November 5, 2024

Attendance, Voting Members

Sam Bliss, Adam Contreras, Lydia Hearn, Zachary Ho, Simon Kang’a, Andre Meggerson, Eric Mendoza, Rob Mieso, Mallory Newell, Van Nguyen, Aditya Sharma, Daniel Solomon, Tim Shively, Chia Wen, Erik Woodbury

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Approval of Minutes from October 29, 2024

No changes. Minutes approved.

The meeting was mostly training to prepare for the personnel prioritization work that will start next week. The committee reviewed the spring ratings at the end. There were no significant discussions or decisions.

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Training on personnel request prioritization process

Mallory Newell gave training to the RAPP voting members on the personnel prioritization process in preparation for their review of the personnel requests that are due Friday, November 8th. The committee will start to review and prioritize the requests next Tuesday.

Mallory started  the training with the Personnel Prioritization Process tab in the RAPP website. She went over the Overview of Process section in detail.

She pointed out that there are 2 rounds to the process. The first round took place in the spring. In the spring quarter RAPP reviewed all new full-time faculty requests and replacement positions that became vacant between October 1 and April 30. Classified/Administrative positions must be requested in round 1, not in round 2. RAPP has reviewed and prioritized those requests.

For round 2 RAPP will review full-time faculty positions that became vacant between May 1 and September 30. The position request forms have been available. She went over in the Overview the process for managers/chairs to submit their position requests. The round 2 requests are due this Friday and will go to area Vice President/Associate Vice President for review and input/feedback to RAPP. On Tuesday, RAPP will start to review the position requests in small groups. 

Each group will include a faculty, a classified professional, an administrator, a student and affinity group member to maintain diverse representation across the groups. Group members who are affiliated with the area requesting the position will not be assigned to review the respective position or are asked to recuse themselves from the review of a position in their area.

Next, Mallory went over the criteria, A-C, the groups will use to assign a priority level, high, moderate, or low to each position. If the form is incomplete, it will go back to the deans or managers or chairs for more information. They will submit answers to those questions in writing.

Each position will be reviewed by two groups that assign a priority level, high, moderate, or low to each position. If the ranking of the two groups are not in alignment. The two groups will come together to reach a consensus. In this way, the initial review may be followed by a reconciliation process involving the 2 groups or the full committee.

Then, all the position requests from fall and spring will go back to RAPP in a full committee for final decision on the priority levels, high, moderate, or low.

For issues and concerns on the rankings. There will be opportunities for guests to address the full RAPP or address the College Council. Also, the constituency group may have their voting member voice and bring their concern to the full RAPP. The constituency group needs to determine the priorities for that group.

A reminder to the voting members. They represent their constituency group when they make decisions. Be sure that they communicate with their constituency group, share the information, and bring back their voice to the meetings.

After RAPP assigned the priority levels, they will submit their decision to the College Council. Then the College Council makes the recommendation to the college president who makes the decision.

Mallory went over the review form. They will be in small work groups of four to five people per group. Each group has an assigned number with anonymity for the group members. The groups will fill out in the form the fields in yellow.

Mallory went over in detail how people may review the request using specific questions in the criteria: B. Guiding Principles and C. Alignment with College Goals. 

She gave an explanation on instructional and non-instructional faculty. Instructional faculty are people who teach classes. Non-instructional faculty have other duties, like counseling, library, professional development, and articulation done outside of the classroom.

The group will fill out a tracking sheet that includes their ranking and a summary (300 words or less) of their discussion and why they selected the priority level for the position. The 300-word summary of each position will be made public. Make sure those 300 word summaries are clear and express the viewpoints of the whole group.

Personnel Request review and prioritization will be the bulk of RAPP’s work through the rest of the quarter. They plan to submit their decision to the first College Council meeting in January.

There was a concern over if a RAPP decision was contested when it went to the College Council and how RAPP can provide sufficient background information. The concern was that the College Council may not know the background of the position and justification for the ranking.

That's why those 300 word summaries are very important because that information becomes part of what gets submitted to the college council. The request forms and comprehensive reviews have background information for the position. The forms and links to the information will be sent and available to the College Council.

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Review prioritizations from Spring 2024

Mallory showed the committee the prioritizations completed in the spring. All the spring forms are posted on the website. They will post the fall forms when they are completed.

There are no re-submissions but people may submit updates.  The additions are marked with an asterisk.

Mallory went over and explained some of the data submitted in the forms, like enrollment trends, overall faculty trends that people may consider in their review. Other things people may consider  are program stability and sustainability. There is the question on instruction versus non-instructional position. If it's both, what's the ratio? 50, 50, so forth. If they are requesting more than one position within a division or within a department, how does that division rank each position?

Mallory explained that the guiding principles are derived from the educational master plan and equity plan reimagined. She pointed out other data and information like success rate, withdrawal rates, equity gaps, workload, awards, certificates, degrees, and so forth. 

And then how does the position support ongoing college operations or student success? What is the overall health or vitality of the program? how the work will be accomplished if the position is not filled?

Some veteran members shared what they looked for in the review such as how the program is serving students and addressing the college’s equity goals.

There were questions and discussions on the different personnel categories and their annual workload. They vary from 10-months to a full year. This was an important consideration in compliance to the 50% law.

Work for this quarter. Review the new fall personnel requests. Provide each a ranking: high, moderate, or low. Then come together as a group and look at everything that came in the spring, this fall and any that carry over from the previous fall. Discuss and rank them all together. Finally, in January submit the RAPP recommendation to the College Council.

Next Tuesday, RAPP will meet online. Voting members in small assigned groups will work in breakout rooms. The small group work is only for committee members. Guests are welcome to attend the open meeting. Once the groups go into the breakout room, the main room will be empty until the end.

Voting members will get an email and access to the Office 365 RAPP folder. Members will access the forms and work on them there. 

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Meeting adjourned at 10:54 am.