January 14, 2025

Attendance, Voting Members:

Mahder Aklilu, Sam Bliss, Jayme Brown, Sushini Chand, Adam Contreras, Alicia De Toro, Nazy Galoyan, Lydia Hearn, Michelle Hernandez, Zachary Ho, Adrienne Hypolite, Simon Kang’a, Andre Meggerson, Eric Mendoza, Rob Mieso, Matsuko Nakamatsu, Mallory Newell, Van Nguyen, Elvin Ramos, Aditya Sharma, Daniel Solomon, Tim Shively, Martin Varela, Erik Woodbury

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Welcome and Introductions

Erik Woodbury welcomed everyone to the first RAPP meeting for 2025.

Erik recognized the new and returning members. Alicia De Toro (faculty), Elvin Ramos (APASA), Jayme Brown (Classified Professionals), Matusko Nakamatsu (Students), and Mahder Aklilu (Students).

President Omar Torres wished everybody, those attending in the room and online, a happy new year. The president thanked the committee for the important work they will be doing over the next three weeks on behalf of the college. He looked forward to their recommendation to the January 30 College Council meeting on the instructional and non-instructional positions. He appreciated how the RAPP formulation merged the three different constituencies into one working committee. He felt optimistic over the passage of a more robust state budget and potential extra funding from the COLA increase.

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Approval of Minutes

• December 3, 2024
• November 26, 2024
• November 19, 2024
• November 12, 2024

There were many minutes to approve because the committee has been going directly to small group work in the previous meetings.

No objections. Minutes approved.

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Review recommendations to change priority levels

In the 12/3 meeting the committee finished the prioritization of the fall and spring position requests into high, moderate, and low priority levels. These positions have been reviewed and reconciled in small groups.

The committee invited submission in writing requests for reconsideration of any of the current rankings. People were to reach out either to the tri-chairs directly or through their representatives on the committee.

The tri-chairs received requests for changes to 5 positions - 3 instructional and 2 non-instructional. The requests required justification with new information that were not addressed in the 300-word summaries in the original personnel requests. 

Adrienne Hypolite, a new member of the committee and did not participate in the fall prioritization process, would like time to take the information back to her constituent group for their opinion on the positions. 

The committee has done their due diligence in determining the ranking levels. They were under a time restraint to complete their work to make their recommendation by the January 30 College Council meeting. Members should continue to get feedback from their constituents, but they may not be able to take every decision back to their constituents.

Lydia Hearn gave 2 reminders to the voting members. First, look for strong justifications for the change requests. Either something has changed, there was new information, or they missed something significant in the prioritization.

Secondly, she reminded everyone that they were representing and voting on behalf of different constituents. All these requested positions were needed but there were limited resources. Members should be respectful to each other and not take anything personally. Be gentle and understanding even in contentious discussions. These protocols were outlined under the Norms in the RAPP committee website. 

The committee moved forward to look at the requests one at a time to discuss and tried to reach consensus or vote for a decision.

Instructional Positions

Political Science – move to high from moderate

The request was based on their department needs and revised SSH Division ranking.

Approved with consensus.

Political Science, 2nd Humanities position – move to high from moderate 

This position was ranked high last fall while the previous one was ranked moderate in the spring. The division proposed to swap the rankings for these positions. There were expressed concerns over changing the ranking of this position from high to moderate. While there was appreciation for their wish to make a switch as they updated their division priorities, there was reservation regarding the precedence and how this may have an impact on their program.

Approved with reservations.

Communications – move from moderate to high

Low (24%) full-time versus part-time teaching load.

The main consideration was whether the ratio was temporarily or permanently low. The communications department had many faculty on release time which affected the full-time/part-time ratio. These faculty may return to teaching. This would be a permanent solution for a temporary need. There were also concerns over advancing too many positions into the high category.

There were 3 votes to change the ranking from moderate to high.

The general consensus was to keep the position at the current moderate level.

Non-instructional, Faculty

College Life Faculty Coordinator – move from moderate to high

There were multiple recommendations to change this ranking from moderate to high. This position is important for the student government. The coordinator serves as an advisor that works directly and indirectly with the entire student body that includes student committees and DASG.

Eric Mendoza explained that at the time of submission for this position there was confusion over the new position of Associate Dean of Student Affairs and how that position was connected to College Life. They needed more information to clarify the faculty coordinator position request.

Nazy Galoyan  pointed out this position will be needed for the implementation of a new state mandate, the Stop Campus Hazing Act by January ‘26.

The administrator constituency supported moving the position to high.

The request to move from moderate to high was approved with a slim majority.

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Employee prioritization process

In this meeting the committee completed Process #2.  Create 2 groups of only high positions for Instruction and Non-instructional/classified/administrators. 

In the next two meeting, the committee will work on 

Process #3.  Create 1st, 2nd and 3rd priority buckets with 5 positions in each bucket of instructional positions

Process #4. Create 1st priority bucket with 3 positions comprising non-instructional, classified and administrator positions

The committee’s goal will be to advance their recommendation to the January 30 College Council meeting.

Process #3.

Lydia Hearn did a straw poll on the 16 instructional positions in the high category. The voting members cast up to 8 votes for their high positions.

The preliminary straw poll result:

• Biology - 10
• Business - 14
• Chemistry (1) - 18
• Chemistry (2) - 4
• Comparative Ethnic Studies - 13
• Computer Science and Information Systems (CIS) (1) - 11
• CIS (2) - 0
• Design & Manufacturing Technology (DMT) - 15 
• Geography - 7
• Humanities - 18
• Math - 12
• Music - 14
• Political Science - 10
• Track and Field Coach - 17
• Visual Arts & Design - 6

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Post Meeting Communication

Erik Woodbury sent an email that requested voting members to confirm their votes by Friday 1/17 noon. The email also included the following list of non-instructional positions in the high category.

Non-Instructional

• Associate Dean of Learning Communities
• Custodial Supervisor
• Dual Enrollment Counselor
• Faculty Director of Student Activities
• General Counselor
• HEFAS Counselor
• MPS CounselorTransfer Counselor