The Academic Senate met on Wednesday, April 12 to discuss a reconfiguration plan that would affect the role of deans and the departments they oversee, in addition to the introduction of a new committee for teacher and instructor resources. 

Multiple faculty and administration members approached Vice President of Academic Affairs María Villagómez with concerns regarding an imbalance in workload distributed across their different divisions. 

To resolve the disparities, Villagómez created a comprehensive reconfiguration plan that would evenly distribute responsibilities from specific departments and programs across the numerous deans and people within Academic Affairs. Some deans have been assigned surveillance over programs or departments that require a heavier workload compared to deans with smaller, less demanding programs or departments. 

“The primary goals for the reconfiguration project was to increase the effectiveness of our division, the impact that the divisions are making via our programs, and also increase the efficiency by which we are meeting the needs for our students,” the vice president of academic affairs said. 

According to Villagómez, potentially affected areas include dual enrollment, addictive disorder courses, reader allocation, inservice, English as a second language, School of Modern Languages, catalog, career center, employment engagement, PE, and Athletics.  

For faculty within these departments and programs, they will be updated with further plans to make changes regarding the oversight of them and what impact it will have. For those faculty members who do not fall under the listed programs and departments, no changes will be made and the divisions will remain under the current deans. 

“If you are not on that list you will not be impacted,” Villagomez said. “Even areas on that list might not be impacted at all.” 

Villagómez hopes to determine specific dates for changes to be made within the next two weeks so that every program and department receives proper tending to in a timely manner. 

The senate approved the disbandment of the Committee on Faculty and Resources (CFR) under the condition that the Teaching and Learning Committee (TLC) would form and assume its responsibilities. 

“Ideally what the committee would do is ask divisions or departments: ‘What do you need? Where can we fill the gaps for you?” Justina Bueller explained. “So it’s going to be different for different people depending on where they are at.” 

According to the proposal for the new TLC, the committee would surround mentoring, the certification of online teaching, instructional onboarding, and pedagogical support. 

Senator Kathleen O’Connor encouraged the other senate members on behalf of the Faculty Election Committee to elect a full-time faculty member to be awarded with 2023 Faculty Lecturer of the Year. Students, staff, administration, and faculty are eligible to nominate any full-time faculty member before noon on April 23. 

The Academic Senate will reconvene at their next meeting on Wednesday, April 26.