Academic Standard and Practices
Minutes
December 3, 2010

Members Present: Irene Giustini (welcome!), Taylor Hanna, Pete Haberman, Adrian Rodriguez, and Laura Horani (outgoing ASAP chair).

Guests: Eric Kirchner, Rebecca Mathern

The focus of this meeting was on the bylaws because if the EAC is going to be able to use them to elect a new chair, the process set forth in the bylaws now begins in January, so that means we need to get EAC approval at the December meeting.

We started the meeting off with a lively discussion of the definition of a quorum and what it means. We looked at Eric’s link about quorum: http://www.robertsrules.org/rror-11.htm#64

Taylor, our link to all things historical, hold us that the issue of a quorum came up long after the pdf was made in early 2009 (the pdf that focuses on the ranking of motions from highest to lowest. Every EAC member has access to this document in the files section in EAC Groups on MyPCC). Robert’s Rules of Order was chosen by the EAC as a method to help move the work of the EAC along.

We looked at the language in the bylaws:  Quorum => 50% of the voting members + 1 constitutes a quorum.

The EAC can continue business in the absence of a quorum unless someone calls for a quorum. The quorum refers to the number present, not the number voting.

Do we want to go there? Is the discussion a legal transaction? If it is, no decisions can be made if there isn’t a quorum.

The talk soon turned to which Robert’s Rules of Order are we going by? Again, it’s just a method that helps the EAC conduct its business in a more professional way. To do: Laura will find out the edition of the Robert’s Rules that Loretta and Porter are referring to.

Moving on through the bylaws:

Rebecca, who was standing in for Veronica, mentioned that there’s a problem with the EAC Leaders’ Compensation section in the bylaws, in terms of the release time budget. Can the release time as stated be accommodated by the biannual budget? The release time comes out of President Pulliam’s budget.  This section does not mention exact monetary compensation, but rather release time, so many felt it was a safer way to go. We did have a rousing discussion about this, though. Compensation for release time is covered in the contract, so there’s no need to specify the dollar amount in the bylaws.  Why even have this section in the bylaws? It’s evolved over the last 7 years to what you see in Section VII. It’s merely to codify what happens so that EAC leaders can serve. Those present really didn’t clearly understand what Veronica’s objections were, so Rebecca said she’d email Veronica and cc me.

We next turned to GPA recalculation (Rebecca): she had some drafty language to share with the committee: “When courses are repeated, the most recent grade earned will be calculated into the GPA and credit hours earned. Note: If a course can be taken more than once for credit, this policy only applies when the repeat limit has been exceeded.”

There’s still some work to do around GPA recalculation. Retaking a class is the trigger to recalculate grades. What would happen to students who are taking the same class again the term GPA recalculation kicks in? At this point, Rebecca doesn’t know; they haven’t had time to test it.  Remember, our system at PCC is that the first passing grade is what is counted in a student’s GPA (if the student has taken a class repeatedly and has never passed it, all of those nonpassing grades are counted in the student’s GPA). This is the system PCC chose when Banner first went live in 1993. This is not the norm at other community colleges. 

The new rule that is more in line with what other colleges do is that the most recent grade or attempt is the grade that counts in the student’s GPA.

Adrian had a question: How – in the new rule proposal – does financial aid apply? Rebecca told us it really doesn’t change how financial aid works.

We also talked about how prereqs expire over time…the most recent attempt captures the student’s current knowledge.

Almost all school recalculate a student’s grades when a student transfers.

Some committee members were concerned with classes that have multiple repeats (like art). How will this affect students?

Rebecca told us that she could propose the language of GPA recalculation to the EAC now, but she’d rather wait, so she can run some tests over winter break, especially on how this would affect repeatable courses.  Expect to have some more discussion about this in our ASAP committee before it is presented to the EAC for discussion in January.

Finally, Naomi, our student rep, brought up an issue involving a student who went to a university outside of Oregon and had AP credits for exams back in the 1980s, who was having trouble getting her credits counted at PCC. She submitted a request for her previous work to be evaluated in March 2010, and didn’t get an answer until recently. The answer wasn’t what she had expected (not as much was applied to her work at PCC). Luckily, Rebecca was there. She told the committee that pre-1996 work is difficult for the registrar to deal with. Evals of work done before 1996 take a long time; everything after 1996 is much easier and quicker because things are available online. Students who are interested in having pre-1996 work evaluated can speed things up with the registrar’s office by doing the footwork themselves and getting the documents from the original institution(s). The protocol for all of this is spelled out in the catalog, so the student Naomi is referring to shouldn’t have been confused.

Naomi also brought up that students are very concerned with how the new grading policy that will be in effect between Spring and Summer 2011 will work. They are afraid that they are the ones who will end up suffering when instructors do not post their grades on time.

Thank you for your hard work this term, committee members. The EAC approved the bylaws on December 8^th, but when they were brought to President Pulliams and Dr. Chairsell the following week, there were some issues with – surprise! – the section on EAC Leaders Compensation.  This will be brought up again in the January ASAP meeting.

Work on the Syllabus Policy (S-704) has been moved to our January meeting, which Pete Haberman, our new ASAP chair (thank you Pete and congrats!!), will set up.

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