Yuma is the place to be come
All=ONE=GOD=f'ArrH Escondido man shares his
sprtng
vision in an unusual way
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Page 10
Feature/Page 6
The Telesco Friday, April 5, 1991
Palomar College, I 140 West Mission Road, San Marcos CA 92069-1487
~welcome
Volume 44, Number 18
Student, faculty leaders support teacher evaluations
home'
By Darren Ane Staff Writer
Belinda McCauley/Staff Plwtographer
Vendors Joanne Blazavic (left) and Roger Riso say "welcome home" to the troops returning from the Persian Gulf by showing off T -shirts they were selling in front of the Student Union before spring break. Campus honor society Alpha Gamma Sigma sponsored the sale of the T -shirts.
ADDITIONAL DEAN PROPOSED
A resolution calling for student evaluations of faculty members was approved Wednesday by the Associated Student Government. Their vote followed a similar motion by the faculty senate last month. On March 20 a joint meeting was held by the ASG and the Faculty Senate. To the best of the participants ' knowledge it was the first combined meeting of the two bodies. Because of poor turnout by the student government, a motion could not be made by the ASG to approve the resolution. In the past the evaluations and tenure of faculty members was handled by the administration. Last June state legislation called for the evaluation and tenure system to be turned over to the faculty of the colleges. Palomar College was one ofless than half of the community colleges that met the July 1 deadline to form a program. The joint senate expressed concern about how the evaluations are conducted and the need for students to remain anonymous. Currently evaluations are in questionnaire form and are completed between the 1Oth and 14th weeks in the classrooms. Not all departments currently have students evaluate their teachers. Although the students are not asked to sign their names on the
forms, faculty senators feel that is not enough to reassure the students remain anonymous. "Students feel threatened by the evaluations because they feel it can affect their grade. Even though they don't sign their names there is still the possibility that the instructor will recognize the handwriting of a certain student,'' said Pat Schwerdtfeger, faculty senator and coordinator for the evaluation and tenure program. One suggestion brought up in the meeting was to give the evaluations to a clerical crew and have the results typed up. With this plan the anonymity of the students can be secured. Senators from both the ASG and Faculty Senate agreed with the idea. According to Dr. Candi Francis, president of the Faculty Senate, in order to implement the change with the clerical crew and to further reaffirm and endorse the process of faculty evaluations, the joint committee will draft a resolution to go before the Governing Board in the near future. Francis said it is not a perfect system, but it is the most efficient possible. She believes the evaluation process is invaluable to the students and to the faculty. "The whole purpose is to help improve the faculty and make us all better teachers. In order to do this, we need to have these evaluations from the students themselves," said Francis.
Instructional reorganization on track despite reservations By Mark Hopkins Contributing Writer Despite concerns raised by members of the faculty and staff at a meeting Tuesday, a proposal to reorganize the college's instructional areas may be up for Governing Board review as soon as next Tuesday with a vote by the Board at the following meeting. The plan would add a fifth academic dean and shuffle a variety of departments into new divisions. There are currently four instructional area deans at Palomar, with the deans of community education, humanities, science & business technology, and vocational
education reporting to the interim Vice president for Instruction, Dr. Phoebe Helm. ¡ The proposal stems in part from a recommendation to hire more deans made after a recent site visit by the Western College Association, which accredits institutions such as Palomar. Accreditation means for students that courses taught meet certain academic standards and that credits earned from these classes are generally transferable to other colleges, such as the University of California or the California State Colleges. Administrators also say the new structure will help streamline
workloads and facilitate more effective planning. Money to hire the new dean will come from several sources, including "the collapsing of a director position," said Helm at Tuesday's meeting. The director in question is Cynthia Poole, who has an interim appointment at the Escondido Center. Helm confirmed at the meeting that Poole first heard of her reassignment back to the counseling department, where she was chair, through the grapevine and Helm has both privately and publicly apologized that Poole was not told officially sooner. The Telescope ran a feature on
March 15 where Poole described how she and her staff at Escondido had created "a cohesive unit that takes care of each other and (the) campus." The week the story ran, Poole was told by senior administration she would not continue as permanent director of the center. Several members of the faculty voiced criticism at the meeting regarding what they view as a flip/ flop in the administration's priorities regarding administrative staffing of the Escondido Center. Director of Extension Education, James Clayton, headed the center when it opened in Spring 1990 but was later replaced by (see SHUFFLE • page 5)
Michael Bagstad!Photography Editor
Dr. Phoebe Helm, interim vice president for instruction.