Minutes of 1-23-09

Present: David Jordan, Said Pazirandeh, and Vilma Bernal

meeting: called to order at 8:15 am

absent: Paul McKenna, and Myriam Mekelburg, (both on tech conference in Lake Arrowhead)

our next meeting: Friday, 2/20/09 at 8:15 am on Meet and Confer phone call.

1.  Discuss Etudes Platform

David, Said and Vilma discussed the current Etudes platform. It was decided that Paul, Vilma and Myriam would work on a rationale, and basis for maintaining the Etudes platform, and David would work on the part for training and transition required if the college decides no longer to support the Etudes platform. It was agreed that at least one semester lead time is necessary to have our current etudes faculty transition over to another platform.

2.  Student Retention and DE Student Survey

The LACCD is requiring that all students who withdrew from online classes in Fall 2008 need to fill in a survey to determine the reasons they "dropped their online classes" - Here is information on the DE Survey. David wil get trained in Connect Ed to assist with the phone and email contacts to our students. This is to be done 3 Fridays in a row, starting on 1/30, and David will contact Maury Pearl and Nick Minassian to work out the details of getting the phone, email and survey out to those students.

3.  Program Review for DE Committee

David mentioned that in the last College Council that the VP of Academic Affairs had suggested that DE do a program review. Said agreed that we should fill out the same questions as other Departments and make a presentation of our DE Program Review in April.  David said that this could include future requests such as a DE office in one of the new buildings, and we should then do a DE Strategic Plan as part of the Program Review. Other Colleges like Chabot College are also in the process of doing a DE Strategic Plan (see their template)

4.  Which areas good for new DE classes - planned growth - online AA degree

Said mentioned that DE should look at careful, planned addition of new clases, and that these might include both math and science.  DE needs to look into this further. If we decide to do an online degree we must also consider doing a Substantive Change Proposal since it is required for Accreditation. Many of our sister colleges are offering entire online degrees and that is something we should also look at.

5.   Invite new member to attend DE meetings

Last semester, Gina Ladinsky, new English faculty approached the DE Committee and asked if she could attend the DE meetings and participate in the Committee. Committee members discussed her membership and are very excited about her participation. She is an excellent new faculty and just completed the Faculty Teaching and Learning workshops for new faculty in the fall semester. David will invite Gina to attend our next committee meeting on 2-20, and then Gina can make a decision if she wants to join the committee and assume an active role in participation in the many projects of the DE Committee.

meeting adjourned at 9:15 am