Chairman Birt opens up the public comments section of the meeting but notes that there will only be 20 minutes of public comments given the late hour.

Objections from the audience.

Birt says there will be opportunities for public comments later.

*Glenn Hansen — Professor of Photography. CODFA President.

Good evening, I am Glenn Hansen, Professor of Photography.

It is August 21^st, and on Monday I will walk into a classroom filled with new students who have great expectations for the next 16+ weeks. It is the most exciting day of the year and I continue to look forward to it after 32 years of teaching. My pulse will be higher and the adrenaline will be flowing. We, the students and I, are about to enter into an adventure of learning. It is the opportunity to be the catalyst that changes people’s lives that brings me to campus everyday. When I close the classroom door, it is me and my students, all the static goes away.

Those of us who have decided to be in the classroom are addicted to the rush that comes from teaching. This can only be appreciated if you have been in the classroom. No one will ever demand more of you than the students and of course yourself. At the end of the day, you know if was a good day or a bad day, no one has to tell you.

I look forward to sharing what I know with my students. For every student the treasure of knowledge will be different and that is exciting. This fall I return to classroom after a wonderful experience of spending a week with the primary developers of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. For the third time, as one of only 20 professors from across the nation, I was introduced to new software features and asked to provide direction for the software’s future development. Adobe’s plan, and mine, is to make sure my colleagues and students benefit from my experience.

Tonight, I want to make note of one of the most exciting events for the Photography department is coming to our campus beginning October 2^nd. Our 15^th annual exhibition of the work our students produced in collaboration with DuPage Easter Seals will be displayed in the MAC Lobby. On this past Monday we made the final selection of images to be displayed, it is an amazing show. This life changing project is important to our students and the families of Easter Seals, I hope you will be able to attend the opening in Oct. 2^nd opening at 6:00. You will then understand what I mean by “life changing”.

Thank you.

* Richard Jarman, Professor of Chemistry. CODFA Vice-President.

The new academic year always brings with it renewed hope and expectations for the incoming class of students. But that is next week, and today I spent some time with former students. To borrow an English phrase, I skived off inservice duties (with permission of course) to attend the final presentations of the two students that performed internships this summer at Northwestern University’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center through the Resource for Excellence Grant from the COD Foundation, which I obtained back in 2013, the first year of the program. You may have seen a feature about them from the Newsroom recently.

Do I need to emphasize that Northwestern is one of the world’s foremost scientific research institutions? These summer internships are extremely competitive, so the ability to leverage the Foundation’s funds is particularly valuable to secure opportunities for our students, where they are able to work alongside undergraduates and graduates from around the world. This grant was the more sweet because Northwestern agreed to match the COD funds, so we ended up with two for the price of one deal.

It has been my experience that research internships can have a transformative effect on a student’s career. For five years we were part of the National Science Foundation funded Undergraduate Research Collaborative that supported many students in internships during that period. In 2011 I presented three students to the COD board to mark their presentations that spring at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. I showed a slide that evening that featured many of the participants in the URC.

I had occasion to revisit that slide recently when working on a presentation on undergraduate research. With three years separation, I was able to appreciate the impact of the research experience more profoundly. A few issues ago, COD This Week ran a piece on the increasing role of community colleges in the careers of medical school students. I realized that about half the names in the article were students on that slide. While the Chemistry Division of NSF may not appreciate its funds facilitating the embryo careers of future MDs, I will take it any time.

While we are always working hard to secure more funding from the likes of NSF to support students in the STEM disciplines, the competition is fierce and the success rate low. So I am grateful to the Foundation, as I am sure are the students, for providing this opportunity. Don’t worry, I will be back for more.

Dilyss Galyott. Professor of Nursing.

Good evening. I want to let you know that the remaining 4 or 5 faculty are conceding our time and relinquishing our time so that others will have the chance to speak. We will catch you another time.

Audience applause.

*COD Student presentations. Brad Setter.  President of PRIDE Alliance at COD last year. Wants to let BoT know about the new PRIDE Alliance — started 20 years ago. Notes the changes that have happened in the last 20 years to make the work of the PRIDE Alliance better, better received.

Audience member objects to the way the speakers are categorized, and wants to make sure taxpayers have the same amount of time to speak as students and employees. Wants the chance for the public to speak.

*Haroon Atcha. Speaks of his desire for the BoT to succeed. Has some recommendations. There were lots of criticisms but little suggestions. I want to change that. Here are reasonable proposals. 1) Gradually increase the nights students cook at the Waterleaf from 2 to 4 nights a week. 2) Have Waterleaf employ one COD graduate as a line chef upon graduation. Not a single chef now is a COD student or graduate.   3) Increase entry level staffing of Waterleaf.

Criticism is a constructive force not a destructive force.  We want the best for this college. Please respond to these proposals, Board of Trustees.

* Monica Dinh. Wants to speak to third proposal. COD has plenty of students with the experience to work in fine dining. The Board can help alleviate the hostility so many students feel towards the Waterleaf because it is so inaccesible to them.

All menial positions at Waterleaf should be student employees. Waterleaf should be fully staffed by students within two years.

*Stephanie Torres. It is important for COD to offer opportunities to students. Recently SLC attended a leadership retreat in Kalamazoo. Great leadership experience.  I’d like to talk about Chaparral Days. Great event that promotes college life. Finally, a personal comment. Thanks for the attempt to make college tuition more affordable.

*Miguel Marino.  IS disappointed at the drama he is hearing.  HE wonders if the people who are creating this drama are interested in November 4th or in the students.

DISTRICT RESIDENTS

*Laura Reigle. From Lamont. In July at the BoT meeting I presented data on enrollment.  Says that a small enrollment jump of recent years is being used to justify a 550 million construction boom.  Notes that this includes more office space than classroom space.  Has a row of highly paid administrators earns 2.4 million in annual compensation.  IS this a community college dedicated to the affordable education of working class students or an employment factory for highly paid administrators? Facts: Over the last 14 years enrollment has decreased by ____.  You are now overbuilt.  34,000 students in .   COD no has 9,000 on-line students but only an enrollment of 24,000 students (on campus?).  Criticizes “expansion for expansion sake.”

*Rick Skota. Hinsdale. 61 year resident of the district. 35 years of history educator in the district. I feel sad by what I am seeing here. Democracy is wonderful but it does not exist here.  The Bot played around for 20 minutes and started late and then went into closed session.

I want to speak to the Censure resolution. Dr. Brueder’s office was called yesterday but claimed not to know who was being censured.  Today they called again.  The Communications office was called and they didn’t know.

Dr . Brueder are you sleeping or avoiding us?

Censure is a word not found in state statute. You must post this 24 hours in advance but it wasn’t.

This is being used to bully and silence.

Censure is the refuge of scoundrels.

Withdraw the resolution of censure. It is counterproductive and illegal.

You run a meeting to stifle public discussion.

*Roger Kempa.  Former alumnus — class of ’76. I care about the students and this college. What it has become sickens me. I am here because of this page that says “censure
but there is nothing else written about it. I called the President’s office, Communications Office — who is being censured?  Answer:  We don’t know. All material will be provided Thursday evening. Is the resolution available to the public. The President’s office prepares the agenda but doesn’t know what the resolution is??? It makes no sense. Will a real Board member stand up and answer: Who is being censured?

You arrogant, very aloof people!

Birt responds: Be respectful! Speak in a respectful tone!

Skota: Talks about raising tuition and now lowering it….

Birt cuts him off and says the Board will proceed with the Consent Agenda.

Member of the audience protests the move to go to recess.

Trustee Savage moves to go to recess.

Comments from audience of disagreement and dismay.

All Trustees vote to move to recess except Hamilton who votes “NO.”

BoTrustees goes into a five minute recess.

Roll Call by Secretary O’Donnell.

All present, McGuire by phone.

Meeting called to order.

*Presentations: Daniel Lloyd, Dean Liberal Arts, talks about renovations and new programs and activities at the MAC Arts Center. Presents the new Director, Diana Martinez.

*Diana Martinez: Update on what’s happening at the MAC. “Engage, Inspire and Entertain.” That is our mission. Everything we do works towards those.  We presented an average of 40 events per week.  20 Main stage shows — occupancy at 83% which is over previous years.  12 sell-outs last season. This summer average about 1500 people per week with movies and concerts for evening arts programs.

Engagement: brings new people to campus to see the facilities and get to know the college.

Good press– lots of press coverage, positive, television, radio and print.

Arts Outreach. 4 months n the West Chicago school district with children. Toured college show to 9 location.

Over 1000 COD students performed on COD stages this year.

MAC Madness event raised 400,000.

1 million dollars in new art collection donations.

New Philharmonic awarded 150,000 grant.

Brand new website is now live. Expanded programming. New marketing approach. Improved service standards.

Cleve Carney gallery — install new collections, throughout campus. self-guided downloadable walking tour.

36% increase in new patrons.

2014 increase — increase sales by 90%. Doing more shows and bigger shows.

New programs to engage students. Programming of artists more attractive to COD students. All students will get 10 tickets at a discount price.

Next season will have mainstream programming, more comedy, more “student friendly.”

Classic theater with student workshops.

More family shows.

Martinez notes she left the commercial world to come from COD at Dr. Brueder’s encouragement who told her it would be a good opportunity to do something new.

*Student Trustee Report:  New student orientation event on campus. Student Trustee asks other students to come and speak. Talks about Homecoming 2014, a celebration of the COD football team. For the first time in 20 years there will be a series of events to promote COD pride.  The event will culminate with a day of three football games, leading up to Homecoming — COD vs. Georgia Military College.

Chaparral Football team member speaks.

Notes COD is the only two year college football team in Illinois.

Several students speak about their hope to make Homecoming 2014 the start of a new tradition.

Trustee Svoboda thanks students for coming.

* President’s Report.  President Brueder says he has asked VP Jim Bente to present to the meeting. Bente notes that there are 43 pages of accomplishments available to read in the Institutional Outcomes Review. 2014.

11 institutional outcomes last year.

4 were met.

7 were exceeded.

Significant outcomes: Powerful year with respect to enrollment.

Met all requirements of the Higher Learning Commissions quality checkup visit.

Updates and secured Board approval for the Strategic. Long Range Plan.

Notes that the HLC had no follow-up required on the basis of what they observed and learned about COD at their visit.

Expanded partnering activities — high school students can now earn COD credits via the Early College initiative with West Chicago and Glenbard East high schools.

Strong financial performance and stewardship.

External validations this year. This is important to see what external institutions say about COD.

ICCB was the only large community college in Illinois to see positive enrollment growth.

PACE reported a healthy college climate.

Benchmarking Institute (NHEBI)– headcount were in the 95th percentile meaning we are a large college. But we also have a significant number of minority students in our population.

Top decile of schools in staff development and training, student and transfers.

Source of operating funds: We are ONLY in the 14th percentile funding, but the 50th percentile for tuition. In other words we get little state funding but still keep our tuition lower.

Our Most Important outcome: Students.

Results of two surveys from students on student satisfaction . Preliminary results of Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Survey results.  This year’s is the highest rating of the last three years.

Lists three questions from this survey tool, and says that students are reporting great satisfaction with their experience at COD.

*Asks for questions.

TRustee Savage asks if the benchmark study looks only at community colleges. Bente indicates yes,

7:21. Meeting called to order.

Chair Birt calls meeting to order. Trustee McGuire is attending by telephone.

Roll call.

Going into closed session under 2C11. Litigation against the public body has been filed.

Motion to move into closed session.

Unanimous vote to go into closed session.

Birt: Everybody has to leave the room.

Audience member contests the legality of the move to closed session because of a Trustee attending by phone. . Reason given is Trustee had a death in the family and so it is legal. Board meeting will continue after the closed session. Stay posted. Blogging will continue when the meeting reconvenes.

Live blogging for this meeting will begin at 7pm.

Stay tuned!

Trustee McGuire: Let’s talk about institutional climate. Are we doing another PACE survey later this month?

VP Bente: Yes, it’s part of a regularly scheduled feedback program (my language) He goes on to say that we are going to do student, faculty and classified surveys at the same time so we can correlate the finding better.

Trustee McGuire laments that the adjunct faculty are not included in the SLRP survey. ?)

VP Bente: I’m disappointed that no Liberal Arts faculty volunteered for the SLRP environmental scan but once they saw the work involved, not one would step up.

Trustee Savage: Comments about the brand rollout. The staff put a lot of work into the brand roll out.

Trustee Torres; students liked the events.

Trustee Birt: We are going into Closed Session.

Trustee Hamilton: How do you anticipate addressing the foretasted labor shortage in mill workers (machinists?)

VP Bente discusses surveys

VP Kartje: discusses the Automotive prorgam and notes that other colleges in the area have certificates that go beyond the first degree.

Hamilton: What about welding and other AA degrees, do we work with companies who contact us about training workers?

Short answer: yes.

Hamilton asks about certificate and degrees in the works that lead to employment.

VP Kartje: The state mandated process for greenlighting new degrees and certificates includes providing fact based evidence that the new programs fill needs and are not useless. She mentions how involved faculty are involved in program review, how active they are in professional development how they go conferences and bring back best practices (my term) to our classrooms.

VP Bente points out that a student who earns an AA in Auto technology has to go to SIU for a BA should be able to get a BA here.

Hamilton argues that offering BA’s will hurt our college.

VP Bente agrees, but says he doesn’t speak for Dr. Breuder.

Trustee Svoboda: AS a board we have not discussed the proposed move to a BA granting institution. DR. Breuder has stepped out of the room,

Trustee Savage: What does a BA in Automotive Tech or Fire Science look like? What are the requirements?

VP Kartje: we don’t know at this point, but we will look into it.

(Dr Breuder has come back in the room.)

VP Currier: There isn’t a good avenue for technical or vocational BAs (he did graduate level work on this subject.)

Trustee Hamiliton: We need to beware of not only mission creep but price creep. We are already the highest priced community college in the state, if we start offering higher level degrees our costs will rise. If we’re going to be looking seriously at this change we need to be prepared with more information.

Trustee Bente: We have several options including variable tution like we do in Nursing.

Trustee Svoboda: We need to have more imput into this issue and she hopes that while it’s listed as an opportunity it shouldn’t become a goal without careful discussion and thought.

Trustee McGuire: speaks in general about the postie possibilities of a 4 year college. She says that while they did not discuss this as a board prior to Dr. Breuder’s announcement they should consider the issue. We need to have consensus around the table. The Board, the administration and the faculty all need to be behind this, this should be a collaborative effort.

Trustee Birt: It sounds like this would be an appropriate way to go, but we need more information before we say no.

Trustee Bente: the BA is not a SWAT, it’s a NOC.

Bente: In relation to the high cost of our college, we have the highest salaries in the state as well. Our average faculty cost is $101,000

Trustee Svoboda raises the question of out reach to our older 502 population. Trustee Savage concurs. Both have heard from older residents who would like more offerings for their demographic. “What is in the works for older adult students?”

VP Bente: We’ve done studies, only 23 (?)% of surveyed adults said they want more offerings aimed at them. When we ask an open ended question in a survey there was not a unified response we could use. According to the numbers, adult based offerings have not been diminished they have stayed the same.

VP Dowling discusses specific adult focused recruitment strategies. We’re focusing on young adults (21-25)?Trustee Svoboda was referencing retired adults.

Trustee ODonnell points out that the size of our campus and the registration process is intimidating.

Trustee Savage: could anyone speak to the capacity for the regional campuses to have classes for older students during the middle of the day?

VP Kartje: Once the Naperville campus is back on line capacity will increase.

Chair Birt: “Do you have any openning comments, President Breuder?”

DR. Breuder: “No.”

Trustee McGuire asks about student success and what plans are in place or in process. The answer fell to VPAA Kartje who talks about QUIP 15. VP Kartje discusses the plan to make the Math component statically based rather than Calculus based because that is more useful to the majority of students.VP Kartje also discussed H.S prep in Math and the problems that this brings to our classrooms.

VP Earl Dowling discusses the Early Alert system and the improvements made to it, a video that will be shown to incoming students as part of an orientation and a special program for MAP students.

VPDowling fields more questions about the Early Alert system, its goals,