Meeting & Agendas

Mervin Jones motioned to approve the minutes. The initial motion was made by Emily Olson, seconded by Rebel Sanders, and all the Committee members approved.                                                                                  
The minutes were approved.
 

Grade disputes are currently under SRR. Here is the rule, which has not been updated since 2008.

Grade Disputes | Current Students | Austin Community College District students.austincc.edu

Formal Review of Final Course Grade 

Mervin Jones: Let’s move this meeting along. Before we get into the topics, let’s discuss a few quick updates:  The student code of conduct is currently at the Chancellor's desk and is awaiting approval. Emily will give an update on the Student Standards of Conduct AR.

Emily Olson: Dr. Gaye Lynn Scott was out this past month for ASAC. We will present in May to Dr. Scott, and hopefully, it will be approved and moved up to the Chancellor as well, with the revisions that we're making.

Mervin Jones: The topic of “Review of Final Course Grade” appeal is a topic that was brought to my attention by one of the instructional Deans, Dr. Lorlie Braxton, the Dean of Business at the Northridge campus. She was going through one of these appeals and would like to make recommendations. Since our group is so multi-departmental, including faculty and student affairs, I hope that we can make sure that it aligns with best practices for students. I think that's why she brought it to us. But without her being in here. I don't want to speak for her.  

Emily Olson:  I would want to know who wrote it the 1st time. 

Mervin Jones: Good question. It doesn’t seem like it has been touched since 2004.

Emily: Who touched it last? Do we know which committee worked on that? Because I agree, I think there should be a heavy, instructional voice involved in any revision of this. But I also think that it would be helpful to have academic guidance members as well, as they're often the ones who are hearing from the student's 1st saying. It should be someone who instructs and teaches the right instructional faculty, but also provides a good amount of academic guidance to Members. 

Mervin Jones: (speaking to Emily) I remember when you and I were in the trenches doing this work, part of our responsibilities was consulting students, student consultation on various policies, right? Especially with appeals. That's a great idea. Maybe I'll talk to Kathy James and see if she has someone. I think Jana might be a really good asset because she does a lot of training and things like that. I think she may be a part of the online advising team. Kenyetta, do you know? 

Kenyetta Hutson: I believe that she is still on that team.

Mervin Jones: So let's table this topic and move on to the last topic.

Mervin Jones: I would like to be supportive of Troy Jefferson; he stays busy and has many responsibilities. I would like to move forward with Student Advocacy, as it aligns with our policies. There are many ways to do Student Advocacy. Troy tells me that we need a good pool of students that we can train. But I would like to recommend putting together a curriculum and training. We identify what it is that we want these students to do and how they can help and serve. Then approach various student groups, for example, think a Phi Theta Kappa is a really good group as well. 

Troy Jefferson: I co-chair that group at the moment. 

Mervin Jones: Who shares it with you?

Troy Jefferson: We have a new advisor on board, just started about almost 3 weeks ago. Jaron Murphy is taking the lead on that now. We've had such difficulty picking students who are willing to be trained and act in the advocacy role; a couple would say yes, but then we wouldn't see them anymore. So it was a reliability factor going on there. So now, since we have elections coming up, they'll be done at the end of the month, and there'll be a new crop of officers and several new senators. Let's just make this a part of their overall training for all of them at the beginning. So they know this is their expectation. Moving forward. 

Mervin Jones: So you have a plan altogether. Now, the next question I'm going to ask: do you have a module, or do you have training already? If not, can we help you with that? 

Troy Jefferson: No, we don't, and that is something that would need your help to put something like that together. So yes, we would need help with that. 

Mervin Jones: So, one of the things we did after you and I were communicating a couple of days ago. It might have been yesterday that I talked with Dr Tamez. She mentioned that the University of Houston had something similar. Texas A&M had something similar called the Maroon Code. 

Dr. Meritza Tamez: Yeah, they were. These were high-level ambassador students, but they would be deployed to many different events. Whether it was volunteering, but particularly to represent the university president at those high-level events, or when we would have donors come by, we knew had deep pockets. I was telling  Dean Jones that a better way to express the need of the University or the college here. Then, to hear it directly from a student, part of their training was to get them prepared professionally. So it was standard that they would receive etiquette training. We would supply them with actual blazers, which sold a lot of students wanting to come and join, just to get the professional gear. But they. They were used in many different capacities. They wanted to beef up their resumes, and so depending on what areas of study they were in, you know they would want to come to events to speak with a donor, or they would want to do more of our food drives, or whatever that we had going on, but they would also sit on our hearing board panels. Some of them wanted some judicial experience, and so they wanted to sit on the hearing board. Things of that nature. 

Mervin Jones: You said etiquette training. What are some other things I think of?

We talked about the de-escalation training. That would be great training for students to have in support of their peers.

Dr. Meritza Tamez: Yes, and also conflict resolution.

Mervin Jones: Definitely, because a part of our policies with the conduct is that they can request an advocate. If I'm adjudicating the case, the advocate can't speak on the student's behalf, but the advocate can speak to the student, can coach them, and can make sure that they understand the summons letter which I get a lot of students who haven't read the summons letter, or even don't understand it. It's their time to share their side of the events or the allegations. So we could do a really good job. I'd love to be a part of helping out with that training. But they can't be paid employees, from my understanding. 

Dr. Meritza Tamez:  We couldn't do that either. The way that we went around it was giving them gift cards, and now we couldn't give them up to a certain limit, I think, before they would have to claim it on their taxes. But I think it was $700 or something like that. That was the limit. 

Mervin Jones: Would it be inappropriate to have them trained on, for example, supporting a student going through Title IX or something like that? What are your thoughts on that, Charlene? Would it be appropriate to have another student be a student advocate?  

Charlene Buckley: Similar to what Maritza said. I've been to another institution. We had a board of investigators and advisors that supported students through academic integrity, student conduct, and Title 9 proceedings. We certainly could be open to it, because in any of our proceedings, we allow individuals to have an advisor of their choice. So there are no preclusions there. It could be anybody. So I don't see a problem with it. I definitely would want students who have an interest in this because you wouldn't want to put someone in a role like this, especially for the kind of things that you might deal with in a sexual misconduct case, who just don't have the right for it. You know, many employees don't have the Constitution for this work or want to hear the stories where they can have the right kind of presence to be with someone, but it would have to be the right student for the right reason, who wasn't passionate about this work. I find a lot of times kind of like what Maritza was saying. Students can relate to their peers well, and for the most part, like it's just a support person. It's not to make a presentation. But to be there and like you, said Mervin, to clarify the process and procedures, because people are often emotional when they get these letters, and it's hard to take it all in. I think it would be a great program. And I could see that it could expand to helping to support some of our areas, too. 

Mervin Jones: Does anybody have any ideas from their previous institutions or previous experiences? Troy, you're going to take the lead on this. How soon would you want this training to be ready to be deployed to the students?  

Troy Jefferson: It takes a little while to develop a training program. I would do this during the SGA retreat, which is also being expanded to include officers of student organizations, too. It is usually mid-August. 

Mervin Jones: You've given us a reasonable timeline.

Troy Jefferson: I think that works. It's the program, the retreat is 4 days and 3 nights. It is usually at an off-site location, so that students have to concentrate on what they're doing.

Mervin Jones: The people who are going to be providing training don't have to be experts, but they just need to be able to make the student advocate comfortable with being in that space. Charlene brought up a great point. You could be setting students up for value. But for the other areas, what do you think about that, Troy?  

Troy Jefferson: If we had a module, then my folks could certainly train the students based on what the module says. So we probably find enough students that can handle all different types of situations because it'd be a pretty wide group of students we'd be bringing in. 

Mervin Jones: One last thing I want to ask you guys? Do we have any volunteers who'd want to volunteer to be on this HOC committee?

Dr. Meritza Tamez: Yes, I can. 

Rebel Sanders: I can help with that. 

Mervin Jones: You all want to email me later and say that you want to be a part of this thing. Kenyetta would be amazing on this committee.

Kenyetta Hutson: I would love to participate.

Mervin Jones: I want to talk to T-led about the modules because if we could put together something that could be recorded, it could be sustainable. The last thing we get to talk about is what future topics are. Oh, Pamela, yes. 

Pamela: Yes, Hi, I was just wondering. I think someone mentioned this before, but we kind of left it on the side about tying this to students' programs of interest. Is there any way that can be done? For example, someone who is maybe in psychology or social work, learning, or legal work learning, or something like that. That way, we can garner interest from that sector. 

Mervin Jones: So it sounds like you're saying we identify students in a particular field.

Pamela: Yes, that has an interest in. So they're taking those courses, right? And so they intend to work in that capacity once they graduate, or they intend to follow it at the graduate level. So, reaching out to the professors and saying, Okay, is anybody interested in volunteering for this kind of thing, getting students from that sector?

Mervin Jones: So great, especially even like someone from criminal justice or something like that.

Pamela: Yes.

Mervin Jones: So, in other words, they get an opportunity to have experiential learning, right?

Pamela: We currently have what's called it's an ACC program whereby interested students can work within the field.

Mervin Jones: You're talking about the grow program.

Pamela: Yeah, yeah, so is there any way to integrate that with? ACC, program.

So, at least you're getting a steady stream of students. 

Mervin Jones: The only drawback is that the Grow program pays students.

Mervin Jones: But I love the idea of maybe reaching out to someone like Dan Dot, or

maybe someone from the sociology department, or whoever is into departmental, and because this would be a great resume builder, I would also be willing to write letters of recommendation for students.

Charlene Buckley: That made me think about another possible area where you might find

some interested students who would want to lead in this way. We have an intern this semester from the paralegal studies program. That's Sean Slack's program. So this is an associate's degree where students learn a lot about law and policy. So our intern is with us this semester, and it's going great. 

Mervin Jones: Because she has this experience.

Would that mean we'd have to tweak or change the student code of conduct? because it does say, student, governance advocate. Can we make it a bit broader? 

Meritza Tamez: You mean because it says student government from the SGA specifically.

Mervin Jones: Yes. 

Meritza Tamez: Yeah, we intend to train to change that to a student who is in good standing. From where I came from they had to be in good standing, not only disciplinary, wise, and academic, wise, but also financially. 

Mervin Jones: Now to Troy's Point. You're going to have a captive audience. So we can do the 1st initial training. We have a lot of 4-point students who are not even a part of Phi Theta Kappa. But they would be a good fit.

Mervin: Thanked everyone, and this meeting is adjourned.

Meeting Adjourned: 11:35 am

Next Meeting Date: May 9th, 2025
Time: 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Location: Zoom