LEEWARD COMMUNITY COLLEGE

2003 – 2004 Faculty Senate

APPROVED Minutes of the January 28, 2004 Meeting

James Goodman, Chair

Nancy Buchanan, Vice Chair

Candace Hochstein, Secretary

SENATORS PRESENT: N. Buchanan, J. Chernisky, L. Currivan, R. Flegal, J. Goodman, K. Hill, C. Hochstein, W. Imada, P. Lococo, C. Martin, M. Nakano, S. Palombo, R. Pfeiffer, F. Sherry, S. Wood

SENATORS EXCUSED: C.Ganne, P. Kennedy, D. Sakai

GUESTS: Linda Yamada, Mark Silliman

CALL T0 ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 3:20 p.m. with a quorum.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: The minutes of the December 10, 2003 meet were read and approved with minor corrections.

-under Senators Present, R. Pfeiffer should be included.

-under the Chair’s Report, delete Mike Rota, and insert, “Letter from Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA), David McClain…”

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

BUDGET AND PLANNING – no report given.

FACULTY COMMITTEE – Senator Currivan submitted three nominees to replace the three senators (G. Levy, K. Kahn, and C. Yokotake) who were unable to be active members of the Senate for Spring 2004. The three recommendations were: Wes Teraoka (Social Science), Mike Reese (Math and Science), and Linda Yamada (Voc Tech).

Motion 04-01: (Flegal/Hill) To approve W. Teraoka (SS), M. Reese (MS), and L. Yamada (VT) as replacement senators for Spring 2004.

PASSED – Unanimously

ELECTIONS – no report given.

ACADEMIC/INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT – no report given.

LEGISLATIVE RELATIONS – no report given.

STUDENT COMMITTEE – Senator Flegal reported that Chancellor Silliman informed him that the WASC (Western Association Schools and Colleges) Accreditation Report required LCC to review and begin some form of action on the F and N grading confusion. WASC has set a deadline of April 1, 2004 for an initial progress report.

Chancellor Silliman also reported that the UH Board of Regents are requiring that all reports that are to be submitted to WASC first be submitted to the Board for approval. This means that LCC must review and submit a report to the Board of Reagents for approval by the March 2004 meeting. Consequently, this requires LCC to have the report prepared and finalized by the end of February 2004 so that it can be placed on the Board’s March agenda.

Unfortunately, due to other obligations that Senator Flegal has, the Student Committee will not be able to continue work on this issue. The Senate as a whole then decided to assume the responsibility for conducting open forums on campus; informing and soliciting information from the campus community. Two open forums will be held. They will be on: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 from 1:30 to 2:30, and Wednesday, February 11, 2004 from 3:00 to 4:00. It was recommended that the campus community be presented with 2-3 options to discuss and vote upon in order to focus the discussions on the issues presented by WASC. Some possibilities presented were:

1. Drop the N grade.

2. Drop the F grade.

3. Keep both grades but redefine each so to be clear when they may be used.

4. Other?

PROGRAM REVIEW – no report given.

CURRICULUM COMMITTEE – no report given.

SERVICE COMMITTEE – no report given.

CHAIR’S REPORT: No report given.

NEW BUSINESS:

Discussion of system-wide uniformity of grading and GPA policy - The All Campus Council of Faculty Senate Chairs (ACCFSC) has enquired if the Faculty Senates would be interested in having a committee to discuss the possibility of instituting a uniform grading system across the UH system. If approved, this committee would review grading options and share the information with the different senates. The senates would have the right to agree or not agree with any information or recommendations the committee submitted.

This suggestion was made because each system institution has different policies on how grade point averages are calculated. It was felt that if everyone in the UH system used the same grading system, it would alleviate this problem.

Concerns regarding the + and – grades and N grade were also raised – the use of them or if the grades would no longer be able to be used by a campus. Another issue was that regardless of the campuses using the same grading system, it was the individual campus’ policy on how grade point averages were calculated that seemed to be the crux of the issue. Perhaps one alternative might be an agreement between the UH campuses to accept the GPA which the sister campus posted for entrance purposes to the university.

Motion 04-02: (Palombo/Pfeiffer) To approve a System wide discussion for a uniform grading policy.

PASSED- Y=14; N=1; Ab=0

Student “No Shows” and Disenrollment – It was suggested that the Faculty Senate re-open the discussion of whether or not LCC should bring back the Faculty’s option to disenroll students from classes if the student did not show up for two consecutive classes. The review would look at why LCC stopped this policy, and to research if other UH campuses currently have a disenrollment policy. One possible reason for the ending of this policy might have been due to legal reasons.

This issue was assigned to the Faculty Committee to review.

Approval of Chief Academic Officer Interview timeline – The proposed timeline was based on the assumption that there would be 2 to 4 candidates to interview. Time blocks and days were designed to give faculty time to meet the candidates, eliminate “awkward” overlap of interviewees, and do so in a reasonable amount of time.

The proposed timeline would have one candidate being interviewed per day. Each candidate would meet with the faculty in an open forum, tour the campus, and have an interview with the Executive Committee.

Motion 04-03: (Flegal/Imada) To approve the Chief Academic Officer Interview timeline.

PASSED – Unanimously

Chancellor Silliman asked the Senate to consider endorsing Charlie Nishioka to be LCC’s nomination for a UH System Honorary Doctorate. He submitted Mr. Nishioka’s name to the Senate as Mr. Nishioka has been a great supporter of LCC, as well as his other accomplishments and contribution to the Leeward Community. This request was tabled as the Senate lost quorum at 5:00 pm.

ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 5:57 PM.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED: Candace Hochstein, Secretary