Category: Faculty

The Short Version

Here’s a list of the most important stuff that we discussed. If you want more information about any of the discussions, scroll down below and read the section on that issue.

• Please encourage students to use the Writing and Language Development Center (WLDC). Kiara sent an email (which I forwarded on Tuesday) with ideas for ways to do this.
• The English Department voted to pilot SLO reporting in eLumen. This will be very different from past semesters: instead of reporting collecting information to me through a Google Form, we’ll report SLOs for each individual student through eLumen.
• Adjustments to the Spring schedule have been completed, for the most part, though of course there is always that chance that courses may be cancelled for continued low enrollment.
• My recommendations for the Fall schedule were accepted, with a couple exceptions.
• Early in the semester, I’ll request feedback re: adding “Broadcast” to the DE addenda for ENGL 1E and 56.
• Woodland’s and our request to meet with the deans to discuss lowering composition course caps is on hold while the deans wait for the District to discuss policies around course caps more generally.
• As comp coordinator, I’ll be working on two main projects over this semester. If you have any insights or thoughts on any of these, please let me know:
  • Rotation for our literature classes
  • English Department Employee Handbook

I also have three issues I’ll be tracking. (I do not have a “longer version” for any of these because there isn’t anything to say yet.)

• Only 4 units of our 5-unit ENGL 1E are transferrable. I’m not sure what that means for our students at this point, so I need to follow up on that.
• We’re waiting to hear if our Academic Senate will vote to support Yuba College becoming part of the state’s Online Consortium.
• CSU has added a multicultural requirement (Area F). I don’t yet know how, if at all, that affects our Program Maps or our degrees.

If you have any questions about anything listed above, please read the longer version below. And if you still have questions, or if you have questions about anything not on the list, then please let me know.

The Longer Versions

WLDC

It would be helpful to really push our students to use the Writing and Language Development Center. Kiara sent an email (December 18, Subject: WLDC Reminders!), which I forwarded on Tuesday. Kiara also updated links and attached a flyer in a response to that message on Tuesday as well. (If you can’t find the email thread, let me know, and I’ll forward it to you.)

Aside from how students benefit from the WLDC, there are two important reasons to encourage students to use it:

First: Students are using NetTutor (or however it’s spelled) rather than the WLDC. (50% of our students’ NetTutor visits involved English tutoring.) This is true even though most of us have disabled NetTutor in our Canvas shells (if you haven’t, please do!) because students are going in through other courses and then submitting their English requests from there.

NetTutor provides far inferior tutoring services for English — much more grammar focused, less interactive, more “fixing” the paper rather than training students how to think about revision, and so on.

And second: the WLDC has been sort of under attack by some administrators, and if our students don’t use the center, it’s easier for administration to argue that it’s not as important as we know it is. This frustrates me, of course; looking at any numbers under pandemic conditions is a big problem, as I see it. But that’s where we are.

So please: encourage your students to use the WLDC. And (as I said) refer to Kiara’s email, which includes several specific ways that we can do this.

eLumen pilot for SLOs

eLumen is the program that is replacing TracDat (where we recorded Program Review and SLO assessment data) and CurricuNET (our curriculum software). Shawn asked that the English department pilot SLO reporting in eLumen, and the department agreed to do so (10 yes, 5 no-opinion, 2 no).

This means that all English faculty (full- and part-time) will report SLOs on each student, rather than (as we’ve done in the past) simply reporting the numbers of students who fell into each category. We’ll have more information as we move forward — Shawn and I have some work to do to develop an assessment rubric, and we’ll need to provide training. (It’s not hard, but it will be different, and will likely take a little more time.)

Related, but not identical: at an eLumen workshop, I learned that the integration between Canvas and eLumen is pretty limited. There is a way to set things up so that the assessment on a single assignment will automatically transfer SLO assessment scores into eLumen. But we, as a department, have some decisions to make, some of which might make that automation unhelpful.

More as we go.

Spring and Fall schedules

Don said that most, if not all, of the adjustments to the Spring schedule (specifically, cancelling classes and bumping to make sure full-timers have their contractually required load, or close to it) had been completed. This doesn’t mean that there will be no more changes — things might not go as predicted. But he is not expecting a “second round” of changes, just unexpected adjustments.

For the Fall, I was originally asked to created a normal schedule, but then the school decided it would put together a schedule that is roughly 50% live and 50% online. I adjusted by requesting a handful of hybrid courses (more on that in a moment) and shifting a handful of others online. The changes weren’t huge.

For hybrid courses, I created enough for the people who expressed explicit interest in exploring the mode. However, since some of those people are part-time faculty, and my ability to assign classes to them is contingent on seniority and return rights, there’s a possibility that a course or two may end up on the plate of someone who said they’d do it if they have to. I will know more later.

In most cases, the requests re: literature courses were accepted as recommended. The two exceptions: ENGL 40B (our follow-up tutor course) isn’t going to be allowed to run (though Brian J and I have requested a meeting to argue that this decision be reconsidered), and ENGL 34 was moved online (inexplicably, as far as I’m concerned, since it’s a late start class and thus gives maximum time for the vaccines to have an effect, etc.)

ENGL 1E and 56 DE Addenda

We decided that ENGL 1E and 56 should not be offered online except in emergencies, and we made sure our DE addenda reflected that. However, “except in emergencies” relies on the state declaring an emergency, which means we have no flexibility to move 1E or 56 online if the campus closes. And that’s a problem for students who need (or want) those courses.

So I am going to recommend that we revise the DE Addenda for these two classes to allow “Broadcast” as a modality. This would mean we would be allowed to offer the course online, but only synchronously — that is, the instructor would teach it over Zoom, but at the same times that it was scheduled for face-to-face.

The idea is always to schedule the course face-to-face, but to have the option to shift it to broadcast if that becomes necessary. The alternative, unless the state announces that we’re in what they consider an emergency, is to cancel the course. (Or, as is the case this semester, not to offer it at all.)

I’ll run a poll/survey sometime once the semester has settled in a bit.

Class Size Discussion

Last semester, Brian Jukes and I met with Aree Metz and Kevin Ferns from Woodland to develop a request and rationale for lowering class sizes in composition courses. We sent the two relevant deans a request to schedule a meeting, but were told that the VPs and the District are working to develop a process for reviewing course sizes, and the deans would like clarity from that discussion before they meet with us.

I (and I’m sure I’m not alone on this) am not content to just sit around waiting, but that was at the very end of the last semester, and we haven’t yet discussed what our next steps will be. I’ll let everyone know when we’ve decided on our next steps.

My projects for the semester

In addition to things mentioned above, I plan to work on a couple projects this semester.

First, early in the semester, I would like us to finalize a course rotation plan for our lit courses. We now have more lit courses than we have slots for a two-year rotation, and we’ve run into a couple semesters where our rotation conflicted with Woodland’s. I’ll develop a draft and get feedback within the first few weeks of school.

Second, I hope to begin putting together a sort-of “Employee Handbook” for English, as a resource for all of us, but especially for new faculty. I’ll likely build it in an English Dept. Canvas shell, which could also serve as a place to discuss issues asynchronously and/or share resources. (We’ve wanted that for a long time, and even started dumping things in a shell, but it’s kind of disorganized.)

If you have anything that you wish you knew or had known — policies, answers to questions, etc., either now or back when you were still new at the college — let me know so I can include it in the handbook.

This is a combined and abridged version of emails I sent out explaining the what and why of these virtual meetings.

I’ve set up two weekly ConferZoom meetings for anyone who wants to drop in, say “hi,” and shoot the breeze.

And when I say “shoot the breeze,” I mean it. No agenda, nothing planned. We can talk about anything–work, of course, but also how much we miss each other, what we’re doing to stay sane, what we’re reading, how we’re feeling, etc. It’s just an opportunity for us to see each other and keep connected, however inadequately.

Here’s the information:

• Virtual Hallways: Mondays at 1:00
• Virtual Happy Hour: Fridays at 4:00

I’ve scheduled enough meetings to get us through the end of the semester. At least one may need to be rescheduled, as it’s the same day as commencement–but we’ll see what the district decides to do about the ceremony.

I didn’t list the links here because I want to prevent Zoombombing. I’ll try to send out a reminder email with a link to the Zoom on each scheduled day. If I forget, though, you can find both links in my March 24 email (Subject: “English faculty: Virtual Happy Hour (and Virtual Hallway, redux”).

Please don’t feel any obligation to join. It’s meant to be a respite, not one more thing on top of everything else. Also, don’t feel obligated to stay the whole time — drop in when you can, leave when you have to. And don’t feel obligated to be on camera–we even had one person who didn’t have a mic, and so typed in the chat window. It was still good to connect.

WLDC Announcements

• Please see the email that Shawn sent out last week, which explains why it’s a good idea to take your class in to visit the Writing and Language Development Center. (She sent it Jan 21; it was a reply to my email, so the subject line should read “Reminder: English Department meeting Tuesday.”)
• The email also includes an attached homework assignment that Shawn uses, based on assignments from Katie Oesau and Brian Jukes, which requires students to get feedback from the WLDC before turning in an essay.
• The WLDC also offers tutoring for online students. For more information about that, see the email from Kiara Koenig (date: Jan 22, Subject: “re: Online Tutoring support (for students taking online English classes only”). It includes an explanation of what’s offered, and a couple examples of language used in online courses to introduce the support services.
• Kiara sent a second email about the WLDC more generally, with a couple additional ways to promote and incorporated the WLDC into your courses (date: Jan 22, Subject: “More ways to Promote & Incorporate the WLDC).

PSLO Work Reminder

Full-time faculty: Remember that a draft Program-level SLO is due for discussion at the Feb 18 department meeting. We agreed to develop 5 SLOs, with the following faculty attached to each:

• Rhetorical choices – Cassandra, Shawn
• Critical reading – Greg
• Writing process – Jukes
• Writing as art; appreciation – Zack
• Traditions – Carrie, Kiara

If you’re a part-timer and would like to join in, please contact the person(s) attached to the SLO that interests you. (Condrey and Kyra–feel free to attach yourself to one as well.)

Summer schedule update

Since the meeting, I’ve moved on to contacting part-timers who have return rights. It’s still in process–it’s a short list of classes, but it’s still a bit of a jigsaw. I’ll be out of town for the next couple of days, but I hope to finish and turn it in early next week.

Curriculum updates

• ENGL 1E (the replacement for the co-req 1A + 10) is being offered for Fall 2020. There are still a few questions to clear up around general education and transfer. More to follow on that.
• ENGL 1B has been launched. (For those who don’t remember: we chose to keep the Course Outline of Record the same, and to change the number of units to 4. For more information on that, search in your email for a message from me (Date: 11/22/19; Subject: “English faculty: important ENGL 1B survey, redux). Obviously, the survey is no longer active, but the information about why we had to make a decision is there.
• As far as I can tell, only two courses have yet to be launched, in our process of updating curriculum every 5 (?) years. Condrey is working on them.
• Carrie and I will meet to talk through the issues around whether or not we should reconsider our local English AA degree. On the one hand, it’s very close to the AA-T now (with the 1B change), so we’ll probably need to justify it. On the other hand, some of the options we wanted to offer our students (e.g., different “paths” toward publication, literature, or composition) may be precluded by the AA-T degree. We’ll figure out the situation and bring a clear explanation to the department.
• A moratorium [I just learned that I don’t know how to spell that word…] on curriculum begins March 2, which is why we’re working to get as much of this done quickly. We’ll be able to look at, but not launch or revise, anything in curriculum through at least the rest of the semester, and probably the summer. Training on the new system should happen during convocation week in fall. (Fingers crossed… the last three-month moratorium took something like a year and a half….)

Professional development

This semester, no one is taking on an official position of coordinating the same type of Teaching Community that we had last semester. Part of it is time (stipends don’t generate time); part of it is the complexity of finding a time when a maximal number of folk can attend. So, instead, we’re exploring two things:

• Shawn is going to run a book club, reading Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Shawn will be in touch with more information–the extent to which it will be face-to-face or online, etc. We’re also going to try to use funds we have in a Foundation account to pay for the book for interested part-time faculty. Again, watch for a communique from Shawn.
• Kiara may organize a “Partnership Plus” program, which will pair faculty together for small study-group partnerships (two? three?). These will be flexible, but there will be requirements (e.g., an inquiry topic, a report in a larger group setting toward the end of the semester) so that we can offer stipends to part-time faculty.

Note that I may have misconstrued some details on these. Please don’t hold Shawn or Kiara to anything I’ve written here; I’m just offering my best recollection of the discussion. They’re in charge of the details.

SLO Comments

The last question of the SLO reporting survey asks for comments or suggestions. I collected those comments on this document, in case there’s anything we want to discuss.

[Update: I forgot this on first draft] We determined (last semester) that students who do not participate in the assessment should not be included in the SLO results. I will work to make sure this is made clear for the next SLO reporting survey.

Future agenda items

I created a board where I’ll collect and organize upcoming agenda items. Feel free to drop in and take a look and, if you notice anything missing, or have something you’d like to add, let me know. I’ll try to keep it updated.

You may, of course, click on that link. But if you’re not on this page, I made a reasonably memorable bitly link that you can use: bit.ly/yce-agenda

(yce = Yuba College English, in case you wondered…)

College Information Day

As we’ve done in the past, the English Dept. has volunteered to set up a table on College Information Day. The event is September 19, from 10:00-1:00. We need two things:

• Volunteers for the table. Please let me know (gkemble@yccd.edu) what times you can be there. (In the past, people have signed up for at least an hour at a time.)
• Stuff to show off. In the past, we’ve displayed textbooks and anthologies, flyers about the English program in general, flyers about specific programs (e.g., Flumes, the student publication). Students especially like to see work that our instructors have published, so please drop off a copy of any work you’ve had published.

Scheduling for Spring 2020

The process:

• I’ve sent out the Part-Time Staffing Survey for Spring 2020. If you are a part-timer, look for the email with the link to the survey. (If you did not get the email, you can use the link above–but please also let me know, so we can hunt down why you didn’t get the email.)
• At the same time, I’m finalizing a couple of minor issues with Walter.
• Then we’ll reserve classes for the cohorts (Puente, First-Year Experience)
• Then, full-timers will sign up in order of seniority. We’ll use One Drive for this.
• Then I’ll work on the jigsaw puzzle of scheduling part-timers. That earlier-mentioned email explains more about how that works. (Again, if you didn’t get that email, let me know.)

We also discussed the possible need to increase the number of ENGL 1B and/or 1C courses, given the increased number of ENGL 1A courses. We’re flying blind, but David Perez (the counselor assigned to our dept.) suggested we poll our students later in the semester to see how many of them plan to sign up for 1B or 1C. I’ve made a note to myself to figure out how to coordinate this.

Curriculum Update Work

I sent out a document outlining some work that we need to do with our curriculum and degrees. You can refer to that for details. There are some minor additions to it, but the most significant info involves assigning the work to update the curriculum. (If your name is not on here, but you want it to be, please contact the people whose names are there; I’m sure they’d appreciate the help.)

• 1B and 1C – Cassandra and Kyra
• 30A and B – Condrey (he has asked for someone to join him)
• 31A and B – Kiara
• 34 – Condrey (it’s pretty much done)
• 36 – Condrey and Zack (also pretty much done?)
• 40A and B – Kiara and Shawn
• 46A and B – Jukes and Carrie

As was noted in the meeting, our curriculum is in pretty good shape. We don’t expecting that revisions will need to be extensive. We just need to be sure that the curriculum is clean — that textbooks are up-to-date, all fields are filled in, that courses aligned with C-ID are still aligned, etc.

That’s it for now

We ran out of time before we got to the Program Review information, but I don’t expect to have some of the data we asked for until the next meeting anyway.

Speaking of the next meeting: please mark your calendar for September 17.

Here’s an email I sent out July 24, 2019. The title of the post is the subject line of the email. And here are the three attachments:

• ENGL 1A Course Outline of Record
• Composition SLOs (Fall 2019)
• SLO Results (Spring 2019) [Replaced with SLOs from Fall and Spring 2019]

Hi all,

The Fall semester is (too) fast approaching, so I thought I’d send out an email with some of the more important things that all y’all should know. There’s a lot here, but I’ve tried to keep it brief. Please read the whole email, and mark your calendars as appropriate.

New English 1A course description

Many of you may remember that we recently revised the Course Outline of Record (COR) for English 1A. If you are teaching 1A this Fall, please make sure that your syllabus uses the new course description, as that’s what will appear in the new college catalog.Here’s the new course description: 

Course Description

An introductory course offering instruction in expository and argumentative writing, appropriate and effective use of language, close reading, cogent thinking, research strategies, information literacy, and documentation. Focus on the recursivity of writing processes and integrating reading, writing, and speaking skills. Students will write a minimum of 6000 words.

I’ve also attached a PDF of the COR to this email [Update: see link above], as the old COR is still the one listed as “Active” in META (I expect that will change as the semester begins….). [UPDATE: The new course is now listed as Active]

SLOs to be assessed for Fall 2019

At the end of last semester, we selected which SLOs we would be assessing for the Fall for each of the composition courses. For ENGL 1A and 56, we chose to assess a different SLO from last year. For ENGL 1B and 1C, we’ll be assessing the same SLO we did last year.

I’ve attached a PDF of the SLOs for each course [Update: see link above]; the bold-and-underlined SLOs are the ones we chose for this semester. Note that the format for this list looks a lot like earlier versions, so be sure you use this one. (I added the dates this time, so that should help.)

Spring 2019 SLO results

I’ve attached a PDF of the results of the SLO assessments from Spring [Update: see link above] . Early in the semester–possibly during our pre-semester SLO meeting or, more likely, during one of our first department meetings–we’ll want to have a discussion about what we can learn from these results.

Of course, they don’t mean a lot on their own, but I’m not sure what all we’d like to see to put them in context. So: please let me know what information you would like me to gather to help us make meaning of these results.  I have a couple ideas, but  your insights on that would help a lot.

Pre-semester SLO meeting

When we stopped holistic scoring, we agreed to meet before and after the semester to discuss SLOs. This semester, our convocation week activities include campus-wide work on outcomes, though I believe we’ll be focusing our attention on program outcomes. Since that’s a different focus than course SLOs, we’ll still need to meet as a department to talk about SLOs and assessments.

Please join us Friday, August 16, from 12:00 – 2:00 pm, in Room 1171 (the journalism lab) for that discussion.

Note that this is a paid meeting for part-time faculty.

Readers Apprenticeship and AB 705 Professional Development

As announced last May, we’ll be offering a professional development series, starting in the fall, to support us as we adjust to the fallout of AB 705. (Here’s a link to the email that announced the series, with the schedule and an explanation of compensation for part-time faculty. (You’ll just need to ignore the first item, “Face to face meeting 1,” which happened in May.)

Next up in that series is a two-day Readers Apprenticeship workshop on August 8 and 9. We’re offering up to 10 stipends ($900) for part-time faculty to attend the workshop, and I believe there are still stipends available. (The stipends will require attendance and a “making it real” assignment.) Here’s a link to the email that announced the workshop, which includes a link to short (2.5 minute) video explaining RA, as well as links to the forms for registering and for applying for the stipend.

Department Meetings

Last year, we decided to meet twice per month. Those meetings are scheduled from 12:00-12:50 on the second and third Tuesdays of each month. For now, we’ll meet in Room 1171 (the journalism lab). 

Our first meeting will be Tuesday, August 20. (I’m not counting the Convocation Week Division/Department meeting, which I believe is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 15, at 2:00.) I know that many faculty teach class at that time or aren’t on the Yuba campus on those days, but everyone who is able to attend is welcome.

Questions?

Let me know if you have any questions about any of this.

See y’all soon,

Greg Kemble

English Composition Coordinator

Here’s an email that Kristina Vannucci sent on behalf of the Staff Development Committee on May 15, announcing the RA workshop:

Hello wonderful colleagues,

Save the date for this exciting professional development opportunity!

What? Yuba College Reading Apprenticeship 2-day workshop! Check out this 2.5-minute video to find out what this interactive workshop will cover—it’s about a lot more than reading.

Why? Participate in professional development that can have a transformative impact on teaching and learning.Deep, research-based professional learning can help carve the path towards equity and social justice.

When and where? August 8^th and 9^th from 8:30-4:30 in the Yuba College Library on the Marysville Campus

Who should attend? Faculty and instructional staff from all disciplines are encourage to attend—administrators are also welcome to participate!

Cost? Free for all Yuba College faculty, instructional staff, and tutors

Can I get paid for attending? Maybe!

• FLEX: Faculty can use the hours for FLEX, as long as you do not receive a stipend as outlined below.
• Stipends for part-time faculty: There are a limited amount (10) of stipends for part-time faculty who meet attendance and participation requirements. Priority will be given to Math, ESL, and English instructors who will be teaching in the fall (due to AB 705 mandated placement changes). If you would like to apply for a stipend, please use this form.

How do I register? Space is limited—so sign up as soon as possible by filling out this form.

Questions? Contact Kristina Vannucci or Shawn Frederking for more information

kvannucci@yccd.edu

sfrederk@yccd.edu

On Behalf of Staff Development, 

Kristina Vannucci