Possibility of summer and winter session being cut
The Summer 2010 schedule faces the possibility of even more cuts due to budget restrictions but there will definitely be a summer session.
Pierce College President Kathleen Burke-Kelly addressed the Summer schedule in the final Academic Senate meeting of the semester, held on Monday at 2:15 in the Campus Services Building Conference Room.
“We cannot loose all of Summer,” she said. “It’s just a question of what percentage of Summer will need to be lost and what is a safe reduction. We cannot know because the work-load hasn’t been out.”
Burke-Kelly explained that the summer schedule will have to wait for the state budget, which doesn’t have to be defined until Jan. 10. In the mean-time she urged the council to review the perspective schedules and clarify where reductions can be made.
Burke-Kelly also emphasized that no matter what, the winter 2011 schedule will not be cut, and whatever budget restriction winter 2012 might face, will also have to wait for the state budget to be clarified.
There is only one semester in summer 2010 a change made last year when summer 2009 had an entire session cut due to budget restrictions.
According to Tom Rosdahl, Academic Senate president, as the amount of offered classes decrease each semester, classes at Pierce fill-up faster than ever.
“Winter 2011 filled up about a week after the schedule was released,” he said. “And about two-thirds of Spring classes are already 100 percent full.”
Lack of book space in the Library
The library was also a topic of discussion on Monday. Lauren Valdes, representing the Library in the meeting, said that the library must get rid of 25 to 30 thousand books before the move to the new building, which is not set for completion for at least 2 years.
Questions were raised about why the new Library isn’t built to accommodate all the books, but Valdes supported the size of the new building to-be and explained that the library could use a good cleaning.
“The new space is actually more in tune for what we need, we’ve just never gotten rid of anything for years and years,” she said. “Plus a lot of books are electronic now.”
The library has a collection of about 20,000 electronic books on netlibrary.com and that number is expected to grow.
Class outline policy passed
The Academic Senate also passed a policy that requires all departments to update their course outlines before the schedule for Spring 2012 is made. Courses with-out updated outlines will not be allowed in the 2012 schedule.
Concerns were voiced about the lack of Title 5 compliance, which requires that the course outline of record (COR) be updated with-in the 6-year time frame required by the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) Board rules.
“We’ve been trying to get departments to do it for years some did it, some didn’t. It still was pathetic, ” said Rosdahl.
According to Elizabeth Atondo, Academic Senate vice-president of curriculum, many departments have course outlines that have not been updated for over 10 years.
“Students deserve a current course outline,” she said.
To learn more about the Academic Senate visit http://faculty.piercecollege.edu/senate/
