Local Senates Handbook: Part
I.
Academic Senate Responsibilities
A. The Academic
Senate in California: A Brief History
A more full account of the growth
and development of the Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges can be found on our Website
and in several publications authored by Edith
Conn, who served as the Academic Senate's archivist.
Briefly stated, however, this organization has
its roots in an Assembly Concurrent Resolution
adopted in 1963, asking the State Board of Education
(which at that time had a junior college bureau)
to establish academic senates "…for
the purposes of representing [faculty] in the
formation of policy on academic and professional
matters ...". While there were at the time
local academic senates, this resolution gave senates
legal recognition and a specific jurisdiction--academic
and professional matters. At that time there were
also several statewide faculty organizations:
the unions, California Teachers Association (CTA)
and California Federation of Teachers (CFT), and
what is now Faculty Association of California
Community Colleges (FACCC) (then called CJCFA—the
California Junior College Faculty Association).
There was also the California Junior College
Association (CJCA), now the Community College
League of California (CCLC), which then had a
faculty component, though it now represents the
CEOs and Trustees at the state level. Many of
these organizations supported the formation of
local senates, and in 1967, legislation was enacted
to create the Board of Governors and the Chancellor's
Office for the California Community Colleges.
In 1968 Norbert Bischof (Math
and Philosophy, Merritt College), called the first
statewide meeting of local academic senate presidents
to explore ways to create a state senate to represent
local senates at the Chancellor's Office and before
the Board of Governors. Working with Ted Stanford
(now deceased), Bischof wrote a constitution for
the Academic Senate, which was adopted in May
1968, ratified statewide, and approved by the
Board of Governors in October 1969; the Academic
Senate incorporated as a nonprofit organization
in November 1970.
These organizational milestones,
and many others detailed on the Website, prepared
the Academic Senate for the new responsibilities
to arise out of the 1986 report of the Commission
for the Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education,
focusing exclusively on the community colleges.
This document, The Challenge of Change: A
Reassessment of the California Community College,
led the way for the great reform legislation,
AB 1725 passed by the legislature in 1988, giving
many new responsibilities to both local senates
and the Academic Senate for California Community
Colleges. Subsequently, the remarkable document
California's Faces, California's Future
(1989) supported this community college reform
and contextualized the Master Plan within California's
shifting demography. The legislation resulted
in the July 1990 adoption of Title 5 Regulations,
"Strengthening Local Senates." The Academic
Senate and the trustee's organization the Community
College League of California (CCLC), issued a
Memorandum of Understanding that offers a joint
interpretation of these regulations. This document
was adopted at the 1992 spring session of the
Academic Senate. Subsequently, a revised Q&A
document was jointly produced with CCLC and adopted
by the Senate at the Fall 1998 Plenary Session;
this document appears on the Academic Senate Website.
A companion document applies the interpretations
to specific scenarios. Those earlier legislative
actions and their subsequent codification in Title
5, as well as the legal and interpretive documents
that emerged provide the framework for the discussion
below.
In the landmark legislative package
that was AB 1725, the California community colleges
were uncoupled from K-12 and given status as institutions
of higher education. In so doing, the legislature
substituted pre-and post tenure reviews, lengthened
the tenure period, and strengthened the role of
the local academic senates as central to the effort
of institutional development. Contained on the
Academic Senate Website's Leadership page is the
remarkable piece of legislation--and its significant
intent language or what the legislators wished
to see accomplished under the official chapter
language of the law. All college leaders should
be familiar with this document.
B. The
Legal Basis: Education Code, Title 5, and Local
Implementation
The roles and responsibilities
of the local senates and their faculty are spelled
out in several venues:
At the State Level:
Education Code: These laws are a
result of legislation--and can be modified only
by subsequent legislative action. They appear
in their full text, including the intent language
of the original author(s), on the legislature's
Website, www.ca.leginfo.gov.
Title 5: The policies and regulations
of the Board of Governors, and their interpretations
and strategies for implementation of Education
Code, are contained within this collection.
They are published as part of the California
Code of Regulations (at http://ccr.oal.ca.gov)
or are available on the Academic Senate Website.
These Title 5 regulations have the force of
law, though they can be modified by action of
the Board of Governors without legislative intervention.
In addition, the Board of Governors enacts "Standing
Rules" that instruct the Chancellor's Office
on how to carry out its functions.
1. Sections of Education Code
and Title 5 Affecting Academic Senates
The following table summarizes
some of the significant segments of the California
Code of Regulations and the Title 5 Regulations.
While we have excerpted portions of these laws
in this document, we urge you to familiarize yourself
with the full text of these regulations as they
appear on the Websites accessed through the Leadership
page. These important legal strictures are designed
to ensure faculty's full participation in the
educational process that is the community college.
DEFINING AND UNDERSTANDING
THE ROLE OF THE ACADEMIC SENATE EDUCATION
CODE: Selected Passages Specifying the Roles
of the Academic Senate
SECTION 70902 (b)(7) GOVERNING
BOARDS; DELEGATION
The governing board of each district
shall establish procedures to ensure faculty,
staff, and students the opportunity to express
their opinions at the campus level, and to ensure
that these opinions are given every reasonable
consideration, and the right of academic senates
to assume primary responsibility for making recommendations
in the areas of curriculum and academic standards.
SECTION 87359 (b) WAIVER
OF MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS; EQUIVALENCY
The agreed upon process shall
include reasonable procedures to ensure that the
governing board relies primarily upon the advice
and judgment of the academic senate. The
process shall further require that the governing
board provide the academic senate with
an opportunity to present its views to the governing
board before the board makes a determination.
SECTION 87360 (b) HIRING
CRITERIA
Hiring criteria, policies, and
procedures for new faculty members shall be developed
and agreed upon jointly by the representatives
of the governing board and the academic senate.
SECTION 87458 (a) ADMINISTRATIVE
RETREAT RIGHTS
The agreed upon process shall
include reasonable procedures to ensure that the
governing board relies primarily upon the advice
and judgment of the academic senate. The
process shall further require that the governing
board provide the academic senate with
an opportunity to present its views to the governing
board before the board makes a determination.
SECTION 87610.1(a) TENURE
EVALUATION PROCEDURES
The faculty's exclusive representative
shall consult with the academic senate
prior to engaging in collective bargaining regarding
those procedures.
SECTION 87663 (f) EVALUATION
PROCEDURES
The faculty's exclusive representative
shall consult with the academic senate
prior to engaging in collective bargaining regarding
those procedures.
SECTION 87743.2 FACULTY
SERVICE AREAS
The exclusive representative shall
consult with the academic senate in developing
its proposals with regards to faculty service
areas.
SECTION 53200 DEFINITIONS
Academic Senate means an
organization whose primary function is to make
recommendations with respect to academic and
professional matters.
Academic and Professional matters
means the following policy development matters:
1. Curriculum, including
establishing prerequisites.
2. Degree and certificate
requirements.
3. Grading policies.
4. Educational program
development.
5. Standards or policies
regarding student preparation and success.
6. College governance
structures, as related to faculty roles.
7. Faculty roles and
involvement in accreditation processes.
8. Policies for faculty
professional development activities.
9. Processes for program
review.
10. Processes for institutional
planning and budget development.
11. Other academic and
professional matters as mutually agreed upon.
Consult Collegially means
that the district governing board shall develop
policies on academic and professional matters
through either or both of the following:
1. Rely primarily upon
the advice and judgment of the academic senate,
OR
2. The governing board,
or its designees, and the academic senate
shallreach mutual agreement by written
resolution, regulation, or policy of the governing
board effectuating such recommendations.
SECTION 53203 POWERS
A) The governing board shall
adopt policies for the appropriate delegation
of authority and responsibility to its college
academic senate.
B) In adopting the policies
described in section (a), the governing board
or designees, shall consult collegially
with the academic senate.
C) While consulting collegially,
the academic senate shall retain the right
to meet with or appear before the governing board
with respect to its views and recommendations.
In addition, after consultation with the administration,
the academic senate may present its recommendations
to the governing board.
D) The governing board shall
adopt procedures for responding to recommendations
of the academic senate that incorporate
the following:
1. When the board elects
to rely primarily upon the advice and judgment
of the academic senate, the recommendation
of the senate will normally be accepted, and only
in exceptional circumstances and for compelling
reasons will the recommendations not be accepted.
2. When the board elects
to provide for mutual agreement with the academic
senate, and an agreement has not been reached,
existing policy shall remain in effect unless
such policy exposes the district to legal liability
or fiscal hardship. In cases where there is no
existing policy, or when legal liability or fiscal
hardship requires existing policy to be changed,
the board may act, after a good faith effort to
reach agreement, only for compelling legal, fiscal,
or organizational reasons.
E) An academic senate
may assume such responsibilities and perform such
functions as may be delegated to it by the governing
board.
F) The appointment of faculty
members to serve on college committees shall be
made, after consultation with the chief executive
officer or designee, by the academic senate.
In addition to these regulations,
other sections of Education Code identify responsibilities
the academic senate has, for example, in working
with the local bargaining unit, in considering
staff and student input, and in meeting both obligations
and privileges delegated to the senate.
2. Incorporating the Law at
the Local Level: Board Policy, Regulations, Delegation
of Authority, and Senate/Union Relations
Board Policy and Regulations
The state laws and regulations
noted above are further encoded by your local
board of trustees. Education Code and Title 5
grant certain powers and call for specific actions
on the part of local boards. Local boards may
enact: Board Policies and Rules and Regulations
(Strategies for Implementation).
Moreover, those state laws and
regulations often clearly stipulate the role that
your local senate must play in formulating and
revising local policies and regulations, particularly
if they were generated by mutual agreement between
the board and your senate. While many districts
post their local policies and regulations on their
Websites, you will want to secure full and current
copies of these documents for your local senate
files and to ask for periodic updates to ensure
that your copies accurately reflect any recent
board action.
Delegation of Authority
The most significant of these
board policies is the one in which your previous
academic senate officers and your board of trustees
stipulated the delegation of authority in accordance
with Title 5, §53200; samples of such policies
appear in Appendix A. These academic and professional
matters are often called the 10 + 1 items over
which the senate faculty have primacy. The intent
of the law and your local policy is to assure
"effective participation" of all relevant
parties, and to ensure that the local governing
board engages in "collegial consultation"
with the academic senate on matters that are academic
and professional in nature. Often called the
"shared governance" policy, that term
does not appear in statute and, in fact, may contribute
to misunderstandings; some administrators or other
affected parties misinterpret the regulations
to call for equal voice or mandatory consensus
on all matters, even when those are academic and
professional matters over which the faculty have
privilege and primacy. "Effective participation"
means that affected parties must be afforded opportunity
to review and comment upon recommendations, proposals,
etc.; having given due and reasonable consideration
to those comments, however, the academic senate
shall retain its primacy in the 10 + 1 items noted
earlier on the chart and need not adopt, accommodate,
or reach consensus on concerns raised by other
constituent groups. To attest to the fact you
have afforded other groups opportunity to review
your proposals, you may wish to adopt a procedure
and sign-off sheet such as those included in Appendix
B.
Your local policy is important
for you and your senators to review annually so
that all understand which of the 10 +1 items of
academic and professional nature are defined as
"rely primarily" and/or which are "mutually
agreed." While the concepts of mutual agreement
have their genesis in labor law and hence are
more restrictive, there are significant differences
between consequential application of each methodology.
If, for example, your governing
board has elected to "rely primarily"
upon the recommendation of your local senate for
one or more of the 10 + 1 items, the board must
ordinarily accept the senate's recommendations,
EXCEPT when "exceptional circumstances and
compelling reasons" may exist. Participating
Effectively in District and College Governance,
a document written by a joint task force of representatives
of the California Community College Trustees (CCCT),
the Chief Executive Officers of the California
Community Colleges (CEOCCC) and the Academic Senate
for California Community Colleges, makes the following
point about these two concepts, "exceptional
circumstances" and "compelling reasons":
The regulations do not define
the terms . . . and these terms are not intended
to have a legal definition outside the context
of this law. . . . These terms mean that . .
. in instances where a recommendation is not accepted[,]
the reasons for the board's decision must be in
writing and based on a clear and substantive rationale
which puts the explanation for the decision in
an accurate, appropriate, and relevant context.
(p. 4, Question 12) [Note: for a full copy of
these discussions, please visit the "Scenarios
to Illustrate Effective Participation in District
and College Governance" document available
on the Academic Senate Website.]
On the other hand, where the board
has adopted a policy of mutual agreement on any
or all of the 10 + 1 items, the board may not
act without having reached agreement with the
senate, except when the existing policy "exposes
the district to legal liability or causes substantial
fiscal hardship." In these circumstances,
a board may act without reaching mutual agreement
provided that it has made a good faith effort
to reach agreement and has "compelling legal,
fiscal or organizational reasons" to act
without waiting any longer for agreement. (p.
5, Question 14)
As these matters continue to be
confronted, and as districts' nuanced interpretations
of these regulations come to light, these topics
are routinely addressed at the Academic Senate's
annual Leadership Institute, as well as in many
publications available on our Website. Appendices
A and B offer samples of local policies and procedures
to ensure collegial consultation and mutual agreement
are reached.
Senate/Union Relations
The academic senate and your campus’
collective bargaining agent (union) work together
for the benefit of faculty, but questions often
arise concerning the roles of the respective organizations.
Put in its simplest terms, the academic senate
represents the faculty in academic and professional
matters, and the collective bargaining agent represents
the faculty regarding working conditions.
More specifically, the academic
senate represents the faculty in the eleven specific
areas defined by Title 5 §53200-204. In addition,
the Education Code assigns myriad additional responsibilities
to academic senates, such as minimum qualifications
and equivalency processes, faculty hiring, faculty
evaluation and tenure review, administrative retreat
rights, and faculty service areas. The collective
bargaining agent represents the faculty in such
areas as workload, assignment, working hours,
academic calendar, and salary and benefits. Typically,
the role of the collective bargaining agent is
evident in the agreement between the union and
the district.
Do these roles overlap? Yes, and
in a variety of ways. For example, “policies
for faculty professional development” is
one of the academic and professional matters assigned
to the academic senate by Title 5. But many collective
bargaining agreements also address such areas,
particularly with respect to flex service –
though the focus might tend more toward the legal
aspects (service obligations, etc.) Likewise,
sabbatical leaves (terms, application process,
requirements, pay) are typically addressed in
the collective bargaining agreement. However,
as faculty professional development is among the
academic and professional matters, some local
senates elect the sabbatical committee chair and
may appoint committee members, which has the effect
of making the sabbatical committee a senate committee.
A reminder: having a senate committee's status
protected by the contract does not make it any
less a senate committee. The contract language
would ensure that the local senate would retain
its right to appoint and report and to render
decisions.
These are only two examples of
how the local academic senate and the collective
bargaining agent commingle their responsibilities.
Those are further entangled as, the Education
Code requires that bargaining agents consult with
the academic senate’s prior to engaging in
bargaining on evaluation, tenure review processes
and faculty service areas. Additionally, the
bargaining units should consult with the senate
prior to negotiations to determine if there are
additional areas of mutual interest and concern
to be placed on the table. Some senates and unions
may wish to establish joint committees or issues-oriented
task forces to exchange information (see Appendix
C). Other useful suggestions are contained in
the Academic Senate paper, Developing A Model
for Effective Senate/Union Relations (1996).
Remember that each organization has its primary
area of responsibility and focus, and that each
may (and likely will) approach issues differently.
Remember, too, that each organization represents
the same group of people. Faculty interests are
best served when the two faculty representative
groups work cooperatively with each other."
