Raja the black cat resting under a Japanese maple.
Submitted by Scott.Bean@sea… on Sat, 10/15/2022 - 18:44

December 30, 2022

Class Info PPT

To help our office staff communicate correct information about our classes, we're asking faculty to fill in key information about their classes in our Class Info WTR 23 document.   Please find your slide and add/edit your information.  Thank you!

 

 

December 29, 2022

Wrapping Up the Quarter / Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone for a successful Fall Quarter!  Since taking on the interim position, I've been very busy managing the business of Transitional Studies, and I feel good about a number of accomplishments -- all of which could not have been done without collaboration.  In particular, I have to thank the admin team -- Teresa, Gina, Amber, Gracie, and Kim -- for all their support and willingness to go the extra mile to make sure we're serving our students.  I also want to give a special shout-out to my part-time hiring team -- Teresa R, Jill, Kris, Dee, and Teresa Y -- for all the help with application reviews and interviews.  See below for the results of that effort!  Thank you as well to the faculty coordinators -- Kris, Jill, Jane, Jon, Teresa R, and Carolyn -- for all your help bringing on new students, guiding them on their pathways, and supporting new and continuing faculty.  And of course thank you to all the faculty for the amazing work you do to help our students reach their goals, through instruction, connecting them to resources, and helping them build community.  We can be proud of the work we're doing! 

 

New Faculty and New I-BEST Programs!

I'd like to welcome our new faculty joining us next quarter.  Shawn Story and Mary Schaller will be teaching at New Holly in the evenings, Geraldine Werts will be teaching Level 1 in the mornings at the main campus, and Laura Sasaki Norton will be teaching an evening Level 4 remote class.  In addition, we're finally launching Culinary and Landscape Horticulture I-BEST classes.  Jenny Cu (not new faculty, but new to I-BEST) is going to take on Culinary, and new faculty Jennifer Tinsley will be doing Landscape Horticulture.  We're very excited for these new programs (high-five, Te-Ro!) and for our new faculty to help us with our mission!

 

Latest Winter 23 Draft Schedule

After our E-I's this month (thank you, Kris, Daphne, David, Dee, Teresa R, & Carolyn -- hope I didn't miss anyone!), we made some adjustments to the schedule, which you can see here:  Winter 23 Draft Schedule (Updated December 29)

 

Update on Amber's Position

As you all know, we very sadly had to say goodbye to our amazing office assistant Amber this month, as she landed a wonderful position with TRiO.  We are envisioning Amber's successor as a program coordinator, and we have submitted a job description to HR for their review.  These things take time, but I've let HR know that this is a priority for us.  Please say a kind word to our continuing staff, who have absorbed Amber's work with aplomb and determination!

 

Division Meetings on January 3

You should have received the invitations for the AM and PM Division Meetings on January 3.  Whether you join the morning meeting or the evening meeting, the Zoom link is the same.  The agenda is still a work in progress, but you can see the draft agenda here.  Though I can't make an official announcement (my understanding is that Sayumi will do so when she has the paperwork from HR), John has let me know that I can tell you that he'll be back for Winter Quarter, and I believe we can expect him at the meetings.

 

December 6, 2022

Important Winter Quarter Dates

January 3:  Division meetings (@ 9:00am and 6:00pm)

January 4:  First day of instruction (for ABE & ESL)

January 16:  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (no classes)

February 9:  Faculty Development Day (no classes)

February 20:  Presidents' Day (no classes)

March 16:  Assessment Day (last day of instruction)

March 22:  Last day of Winter Quarter 2023

 

Check out the Seattle Colleges Academic Calendar 2022-2023 for more details.   

 

November 30, 2022

Continuing Student Registrations (ESL)

We're trying out a new process for getting the info for continuing student registrations.  If you are teaching an ESL class, then you should have received an email from me with the instructions and the link to your shared spreadsheet.  If you didn't receive it, please let me know.  (Also let me know if there is any issue with the link/document I sent.)  The deadline for collecting the information is December 8 (Thursday) at 11:59pm.  

 

Course Evaluations

Thank you for administering your course evaluations, whether on paper or online, this week or next.  Full-time faculty and PHL faculty need to submit (to the dean) their course evaluations from students from one class one time during the academic year.  Non-PHL part-time faculty should submit their course evaluations each quarter.

 

Social Events this week

  • As you know, we're holding a gathering for our colleagues who are retiring (Jean) and moving on (Amber) tomorrow from 1:00 to 2:30 in our break room.  I hope to see many of you there!  Big thanks to Carolyn for organizing!!  
  • Happy Hour is on for Friday, thanks to Jill!  I'll also be looking forward to seeing those of you who have RSVPd!

 

What have I been up to?

  • A *lot* of I-BEST discussions for Landscape Horticulture and Culinary Arts.  Teresa R and I have been talking with candidates and stakeholders.  Still hoping for a Winter 2023 start!
  • Interviews with ESL part-time faculty pool candidates.
  • Preparing the request for a new full-time faculty position in ESL (which may have also been submitted last year, but we have a new process in place).  Thanks for the feedback I received from faculty for the questions I needed to answer.  Sayumi will update us as the requests move to District.

 

November 21, 2022

Draft Schedule Winter 2023 (Update)

We have filled in the Winter 2023 Draft Schedule with part-time assignments.  Note that this is a new link.  Some courses remain unassigned to give us flexibility after we register students next month and as we continue part-time hiring.

 

November 7, 2022

Credentials Survey

If you're reading this blog, and you're faculty, you probably received an email from me asking you to fill out a short survey so that we can update instructor credentials in WABERS+.  (If you didn't get the email, let me know.  But if you're faculty, please go ahead and do the survey.)  If you could respond to the survey by next Monday (November 14), I would greatly appreciate it.  You can access the survey here.  Thank you!

 

November 4, 2022

Course Requests for Winter 2023

(Note:  The link to the most updated schedule is in the November 21st post.) Teresa has sent out the course requests along with the draft schedule for Winter 2023 -- check your email.  We wanted to see the data from the student modality surveys and consider if any tweaks made sense (and yes, some tweaks were made!).  Adjustments to the schedule always happen as we register new and continuing students, but we hope that changes will be minimal.  Requests are due by Thursday, November 10, at 4:30.

 

Draft Schedule Winter 2023

(Note:  The link to the most updated schedule is in the November 21st post.)  As faculty, I often went back to John's blog just to find the current draft schedule, so I wanted to give the Winter 2023 Draft Schedule its own section here.  

 

ESL Modality Survey Results

Thank you to everyone who helped students get connected to our modality survey.  I've put together some tables to show what our current students are saying they want.  I'll continue to update these as more responses come in.  If you see a low number of students in the level you're teaching, I'd love it if you could remind your students to check their text messages to find the invitation to the survey.

  

What have I been up to?

Apart from putting together data from the ESL modality surveys that would be helpful (see above), I've been up to quite a lot.  Some highlights:

  • I had a report to submit this week to the state board that required quite a lot of investigating, so I want to thank everyone (especially Gina, Teresa Y, Kris, Jane, Jon, and Teresa R) who helped me with it! 
  • I also participated in Faculty Development Day on Wednesday, so it was nice to connect with many of you and meet for the first time a few faculty from Wine and Aviation.  Kudos to Zahra and Rebecca who put together a wonderful day.  And thank you, Rebecca, for helping me understand my role on the day!
  • I've been working with Teresa R, Teresa Y, Jill, Dee, and Kris to review applications to our district faculty pools for ESL and I-BEST.  We're moving on to interviews next week, so hopefully we'll be have some folks ready to take on the sections that need instructors in Winter 2023.

October 30, 2022

Canvas Inbox

For any instructors using the Canvas Inbox to communicate with students, I was alerted to the fact that the emails in Canvas are now by default the seattlecolleges.edu address.  This represents a shift made to accommodate a faculty request to limit communications with students to institutional emails at the exclusion of personal email addresses.  If you have any feedback on this topic, I'm happy to communicate it to eLearning. 

 

October 27, 2022

Stipends and Supplies

This is just a friendly notice that if you would like to seek a stipend for some work on behalf of our students or program (which we certainly appreciate!), we need the request to come in before the work is done. We consider it a best practice to lay out the scope of work in writing to achieve maximum clarity and thus to avoid disagreements later.  Similarly, if you need supplies for instruction, please send your requests to us, and we will procure the supplies for you. Teresa is very skilled at finding bargains.  It is complicated and labor-intensive to process reimbursements, so that is something we prefer to avoid. Thanks for your understanding!  

 

October 21, 2022

John's Fall 2022 Blog Post

I transferred John's post to this one.  At the bottom of this blog, you can find the information about Amber's PowerPoint, Library Collection, Assessment, Division Meeting recordings, and Emergency Contact info.

Scott's Drop-in Hour

I've set Tuesdays from 4:00 to 5:00 as my drop-in hour in my Zoom room.  Of course, you are more than welcome to schedule an appointment with me at other times, over Zoom or in person. 

Student Modality Survey 

We're working on a survey to distribute to students next week to find out their modality preferences (cross-referenced with their desired campus and time).  I'll send out more information when it's ready.  After we get the results, we'll make tweaks to the draft Winter schedule.

A Friendly Message from Admin

This is just a reminder that the schedule can change from quarter to quarter, and as you talk to students about classes for next quarter, the teacher/modality for a certain class at a certain time might not be the same in the upcoming quarter.  Changes can happen even just before the start of the quarter.  I know I've been guilty of saying, "Oh, your teacher will be ___________; she's great!"  Students may be confused if they don't hear from that teacher as the next quarter approaches.  So it's better to avoid being overly definitive with students.  Thanks!

Part-Time Faculty Hiring

I think John sent out the call for any interested faculty working on part-time hiring with him.  I don't know if anyone heeded the call, but I'll be working on part-time faculty hiring from the ESL and I-BEST applicant pool, so please let me know if you would like to work with me.

October 18, 2022

CASAS Post-Testing

As you know, we were following an SBCTC guidance which required students to have attended 45 hours before we would CASAS post-test them.  SBCTC is now requiring only 12 hours of instruction.  However, we are going to still use 45 hours as the baseline.  That said, if you feel that students have made gains but have attended between 12 and 45 hours, you may use your discretion to post-test them anyway.

October 15, 2022

Hello from your new interim dean!

I'll be covering for John while he's on leave this quarter.  For those of you who don't know me, I'm Scott Bean, traditionally full-time faculty in Seattle Colleges Institute of English (formerly known as Intensive English Program), but due to reduced numbers of international students, I've been doing other things for a while now, including teaching English language classes for Transitional Studies.  This is my third time as an interim dean.  I hope to do right by you all.  When I'm not working, I enjoy gardening, traveling, playing and watching tennis, going to shows (most recently:  Pet Shop Boys + New Order), and acceding to my cat Raja's demands.  (Above, she's requesting that I not disturb her zen under the maple tree.)

What have I been up to?

Well, the first two days I was still teaching my class, and I'm happy to report that we were able to shift my students to other classes.  Thank you to Laura and Judi at New Holly for helping me work that all out, and thank you to Teresa and Amber for guidance and registration!  In the middle of that, Curtis Bonney (TS Dean at North) asked me if I would be attending CBS.  I had to ask, "What's CBS?"  I learned that it's the Council for Basic Skills, the state board consortium for transitional studies programs across the state.  And then I learned that the Fall Quarter meeting was being held at South, and I should probably attend and welcome everyone!  So that's what I was doing on Thursday and Friday.  More below.  I also attended the Canvas New Quizzes seminar with eLearning on Friday.  Other than that, I was meeting with Amber, Teresa, and Gina, and responding to a few* emails.

*understatement

What did I learn at CBS? 

Well, the first thing I learned is that I actually know some stuff.  There was quite a lot of discussion about CASAS and intakes, the $25 fee and waivers, getting students onto ctcLink (we all hate the security questions) -- and I could contribute to these conversations.  I also learned that despite the fact that "Basic" is in the name of the council, not all programs have "Basic" in their departmental names.  I learned that there are a lot of acronyms.  And I learned that I have a 14-page Federal Report due at the beginning of November.  I'll be trying to figure that out!  It was a good event, and I was happy to see some folks who I know from the Intensive English world.

What's coming up? 

I have a lot of meetings scheduled for next week (i.e., Week 4) to help orient me to the people, processes, and programs of BTS, Career Link, and the college.  Given our staffing shortage this quarter, I'd like to make part-time hiring an early priority (following the guidance in the new CBA).  And we'll be getting to work on the Winter Quarter schedule.

How can you find me?

I plan to match Amber's in-person hours, which is to say 8:30am to 4:30pm Monday to Thursday.  I'll use John's office for in-person meetings, but his computer was painfully slow, so I'll be Zooming and computing at my own cubicle (next to Gina's) for the time being.  I'll set up a drop-in hour on Zoom soon -- when I start to understand my routine a little better.  But feel free to schedule an appointment if you would like to meet with me.

Updated fall schedule

Click here (opens in a new tab) to view the latest fall schedule. 

Amber's class information PowerPoint

Click here (opens in a new tab) to provide Amber and the front desk team with the days, times, and log-in information for your fall 2022 Zoom classes. Again, this information is critical, as the front desk receives lot of calls and emails about how to access your classes. 

Email Greta to help with the library collection

Thanks to Greta, Charlotte, Maggie, and Patricia for joining our BTS division meeting this morning. As a reminder, the library is looking to work with a small group of English language faculty to update and possibly refresh our ELL collection. If you're interested in helping out, please email Greta. If this effort needs support in terms of a stipend, I'll ask the faculty librarians and BTS faculty to put together a proposal that I can consider for funding. 

Assessment 

Thanks to everyone for participating in our discussion of assessment in today's meeting. I wanted to share a link to the August 16 accreditation update from Greg Dempsey. You can access the email here (opens in a new tab). 

To affirm, our accreditation remains in good standing and the college managed to fulfill three of the four recommendations from earlier accreditation visits. We are now redoubling our efforts to meet the expectations of the four recommendation, which focused on developing and using effective assessment practices to plan and improve our instruction. That's where you get involved!

We'll revisit this topic in our winter 2023 meeting where you'll have a chance to complete the faculty assessment survey based on work you did in one of your fall 2022 classes. We'll walk through the process in the meeting with the expectation that we can make this something you do every quarter.

Recordings of the division meeting

The division meeting was recorded in two parts. Click here (opens in a new tab) for the first. Click here (opens in a new tab) for the second. 

BTS emergency contact info

In addition to what the college has on hand, we have always kept a list of emergency contacts in our division. This allows us to follow up more quickly in cases where the dean (me) might not be available, as I'm the only one in our division who has access to your contact info in the college's ctcLink system. We'd welcome it if you were willing to provide your emergency contact info for the team to use in cases when I'm not available. 

Click here (downloads) to access the form. We'd like the form for everyone, even if you're a long-time BTSer whose info hasn't changed. You may need to set your browser setting to allow this form to download to your computer.