Date: 11 October, 2004
To: Institutional Planning and Budget Council; Chabot College Academic Senate
From: Scott Hildreth, Co-Chair, Chabot Technology Committee
Regarding: Status Report & Call for Organizational Review of the Tech Committee
The Chabot College Tech Committee needs to be reviewed. I am going on leave in Spring, 2005, and am stepping down as co-chair of the committee We currently do not have any other faculty on the committee willing to assume that roll. There is currently no administrator serving as co-chair, nor has there been since Michael Gunter left Chabot almost one year ago.
Little has been brought before the committee in the last two years that requires any actual decision or even a formal recommendation. We meet monthly, but with no obvious, actual role in the campus to decide upon or recommend new technologies, nor to prioritize among possible options for acquisition, pilots, or implementation. Instead, our role has become little more than an information conduit between the District and campus ITS groups and the college's faculty and staff interested in computer technologies. Decisions are made about computer hardware and software, technical support, upgrades, and new technologies for divisions and programs, but not by the Technology Committee nor is the committee actively involved in the planning for these decisions. While we have worked hard on the creation of a useful technology plan, that effort is not yet complete, largely because it is not at all clear whether such a plan is truly needed. We have a skeleton for the plan, but no real institutionalization of process, especially in terms of how the technology committee might assist other campus committees and governance bodies to make collegial decisions and recommendations.
As a campus, we - the faculty, staff, and administration need to decide what is the best way to proceed with technology-related issues. And we need to decide quickly, before construction begins across the campus enabled by the Bond passage. Should we refresh the committee with a new leader and new commitments to its current charter, should we review the committee's role in light of how things are working already, and amend the charter, or should we retire the committee and institutionalize its work via other means?
It has been extremely enjoyable to work with the members of the tech team over the last three years; they are a dedicated and sincere group of faculty, staff, and administrators committed to making a positive difference at Chabot. The problems with the committee are not due to its members, but rather with its role within the campus governance structure, and with a lack of effective faculty and administrative leadership. I look forward to questions and comments from members of the IPBC and Academic Senate about the committee and this report, and appreciate your time and attention on the issues discussed within.
The current committee structure was created when Michael Gunter assumed the position of Dean of Technology for the College, and has labored for more than 3 years with two major tasks in mind:
The committee was organized with two co-chairs to tackle these two tasks; a faculty member was chosen as co-chair to spearhead the efforts on the first task, and the Dean was charged with leading the effort on the tech plan. Membership on the committee has always included faculty and staff as well as administration from all interested segments of the campus population, and Chabot's ITS team as well as District ITS administration have also been consistent participants. Agenda and minutes as well as other documents produced by the committee have been available on-line at: http://www.chabotcollege.edu/tech
The current charter defines that the committee:
Current participating membership
In search of an effective technology plan for the campus, the committee researched and identified some of the best plans from community colleges across the state and country. After studying more than twenty other plans, we borrowed features from Palomar College, Pasadena City College, Diablo Valley College, and others, and decided upon a three-tiered process. This draft addresses requirements by functional area, requirements by division or program, and requirements for success within the institutional governance structure.
One sentiment often heard from colleagues regarding the committee and its charter has been, Where is the Tech Plan? If you had a plan, then you could do something. And that may indeed be true if the plan existed, and was accepted by all governance groups, processes for decision-making regarding technology issues would be established. Without that plan, decisions are made by individuals and other groups, but without significant collaboration of faculty and staff across campus, and without the collegiality that might make such decisions more effective. If the committee was currently making technology-related decisions , it would be much easier to draft a plan that reflects both what we did, and what we needed to do even better. Because we are not currently, and actively, involved with these decisions, the creation of the plan has been more of a theoretical exercise.
Calls for another faculty member willing to serve as a co-chair have not been answered. We need new leadership here; I have been ineffective as the sole chair of the committee, and unable to do the necessary work to champion the role of the committee across campus and create a working tech plan. Without reassignment time this job is too large, especially lacking an active, consistent administrative leadership co-chair. We have called for greater faculty participation for more than one year now, we have lobbied the Division Deans to appoint additional colleagues to represent programs, and we have attempted to draft and bend arms of interested faculty and staff. But we still have very paltry faculty participation; until the committee really has an actual and not paper - role within the campus governance structure, it is doubtful faculty will want to participate.
On the administrative side, Steve Piatetsky has helped out during Spring, 2004, and contributed admirably to the progress of our tech plan skeleton. Vice President Ron Taylor has been a stalwart supporter for the committee and its charter. Norberto Ruiz has started to become involved with the issues surround our committee, and his leadership and ideas will be very welcome. If a new Dean is hired with primary responsibility for technology, I assume that this committee could become an area for ongoing attention.
As currently constituted and chartered, the Tech Committee is not fulfilling its mission for the campus and for our colleagues across the college. We need to decide whether: