The agenda was approved with one addition: Staffing of Special Sections Taught Using Academic Systems. Five minutes were allotted for the new item.

The minutes were approved as written.

As President of the Senate, Laura Ore presented the following information regarding issues and meetings:

• Death of George DeTuccio- Appreciation was expressed for George DeTuccio, VP for Business Services, who had been with the College since July, 2001. He and his positive outlook and expertise will be greatly missed.
• Letter of Resignation from Daniel Traverso - President Ore announced that Daniel Traverso had decided to resign his position representing NRG on the Full-time Faculty Senate and read his letter of resignation. The Senate expressed surprise and regret.
• ACC Board meeting, January 14, 2002-The Senate President expressed the Senate's regret at not having had more information from the administration concerning the problems at Rio Grande Campus and said that faculty and the Administration should work to improve communication. She also said that the resolution from November 2001 still stood and was an expression of the will of the Senate. She expressed concerns regarding the lack of shared governance and asked for more dialogue on this issue. She reiterated the request for a performance review from the State Comptroller, reminding the Board that they had approved that action. She expressed the Senate's disappointment with Dr. Fonte's evaluation and raise, which was presented in December 2001. She concluded with a plea that the Board remember to pay faculty a fair market wage and increase faculty wages to at least average when compared to other metro colleges. She further pointed out that faculty's current pay rate is already below average again.
• Faculty Senate Officers and Administration, January 28, 2002-Senate Officers discussed with the Administration the following issues: problems with faculty evaluations, collegial teaching teams, overload restrictions/course releases, schedule building with Datatel difficulties, and possible hiring freezes. The Officers also requested again a State comptroller's performance review.
• Board of Trustees Work Session, January 28, 2002-President Ore attended this meeting, which was held at the new Service Center.

Careful not to disclose any details from her recent settlement with ACC, Corinne Irwin shared her story. She explained why she had decided to go forward with her grievance, reminded the faculty of their civil and first amendment rights, thanked the Senate for asking that appropriate testing be conducted at the Rio Grande Campus, and bid farewell. She will be greatly missed by her ACC colleagues and students.

Problems with the student evaluation instrument were discussed. Faculty agreed that the evaluation forms asked the students to input too much information and asked that the forms be pre-printed with course information as had been done previously. Faculty also asked Senate Officers to request an apology from Boyd Bush for blaming the faculty for the evaluation problems. It was announced that ACC grade distributions are posted at Pick-a-Prof.com. Senate Officers were asked to check into this at the next Officers' meeting. A committee consisting of Laura Ore, Stacey Thompson, Janet Bickham, and Susan Hord was formed to examine full-time faculty representation on 19 councils and committees of the college.

Chair John Cise explained that ACC full-time faculty pay rates are currently 8.7% below average because although we met our target last year, the other metro colleges' pay rates increased. The Senate agreed that ACC should target 9-month salaries instead of 10.5 salaries and asked the Senate President to thank the Board for accomplishing so much with so little money last year and then ask the Board to bring faculty back up to average again. It was suggested that so that ACC is not always playing catch up with the other colleges, ACC aim for higher than average, perhaps even building a regular increase into full-time faculty pay rates.

Chair Constance Elko reported that previous Senate recommendations to changes in administrative rules had been carried out except for when rules included procedures. The Senate had recommended the procedures be left out of the rules but they were included. Three new administrative rules were received by the committee this week: Progressive Discipline Procedures, Termination of Non-Contractual Employees, and Retention Elections. The committee was told that the first two rules do not apply to faculty and will recommend that the titles and rules be changed to reflect that they do not apply to faculty. The committee was told that the third rule on Retention Elections does not apply to Task Force Chairs. The committee asked the Senate for input regarding the rule on Retention Elections. The Senate is concerned that this rule will lead to Task Force Chairs being appointed. The committee will get back with the Senate regarding these new rules.

It was announced that course releases and stipends, particularly those for curriculum development, will be carefully scrutinized in the future. The Senate is in favor of tighter controls and more accountability. The Senate asked that all course releases and stipends awarded for the academic year 2001-2002 be made public. The Senate agreed that departmental course releases and stipends should be approved by the Task Force/Program rather than the Task Force Chair/Program Coordinator.

The Senate discussed whether to ask the State Auditor to perform a review instead of or in addition to the repeatedly requested State Comptroller's performance review. The Senate decided to stay with the original request for a performance review by the State Comptroller's office.

A request was made for ACC to offer free tuition for faculty dependents. In light of recent budget problems, the Senate decided that instead of asking ACC to fund all tuition for faculty dependents, the Officers should ask for a continuation of the current voucher program.

It was reported that the Math Department is having problems using e-staffing to staff special on-campus sections of developmental math courses. These sections require special training of instructors. The special open campus developmental math sections do not have this problem because they are withheld from the e-staffing program. The problem is that the on-campus sections are not identified as special sections in e-staffing and instructors are requesting and randomly being assigned these sections without being aware that they are special sections. Some instructors assigned to these classes do not want to teach them while others are not trained to teach them. The Senate was asked how other departments handle this issue. Faculty members stated that other departments are using e-staffing to staff special on-campus and open campus sections, even when these sections have different eligibility requirements from other sections of the same course. It was recommended that the Math Department ask Bill Carter or Deborah Feldman to add another eligibility identifier "button" into the e-staffing system to accommodate these special sections.

The following announcements were made:

• A large number of spring classes were cancelled today.
• ACC's AFT Union is sponsoring a party for Corinne Irwin on February 15, from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM, at Scholz Garden. All faculty members are invited to attend.
• The next Senate meeting will be March 1st.

The meeting was adjourned.

The following Senators were absent: Daisy Diaz-Alemany, Patti Dungan, Steve Kirschner, and Nick Sarantakes.