PG&D 04/27/09

Mark your calendar for October 13. The fall inservice program, to be held at Gettysburg campus, will focus on the topic “Identifying and Working with Disruptive Students.”

Why not join the PG&D committee for the next academic year?

Carol Martin

APSA 4/13/09

The majority of the meeting was spent discussing AP 663 “Appeal of Academic Decisions.” This AP has completed the circuit and is back in the hands of APSA where it was not passed. Two paragraphs were inserted into the AP during the circuit which APSA found unacceptable. In short, these two paragraphs outline administrator responsibility to “render a decision based on the merits of the appeal” and “determine a grade” when a respondent chooses not to appeal. A related AP (#594 – Academic Dishonesty) was tabled until a successful version of AP 663 could be approved.

UPDATE from 4/16 per Ellen Shatto – “At Academic Council, similar concerns about the revised AP 663 were raised. A committee of two members of APSA and two deans will be working on a rewrite that hopefully will be acceptable to both groups.”

AP 157 (Safety Committee) will be finalized in the next two weeks. Also, the Student Success Initiative will bring a final report to our next meeting (April 27) to summarize findings.

-Submitted by Risa Robinson

Professional Growth and Development 4/13/09

1. Positive feedback was received about the Faculty In-Service. A discussion board and evaluation form will be posted.
2. The Fall In-Service will be held at the Gettysburg campus.
3. As an off-shoot of the Spring In-Service, there was a discussion about using technology in the classroom. Possible training sessions may ensue.
Judi Ungar

Faculty Council – 4/13/09

Council met as scheduled. With the exception of OIS 115, all courses and programs scheduled for review were approved without further comment. OIS 115 was removed from the agenda because there was nobody available to speak to the course. The following additional action was taken:

• 2011-2012 College Calendar was amended and forwarded for approval.
• AP 374: Events Service of Alcohol on Campus was forwarded for approval.
• AP 383 was amended to change the title to better reflect its purpose.
• AP 752: Library Resources and Services was amended and forwarded for approval.

There were several expressions of concern regarding a recent article in The Patriot-News concerning the level of compensation for a college consultant. No one could address the specifics of the matter beyond what appeared in the newspaper.

There was a great deal of frustration expressed at the inability of Council to address goals and objectives set for the year, due largely to the inordinate amount of time spent dealing with College APs. Several options were discussed to better manage time, but no conclusion was reached.

The Faculty Organization elections resulted in the selection of Bob McLean as incoming Faculty Organization President and the current President, Kathy Doherty as incoming Vice President. The position of incoming Secretary has yet to be filled.

Dan Moseler

Automating Repetitive Online Searches

Most if not all of us do regular online searches, often on the same subject or subject area. You may use a variety of techniques to keep up to date, including RSS and Atom feeds, and even follow a variety of Blogs on a regular basis. One of our colleagues, Matt Seibert serving in the Library at the York Campus offers the following information regarding automating you Library searches using iGoogle:

Libraries in iGoogle

Recently, in a wonderful synergy of technologies, we Librarians have found a way to integrate Library Databases into Google, or more specifically iGoogle. This allows users to have daily subscription updates on searches retrieved through RSS enabled library databases.

I will explain. On the Google home page, you may have wondered what the iGoogle link does. Through this link, users can make an iGoogle home page. And if you have a Gmail or Google User Account, you can log in and make a permanent iGoogle page. Just like a Gmail account, Google will store the information in your iGoogle page and it can be accessed anywhere.

These iGoogle pages give users the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. RSS feeds store a variety of information from podcasts, to blogs, to news reports, even weather updates. But recently some clever library database providers have enabled the use of RSS feeds in the library database user search results. So now users can add these feeds to devices called readers. And iGoogle just happens to be a feed reader. The brilliance of this RSS feed is that the user can receive daily updates on their search results. Whether it is a professor, student or individual, they now have a subscribed recurring information stream on their topic.

If anyone is interested in this, please contact me, Matt Seibert. I am an adjunct librarian at the York Campus. I can send you a PowerPoint explaining how to set up your iGoogle page and add a Library Database RSS feed. My email is (mkseiber@hacc.edu). If you have any questions you can call me at (717) 718-0328 ext. 3520.

Thanks and happy iGoogling.

Matt

New Course Syllabus Procedure Approved

The new course syllabus Administrative Procedure (AP 766) has been approved by the College. You can download a copy here, and a permanent link will be provided on the sidebar.

Dan Moseler