A motion was made to approve the day’s agenda.

M/S/U Schmiege/Mayne-Stafford

A motion was made to approve the March 5, 2007 meeting minutes.

Scott Barr brought forward the issue of the Brown Act and emails. It was agreed this would be an item for discussion at a later date.

M/S/U Olmstead/Kirby

Beth reported on the upcoming Board Workshop on Governance. The venue had change to the La Mesa Community Center. The workshop is schedule for Tuesday, March 27, 2007, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m. Beth encouraged Chairs, Senate Officers and any faculty serving on Academic Senate Committees to attend. The workshop will be very generic and as close to technical assistance there may be. Dean Colli had shared there would be some substitute time available for those faculty attending. Beth will send out an email tomorrow with the information and directions.

Beth shared that the state is looking at developing common assessment instrument system to be used statewide at all community colleges. This new system would include portable assessment results. The group discussed possible outcomes of the change. Beth will have more information to report after attending the Plenary Session in April.

Scott Barr introduced Pearl Lopez at a new EOPS representative. Pearl will be a Senator for the EOPS Department along with Sylvia Montejano.

The group reviewed the following list of faculty to serve on committees:

A motion was made to approve the list.

M/S/U Kirby/Burger

The motion passed.

Mary Courtney gave a Power Point presentation on California Community Colleges Curriculum Alignment Project 2006-2007 for Child Development. Mary distributed a hand out containing the following definition:

"Working with at steering committee of 32 faculty members from two and four-year public colleges located all over the state, we are aligning a 24-unit lower division core of courses representing best and promising teaching practices in response to the needs of California’s young children and their families. The recommendation resulting form this effort will be a lower division Program of Study offered in all California Community Colleges early childhood teacher education programs and packaged to transfer to California State Universities, increasing the much needed number of B.A. Degrees in the state as well as the reliable competence of teachers in the thousands of classrooms each day working with hundreds of thousands of young children."

Mary also reviewed the accomplishments to date. The group thanked Mary for her presentation.

Beth stated since the Academic Senate Constitution had been modified last fall the Academic Senate By-Laws now needed to be amended to coincide with the constitution. The group reviewed, by overhead, the suggested changes to be made to the by-laws. The attachment had been distributed with the day’s agenda. Beth requested the group take the information back to their department’s and share the information. The Senate will vote on the suggested changes at the April 30 Academic Senate meeting.

The group reviewed the agenda attachment #2 containing recommendations for adding public comment to the Academic Senate agendas. The group discussed the following:

Beth suggested the information be taken back to the departments and reviewed with other faculty. Please send her any additional ideas and/or thoughts.

Beth and the group reviewed attachment #3 of the agenda, Board Policy 5016 – Probation, Disqualification, and Readmission. Beth reported there has been some confusion regarding this board policy and the number of units indicated in the policy. The policy had been changed but the information in the catalogs has not. The Senate was not aware of the policy being altered in 2003.