PCC Courier, March 06, 2014

VOLUME 109 ISSUE 7 ONLINE EXCLUSIVES AT PCCCOURIER.COM March 6, 2014 ~o Й з ra m C MENUS Discover the secret menus that surround the campus. PACE 7» the Quad with explosive vocals. PAGE 6» SPEAK OUT! Do you think E-Cigarettes should be banned in Los Angeles? Vote at PccCourier. com HOOP DREAMS DASHED Billy Skelly/Courier Averie-Alice Guzman (25) watches the clock as it with seconds left in the playoff game against Long Beach City College on Wednesday. The men's basketball team also lost its playoff game against Chaffey College last night to end its season. CAPM dispute resolved Kristina Wedseltoft and Philip McCormick Staff Writers For the first time this academ¬ ic year, the Council on Aca¬ demic and Professional Matters (CAPM) met after an ongoing dispute between President Mark Rocha and the Academic Senate about whether the meeting was subject to the Brown Act and thus open to the public. “We only went back because the administration turned it into a Brown Act meeting,” Academ¬ ic Senate Treasurer Daniel Haley said. “There were some issues put on the table and we are off to a good start.” Mary Thompson, adminis¬ trative assistant to the board, explained that because CAPM was created by board policy it is covered by the Brown Act and is subject to public notice and open for all to attend. In an email to the senate, Rocha also said that he agrees the meeting must be open to the public. CAPM is a forum for discus¬ sion and mutual agreement. It is the primary communication mechanism between the faculty, administration, and the Board of Trustees. “I’m happy about the turn¬ out,” Haley said. “A lot of faculty showed up to support the senate.” Haley said the next CAPM meeting would be on March 31. Once the meeting started, the senate and Rocha debated the origins of $400,000 in funding now available to faculty under the Student Access to Success Initiative (SASI). Rocha said during the meet¬ ing that the discussion of SASI funds goes back “into ancient history.” In Dec. 2010, on Pres¬ ident Rocha’s recommendation to the administration, the Board of Trustees set aside $1 million Board rebuffs town hall invite Christine Michaels Editor-in-Chief The Board of Trustees declined to attend an Academic Senate-run Town Hall in a letter sent out to the entire campus, arguing that the meeting is redundant. The Academic Senate Ad Hoc Committee for Town Halls, headed by senators Melissa Mi- chelson, Yolanda McKay, David Cuatt, Kristin Pilon and Martha House, invited the board earlier this year to attend its Town Hall in April. Michelson sent out an invi¬ tation to both the board and Rocha on Feb. 26 with the inten¬ tion of having an open dialogue among college constituents. TOWN HALL page 6 CAPM page 7 ► Video still courtesy of Faculty Association President Mark Rocha and Academic Senate President Eduar¬ do Cairo talk about issues at the CAPM meeting on Monday. School approves independent climate survey Christine Michaels Editor-in-Chief The college will distribute a staff-wide campus climate survey on March 19 designed to mea¬ sure the quality of the school’s workplace, according to college officials. An independent company, Modern Think, which has worked with over 300 colleges in a standardized questionnaire called “Great Colleges To Work For”, wih conduct the survey. Crystal Kollross, interim director of institutional effectiveness, is working closely with Modern Think and emphasized the stan¬ dardization of the survey. “Every 300 colleges that gets the survey gets the same one,” she said. “And that’s beneficial. It gives us a benchmark to look at how do we score compared to other colleges. I like something to benchmark ourselves against.” According to the Modern Think survey website, chroni- clegreatcolleges.com, more than 45,000 employees in colleges across the country have already taken the standardized survey. Modern Think also conduct¬ ed the 201 1 campus climate survey on campus, according to Kollross. However, according to some faculty members, such as ESL instructor and member of the Academic Senate survey com¬ mittee Melissa Michelson, the survey should have staff involve¬ ment. “How come we were not asked to work on questions for the survey?” she asked. “[Faculty was given] no input to decide which questions to gather [for the upcoming survey].” Kollross explained that the administration had no involve¬ ment other than changing the name of the survey and adjust¬ ing employee demographics. “I find that to be very, very interesting. It’s not like I was involved,” Kollross said. “It’s a standard survey that’s adminis¬ tered so it’s not like I in any way was able to modify the ques¬ tions.” Kollross described many ques¬ tions on the survey as “hard hit¬ ting,” and ranging on topics such as leadership efficiency, overall satisfaction in the workplace environment, and satisfaction of employee benefits. The administration plans to have Modern Think present the results of the survey after it is completed to give feedback and analytics regarding the data. The survey deadline is scheduled for April 4.