Meeting & Agendas

Ina stated that Marketing enrollments are stable. The college requires 14 students minimum or 70% of class maximum with limits less than 20 students. The college wants 21-22 students as a per section goal.

According to college policy, advisory committees must be composed of non-teaching faculty. Members should be drawn from the private and public sector, and part-time faculty who hold full-time positions within their career may be representatives. Charles Quinn, Dean of Business Studies, explained that the role of the Advisory Committee is to help with curriculum decisions. Ina mentioned Meetings are held once a year and that there was the possibility of using wikis for advisory meetings and feedback. (?) Ina encouraged the faculty to submit advisory committee recommendations. Please email all recommendations to Ina@austincc.edu .

Kathy Walton shared information regarding establishing a student organization called Delta Epsilon Chi and her Recent efforts to organizing a Meeting. She attempted to have a club meeting in October but attendance was low. 5 attendees who consisted of 1 ACC student and 4 Tx State University students. The guest speaker was____?_____ the DEC National Assist. Director. She feels that this having a student organization could prove to be very rewarding for students. It provides them with the opportunity to connect to the industry. There is plenty of administration support however she need is lacking in feedback & volunteers to help organize the club. Kathy spoke at length with Reed Peoples, Accounting Dept. Chair & PTK Advisor regarding student organizations and the success of PTK. Some of the Issues involved with setting up the organization are noted below. • Per Student Life must have at least 3 members to establish a student club. • Criteria needs to be established • Membership - How to promote student participation? • Meeting Location – Which Campus most convenient and Logical? Betty Helton suggested HBC. It is centrally located and has convenient parking. • Meeting Schedules – Need a day and time that will encourage attendance. Dean Quinn suggested experimenting by just setting up a schedule of meetings. Sometimes just scheduling regular meetings will increase attendance.

Ina explained the process that she is using to schedule courses which include, reviewing previous schedules, comparing enrollments with the semester, dates, times and places courses are offered. She also presented the WECM Handout listing all the courses taken from the THECB site. She encouraged everyone to review the List along with the courses ACC currently offers and to submit any requests or suggestions to the department.

Ina asked for everyone to please look at the courses in the degree plan and send her suggestions. Ina presented several handouts to discuss the Marketing & Fashion Degree Plan and courses offered. Included in the handouts was the WECM Handout listing all the courses taken from the THECB site along with the ACC Degree Plan for Marketing and Fashion Merchandising. She would like for everyone to review the WECM List, along with the courses and the current Degree Plan offered by ACC. Faculties were encouraged to submit any suggestions and or requests to Ina.

Ina announced that the Textbook Inventory has been added to the Departmental Web Page so that instructors may go online at any time to verify the textbooks by course. Instructors can request desk copies at any time by contacting Ina or Margie Shelnutt. Suggestions for new textbooks are always welcomed and encourage. Courses that offer new, revised and/or updated textbooks are noted below. MRKG-1391 Special Topics Business Marketing & Mgt 0132243318 Electronic Commerce (5) BMGT-1323 Purchasing 0072831561 World Class Supply Mgt(7th) BUSI-1311 Principles of Salesmanship 007338108X Selling:bldg Partnerships(7) COMM-2327 Principles of Advertising 0324569408 Advertising&integ Promo(5th) IBUS-1354 International Marketing Management 0324317026 International Marketing (8) MRKG-1302 Principles of Retailing 0073381047 Retailing Mgt (7th ) MRKG-1391 Special Topics Business Marketing & Mngt 0132243318 Electronic Commerce(5) Nick Sarantakes, expressed concern over the Bookstores ordering the newest editions regardless of what the department has ordered. He feels that the department should be the one to makes the decision of when to order new &/or revised editions of textbooks not the bookstore. Margie responded to Nick’s concerns by letting him know that an email addressed to Bevos and the ACC Official Bookstore (Barnes & Nobles) from the department would go out to the bookstores stating the following. Attn Bookstores: Please do not order new or revised editions of the textbooks without consulting the Department.

Ina believes the department\'s PCM guidelines are in good shape and the quality of the classes should be within the departmental and college guidelines when they come out. All of the department areas have more PCM students than classroom students. Currently there are 263 PCM students and 189 classroom students. Ina asked Dean Quinn to discuss the background of how Standards and Guidelines for PCM courses were established. Charles said due to the increase and demand for online courses it appeared that there were strikingly diverse teaching styles for the online courses. Styles varied from primarily studying from the textbook to some minimal engagement of students. Ina mentioned that when she conducted Evaluations 2 years ago she was surprised at the vast difference in Faculty who were teaching DL and not utilizing the internet &/or Blackboard. Dean Quinn felt that part of this diversity in teaching was because most of the instructors who were teaching DL PCM courses had never experienced an online course. Without the experience there were not any guidelines or standards for instructors to follow. He stated that in Business Studies there are areas where students can obtain certification and/or an Associates degree by taking only DL courses and never a lecture courses. In Financial Mgt., almost all of the courses are Distance Learning and in Marketing and Real Estate students can obtain a Certificate &/or an Associates Degree without every stepping into the classroom. Therefore, after consideration of the diverse styles and the demand for the online courses college he felt that Business Studies and the College had the responsibility to adopt a philosophy of providing the same quality of instruction in the DL courses as is provided in the Lecture courses. In order to support this philosophy some reasonable guidelines and standards were established by faculty members in Business Studies. Departmental Guidelines were created fall 2008 and sent to all department faculty. The Department Chairs stated that all testing must be in the testing center so that we can be sure that the students taking the course are the ones taking the tests. Since we are an accredited institution, we want to always be in compliance with the guidelines required by SACS. Distance learning also adopted a Standard of Best Practices which incorporates the SACS guidelines for Distance Learning courses. Each Department can specify the degree of standards that will be adopted. Charles also informed the group that there is an Administrative Rule regarding DL which is coming up for a vote. If passed it will be implemented college wide by spring 2009. To review additional information regarding the Distance Learning Policy on Best Practices go to the following link. http://dl.austincc.edu/faculty/#BestPractices. Ina also reminded all that the PCM Guidelines are noted in the NEW Departmental Handbook.

Portfolios are a requirement of the College. In addition to student evaluations, full-time and adjunct faculty member\'s instructional performance will be evaluated through portfolios. The creation of a portfolio will help faculty assess their own efforts at effective instruction. The deadline for fall 2008 portfolios was November 3rd, 2008. Ina stated that the previous portfolios have been sent back and faculty should contact Margie if they haven\'t received them and want them. Along with portfolios included in the evaluation process all instructor must let their students participate in the evaluation process. Student evaluations will be conducted this fall and everyone is expected to have their students complete the evaluations, including instructors who teach PCM courses. If you do not receive an evaluation packet please contact the department immediately so we can track down your packet.

Marketing pages were updated fall 2008 and will continue to be updated and change as needed. Instructors are invited to have former students submit their stories for the new Student Success Stories area. Ina has received positive feedback about the new Faculty web page because it gives the department a way to showcase the faculty and makes contact much easier. Ina and Margie mentioned that we have already had positive feedback from entities outside ACC regarding our web pages. These entities would like to have links to our pages. Ina mentioned that suggestions are welcomed regarding the web pages.

The new Internal page contains the departmental handbook, memos, agendas, minutes, enrollment statistics, policies and guidelines, as well as sections on faculty course information, resources for faculty training and other faculty resources. The internal page is intended to keep useful information for faculty in one place.

The Business Studies Division has a newly created internal page that contains division information for faculty, staff, and students. It is very useful and she encouraged everyone to spend some time perusing the Web Page. To view the Business Studies web page go to http://www.austincc.edu/business/ .