Solano College Faculty Association

TODAY! Join us

DESSERT HAPPY HOUR
MAIN EVENT:
Tuesday September 22nd 2:00-4:00pm
Poolside – Main Campus
Desserts from Famous Creations Bakery in Fairfield!

CENTER EVENTS:
Vallejo: Thursday September 24th 2:00-4:00pm
Vacaville: Thursday September 24th 5:00-6:30pm Dinner Served

Colleagues,

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make yesterday's Alliance Barbeque and Rally such a success. And thanks to all of you whose schedule allowed you to come participate. It was a historic event where the three Solano College unions and students came together to celebrate Solano College and to launch the Alliance to work to solve its problems. The event was also attended by officials from CCA, the Napa-Solano Labor Council, other Labor groups, and a representative from Congressman Garamendi's office. Special thanks to those manning the grill and providing the food. We also had several administrators participate and show their support.

The event was scheduled from 11 - 1 but there was still a line at 2:30 and for the entire event the number of people could only be described as a crowd. We collected cards from students, faculty, and staff with statements about how Solano College can be improved - can move forward. We will compile the answers and publish them in the next few weeks.

In the past there has been some tension between campus groups - everyone expects this to be a turning point. I especially liked the energy that the students brought to the event. One said, "we should do this every semester." Their comments reflected that the rally had the atmosphere of a celebration (especially since there was ice cream) - and... it was.

So, best of luck giving and grading final exams. We have the best career ever.

Jim

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/news/education-news/alliance-hosts-barbecue-to-gather-ideas-for-solano-colleges-future/

Alliance hosts barbecue to gather ideas for Solano College's future FAIRFIELD — The smell of a fired-up barbecue grill in front of the cafeteria wafted though Solano Community College on Monday at lunch time as dozens of students and faculty stood in line get free ...

SCC Alliance BBQ rocked!

Remember the Monday Barbecue. We will be celebrating the formation of the Alliance between the Faculty, Classified Staff, and Students to fix the college. This will push us into the next school year.

So, if you can, please come by the public area in Front of the 1400 building to get a bite and to share a bit of fellowship with the campus community and the community.

See you there,

Jim

Jim DeKloe
President, SCFA

Getting ready to BBQ! Today 11-1 Main Campus! See you there.

Barbeque! (Yes! Free food!)

Please join us on May 11th, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., on the main campus.

Solano Community College unions (SCFA, CSEA and Local 39), along with the student association (ASSC), have formed an alliance to work together with the SCC District on issues that are a concern for our college and the community we serve. Issues already identified include--increasing enrollment and improving retention, expanding student support services that increase student success, among others.

Our Alliance is reaching out to community stakeholders: to assist us in shaping our future of our educational institution, to enable and assist us in empowering teaching and learning for quality education, and to create a cross divisional working culture to take advantage of the talents and skills of our entire community.

Please join us on May 11th, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., on the main campus, for a Barbeque to begin a dialog and discuss the issues. Everyone is invited--students, staff, faculty, district management, and the community.

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/news/education-news/solano-college-faculty-reach-tentative-agreement/

Solano College, faculty reach tentative agreement FAIRFIELD — A contract negotiation stalemate between the Solano Community College District and its faculty association broke on Wednesday when both sides came to a proposed agreement after a year o...

We have reached a Tentative Agreement

Colleagues,

After a grueling 30 hours of negotiation facilitated by a mediator appointed by the Public Employee Relations Board, the Solano College Faculty Association and the Solano Community College District have reached a Tentative Agreement. This closes out the negotiations for the 2013-2015 session.

In the follow-up, we now immediately move on to reopening negotiations on the successor Contract. The Association has sunshined Salaries and the District has sunshined Salaries, Workload, Evaluation, and Medical Benefits.

But, I present the Tentative Agreement to you here for your consideration. To go into effect, if would have to be ratified by you and be approved by the Board of Trustees.

Before I discuss the details of the TA, I want to give the highest praise possible to the leadership of negotiation chair Sandy Rotenberg. These negotiations have been a bit rocky at times, and she handled them with grace and skill. And, it was always nice to have a librarian at the helm: "hmmm... where is that document?" followed by an immediate "Here it is!" or "I've forgotten what happened" followed by an immediate "here is the record." If you could see her, and her team in action - wow.

So, the Tentative Agreement is attached. We collected the ideas of non-monetary items that you all suggested in the survey that we sent out and proposed them to the District. The District in the end accepted many or most of them, but not all. Prominently missing in the TA is the Load Banking proposal, which we pushed and pushed - but it scared the District. We are still mystified by their opposition since it seems to benefit them as well as all faculty, but they just could not accept it this round. Based on the strong support for it in the faculty survey, the new negotiation team will continue to work on it.

In terms of non-monetary changes to the contract, the TA fixes a provision in sick leave, reduces office hours for full time faculty from 5 hours to 4 hours per week (with a pilot program to have one of the four hours as an online office hour), and a move toward a compressed calendar (shorter year).

We responded to a problem that we have encountered more and more frequently about new faculty feeling lost and we got the district to agree to a mentorship program.

We were trying to fix the double class size problem, and made some progress - again, this was a compromise.

We argued for every benefit that had been suggested for adjunct faculty and got the following included: compensation for serving on the Academic Senate and Curriculum committees (we argued for additional committees but this is what we could get), additional payment for office hours (it seemed more logical to have 9 hour in an 18 week semester - no one could figure out how to make the previous 5 hours work), a provision to explicitly notify when a full time position opens (this was in response to several problems in the past), and an explicit provision that adjunct faculty members would get paid (at Flex Cal rates) for the mandatory training sessions (this had been ambiguous in the past).

There is a golden handshake for faculty members who are retiring.

At some point it looked as if there would not be anything monetary coming our way. But the District met us half-way and there is:

A bonus for adjuncts who taught this year paid in a lump sum in August.

An addition of a column for full time faculty.

And additional row on the bottom of the full time and adjunct faculty salary schedules.

So, it's some progress. We jump right into negotiations to work again.

I have to say that none of this would have been possible without your hard work. They really felt pressure. Especially effective was the show of solidarity at the last Board meeting and a special thanks to the sign ninjas whose cleverness and diligence surprised me every day.

Here is the bottom line for me. The fact that we settled this TA does not remove the fact that the college has some serious problems to work on. We, as faculty, have united with the classified staff and with students to continue to put pressure on the administration to fix these problems. I often thought that the Board was dismissing our complaints about these problems as "oh, they are just unhappy about negotiations." No, we WERE unhappy that negotiations hadn't been going well AND we were unhappy that the college wasn't being run well. With the former removed now we can focus on the latter. We are looking for a slogan: Fix the school. Something like that. Let us know if you have a suggestion.

So, here is the Tentative Agreement for your consideration. Ratification requires a formal election.

My best wishes to you, and again, thanks to the former negotiation team and good luck to the new negotiation team.

Jim

Jim DeKloe
SCFA President

The SCC Graveyard.

SCFA Redirect - Welcome Back Edition

Colleagues,

Welcome back from Spring break - I hope that you got a little rest, are renewed, and are ready to sprint to the finish line.

If you come onto the main campus today, you will notice that twelve graveyards have popped up around the campus. These graveyards have tombstones with the names of discontinued programs and other former attributes of the college like college morale.

I have to say that I was stunned by how cleverly, how powerfully, and how effectively the displays communicate.

We have the final mediation session on Wednesday to try to break the impasse.

Jim

Jim DeKloe
SCFA Redirect
www.solanofaculty.com
https://www.facebook.com/solanocollegefaculty