PG&D 09/22/08

Professional Growth and Development subcommittee leaders/contacts are:

• Technology and Multimedia Skills Development – Carol Martin
• Teaching Skills Development – Peggy Drombrowski
• Leadership and Professional Skills Development – Sue Gugoff
• In-service Planning and Awards Committee – Judith Johnson

Technology and Multimedia Skills Development will work in conjunction with ITS to provide “Tips and Tricks” training for Office 2007 this fall. Teaching Skills Development presented several ideas, including Teaching Students with Special Needs.

October 14 In-service topics include Blended Learning, Designing Effective Online Discussions on WebCT, and Authentic Learning Activities on WebCT. As an alternative, the Office of Human Resources will be holding their Annual Pre-Retirement Planning Seminar.

Submitted by Carol Martin

APSA Meeting – September 8, 2008

The committee approved AP 551 – Photo Identification Cards after a few grammatical changes. Prior to the approval, the subcommittee checked with a campus security department to verify that the process was accurately represented.

The committee approved AP 721 – Credit for Life Experience after a small correction and amendment. The bulk of the content was already complete and needed no significant revisions.

The committee tabled AP 652 – Transfer of Credit into HACC Credit Programs until the meeting on September 22.

AP 763 – Developmental Education Services will be up for discussion at our next meeting.

The committee has no additional APs on the table.

Three subcommittees plan to meet before September 22 to begin discussion on these major topics; a Student Success Initiative, Ability to Benefit, and Changing to a MW and TR class schedule. These subcommittees are planning to invite interested parties to meetings and will present updated information at future meetings.

All faculty are invited to send feedback about the possibility of changing to a MW and TR class schedule to Ellen Shatto. The subcommittee working on this topic is additionally researching the prevalence of this schedule around the country at equivalent community colleges.

Submitted by Risa Robinson

CI&L 9-8-08

Courses and Programs

Changes in programs and courses in the BHET division’s Hotel, Resaurant and Institutional Mangement and Hotel/Motel departments were considered. All changes were either minor corrections to course/program titles and catalog descriptions OR based on DACUM results and advisory committee suggestions. (Baking and Pastry Arts certificate, Hotel and Lodging Management AA, Restaurant/Food Service Management AA and certificate, HM 203, HM 270, HM 278, HRIM 101, HRIM 103).

MSAH added MATH 045 or 007 as the pre-requisite for 14 courses (CPS 113, MATH 101, 102, 102, 102, 113, 114, 141, 178, 202, 020, 045, 172, 176). Consideration of a change of pre-requisite for MATH 100 was postponed to obtain department confirmation that the change is desired.

MSAH also brought forward a new course (RADT 210) and a change to the Radiologic Technology AS degree program in compliance with the requirements of the accrediting body for this program.

All the changes to the BHET and MSAH  courses and programs under consideration, other than MATH 100, were passed unanimously.

Administrative Procedures

AP on Syllabi:

After continued discussion concerning the perceived need for and real concerns about an overarching AP on syllabi, the CI&L committee voted to consult the Steering committee before moving forward on the AP.

Celia Fox 9-18-08

WebCT Update – September 12

Dave Wartell from Virtual Campus provided an information briefing and Q&A on Friday, available to all campuses via compressed video, and Andrea Warner provided an Everybody e-mail and HACC home page update. I attended Dave Wartell’s excellent but sparsely attended briefing. I will not replicate Andre’s information, but offer the following take-away from my meeting:

• Problems - if you or your students have a problem or technical question, the first point of contact should be the Help Desk. Contact from off-campus is (717) 780-2570 or e-mail: helpdesk@hacc.edu. The Help Desk is only open normally Monday – Friday during normal working hours. If you find these hours or level of support to be unacceptable, talk to your Department Chair.
• Backups - You should backup your course and download the file using the instructions provided. Whenever WebCT is updated, you should make a new backup and download the new file; you can discard the old backup. This is important because backup files created in an older version of WebCT are not usually forward compatible in the new software version. Content that exists within WebCT (any current course shells) is only updated by the system if it exists at the time of update. The Virtual Campus does not remove old course shells because of this functionality issue. If you have old shells you know you will no longer use, you can hide them from view but they will only be deleted if you e-mail Dave Wartell at the Virtual Campus.
• Known Issues – The Chat, Discussion green push pin, and Assignment Drop Box functions have known inconsistencies and are presently unreliable.
  • There is a newer Chat application called Pronto that is available in the Faculty Lounge that seems to be more reliable and adds a voice chat capability.
  • The green discussion push pin (supposed to indicate a new Discussion posting) has been inconsistent and unreliable for several versions.
  • If your assignment drop box is not working properly, it is recommended that you have the student submit as WebCT mail attachment(s).

  Dan Moseler

Professional Growth Meeting-9/8/08

David Bailey reviewed the itinerary for the Faculty In-Service which will be held on Tuesday, October 14 at the Lancaster campus. The topic of the day is Blended Learning. Registration will be begin soon. The committee has formed 4 sub-committees which have been charged with reviewing the HACC Constitution to see how it applies to the professional growth and development of the general faculty. The subcommittees are:

1. Technology and Multimedia Skills Development

2. Teaching Skills Development

3. Leadership and Professional Skills Development

4. In-Service Planning and Awards Committee

Although the fall-inservice is planned, we still need ideas for the spring event. If you have any good ideas, please e-mail Judi Ungar at jaungar@hacc.edu

FPPC Meeting–September 8, 2008

The second FPPC meeting of the fall semester failed to provide a quorum because of some members’ other duties and responsibilities.

We discussed Kathy Doherty’s presentation which had taken  place at our last meeting.  The topic was Kathy’s document regarding hiring practices and policies at HACC.   The committee recommended that Jeb meet again with Kathy to consider further options for presenting the document/information to the faculty.

The meeting concluded with a brief discussion of APs 815 and 828, and these were assigned to two subcommittee for review.  These subcommittees are to report back to the FPPC at our next meeting.

Faculty Council Notes – September 8

Council discussed two items of general interest:

• Todd Crawley briefed progress in his study of the potential establishment of a Behavior Intervention Team at HACC. There will be an outside briefing by individuals experienced with the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting concerning potential policies and procedures that might be established to create a proactive response to potential problems at HACC. Those with an interest and/or experience may attend this briefing this Thursday, September 11, on the Harrisburg Campus in Whitaker 117 from 3:00 – 4:30 pm.
• WebCT – there was intense discussion related to wide-spread faculty dissatisfaction with the problems with and current status of WebCT. Matters of particular concern included:
  • Impact on the students in Virtual, Blended, and WebCT enhanced courses.
  • Poor performance and unreliable connection to the system.
  • Unsatisfactory communication with faculty and students concerning status and progress in correcting the problems.
  • General concern that new Virtual and/or Blended classes not be added until the current situation is rectified.
  • Specific recommendations that the Council President will present to the administration include:
    • Extending the 100% tuition refund date for students experiencing unusual difficulty with WebCT.
    • Providing an apology from the College to the students affected.
    • Additional discussion items expressed by faculty from all campuses.

WebCT and Virtual Training Update

The Virtual Campus Dean, Juliette Winterer, has scheduled a series of face-to-face meetings next week, at various times, and at all campuses. She has also scheduled an online meeting in Second Life (an online chat room with some very interesting educational applications, see end of email). She has asked the campus and division deans to announce this to faculty at each of the campuses; any faculty member using Blackboard (WebCT) is welcome to attend. These meetings are not required. Only attend if you wish to.

Here’s the schedule:

• Monday 9/8, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm York Campus, room 128
• Tuesday 9/9, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm Lancaster Campus, cafeteria
• Wednesday 9/10, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm, Lebanon Campus, room 114
• Thursday 9/11, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm Gettysburg Campus, room 140J
• Friday 9/12, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm Harrisburg Campus, S102 and all other campuses by compressed video
• Friday 9/12, 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm online, in Second Life, in the HACC region

For those of you with full-time work elsewhere, attending may be difficult. If so, let her know. If she hears many responses, she will try to schedule an evening meeting the following week in Second Life.

If you want to go to the Second Life meeting, it will be located in HACC’s new Second Life region. You need to:
1) Download some Second Life software onto your computer if you haven’t already (http://secondlife.com).
2) Get acquainted with how to navigate in Second Life by going through their Orientation Island.
3) Let her know your avatar’s name so that you can be granted access to HACC’s region, which is not public. Thanks to Patrick Early for getting a space for HACC started. (Note: an avatar is an online visual representation of you that you can move with keystrokes and use to communicate with others.) She needs to know that name no less than one day before the meeting is scheduled.

There is a YouTube video you can view: “Educational Uses of Second Life“:

This shows you what people were doing a year ago. There is more now than there was then when the video was made, but it gives you a taste of Second Life.

Those wishing to look more closely at a broad range to online tools available can use this link as a jumping off point.