By Jonathan Munson
Aside from the plight of Northwest Vista’s Faculty Senate, and a visit from Executive Vice President Kristine Clark, it was business as usual at this college’s Nov. 7 Faculty Senate meeting.
Once again, the Internet was a major source of contention; but not because of the upcoming switch to Blackboard Vista for all Internet courses, or the glitch-riddled migration from one e-mail server to another — not even the new Banner system and its single-transcript and single grade-point average.
It was what Clark brought to the table in a Sept. 27 memo to the deans, chairs and faculty members at this college.
The memo conveyed Clark’s observation that, in years past, there had been an agreement that no faculty member’s regular course load can be composed entirely of Internet courses, and it called for dialogue to begin to formalize that agreement.
“We think and we believe that faculty need to be available for face-to-face interaction,” Clark said. For faculty who teach only Internet classes, “it’s easier not to be, just by default.”
She explained that other colleges have policies limiting the ratio of Internet courses as opposed to traditional classroom courses faculty can teach, some of them holding to a 60-40 percent ratio. Teachers with five classes can have only three online courses under that policy, she said.
This brought up multiple concerns.
For some, the idea of turning Clark’s memo into college policy left out too many situations that have to be taken into account.
“I think we’ve promised that we offer full degrees online. That’s why some of us have more than our fair share of Internet classes,” business Professor Val Calvert said. “There are some who don’t want to teach Internet classes.”
Clark said that each department needs to discuss that situation, adding that faculty need to share the responsibility equally. “We have to recognize that, right now, our growth area is our Internet coursework, and if we’re going to continue to grow as a college, we need to continue to step up,” she said.
But it’s not just a problem of faculty not wanting to teach Internet classes, as some pointed out. Political science Professor Christy Woodward-Kaupert asked if there would be exceptions to the proposed policy, a policy that is merely a means of clarification for faculty and department chairs, Clark maintained throughout her stay.
Woodward-Kaupert offered pregnancy as an example of what might be considered an exception, as it would not be beneficial to students if they had to have an adjunct come in midsemester. In this case, a course load of mostly Internet classes may be more reasonable.
Clark assured Woodward-Kaupert that there would be flexibility, and that the situations would need to be brought to her attention to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
English Professor Dawn Elmore-McCrary teaches five courses — four Internet courses and one blended course. She had multiple problems with the memo, which states that all faculty must have 10 office hours on campus.
“Those of us who teach mostly online, 75 percent of our interaction time is at weird hours,” Elmore-McCrary said. “Internet students do not come to campus, and we have students now who have exclusive online degrees.”
Designating certain night hours that the professor will be online has worked for the English department, Elmore-McCrary said, continuing to request some flexibility in the policy.
“That’s actually district policy. It would require conversations way beyond this room,” Clark said. “That’s one of the other reasons that I think it doesn’t make sense for somebody to teach a full load of Internet classes. You are in demand all the time.”
Clark agreed with the senators when they said that the policy must have been made before the college saw such growth in Internet coursework.
Elmore-McCrary was not satisfied. To her, the reasoning Clark gave for the proposed policy seemed to suggest that Internet teachers were inherently uninvolved when it came to on-campus activity.
“This is being discriminatory,” Elmore-McCrary said. “I have campus office hours four days a week. I am on six different committees for my department. I feel like you’re saying, ‘Well, because you teach online, we are expecting that you’re going to slack.’”
“It just seems to me like this is almost more of a chairperson’s issue. It’s almost like you’re saying that you can’t trust your chairpersons to govern their faculty,” she added.
Clark explained that the proposed policy is by no means based on the assumption that Internet faculty are going to be less involved.
“Typically, the faculty members who are teaching online are those who have taken a whole lot of time to get the training and expertise to go out of the way to learn this new format,” Clark said, adding that the very faculty who have learned the skill are about to have to learn the new Blackboard Vista platform.
“But we do have those scenarios where there may be a faculty member who does use the opportunity to teach online as an excuse not to be at the college,” Clark said. “In those cases, having a policy like this really does support those chairpeople who have to deal with this.”
Jeff Hunt, chair of theater and speech communications, agreed. “I think you’re right. I think it is a chairs problem,” he said. “I am glad that it’s been brought to our attention.”
After their meeting with the executive vice president, the senate addressed a request from Northwest Vista College’s Faculty Senate, asking that this college’s senate support them and a resolution they plan to take before the district board of trustees.
In other business, the senate voted to support Northwest Vista faculty’s attempt to replace cluster leaders with department chairs.
A motion was made to support the sister college. It carried.