| Senate Standard 5.10 |
| In the Standard this week: – January 26 Faculty Senate Meeting Information – Strategic Scheduling – Update – Workgroup on Compensation and Faculty Contracts – Faculty Needed for New Blackboard Ultra Transition Implementation and Planning ~Juan [email protected] |
| Faculty Senate Meeting – January 26, 2024 |
| We are holding a Faculty Senate meeting on Friday, January 26 from 12pm to 1:30pm. If you have any items you want to be considered, please send them my way at [email protected]. |
| Strategic Scheduling Development |
| Strategic Schedule Development: Spring 2024 Faculty Update Work continues as ACC implements our new annual course scheduling processes. The annual schedule process is conceived as a foundational (but not exclusive) component of aligning ACC course section offerings to meet the needs of our community. Members of the Strategic Schedule Development team invite all faculty – even those with little background in how scheduling works at ACC and those who haven’t heard anything about this new approach yet – to learn more about what the new processes aim to address, the annual scheduling process itself, and updates from the first phase of implementation. Tuesday, January 23 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm (register here) Wednesday, January 24 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm (register here) After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the session. For questions about this strategic scheduling work, please contact team leads Giao Phan or Stewart. |
| Compensation/Faculty Contracts Workgroup |
| Here is an excerpt from the latest email by Neil Vickers to the faculty regarding compensation and faculty contracts: “Looking to the future, it was clear in our conversation with Senate leadership that in addition to the 3 items above, there are numerous other opportunities for improvement in the contracting process. Generally, we are using the same faculty contracting process that we have been using for decades. As such, there is no surprise that there is a need for a deep dive on this process (including the actual contract itself). Therefore, we have formed a group of faculty and administrators to do a complete review of this process with the goal of identifying improvements for the 2024 contracting cycle. The first meeting of this group has already been scheduled for later this month.” We have an opportunity to work with the administration on improving the compensation and contractual process. Some issues we want to collaborate on: – Revising the terms of our current faculty contracts, – Increasing of compensation/contractual process transparency, – Improving timely communication in regards to generating faculty contracts and minimizing contractual errors, – Maximizing accountability, – Improving ease of access to our compensation/contractual information. We do need input from the faculty to make sure we will not miss important issues regarding our contracts. I have included a google form link here for you to share your suggestions with us. |
| Blackboard Ultra Transition: Faculty Needed |
| ACC is in the beginning stages of transitioning to a new version of Blackboard, Blackboard Ultra. Ultra is intended to be more elegant, intuitive, and easy to use, especially on mobile devices. Also, it incorporates some AI elements. There is a lot of work to be done before implementing this new version of Blackboard. The transition period begins now and will end with full implementation across all instruction, tentatively scheduled for Summer 2025. The transition team will have a lot of faculty representation and the Senate specifically has been asked to provide three faculty members to work on the Ultra transition team. If you are interested in serving, please fill out the following form. |