Union notes from Union / Management Meeting

Present – Prince Charles Alexander, Rick Applin, Charles Cassara, Peggy Codding, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Danny Harrington, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Mike Scott, Will Silvio.  

Management – Larry Simpson, Jay Kennedy, Kari Juusela, Darla Hanley, Chris Connors, guest: Dan Newsom, Jay Barnes, and friends

1. Larry opened the meeting. Chris Connors has an update about support for learning disabled students, there was a presentation at BTOT that was very popular and will be brought to departments through the Chairs, more to be determined. 

2. On-line Course Development and Delivery. For the first time, we will be offering on-line classes for our on-campus students. Two this fall and two more in the spring. We will be surveying students to see if they want to have classes on-line. We have a few blended courses now that are very popular. Not all courses can be on-line, we are not saying that, we are just looking into the possibilities.

Jay Barnes made a presentation; there are four main points to consider when looking at a new CampusCruiser, or LMS.

a) Faculty needs
b) Colleague integration
c) Leverage BerkleeMedia
d) Cost efficiency

Moodle Rooms is a company that we are working with to develop software that suits our needs for on-campus courses and our new on-line component. A blended course is one hour in class and one hour at home. Some sections are one week on campus and one week on-line. The on-line course format is designed in conjunction with a faculty course team and instructional designers/editors. The Pulse team and the CTMI crew will be working on the courses as well.

Mike: what are we looking at for faculty involvement for time? In terms of wages, we have this covered in the contract, but how does this compare to a standard class?

Larry: some faculty may be given release time to develop courses. We are still looking at the policies. We need to start with four, then see where this will go. There is no pre-ordained design to have an on-line degree. We are going slowly and they will be treated as an on campus course. Class size is also going to be the same. We need to see how the community and students take to these on-line options, before we can come up with policies to fit these needs.

Dan Newsom made a presentation on the Pulse music method. Pulse is not a distance learning class; it cannot run without a teacher. We create materials that the teachers can use in their classrooms. We have 90 songs in the library. We do sound-a-likes to allow for freedom for use in many different ways. 

http://berkleepulse.net/

lower case 

username guest

password pulse

3. Danny made a motion to accept the minutes from the previous meeting and update the website. Rick seconded and the vote was unanimous to accept the minutes.