Academic Assembly Update

Tri-Campus Governance

The Blackboard Community Discussion Forum for the Governance Coordinating Body proposal will be open until March 5, 2019. Please provide your feedback before it closes for new submissions! (Please follow the Community Discussion Board Instructions to enroll.) In March, face-to-face tri-campus fora with simulcast option will be conducted to solicit further feedback and provide opportunity for a face-to-face discussion.

Upcoming Changes in Academic Schedule

Based on the recommendations from the College Distance Education Committee (forwarded to the College Calendar Committee) the online courses are going to be offered based on 15 week schedule (as opposed to 14 week used now) starting in fall 2019. This change does not affect any other characteristic of online courses, in particular the way the online courses are counted towards full time workload.

There is also a plan for making the evening classes follow the same 15 week schedule that the day classes have now. This change is working its way through the administration and governance, with the implementation expected in fall 2020.

Faculty Resource Guide

The Faculty Resource Guide is being reviewed. Please send your suggestions. The Guide is available on the Faculty Resources and Forms page after logging in with the usual SCCC credentials.

Call for Nominations

Please send your nominations for:

• The Governance Award for Academic Excellence and Service
• SUNY Distinguished Faculty Ranks
• SUNY Chancellor's Awards for Excellence in Teaching, Faculty Service, Professional Service, Librarianship, Scholarship and Creative activities

Commencement Ceremony

The Commencement Task Force is working on logistics for a commencement ceremony with single location and two different times. More details are included in the Commencement Committee update.

Service Opportunities

• Faculty Council of Community Colleges - Delegate position. This position involves periodic travel to Albany (the College reimburses travel expenses).
• Faculty Council of Community Colleges - Alternate position. This position involves periodic travel to Albany (the College reimburses travel expenses).
• OER Committee - Member position. A committee is being formed with the charge to create Open Education Resources (OER) policies and procedures for faculty seeking grants for their OER work. This committee may also guide future professional development in the area of OER use and creation, and contribute to OER sustainability plan at SCCC.

Are the requirements appropriate?

The current Admission Procedures and Requirements for the LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES: HUMANITIES / A.A. DEGREE (see College Catalog, page 152) stipulate that

Entering students should have an 80 or above high school average. Students already enrolled in college should demonstrate a minimum 3.0 GPA and can be admitted fall or spring.

Is this requirement too restrictive?

On February 21, 2019, SUNY Provost Dr. Tod A. Laursen visited the College. (See Dr. Laursen's bio https://www.suny.edu/about/leadership/senior-staff/tod-laursen/)

The meeting was attended by both faculty and students. Dr. Laursen started with an overview of his views about the SUNY system, challenges in higher education and the programs and initiatives that are being considered. He then took questions from those in attendance.

As Provost, Dr. Laursen is the chief academic officer of the SUNY system. He believes the system should help where it should and stay out of the way where it should. In higher education today, resources are scarce but college is more accessible to more people and at the system level there are challenges that we face however, the SUNY system can help with resource sharing throughout SUNY. Also, NY's prescriptive rules regarding funding, costs for students and tuition adjustments are an issue.

Under the Provost are the following departments:

• Academic Affairs – this department will be taking a holistic approach to the system; what programs are being offered and how are they distributed throughout the state.
• Student Affairs – dealing with all student-centered issues
• Academic Technology – looking into OERs, Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP) and institutional research (graduation rates, completion rates, etc.)

The theme that the SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson is focusing on is individualized education, which will include:

• A push for more online courses. Even though SUNY got involved in online courses early, there are few completely online students (compared to programs offered at USC or SNHU). Increasing the online education offerings can increase the institution's reputation to audiences that wouldn't otherwise have considered it.
• OERs – cost challenges are not always a tuition issue, textbooks are a major financial concern. In conversations with publishers, the publishers have indicated that they could offer the textbook in an electronic format at 33% of the current cost, if the textbook was integrated in the institution's learning management system which would guarantee that every student enrolled paid for the textbook.
• Mental Health Services – today's students are more likely to seek help, since society has moved in the direction of removing the stigma. Colleges need to have those services available.
• Wrap-Around Services – we don't just want to enroll students; we want to have them complete their program and realize their goals. There is no replacement for faculty present and interacting with students.
• Micro-credentialing – gives students the opportunity to show career readiness, skill development. There are flexible ways to attain the skills and credentials needed. 40 campuses are currently participating in stackable credentials.
• Rockefeller Institute research has shown that the return on SUNY graduates for the NY economy is at a ratio of 8:1. The method used in that study was considered to be conservative in approach and demonstrates SUNY's impact on NY's economy.

Topics based on questions from the group:

• Student readiness for online courses
  • SUNY is investigating this issue.
  • USC invested in physical infrastructure for faculty members to be able to present material online in a format they were already comfortable with.
  • SUNY is also looking into technological investments that SHNU have made because of their success in this area.
  • To date, no university system has designed online education the way that Dr. Laursen envisions it.
  • SUNY sent out an RFP last summer as an information fishing expedition to see what they could learn about designing an online education program for a university system. The proposals received showed that none of the applicants had designed an online program for a system, only for a campus.
• Supporting students in online courses
  • OPEN SUNY works well and at the inception provided 24/7 student support. However, the model could not be sustained because the amount of support provided at certain hours could not be financially justified. However, the current model must be expanded to support a broader class of programs.
• Arts – what's does the future hold? Many Arts and Humanities programs are being eliminated in favor of STEM programs.
  • The Arts and related programs are very important to the Provost. He believes that SUNY needs to increase the visibility and contributions of these programs and develop programs that provide crossover opportunities into other subjects.
• Program Vetting – how is it done and how can students get involved?
  • Mostly it's a bureaucratic process (especially in NY). The frustration over the process is felt across the state within and without the SUNY system. The process involves a full curriculum, proof that there is a market for it and a look at duplicity of programs across the state. There is not much student involvement at this point.
• Declining Enrollment
  • Toughest sector for declining enrollment is the community college sector.
  • 4 year schools have shown flat or slightly positive growth.
  • The community college piece is trickier and what we need is to get some budget stability instead of basing a budget on unknown enrollment. The way community college budgets are done does not make much sense. We need a better way to determine the predictability of enrollment for budgeting.
  • Also, maybe community college shouldn't act as locally as they do now. The regional restrictions do not help them attract students. Maybe we should look at offering programs collaboratively.
• Developmental and remedial programs - some states have eliminated these programs. What's SUNY's thoughts?
  • SUNY is not looking to eliminate these services or programs – but we need to look at if we are getting it right. Maybe it can be done through cohorts, which would be better than a heavy top-down approach.
  • Provost believes that even if a fairly modest percentage of the students can benefit from remedial and developmental programs and succeed as a result, then it is worth it to do.

The Technology Committee met on Feb 19, 2019.

The Committee discussed issues regarding Blackboard outages. The committee further discussed the possibility of creation of Blackboard Effectiveness subcommittee. Campus digital and VDI updates were reported as well as successful classroom technology workshop conducted earlier in February. The committee reported discontinued Workplace Answers eLearning contract as well as a failure to reach the contract with Adobe Inc.

The next meeting of the FOCUS Committee is taking place on Wednesday, February 27, from 11:00 AM to 12 noon in Asharoken, Room 132. Everybody is invited!

The Committee is helping to promote the Fifth Annual Seed Swap taking place on Sunday, March 10, 2019 at the Eastern Campus. This event will include:

• An expert panel and open forum, 11:00 AM - 12:00 noon, Shinnecock Building Auditorium
• Sharing of seeds among participants, 12:00 noon - 2:00 PM, Peconic Building Auditorium

To find out more about the event, please contact Professor Ken Ettlinger.

• Spring 2019 recipients for Grant campus continuing student scholarships were selected on January 22. A total of 12 individual scholarships were awarded with award amounts totaling to $4,275.
• Please announce to your students that there will be 3 scholarship workshops this semester. These workshops will provide information regarding the Fall 2019 continuing student scholarships and will go over the application process:
  • 2/26/19 from 3 PM – 4 PM in Caumsett 10
  • 3/7/19 from 7 PM – 8:15 PM in HSEC A332
  • 4/24/19 from 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM in Captree 13

The committee has not met since the last Assembly meeting.

The Committee met on February 21.

• Curriculum Proposal Status - Career Exploration:
  • The proposal was sent back to the proposers to make some additional edits.
  • The committee's recommendation is to run the course as a Special Topics 3 credit course in the fall.
• Professional Development Workshop Recap:
  • The PD event in January had a positive response overall.
  • The committee discussed the possibility of offering a refresher PD event for faculty in regards to teaching COL courses. We also agreed that an event should include more details about OER.
• OER - College Seminar Master Course
  • Matt Okerblum stated that if OER is being used by an instructor for a COL course, OER will be listed as the required textbook/material needed in course availability.
  • The Community tab in Blackboard has various resources for COL faculty. There is an OER folder on this page with resources for faculty to use.
  • Cengage is coming to our April meeting to pitch an online book. This book would cost $25 for students to purchase.
  • The committee discussed the issue of finding someone to create a College Seminar Master Course. Compensation will be expected in return for creating such a course. We also discussed the issue of faculty being uncomfortable with a publisher owning the material they created.
• Campus Committee Updates:
  • Dawn Tracy-Hanley created a College Seminar Task Force on the Grant Campus. The committee met last semester and set the following goals:
    • Linking COL course with a content area. In the fall the Grant Campus is going to try linking a COL course with a History course.
    • Focus Groups - asking students to think about and communicate what they would like to get out of a COL class.
    • Theme-based College Seminar
    • Common read for COL 105 in the fall and potentially have the author of the chosen book come to the campus to meet with the students.

Commencement Committee met on Friday, February 8, 2019.

There will be two ceremonies: 10 am and 4:00 pm on May 23, 2019 at the Grant campus, to enable students to have 4 tickets each. There will be an online barcoded ticket system.

Students may select which graduation ceremony (10 am or 4 pm) they wish to attend. This will be capped at 800 students per ceremony on a first come basis.

Faculty may select which ceremony (10 am or 4 pm) they wish to attend. This will be capped at 200 faculty per ceremony on a first come basis. Hopefully faculty will be evenly distributed among the 2 ceremonies.

There may be bus transportation from the Eastern and Ammerman campus for students. Identifying the number of students interested is being researched with a survey link for students.

Information for graduation will be sent to students via a college brief, snail mail, website and text messages.

There will be 2 soloists (Graduating students) that will sing the Alma Mater and the National anthem.

There will no longer be a keynote speaker, only student speakers (2 per campus) will be presenting their remarks.

Rehearsal for graduates will be on Friday, May 3rd at 6:00 pm in the HSEC on the Grant campus.

Next Commencement Committee meeting will be on March 8th 10:00-11:30 am in NFL 237.

The committee has not met since the last Assembly meeting.

Spring 2019 recipients for college-wide continuing student scholarships were selected on January 25. A total of 8 individual scholarships were awarded with award amounts totaling to $3,285.

On March 21 the Club will be hosting a SEPA Mujer event betweeen 6:00 and 7:15 p.m. in HSEC, Room 105. The event is titled Immigration and Gender Violence on Long Island: Challenges & Relief Please see the flyer for details.

The committee is organizing an event that will take place on Friday, April 12, starting at 7:00 P.M. in HSEC Lecture Hall The mission of this event is to end sexual, relationship, and domestic violence in all forms.

This new course, COL 110: Service Learning Through College Seminar has been approved and offers volunteer experience, resume building skills, as well as networking and scholarship opportunities. Please advertise it to our students!