What's Developing in Faculty Development?

November
2005

Thanks to the participation of many, the faculty development breakouts at the Academic Senate Fall 2005 Plenary Session in Pasadena were wonderful! We not only had a large turnout but many were willing to share and offer ideas. So here is a little follow-up on what is developing in faculty development.

We had four flipchart papers filled with great ideas for a Teaching Institute, tentatively planned for February 2007. We are striving for large attendance together with a wide variety of options for learning. The group suggested theme sessions, allowing attendees to pick a "track" to follow in learning. Another idea was to have poster sessions at every breakout, so that great ideas from other campuses could be easily shared. Look for more on this in the near future.

In early 2006, local senate presidents can expect a survey on the subject of faculty development and senates. We will be encouraging you to consult with your local faculty development leader to help with this survey and use the time as a learning opportunity for your local senate. We want to use the results to write a paper that will be a resource for local senates, and to share with legislators, as we advocate for the return of faculty development funding to our state community college budget.

Since many have asked, at one of the breakouts, I described how my campus gets FTE for flex days/hours. We strongly recommend that you locate your campus 320F report form. It is on this form that your campus can use your formal flex calendar days as part of the report filing they send to the state for apportionment. Weekly census classes that may be part of a 16-week semester may be filed as 17 weeks when you add in finals and flex days. Our college has received a large number of FTE in a legal and highly valuable way. The System Office also has a formula for applying flex calendar days to daily census/attendance classes. I hope this helps a few of you who asked about "how" this was done. So stay tuned for more on what is developing with faculty development!