Faculty Senate Minutes

March 9, 2006

 

 

Senators Present: LeeDon Martin, Stan Stallings, James Jordon, Jeff Schwende, Robbie Rogers, Jane Hellinghausen and Melissa Elliott (for C. Nichols), Kathryn Keen, Brandon Tate

 

Senators absent: Sandie Graves, Theresa Evans, Connie Nichols, Bill Neff

 

Meeting was called to order at 1:45 pm

 

Guest:

Martha Kunkel, Director of Counseling, visited with the Senate regarding ways to enhance communication between her department and faculty. Ideas included a discussion board on the OC website and faculty attendance at Counseling and Recruitment staff meetings.

 

Martha advised of staff assignments: Rodney Hernandez works with veterans and students with Perkins loans and is assisted by Anabel Ramirez. Becky Rivera – Weiss works with special populations, Crystal Galindo is career services/outreach advisor, Gloria Hearne works with admissions and Maria Chaves works with international students.

 

There is still no definitive word on the role of faculty in the advising process. Summer and fall registration begins on April 17 and faculty is encouraged to serve as advisors. Senators suggested some faculty resistance may be due to a need for training. Senators discussed the possibility of department chairs helping with advising students with majors in their areas. There was a suggestion that the counseling department could set up computers and staff in major buildings to work with department chairs in their advising roles. Finally, the issue of keeping student data current was discussed. Martha will consult with IT about that.

 

President’s Report:

President Martin advised of revised minutes from February which are now posted. As for the 17 week fall semester, to ensure students get required contact hours, the semester must cover these 17 weeks, some of which are holidays.

 

Meeting agenda items for Dr. Gipson will include OC payment of faculty and family registration for classes.

 

 

 

 

 

Senators discussed the need for clarification on the issue of hiring retired teachers for adjunct positions (TRS retirees). There appears to be confusion about this and some feel if OC will not hire them, we lose good adjunct faculty to MC and UTPB. This will also be an agenda item for the meeting with Dr. Gipson.

 

Committee Reports:

Three tenure applicants have been referred to Dr. Gipson for review.

 

Old Business:

Senator Jordan provided data from a 32% sample of colleges in Texas indicating their adjunct faculty pay schedules.  It was recommended that if Odessa College was to become more competitive in adjunct faculty recruitment in the West Texas area, an increase in adjunct salary would be necessary.  The recommended increases were from $1450.00 to $1560.00 for a 3-hour lecture course and $966.00 to $1200.00 for a 3-hour laboratory course.  It was recommended that this same increase be applied to faculty overload and summer pay as well.  The senate voted to request the executive committee to make these recommendations to Dr. Gipson for consideration in the budget process that begins in April.

 

New business:

Senate nominations – Senator Hellinghausen will email all areas in need of new senators to solicit interest in serving on the senate and then create ballots for voting. Senators Jordan, Hellinghausen, Schwende, Rogers, Graves and Stallings will remain on the Senate and the other five rotate off.

 

Other:

Title V will pay half of the ticket price for OC faculty and staff to see the play, Oleana on Monday, March 27 at 7 pm, or Thursday, March 30 at 8pm.

 

 

Submitted by:

 

 

 

___________________

Jane Hellinghausen