The Board of Trustees approved nine faculty members for tenure and discussed the new addition of the PeopleSoft Student Education Plan system during Monday’s meeting.
Professors approved for tenure were biology professor Shelley Thai; English professor Alexa Schumacher; ESL professor Glenn Gardner; health sciences professor Jing Johnson; business and life skills professor Barbara Flynn; chemistry professors Asamik Oganesyan and Robert Gellert; library professor Susie Chin; and EOPS counselor Roxanne Rafii.
“Congratulations to all, it’s wonderful to hear such wonderful and rich backgrounds of individuals that we’re attracting at Glendale College,” said board member Anne Ransford.
The nine professors will be officially recognized as Glendale College permanent staff starting in the fall 2012 semester.
“It’s nice that all of you chose Glendale to be your permanent homes,” said board member Anita Gabrielian.
In order to be considered for tenure, new professors need to have four years of positive evaluations before being recommended to the board of trustees. The Campus Executive Committee, headed by president Dawn Lindsay, met on May 15 to review the list of candidates.
The board also gave an overview of the PeopleSoft Student Education Plan (PSEP) system, which was implemented into the MyGCC system in April.
The PSEP is a mechanism that allows counselors and students to plan a student’s classes in a more efficient and convenient manner — in other words, an electronic transcript. Currently approximately 550 PSEP’s have been created for students and are in use.
“When the counselor opens it up, they’re going to see the student’s major and educational goal upon entry to the college,” said Dean of Student Services Jewel Price.
According to Price, one of the features that the system offers is the degree audit, which allows a student to compare the courses that they’ve taken at GCC to a list of courses needed to receive different associate degrees or to fulfill Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) requirements.
“From that degree audit the counselor can select courses and add it to the student’s ed[ucational] plan,” said Price.
Currently the degree audit feature only works on IGETC requirements and associates degrees at GCC, said Price.
“You can run a degree audit against Glendale College certificates and associate degree programs, but it will not do transfer because that curriculum isn’t in there,” said Price. “It’s a massive amount of curriculum because every university has different requirements for every major.”
The new system also integrates the course catalog into the system, allowing for easy addition and enrollment of courses, said Price. A feature to provide students the ability to buy textbooks after enrolling in courses is in the works.
The system plans to take over the current method of course planning, which is done on a paper sheet with courses. Student trustee Suzanne Sargsyan praised the new method, citing her personal experience with the pen-and-paper system as stressful.
“Before coming a student at GCC, the first thing I heard was ‘make sure you go and see a counselor, make a plan and stick to that plan so that you can get your bachelor’s within four years,” said Sargsyan. “Throughout the semesters I would go back and I got one every single time. So I have a pile of those. But it would have been so much more efficient if I had it online.”
According to Price, the PSEP is accessible to the student assigned to it anytime.
“I’m so glad that we’re doing this,” said Sargsyan. “It’s so important for the students to have something so accessible to them.”
In addition, the board also approved seven new courses at GCC, including ARMEN 117 (Armenian for Armenian Speakers III), ENTRE 101 and 102 (Concepts of Entrepreneurship; The Entrepreneurial Mindset), ITECH 201, 202 and 203 (California Quality [CAQ] Electrical Module; CAQ System Diagnostics and System Performance Module; CAQ AC/HP Regrigeration and Air Distribution Module); and PSYCH 203 (Physiological Psychology Lab).
The courses will be taught by Armenian language professor Arevik Mikaelian, Aviation Division Chair Scott Rubke, and psychology professor Daphne Dionisio.
The next board of trustees meeting will take place at 8:30 a.m. on June 12 in Kreider Hall.
