Minutes
Faculty Council Steering Committee
Cafeteria Annex, Main Campus
Members present—Cindy Alexander, Brenda Ammons, Becky Blackwell, Ashley Boone, Sharon Burlingame, Kathy Byrd, Tony Crossland, Lawana Day, Jonathan Fowler, Carol Luther, Liz McCowan, Mary Monroe-Ellis, Rick Patton, Garry Pennycuff, Yolanda Sankey, Ken Swayne, Dave Vinson, Kelly Waldrop
I. The meeting was called to order at
II. Approval of the minutes of Mar. 17 was postponed.
III. New Steering Committee members were introduced and welcomed.
IV. Officer Reports
TBR Representative Dave Vinson
A report will be sent via e-mail.
President Kathy Byrd
K. Byrd has discussed the summer school rule of having 21 students in class in
order for a full-time instructor to teach the class with Dr. Bruns. There will be no change
in the rule.
A Faculty Council Benevolent Fund has been set up. Donating to this fund will
be one of the choices on the new giving form.
In the Feb. 11 Faculty Council meeting, a motion was made that a resolution or
motion on the privacy of instructors’ addresses be written to present to Faculty Council.
This has not yet been done. Sharon Burlingame made the following motion:
Motion: That the motion on privacy be
tabled.
The motion carried.
Learning Council News
Learning Council is discussing a stronger policy banning cell phones in the
classroom with penalties for non-compliance. Text messaging and picture cell phones
make the likelihood of annoyance or cheating yet more likely, and PSTCC is trying to
avert anticipated problems.
A new Retention Committee has been formed.
There is a proposal to change the time that self-evaluations are due. Presently
they are due at the end of January. New deadlines could be November or December. Or
there could be earlier deadlines for those going up for promotion/tenure or vice versa.
TBR also wants more documentation.
V. Committee Reports
Adjunct Faculty Kelly Waldrop
John Fairstein is stepping down as adjunct representative. His replacement will
be found in the fall.
A way to ascertain the current adjuncts has been found so that a list may be
maintained.
On the matter of adjuncts taking classes for free at PSTCC, Ron Kesterson’s opinion is that state law would have to be changed in order to allow this. However, professional development money allocated to each department can be used for adjuncts.
Office space for adjuncts is a problem for fall. Much is still up in the air. Some spaces
are being lost and it is uncertain where new offices will be. Cindy Alexander made the
following motion:
Motion: That secured areas be designated and designed for adjunct
faculty use at all
campuses and that these areas include adequate computer equipment and other
items necessary for adjuncts to do their jobs.
The motion passed.
Promotion/Tenure Don Thomas/Janice Rowland
A meeting has been held to be sure that PSTCC is in compliance with changes in TBR policy.
Student Scholarship Karen Cornell
No report.
Rules Committee Don Thomas
The Rules Committee needs some new members. Several constitutional issues
remain to be resolved.
Evaluation Committee Wanda Scarbro
W. Scarbro sent a proposal to clarify the evaluation procedure to address what steps to follow if there is disagreement about the evaluation at different levels.
A motion is needed on this proposal. The Steering Committee decided to postpone action
at the present and resume discussion of this issue in the fall.
VI. Unfinished Business None
VII. New Business
K. Byrd
presented the proposed schedule of meetings for Faculty Council and Steering
Committee for 2004-05 and asked members to make suggestions if they foresaw
problems. Because of changes in the course scheduling, meetings are set to
begin at
VIII. Announcements
IX. The meeting
adjourned at
Respectfully submitted,
Carol Luther