budget Development Subcommittee, which is made up of faculty, staff, student, and management representatives and has in the past forwarded budgets that differed from Administration’s budgets in regards to program/service reductions and cuts will no longer have the ability to give feedback on program/service reductions except in the context of the conversations and input sessions listed above. They will not be able to offer alternatives to decisions made about program/service reductions within the budget they offer. 

Faculty Council appreciates the move towards greater transparency as well as the promise of a longer period set aside for feedback, input, and problem-solving in response to potential program reductions. At the same time, many members of Faculty Council have concerns about the new process. 

Concerns that emerged during our October 27 Faculty Council meeting:

1. The sharing of data does not equate to sharing of information. While faculty and staff can access the standard data package, we do not yet have answers to the questions: Beyond departmental program review, how will this information be used for decision-making about program investments and reductions? Will these kinds of decisions be tied to program review? What are the criteria for decision-making? 
2. Historically, mechanisms for feedback (2-3 minute speeches at Board meetings, College Council forums, and Dean advocacy) have been insufficient. While the new process extends the time for input/feedback on decisions about program/service investments or reductions, it does not yet demarcate the specific nature of the mechanisms that will be used for this kind of input/feedback.
3. Historically, there has been little to no legitimate or substantial incorporation of or response to input/feedback from faculty/staff/students. The Board usually has taken the Administration’s proposal and adopted it with little revision. The new process does not yet address this issue.
4. The new process reduces the ability of the Budget Development Subcommittee — as the key collaborative body working on the budget — to offer alternative financial solutions to program (and job) reductions within the context of a proposed budget.

In our meeting, Faculty Council members gave the following suggestions to Brian Kelly and Jennifer Steele:  

1. Provide commentary on data that reflects how it is being understood and used in the context of decision-making about program/service investments and reductions.  
2. Provide and define legitimate, substantial, and collaborative mechanisms for faculty, staff, and student participation in initial and subsequent discussion of and recommendations for program/service investments and reductions across the year.
3. Define formal avenues for advocacy by programs and services under threat of reduction with the legitimate possibility of altering the Board’s course of action.

Now we would like to open the floor for discussion. What do you think about the proposed budget process? Do you share the concerns listed above or have other concerns? What suggestions would you offer?

On March 1, 2016, Faculty Council issued the following statement:

Faculty Council supports the call from Library staff to be included in the decision-making process for actions such as the proposed Library signage featuring donors’ names. Any decisions that affect the learning environment and education process must include those who work in the spaces. This is in alignment with the core value of Learning, and the commitment of the college to “work together to create a learning-centered environment.” If LCC is to demonstrate accessible learning that serves “the educational and linguistic needs of a diverse community,” as stated in the Diversity core value, it must establish and follow a clear and collaborative process that makes a supportive learning environment its top priority.

This article from Inside Higher Ed, titled “Bias Against Female Instructors” offers some interesting observations.

On December 8, 2015, Faculty Council issued the following statement:

Lane Community College Administration should immediately halt the hiring process for a Medical Office Assistant (MOA) Program Coordinator until all contractual obligations have been met and institutional processes followed.

The college’s handling of the MOA program, including removal of the current program coordinator, ignores due process as guaranteed by the faculty contract. The Administration’s plan to hire a new program coordinator who will be charged with revising the full curriculum by Fall 2016 is not physically possible unless Curriculum Committee deadlines and the Program Review process are also ignored. The Administration’s claim that the “urgency” of the hiring is due to a promise made by the college president to unnamed employers further disregards the institutional standards outlined in the college’s Core Values.

As stated in May 2015, “Faculty Council strongly condemns any administrative action to remove, supplant, circumvent or bypass the faculty role in reviewing and designing curriculum, an example of which is the college administration’s treatment of the Medical Office Assistant program. Any process involving program restructure at Lane must be led by the program faculty, as well as follow the Program Review process and long-established academic and empirical data standards.”

Faculty Council strongly condemns any administrative action to remove, supplant, circumvent or bypass the faculty role in reviewing and designing curriculum, an example of which is the college administration’s treatment of the Medical Office Assistant program. Any process involving program restructure at Lane must be led by the program faculty, as well as follow the Program Review process and long-established academic and empirical data standards.