Faculty Senate expresses frustration with Banner ‘glitches’

Faculty Senate unanimously agreed to present to the board a list of problems their departments and students faced using the Banner system software for registration.

The list, compiled with input from staff and students, will be presented during the citizens-to-be-heard portion of the Sept. 21 regular board of trustees meeting.

English Chair Alex Bernal said they need input from college staff because those were the employees who managed to overcome a series of malfunctions and errant programming to make registration possible.

"I resent district saying staff was unable to understand the system," he said. "They know how it actually works."

Senators hope that by reporting the problems to the board, these problems can be resolved before Nov. 8, the start of registration for the spring semester.

Dr. Thomas Billimek, chair of psychology and sociology, said the problem with the district administration was no one asked chairs what they needed to advise students with registration.

"They did not listen to anybody other than internally what the system was able to do," he said. "Never as a chair were any of us asked what we needed to do our jobs."

Billimek said that during Banner training, he asked trainers why he could not have access to tables or override certain things. The trainers responded that it was an institutional decision.

This resulted in chairs having limited access to pages on Banner, which caused long lines at counseling and admissions and records.

Billimek said district personnel are "totally incompetent," "inept" and "could care less."

Billimek said he has responsibilities as a chair, counselor, faculty member and adviser.

He said he should be given the resources to do his job or relieve him of those responsibilities.

Jeff Hunt, theater and speech communication chair, reported that he told the Super Senate Aug. 27 that he had no confidence anything was going to be fixed.

"There are people at district who do not trust us as chairs, do not trust us as counselors and do not want us to have any more control over the system than we do now," Hunt said.

He and Faculty Senate President Dawn Elmore-McCrary told Chancellor Bruce Leslie and administration at the Super Senate meeting that if they continue this way, registration would be like this every summer.

Billimek said he told President Robert Zeigler he was most impressed with the students' patience.

"We have hassled them beyond belief," he said. "If this were a business, we would be bankrupt."

Senators agreed there must be accountability starting with Chancellor Bruce Leslie; Tom Cleary, vice chancellor for planning, performing, performance and information systems; and anyone who has made any administrative decisions on the implementation of Banner.

Counselor Steve Samet said Faculty Senate needs to point out when Cleary says "this is a glitch" that it actually is a third- or fourth-time glitch.

There was brief discussion of Leslie's published op-ed piece in the San Antonio Express-News in which he informed readers, "Alamo Colleges reached a new milestone of registering more than 63,000 students, which achieved our 5.5 percent growth target."

The opinion piece then went into detail that this was accomplished as they "introduced a new administrative computer system and, because of reduced state funding (millions of dollars lost), eliminated staffing and increased class sizes."

Students are already feeling the strains coming from state budget cuts.

At Faculty Senate, Samet said 50 to 60 percent of student services were cut and at the SLAC lab there is no tutoring for math, reading and English.

"We're on a short string," Elmore-McCrary said.

Even with these complications, Leslie said district "successfully enrolled the largest student body in the history of the Alamo Colleges."

He then explained he understood many "students experienced long lines, confusion about class schedules and frustration over delays in affirming financial aid awards."

Leslie wrote, "I apologize to those students and want them to know we appreciate the patience exhibited while they registered at our five colleges."

Leslie explained even with the complications the colleges "simply have to serve more students with fewer staff and at less cost."

Samet wanted to know how the number 63,000 was calculated and how many are part-time or registered more than once because a lot of courses sections in his department were dropped because of low enrollment.

Hunt said, "As long as district is making decisions, we will continue to have horrible preparation and planning."