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Hi all! I have lots of information for you and need your input on some items as well.
Have you ever wondered what goes on in the meetings between the APTE officers and Dr. Kinslow? I have attached the minutes for you. We will have them posted on the web soon.
The APTE Executive Committee October 20, 2009 meeting minutes have been posted.
And don't forget the Regular meeting that we had on October 30. There is a link in the minutes to the photos of the Costume Contest and the I am ACC photos taken.
Our next meeting will be on November 17 at noon at the Rio Grande Campus in Annex 156. Due to the small size of the room we have changed to format of the meeting to include only Rio Grande members and the Officers.
I Need Your Input on 2 Items
ACC Leadership Awards Program Nominations—Deadline Extended! The time is here to nominate one or more of your colleagues for an ACC Leadership Award. This is a perfect opportunity to let your colleagues know that their leadership and dedication to ACC and its students has not gone unnoticed. The ACC Leadership Award program is intended to recognize individual employees who have demonstrated excellence in the performance of their College duties and responsibilities. Individuals to be nominated should have played leadership roles in efforts that delivered substantial benefits to ACC as a whole, to a community served by ACC or to another external population. To date we have had nominations submitted for Mario Tenorio, Judy Van Cleve, and Maxine Kaplan. I (rfrancis@austincc.edu) will continue to collect the nominations for the APTE candidate through November the 9th. I will then submit them all to the committee. You can get more information at the website.
Harassment AR Below is a communication I recently received from Devorah Feldman, President of the Faculty Senate. Please review and send me any issues you think are pertinent. If you do not respond I will assume that it is acceptable.
Association Presidents:
The Faculty Senate has approved an extension of the harassment AR to include workplace bullying. Please see the attached document for Senate recommendations.
We are recommending that the following wording be added to the existing AR #61558 or made into a separate AR, as suggested to us by Ben Ferrell and Gerry Tucker of the ASC:
Harassment that constitutes workplace bullying is conduct including acts, omissions, or both, that a reasonable person would find hostile, based on the severity, nature, and frequency of the conduct. Bullying may include, but is not limited to:
Abusive, insulting or offensive language, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults and epithets Behavior or language that frightens, humiliates, belittles or degrades, including criticism that is delivered with yelling and screaming; Inappropriate comments about a person's appearance, lifestyle, or his or her family; Teasing or regularly making someone the brunt of pranks or practical jokes; Sabotaging or undermining an employee's work performance; Physical assault or threats. Acts that are intended to intimidate or control another person.
I would like to know your and your associations opinions on these additions. It would be great if all four associations could support a similar principle. Thank you for your participation in Shared Governance! --Devorah Feldman, President Faculty Senate
Announcements
A fond farewell to Jan King who has accepted a position with Texas State University and is leaving ACC. Congratulations, Jan!
A big "THANK YOU" to Giancarlo Taylor who attended the Student Rights and Responsibilities meeting for me this month so that I could attend our monthly meeting with Dr. Kinslow.
Chistina Michura will be our new representative on the Student Services Council.
Michiel Davis has graciously volunteered to be our New Member Coordinator. Each time there are new Professional Technical Employees hired he will send a welcome letter to them on behalf of the association. THANK YOU, Michiel!
The APTE Calcium Calendar is located at: http://www.austincc.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/calcium/Calcium.pl?Op=ShowIt&CalendarName=APTE. I have set it so that you can import it's data into your Calcium Calendar or set up RSS feeds for email alerts.
Christmas Party The Halloween candy has been handed out and your costume put away for another year. Now it is time to dust off your dancing shoes and look forward to celebrating the end of another great semester. Tickets for the annual ACC Faculty & Staff Holiday Party are on sale NOW at all campus cashier offices. Those that cannot make it to the cashier during business hours should call 223-CASH to make payment arrangements. Contact Dahlia Anzaldua at anzaldua@austincc.edu or 223.7595 for more information.
Lifeworks For the past couple of years, Continuing Education and Adult Basic Education have coordinated a holiday service project for Lifeworks. Lifeworks is an organization in Austin that works with disadvantaged youth that have aged out of the foster care system and are attempting to start a life by themselves. Many of them either attend or hope to attend ACC. If your department would like to participate in our holiday service project this year—contact Kathy Walton at kwalton@austincc.edu or 223-7213 and we will be sure to let you know how you can help.
We have a meeting on compensation coming up next week so you’ll be hearing from me again soon!
Have a good weekend! Rebecca |
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Hello! I hope all of you have received your “Tour de ACC” postcards. Many thanks to our Marketing Committee chaired by Merilee Shopland for such a great job! We have already had requests for posters and are working on them as I write.
Our first meeting of the year is coming up on Tuesday, September 22 at noon at the Service Center. It will be a packed agenda (draft attached) and we hope to see you there. I am sending you some information ahead of time so that you may review it prior to attending so that we can move quickly.
I have been asked to forward proposed changes in the Sabbatical Leave Policy and associated Procedures. I have also been forwarded a copy of Board Policy F-10 that has the changes recommended by the faculty senate. We need to decide if we agree with their recommendations or if further changes might be needed.
On a more social note we will also be discussing whether or not to have a Holiday event and, if so, what that would be.
Please come and join us. Not convinced yet? We’ll be discussing everything over pizza! The marketing committee has hinted that there will be a cool give-a-way also!
Please rsvp to Marissa Burill by 4:00 on Monday if you have not already done so.
Rebecca Robinson-Francis APTE President 2009-2010 |
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Hello!
THANK YOU to Jimmy Clark-CYP, Susan Jones-SAC, Matt Wilson-NRG, Caroline Gebert-EVW, Lauren Sebel-RVS for volunteering to be the APTE Representatives on their Campus Advisory Committees.
We still need representatives for Rio Grande and Pinnacle. Please let me know by 1 pm today if you are interested.
A Campus Advisory Committee (CAC) is established at each campus to provide communication between the college and the community, to offer guidance during planning and construction, and to ensure programs and initiatives are meeting ACC Master Plan priorities. They will include employees and people who live in the neighborhood surrounding your campus.
The Campus Advisory Committees will have a “kick off” meeting at the Board Forum on Monday, September 21 at 6pm at HBC in the Board Room. Each committee has a date set in October for their first meeting. All subsequent meetings will be at your campus and determined by your committee. They may be as often as monthly or as infrequent as once a semester.
Again, we still need representatives for Rio Grande and Pinnacle. Please let me know by 1 pm today if you are interested.
Rebecca Robinson-Francis APTE President, 2009-2010 |
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Welcome to the new academic year! I am honored to be representing you as President of APTE this year. Two things I am committed to this year are providing a clear understanding of where each of us fits into the Shared Governance Process at ACC and an increase in participation. I think it’s easy to isolate ourselves in the familiar space of our job duties and ignore the world of activity and decision-making around us. I certainly felt that way before agreeing to be a committee representative four years ago but as I have learned more about the process that opinion has changed. So you have a great idea, how do you get it heard? Since most proposals for change and reviews of processes here at ACC are generated from Committees you would submit your idea to the APTE representative on the appropriate Committee or you can send it to me and I will forward it to the appropriate person for you. Once the Committees have voted to approve a new or improved item they then pass their new ideas up to Councils in the form of recommendations or proposed Administrative Rules. The Councils then take a preliminary vote on whether to pass these items on to the President or send them back to the committee for further development. If approved all items are then reviewed by the Employee Associations prior to a final vote being taken in a Council. This is why it is so important to respond to the surveys and emails we send out. We use your responses to determine how the APTE Representative should vote or what changes they should recommend. I don’t know how many of you are aware that in addition to being Council representatives the officers of the association (Rebecca Robinson-Francis, Jennifer Gray, Edward Terry, Marissa Burrill) also meet with Dr. Kinslow, Gerry Tucker, and Ben Ferrell once a month to discuss issues that arise. These meetings are posted on the APTE Calendar and you may send anything you would like us to address to me via email. This is our time to bring forward your concerns or compliments. We are in the process of setting the time and date for these meetings and will post them on the APTE Calendar as soon as they are finalized. (Note: You can also link to the APTE Calendar via the APTE website. It is enabled for RSS Feeds.) In an effort to make it easier for our members to attend meetings we will be hosting one on each campus. Meetings will be held on the 4th Tuesday of the month except for November (3rd Tuesday), December (possible holiday celebration) and July (New Executive Committee Training Session). All meetings are from 12 to 1pm. These meetings will be combined with our Executive Council meetings and will be working meetings with committee reports and action plans. Only the Halloween Bash and the Annual BBQ will be more social events. September 22 at the Service Center October 27 at HBC-Annual Halloween Bash November 17 at Rio Grande Campus December – To be determined January 26 at Eastview Campus February 23 at South Austin Campus March 23 at Northridge Campus April 27 at Cypress Campus May 25 at Pinnacle Campus June 22 at Riverside Campus-Annual BBQ July – To be determined August 24 at Round Rock Campus We are in the process of creating a proper listserv. While the method we are using to deliver this message is termed “listserv” it’s really just an email list created by Human Resources to send out information. Edward Terry is in the process of creating a true listserv for us that will allow us to respond to each other and see all the comments that have been made. You will be amazed at the wonderful things the college is working on. If you attended the General Assembly you heard Dr. Kinslow introduce the new Campus Master Plan Initiative. Under this plan each campus will have a Campus Advisory Committee. We need a representative to serve on each committee. Please contact me if you would like to serve. I have to turn in the names by Friday of this week. For your information I have attached the minutes of the Executive Committee Planning Session that was held at the South Austin Campus on July 31st. Please take a look and see what’s coming! Rebecca |