Faculty Senate Chair Paul Martinez of Northwest Vista College told district officials that faculty have little inclusion in decision-making on curriculum changes and endorsement of district policies.
Members of the board of trustees, Chancellor Bruce Leslie and his senior staff appeared for a town hall meeting at the college Monday.
Martinez said the town halls will not be valuable without more faculty responsibility and a willingness of trustees and administrators to negotiate with the colleges’ faculty.
There is no room for innovation, Martinez said. “Communication is not just passing information on, but an exchange.”
Board Chair Denver McClendon said it is not the board’s intention to stifle innovation but encourage it.
The board has claimed in the past that their responsibilities lie with the district’s students, Martinez said, but if that is the case, “What is the faculty here for?”
He told McClendon that comments he made at the last Super Senate meeting alienated most of the faculty who were present.
McClendon told Martinez that the board and faculty are serving the same purpose.
McClendon said in recent state Legislative sessions, Gov. Rick Perry has said he must eliminate courses in higher education that are failing students.
Biology Professor Brian Stout said faculty may be appointed to district committees assigned to reform curriculum, but they do not have much involvement in the decision-making process.
“Just because we are present does not mean we are given responsibility,” he said.
McClendon said the board and district administration can ensure successful academic implementation with the cooperation of college faculty better than the state government through imposed policies.
Faculty Senate Chair George Johnson of St. Philip’s College said the curriculum consensus process among all five colleges “is a roadblock. I’m not saying it’s the worst thing since sliced cheese. It’s made things a little more unmanageable and difficult to move forward.”
Leslie said, “Ideally, we can’t let one person stop us from moving forward.”
It was designed as a mechanism that will not forestall the decision-making process to employ new curriculum, Leslie said.
But Martinez said the curriculum coordination process was pushed on the faculty in March for a fall semester debut, which was an insufficient timeframe.
Leslie said the planning for the consensus process began two years ago. The March deadline came from an expediency need to get last-minute items accomplished before the beginning of this semester.
He said, “We have to make decisions, and we have to move on.”
Debi Gaitan, director of advising, career and transfer services, introduced two students who wanted to express the importance of relationships for student success, and the role it has played in their lives.
English sophomore Rod Sachs said relationships among students are an important aspect of student success, especially the impact of peer-to-peer groups in the classroom setting.
In these instances, students can develop the ability to pass on their success skills as mentors to fellow students, which can be applied as a developmental model at the colleges and district, Sachs said.
Roy Juarez, a former student of Northwest Vista College and graduate of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene was in the inaugural 2002 graduating class of the Student Leadership Institute, where he said he discovered the value of education.
At the age of 14, Juarez said he became homeless along with his 9-year-old sister and 2-year-old brother, which contributed to a fractured youth, he said.
But while attending Northwest Vista College, Juarez said people like speech Professor Amy Burton and Dr. Jacqueline Claunch, president of the college, would not allow him to give up, even when funds were low. To continue his education, they walked him through processes to receive additional aid.
Juarez said students, in most cases, do not have a voice yet, or do not believe how valuable education can be and what kind of changes it will bring to their lives.
Dr. Robert Zeigler, this college’s president, said San Antonio College has 500 students in a learning community focused on developmental education, and hopes to raise that number to 1,000 by the spring.
Zeigler said the learning communities are ideal for connecting cohorts that provide a comfort for students to communicate with each other.
But once the students move on from the program successfully, Zeigler said their levels of success decrease.
He said a one-on-one group effort following the learning communities seems like an interesting prospect for student success to continue.
Leslie said the endeavor sounds like a worthwhile approach for the district to explore.
The Student Leadership Institute is inviting Juarez to return from 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Saturday in the Palmetto Center for Arts at Northwest Vista to share his message with students.
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