Personnel Services Committee

January 15, 2009

Members Present: Kate Blackwell, Myrtho Blanchard, Janet Bush, JoAnn Credle, Sheri David, Lisa Donaldson, Charles Errico, Miguel Garcia, Jennifer Lerner, Sima Otsuka, Jennifer Reynolds, Charles Scarborough, Barbara Tolley, Nancy Wyatt. Jane Maddan attended for Van Robertson.

Members Absent: Nancy Gleeson, Ruby Holland, Marjorie Kinnaman, Frances McDonald, Matthew Niziol, Nan Peck, Carol Sinwell, Wendy Unison-Pace.

Review and Approval of Minutes: The minutes from the November 13, 2008, meeting were presented and unanimously approved.

Vice President’s Report: Mr. Garcia reported that the budget cuts still continue and while the spring budget cut expected will not take place, a new budget cut of 5% will take place at the start of the new fiscal year. Furthermore, the College will get ready for an additional 5% cut at the end of the calendar year or beginning of 2010 so the Ad Hoc Budget Crisis Committee will continue its work.

Chair’s Report: Dr. Errico reported on the selection of the sabbatical. There were seven applicants. His observation was that this was a very “miserable number” and that the college should do something to try to increase the number of applicants to this program. He mentioned that the seven proposals received were all outstanding. There were three proposals chosen and these were sent with a recommendation letter to Dr. Templin. Recommended were:

· Dr. Craig Jensen, physics professor at the Annandale campus

· Dr. Katherine O’Sullivan, professor of Speech and Drama at the Manassas campus

· Dr. Ruth Stuart, English professor at the Manassas Campus.

Dr. Errico also asked for recommendations on how to improve the process to encourage more participants to apply. While the selection process was good the college should be getting a larger number of applications.

There were doubts that the Deans understood the financial implications and how difficult it was for the deans with the provosts holding the Deans responsible for the contract, especially when several teachers of the same department apply for the sabbatical. There are financial implications in replacing the teachers on sabbatical with adjunct faculty.

It was suggested that the issue be taken to the college senate along with the 12 month contract that staff and or faculty hold should be a 10 month contract. The Dean could choose in which two months will the professor or staff be released. This will aid in releasing the professor or staff during the time periods when the school had the least volume of students. Questions were raised regarding the implications to the medical insurance that the faculty or employee hold. It was reported that the state still has to make a decision on how these contracts would be impacted by the medical insurance. Issues like the amount of work load left on employees that stayed behind was raised, and if these employees would be compensated for the additional work load to keep up as the department found itself shorthanded. The discussion also turned to the retirement years of the employee and if these would be counted on the ten-month period or the twelve-month period. There would also be staff that would not be able to participate in such a program as the volume of work stayed steady throughout the year. Especially, that of the counselors since for starts there exist already an overload of work. It was suggested that work volume could be taken over by P-14’s.

Vice-Chair’s Report: Janet Bush reported on the Classified Emeritus committee and its outcome. The group voted unanimously to accept all seven nominees:

· Diane Fochtman, Student Services Center, LO

· George Gargus, Photography Lab Manager, AL

· Mary Ellen Gargus, Instructional Assistant, Math & Natural Sciences, AN

· Claire Horgan, Administrative Assistant, Business and Public Services, AN

· Michael J. Tedros, A-V Specialist and Facilities, AL

· Donna M. Vandevender, Registrar, MA

· Claire Weaver, Project Manager, Information & Instructional Support Services, AN

Adjunct Budget for President’s Sabbatical: The issue of the budget to cover the expenses of accepting a professor to go on the president’s sabbatical was brought up. While the sabbatical is well received, the budget of the divisions do not account for paying the expense for the adjuncts that will take care of the overload. A suggestion was brought forth to request the President allocate from the funds of the sabbatical, additional funds to cover additional adjunct expenses. VP Garcia took on the task of discussing it with the president.

Adjunct Pay Schedule: The subject of the adjunct payment schedule will remain in the agenda for further discussion. VP Garcia answered that at this time the department is overworked since the position freeze has not been able to replace key personnel in the Accounting and payroll department.

Faculty Diversity: Faculty diversity was discussed at length. It was reported that steps were being taken to promote diversity among the teaching faculty. Among several actions were the following:

· Advertisement. HR was able to expand promotion into Hispanic publications dedicated to academia in order to expand the pool of applicants. This was achieved without increasing the funds for advertisement but managing the media contracts more efficiently

· Continuous advertisement for adjuncts in the region was going to continue as this region can also provide a diverse pool of applicants. The focus is to create a diverse pool of adjuncts so that when positions become vacant the adjunct pool has the qualifications of diversity included.

· A secondary list of applicants will be kept by HR so if the primordial list of the applicants does not contain enough diversity a secondary pool can be looked at by the selection committees

· A discussion ensued on the relevance of identifying race through observation on NVCC 105-23A (Candidate Identification Form) and NVCC 105-23 (Interview and Selection Report).

Meeting adjourned at approximately 4:00 pm.