Meeting & Agendas

Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia, Talia Loaiza, Todd Phillips, Vanessa Lazo, Mariela Prato-Williams, Scott Gibby, Becky Jaimes, Rosa Davila, John McMinn, Stuart Smith, Alina Waguespack, Jan Emberson, Joe Liro, Bernadeta Kaminska, Anna Pyeatt, Richard Ezell, Stephen Johnson, Cathy Angell.

Cathy Angell presented the minutes from the March 27, 2015 meeting. ACTION TAKEN: The minutes were approved with no changes.

Mariela Prato-Williams announced that the French Chorale de Noel will take place at Northridge on Sunday, December 6th. ACTION TAKEN: None

Todd showed the video produced by ACC to promote the Study Abroad programs, and he reported that the Spain program currently has three applications and the Costa Rica program has two applications. ACTION TAKEN: None

Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia announced that applications had been received for this semester. ACTION TAKEN: None

Mariela Prato-Williams reminded faculty that the deadline to complete the pink student evaluations is November 17th. There were also three proposals: 1) to change the wording in evaluation summaries to compare ratings for all languages to the college average instead of the department average. 2) to change the name of this committee to Adjunct Evaluation Committee. 3) to evaluate Early College High School (ECHS) instructors in the same way as Distance Learning instructors. They will need to write an Activity Report to show the work they do in the classroom by the end of every semester. Ratings have been generally lower in the ECHS classes. Writing the summary, could address this issue. The summary could be in the form of a course commentary, but not as lengthy as a portfolio report. Fear of ratings may be limiting the pool of our instructors who will teach these courses. ACTION TAKEN: Proposals 1 and 2 were approved. The vote on proposal 3 was tabled until the spring meeting to allow time for reflection and discussion.

ACTION TAKEN: The meeting was adjourned at 5:12 pm without the reports from the remaining committees

Cathy Angell reported that RGC is scheduled to close in the fall 2017 and will reopen in 2019. We will try to keep courses for languages with small enrollments at a central campus. Since space is limited at HLC, there may be some difficulty moving them all there. Becky Jaimes shared that supervisors need to request for courses to be moved from RGC to specific campuses or sections may be moved without consultation. ACTION TAKEN: None

Cathy Angell announced that the automatic prerequisite checking system did not go into effect for the twelve-week classes as planned. There has been no further update about it. ACTION TAKEN: None

Cathy Angell reminded faculty that campus carry of arms will be allowed at Texas universities starting in 2016 and at community colleges in 2017. ACC has a committee considering this change. Joe Liro inquired whether faculty may ask if students are carrying weapons, and Richard Ezell asked whether the law included the right to bear knives. ACTION TAKEN: None

Joe Liro attended the meeting and reported that they had discussed using admission offices and public libraries to advertise information about departments. They also discussed the need for having a product and suggested adding continuing education seats in credit classes. Joe Liro told the Dean that students need to be assured that if they study a language with a small enrollment, they will be able to complete the four-semester sequence. Richard Ezell suggested using online information about the value of learning languages in helping other aspects of education. Rosa Davila recommended lowering class limits and creating a marketing committee in the department. Cathy Angell shared that Ewa Siwak had mentioned using social media to disperse information about our department. ACTION TAKEN: None

Cathy Angell announced that ABC is filming the show American Crime every Friday at RGC. ACTION TAKEN: None

Cathy Angell showed the brochures for the various languages distributed at the Major and Career Exploration Day. She reported that numerous students with varied backgrounds and experience with foreign languages visited the table for our department. ACTION TAKEN: None

Cathy Angell said that course challenge exams for Spanish and other languages need to be updated to match curriculum changes for the new 1411 and 1412 courses. There was discussion of the importance of wording in directions since some students may be fluent in a language without understanding grammar terminology. Cathy Angell suggested creating a committee to work on this. ACTION TAKEN: None

Scott Gibby said he thought it would be more effective to have faculty present textbooks they like rather than inviting textbook companies. ACTION TAKEN: Further discussion was postponed to the end of the meeting so faculty teaching other languages may leave.

John McMinn presented the new learning outcomes for 1411 and 1412 courses that had been discussed through email. These Course Outcomes align more directly with the required General Education Learning Outcomes. He also recommended changing catalog course descriptions for all 1411 and 1412 language courses except Latin. The proposed new description for 1411 is “This course fosters understanding of (name of language)-speaking people through cultural comparison and development of written and spoken communication.” For 1412 it is “Continuation of (name of language) 1411. This course fosters deeper understanding of (name of language)-speaking people through cultural comparison and development of written and spoken communication.” The new course descriptions are intended to express that learning to communicate effectively with speakers of foreign languages requires more than memorization of vocabulary and grammar rules. ACTION TAKEN: The new learning objects and catalog course descriptions were approved.

Cathy Angell announced that program reviews cycles will change from every five years to every four years, and it is time for our department to do one. Marc Prevost has agreed to organize the current program review. ACTION TAKEN: None

Jan Emberson shared information she learned at the ACC Strategic Data/Planning Retreat. She reported that the economic sectors with the most growth are healthcare, social services, and technology. Virtual reality is becoming more important. Information was also presented on the demographics of our students, which show that the Hispanic population is growing. She suggested that our department might create a distance learning course on Spanish for healthcare workers. Jan Emberson has recordings of the presentations at the retreat and offered to share them with anyone who is interested. ACTION TAKEN: None.

Jan Emberson reported that there was discussion of opening seats in credit courses to continuing education students. This might help some classes make. She also mentioned that stackable credentials are growing in popularity. ACTION TAKEN: None

Alina Waguespack proposed creating Distance Learning courses for Spanish 2311 and 2312. She cited the MLA statistics that Spanish enrollments have been falling and suggested that such new distance learning courses might encourage some students to continue studying Spanish. She offered to work on them if she were given a grant or compensation. Cathy Angell said that money to pay for them would have to come from and administrative level higher than the Dean’s office. ACTION TAKEN: It was approved to create Distance Learning courses for Spanish 2311 and 2312.

Cathy Angell reported that some Japanese instructors had concerns that other instructors were giving back exams, providing students in other classes with questions in advance. In the discussion, faculty felt that instructors should be allowed to give back exams that they create themselves, but not exams provided by the textbook company. ACTION TAKEN: None

Cathy Angell asked faculty if they wished to be added or removed from committees from last year. See attachment for new committee memberships. It was proposed to add the following new committees: Outreach Committee, Spanish Challenge Exam Committee, and Spanish Textbook Evaluation Committee. Rosa Davila and Jan Emberson volunteered to co-chair the Outreach Committee, and Talia Loaiza and Vanessa Lazo volunteered to be members. Lynn Lau will be asked to join since she is currently active in outreach. Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia offered to head the Spanish Challenge Exam Committee with Richard Ezell, Todd Phillips, Scott Gibby, Mariela Prato-Williams, and Cathy Angell serving as members. Scott Gibby will email a new process for investigating new textbooks, with a detailed explanation of the purpose. This process can be pursued online. He is not necessarily proposing changing texts currently but rather a method to investigate new texts. Personal opinions regarding the new Vistas text were expressed. The deadline is April 1st for ordering textbooks for fall 2016. ACTION TAKEN: The Outreach Committee and Spanish Challenge Exam Committee were created.