IEL TASK FORCE MEETING NOTES (draft) 021/0118/05

Present: Roxanne Beloit, Ellen Brown, Don Brunner, Toni Cummins, Karen Driscoll, Joe Dunlap, Sally Grabicki, Marcus Jorgenson, Pat Lamb, Linda McDermott, Mike Mires, Scott Morgan (chair), Joanne Murcar, Linda Powell (recorder), Pam Praeger, Jacque Rainer, Dixie Simmons, Colleen Straight and Linda Uhden, and Linda Uhden..

Guests: Carol Green, Terri McKenzie and Adrienne Tabar.

The meeting came to order at 2:350 p.m. in the Falls Conference Room at SFCC.

  1. 1. Review of January 418, 2005 Meeting Notes: The IEL Task Force Group reviewed the meeting notes from January 18, 2005. No corrections were offered. Scott Morgan indicated that asked members had until end-of-day tomorrow to offer corrections. Joanne Murcar if the minutes from the last meeting are correct for the TECC mission subjects that were covered. Joanne will check and answer by 1/19. Joanne’s suggestions were received and incorporated.
  2. 2. IEL faculty Issues (from a prior meeting)Review and Discussion of Policy A-6, Contractual Relationships with Organizations Not Regionally Accredited:: Pam Praeger asked for clarification on a few of the issues presented by Jacque Rainer regarding teaching on-line classes and course syllabi.

Jacque Rainer indicated that Colville has a number of faculty that have taken the course with Dana Garvel and are interested in teaching on-line. Pam explained that the procedure is 1) go through approval process, which means getting departmental approval; 2) if accepted, the instructor will be put on a list; and 3) instructors will teach when they reach the top of the list (this list maintained by WAOL). Pam asked that instructors contact Kyla Bates or Darrell Mihara.

Jacque asked about availability of class syllabi. Jacque explained Northern Counties’ instructors need these to make sure they are "in sync" with the SFCC instructors since the IEL instructors have been strongly encouraged to teach exactly what is taught on campus, especially lab classes. Also, IEL instructors are meeting outcomes standards. This is difficult without the class syllabi. Pam suggested looking at outcomes on the M drive. There was a question about whether the M drive is available to the IEL faculty; that will be determined.. Also syllabi are instructor specific, and IEL faculty were encouraged to contact and consult with the relevant SFCC faculty if they want to get a copy. Pam stated that there are three voting members from IEL on the SFCC Curriculum and Graduation Requirements Committee (two faculty and an administrator) as well as Dixie Simmons.

The task force group reviewed Policy A-6. The current SFCC/IEL agreement is modeled after Policy A-6, from the 2003 NWCCU Accreditation Handbook. A lengthy discussion ensued regarding implementation, standards and expectations surrounding the current SFCC/IEL contractual relationship.

Discussion surrounding adherence to

A-6 Policy principles included:
  1. primary purpose of offering a course or program is educational
  2. courses offered must be consistent with the institution’s educational mission and goals—the SFCC mission should include what the IEL does.
  3. courses offered and the value and level of credit must be determined in accordance with established institutional procedures and under the usual mechanisms of review—what is at risk is the college’s accreditation

Sections a. through c. of the A-6 Policy were not viewed as controversial or conflicting with current or potential relationships. It was expressed that meeting much of the policy’s requirements is made simpler by the fact that both entities are in the same district with the same policies applying to both (i.e., human resources and finance).

Section d. states: "Courses offered for credit must remain under the sole and direct control of the sponsoring accredited institution which exercises ultimate and continuing responsibility for the performance of these functions as reflected in the contract, with provision to ensure that conduct of the courses meets the standards of its regular programs as disclosed fully in the institution’s publications, especially as these pertain to: 1) recruit-ment and counseling of students; 2) admission of students to courses and/or to the sponsoring institution where credit programs are pursued; 3) instruction in the courses; 4) evaluation of student progress; 5) record keeping; 6) tuition and/or fees charged, receipt and disbursement of funds, and refund policy; 7) appointment and validation of credentials of faculty teaching the course; 8) nature and location of courses; and 9) library and information services."

Subsections 3 and 7 were discussed at length. No agreement was reached on how to interpret these sections. One school of thought suggests that the accredited college need only ensure that accreditation standards are adhered to, the other school of thought is that the contracting entity not only has to adhere to the standards of the accredited entity, but also use the processes in place at the contracting entity or the process set up to validate credentials.

 Other discussion followed. Topics included:

It was noted that there already is an IEL adjunct faculty selection process in place--a process that works for SFCC but is more problematic for the IEL. Linda McDermott stated that current hiring practices are in compliance and adhere to board policies.

Policy A-6 declares that an institution verify credentials of faculty. There are two essential elements of instruction: 1) quality of instructors; and 2) quality of curriculum for instruction—which are the heart of accreditation, and academic freedom, and shared governance.

Dixie Simmons remarked that one of the more difficult challenges for the IEL is hiring adjunct faculty. Qualified instructors are harder to find in the rural areas which many times means loss of programs/FTE’s. Scott Morgan pointed out that the board wants to be able to serve the rural communities. Linda McDermott stated that adherence to practices einsuring quality must be met and might affect FTEs.

The spirited discussion indicated that there are some issues that need to be addressed either by the task force or the district’s administration: the IEL’s independence and the IEL’s service area are two that we’re specifically addressed.

Relationship Between the IEL and SFCC. There were differing opinions on the relationship between the IEL and SFCC. This is especially true where the IEL is offering SFCC credit classes that are transcripted as SFCC courses leading to SFCC degrees and certificates from the SFCC curriculum. SFCC representatives view the IEL as an extension of SFCCSFCC, with regard to offering credit courses (includes library services) and with regard to financial aid and other student services. Others on the task force view the IEL as independent of SFCC. These different observations confirmed to the group how the IEL is viewed differently.

IEL Service Area. Mike Mires pointed out that geography has always been a large part of the problem as to how the IEL is viewed. He indicated that service areas among the colleges and the IEL need clarification. Where are the colleges allowed to offer classes and where is the IEL allowed?

Student Services Issues3. Review of Report Outline

Scott handed out a proposed outline for the Task Force report. How to deal with the student service issues in the report was an issue. Scott asked for task force members to start formulating their thoughts and ideas on issues, findings and recommendations for the different subject areas of the report. Action: Volunteers were solicited and asked to send their work to Scott who will then edit and format for discussion at the next meeting.

Terri McKenzie made the following statements:
    1. Terri’s recommendations based on how to best serve the students.
    2. Terri passed around a Matrix of Student Services issues which includes:

Carol Green explained the following points:

    1. Carol and Terri have discussed one-stop application and registration and the matrix was a first attempt at identifying the points of contact that the student has with the institution and any challenges associated with combining procedures and processes.
    2. Carol stated that while the IEL’s interest is in gaining flexibility to serve students without unduly burdensome processes, current technology and administrative processes often limit flexibility and in some instances create burdensome processes
    3. Carol shared the concerns of her staff :

c. Carol identified communication as an ongoing problem and noted that the student services leadership at SFCC had expressed concern about what appears to be a decline in communication between ABE and SFCC. In addition, disability support services are not as coordinated as they need to be between SFCC and the IEL. The chair of the counseling dept. at SFCC expressed feeling less connected to SFCC students at IEL cites. The international program staff wondered if there could be better collaboration between the IEL ESL program and the SFCC Intensive Language program.

d..

Adrienne Tabar discussed the following issues:

a three-way agreement among the institutions

seamless registration among the institutions
      1. flexible and equitable access to financial aid

Other IEL issues include:

Adrienne explained how disciplinary action is taken at the IEL. Terri and Carol explained how the campuses are able to resolve many problems with a phone call.
    1. What is in the best interest of students?Note: The minutes should reflect that some of these comments were made by Adrienne and others were general responses to questions asked.

a. Three-way agreement with no gaps.

b. Seamless registration including advising, assessment and registration.

c. Process for transfer students.

d. Flexible and equitable access to Financial Aid.

e. Need staff/budget resources.

f. Re-hosting may not solve all issues. CIS is not a priority may not be possible

g. Staff need to have a more gracious response rather than "Call or visit the other college."

5. Budget Issues: Pam discussed the budget issues with providing resources such as library services to the Northern Counties. Budgets were cut by the IEL; therefore, SFCC received fewer funds for these services. While IEL had expanded its sites needing support.

Scott Morgan pointed out that the reallocation of resources is not part of the IEL Task Force directive.

Carol Green said that Ellen Brown has put together a document showing all the implications and areas to consider when implementing a new program.

6. A6 Agreement: A discussion followed regarding whether or not an A6 agreement exists between the colleges. Scott pointed out that District 17 is not accredited as such. He suggested the committee return to the Oregon example and get out the A6 policy and the proposed SFCC/IEL agreement and review them at the next meeting. Pam will email the agreement to the group.

Next meeting: February 15, 2005, 2:30-4:30 p.m., SFCC, Falls Conference Room.

The meeting adjourned at 4:35 p.m.