Johnson County Community College
Adjunct Council Meeting
October 6, 2022
Attendees
- Stephen Dickey
- Ann Fielder
- Kim Fuller
- Tom Heapes
- Chris Holdman
- Farrell Jenab
- Rebecca Kastendick
- Jeff Oden
- Elaine Sinn
Minutes
- Topic: ABC Report—Sally
Discussion: Several topics were discussed at the ABC meeting. One thing to note was that the ABC meeting notes were shortened to only include the mention of the Adjunct Faculty Meet and Greet. However, during the ABC meeting there was a “heated” discussion about our minutes being removed from Infohub.
Action: Kim will attend theABC meeting on October 10 in Sally’s place.
- Topic: College Council Report—Kim
Discussion: Several topics were discussed at the College Council meeting. Kim reported to the CC about SynergizED 2022 and upcoming planned events, the Adjunct Council’s decrease in attendance after the compensation decision was made, and suspected cheating issues. Kaitlin Krumsick and Justin McMillan have a training option for suspected cheating.
Action: Kim will attend the next CC meeting.
- Topic: Report from Meeting with Dr. McCloud—Rebecca and Kim
Discussion: Rebecca—per Jennifer’s suggestion—shared with Dr. McCloud what the AC has accomplished and planned as a direct result of the November 2021 Adjunct Faculty Survey. Regarding posting the AC minutes on InfoHub, Dr. McCloud said that AC minutes are not directly collected for accreditation reporting purposes. Therefore, the minutes cannot be posted on InfoHub. A solution is to do what the Faculty Association does: create a JCCC blog to house the minutes and then post the link to the blog on InfoHub. That way, Adjunct Faculty and anyone else can access the minutes. Dr. McCloud emphasized that Adjunct Faculty are “contract employees” and JCCC follows the “legal definition” of “Adjunct Faculty.” The definition is partly expressed in the Adjunct Faculty job description. He also emphasized that Adjunct Faculty need to follow the chain of command when they have issues. That is, they should talk to their Department Chairs first and then their Division Deans. Dr. McCloud sees three purposes for the Adjunct Council: 1) to communicate knowledge of Adjunct Faculty issues to the CAO office, 2) to perform an advocacy function to communicate grievances and structure questions, and 3) to provide a way for Adjunct Faculty to have a seat at the ABC to disseminate information related to Adjunct Faculty.
Action: Kim and Rebecca will set up regular monthly meetings with Dr. McCloud to foster better communication.
- Topic: Adjunct Orientation—Kim
Discussion: Kim reported that several Adjunct Council have taken parts of the Adjunct Handbook to check if any information is outdated and create online modules to be housed in the Adjunct Faculty Resource Community in Canvas (https://canvas.jccc.edu/courses/38892/files/10306389?module_item_id=2632204). We decided to create a source course that we could all work on before we put the modules in the Community. Farrell suggested that we reach out to Department Chairs to direct new hires to the Adjunct Handbook and eventually the Orientation Modules. For this project, we can get paid $35/hour. Everyone needs to keep track of their hours and report them at the end of the month to Kim and Rebecca.
Action: Adjunct Council members will work on their sections. Rebecca will request a source course from Ed Tech.
- Topic: Ed Camp
Discussion: There was discussion about who would facilitate the event and when it would happen. It was brought up that we might want to spread out our events, like having Ed Camp in the spring and SynergizEd in the fall.
Action: Decisions will be made at a later date.
- Topic: Sick Bank
Discussion: There has been confusion about the sick bank. Some Adjunct Faculty have received emails about this, but it may only be for Full-Time employees.
Action: HR needs to be contacted for clarification.
- The next meeting will be November 3 from 3:30-4:30.