CTEC’s No. 1 Fan

Susie Check has been selected to receive the 2017 Yavapai Community College President’s Outstanding Alumna award. The award recognizes her advocacy on behalf of CTEC and its result – student scholarships and student success. Check is an instructional support specialist and a graduate of Yavapai Community College. She has worked at the Community College technical training center since it opened in 2007.

Paul Kirchgraber, Executive  Director of the Community College Foundation, said that Check “has helped the Career and Technical Education division gain prominence as the state’s premier tech education and training program and she has worked tirelessly with the Yavapai College Foundation to secure scholarship support for our students.”

For more information about the award, please click here.  

Susie Check with daughter Nikki Bagley. (YC Press release photo.)

Administration says it will proceed because the added weeks provide “flexibility”

In part 3 of the three-part series on the Blog about Yavapai Faculty concerns with adding two new weeks to the academic calendar, the Administration said it was moving ahead with the concept.  Although the Administration failed to produce any concrete studies showing that adding two weeks would improve academic performance, it was justified on the basis it gave the administration flexibility. The report was made to the Governing Board at its April 18 meeting.

During the discussion, it became clear that the survey revealed underlying problems that exist between the faculty and the Administration. The Administration indicated it would address these concerns in the future. 

A question about how adding the additional two weeks would impact part-time students who are employed outside the College went unanswered.

It may have surprised some that the College had not addressed the issue of whether faculty would receive additional compensation because of the change in the academic year.  That will be addressed, according to the Administration, sometime in the future.

There is no indication that the faculty suggestion that students be consulted about the impact of  the academic calendar was considered.

The video tape below omits comments from two Governing Board members that appeared of little relevance to the discussion.  The video provides the Administration officials complete response to the survey.

Dr. Bliss says survey can help “improve” Yavapai College; suggests much to be done if there is to be “shared governance”

In part 2 of this three-part series, Dr. Selena Bliss explains how the faculty survey on extending the academic year by two weeks can benefit the College. 

The videotape below (part 2 of 3) is about two minutes in length and follows her detailed explanation of the survey results that is found in part 1.  Part 3 of the series contains the Administration’s response to the Faculty survey.

Analyzes faculty response to survey

At its April 17 meeting, Dr. Selona Bliss reported to the District Governing Board on the results of a faculty survey that focused on the Administration’s decision to add an additional week to each semester.  There were 101 total responses: 65 from full-time faculty and 36 from part-time faculty.

Part 1 of her report, which runs about five minutes, appears below.

Among the findings: (1) 62 of 102 support the proposed change. (2) 46 faculty felt there should be research on student impact of the change before moving forward and an additional 16 wanted to see research on the impact to retention. (3) 54 faculty said they were upset by the way in which the administration initially announced its plan. 30 faculty did not know about the initial decision.

There are several other findings discussed contained in the video tape below. 

Overwhelmingly opposed to proposed change without adequate research

It is anticipated that the District Governing Board will be told at the April 18, 2017 Board meeting in Prescott that College faculty are presently overwhelmingly opposed to increasing regular classes from 15 to 16 weeks per semester. Faculty believe that such a move should not be made without first conducting serious research into its impact. This was one of the findings of the just completed Faculty Survey on the Academic Calendar.

In the survey to be discussed at the Governing Board meeting, faculty were asked: “What would you like to see (if anything), before moving to a 16-week calendar?” Forty-six of the faculty said that research on the impact to student success should be explored before going to the 16-week semester. Sixteen percent indicated research should be conducted on the impact of retention/ graduation before extending the semester. Another 5% responded that research should be conducted on how this would impact the Yavapai Community College “student demographic.”

The chart below was produced by the faculty and was contained in the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.