DATE:



Los Angeles Mission College

Department of Life Sciences

Meeting: Mike Reynolds, Par Mohammadian, Stephen Brown, Belinda Johnson-Adkins, Oswaldo Larios, Diane Livio, Angela Echeverri

Friday, March 11, 2016 @ 11:30am (CMS 104)

Old Business

1. Progress: scheduling/hiring for Dual Enrollment with BioTech Sylmar HS / San Fernando HS (Par): A teacher has been lined up to teach 1 class at both schools; the students will start in 10th grade taking one class at a time from our program, so that they will complete the certificate at the end of high school.

2. Progress: hiring for CNA/HHA/HOC (Par): Still hiring for CNA, filed to offer the class in summer; consortium funds run out March 2017, but Par is finding other funding sources; there are some funds available for Biotech certificate that we can use soon

3. Update: PLO revisions – General Studies & Liberal Arts in Natural Sciences (Par & Steve): no progress, Madelleine Hernandez recommends archiving the degrees, but some students may still be enrolling to transfer to teaching programs, etc.; Stevewill take another look today at the revisions to get them submitted by the end of April.

4. Progress: Contract for Steris Autoclaves (Steve & Pong): by the end of the Fall semester, we will need to start the new contract to handle the extended time it takes to complete.

5. Progress: Web-based APA workshops offered by the library (Par & Steve): Sheila McDowell and Rafael Rodriguez came to the lab and took video that will be posted; Steve will send announcement once that is up.

6. Update: Response to parking situation at CMS due to non-STEM courses (Mike & Par): no change, it cannot be resolved at this time; Par received no response from WEC committee

7. Progress: Rearranging Bio 6 and Bio 7 curricula; Bio 6 as a prerequisite for Bio 7. (Steve, Diane): we met with some faculty at the District Discipline Day, who seemed interested in rearranging the curricula and addressing the issue of students taking the courses at different schools and out of order; the Pierce faculty that teach Bio 6 and Bio 7 expressed interest in meeting with us and hopefully Valley faculty to coordinate curricula changes. However there are state’s guidelines set on c- that only Valley is following, that we are not sure how to implement, but we need to follow up on it. There was talk of the district Bio committee meeting a second time this year in the Fall to talk about this issue.

8. Update: Certificates in Life Sciences (Steve & Par): this will be resolved within the next 6 months as they work out funding with Biotech program.

9. Update: Nadine’s garden club LAMC Green Warriors; Nadine to contact Leslie Milke (Nadine): Nadine should contact Leslie Milke to inform her about the club. Nadine needs a faculty advisor for the club.

10. Progress: Offering Biology 40 vs Biology 110 – development of BIO110 COR (Steve, Mike): Steve is working to update Bio40 because the text is outdated, he is going to send out the Bio40 COR today. Steve will look at c- for fixing Bio110 COR. Steve met with the Bio110 instructor at Pierce and discussed potentially offering the course on alternate semesters as Pierce. Oswaldo suggests letting high school students that complete AP Bio and AP Chem could use that as the prereq for taking Bio40. We need to investigate the AP equivalency for Bio courses (it currently is listed for Bio3, but it should be Bio6). Par noted the catalog states: “AP BIO3 and AP Chemistry equ to Chem 65; CSUN gives credit to college level courses”; Mike should investigate this.

11. Update: Life Science program review, overall goals of the department, including expanding Allied Health programs (All): Steve suggests to update the program review with the environmental science connection. The hiring committee still haven’t confirmed whether or not we can hire a full-time environmental science position; it’s possible this will be pushed to next year. Later via email Diane suggested the offering of the ENV SCI course in the fall. Mike to ask VP Allen.

12. Progress: Platform for floor shaker backordered until 3/17/16; what to do with excess lab supplies (Steve & Pong): part is backordered.

13. Update: Associate of Science - Transfer degree in Biology paperwork (Steve): waiting for approval at the state level

14. Update: Department SLOs update, meetings on Fall Flex Day? (Steve): Steve will follow-up with Dr. Gandomi.

15. Progress: Meeting for BIO3 lab practical exam modifications (Diane): Diane needs to send out an email to set up a meeting 3-4 weeks before the exam. Steve will send Diane a copy of the exam to share for commentary.

16. Progress: Posting working hours on prep room door (Nadine): Nadine’s hours are written on a whiteboard in the prep room next to the Bio 3 lab door behind some materials. This is helpful, and the faculty need her to leave a note when she needs to step away for long during her working hours so we know how to find her/contact her or how long to wait. Mike will follow up with the union rep about the hours devoted to the garden.

17. Update: Invited speakers to come to LAMC in March to give talks about their research and answer students’ questions. (Steve): Steve has reserved the auditorium on Monday, March 28, 4-5pm for Dr. Chentao Lin, to present his research on plant molecular biology; all students are invited, including his previous interns from LAMC. Steve also invited Dr. Ann Hirsch to present on the same day, but he is waiting to hear back. Steve would like this to be a regular series that other faculty invite local scientists to present. Par recommends getting students in work-study to help with arrangements. Steve will contact Tara Reid to post an announcement in the Weekly Mission.

New Business:

1. Life Sciences to present new courses/programs/certificates with recommendations to counseling services (Mike, Par, & Diane): Par and Diane will meet with counseling in 2 weeks.

2. Hiring a new adjunct faculty to teach Bio 3 sections in Fall 2016 (Mike): Mike has hired a former student of Bio6&7

3. Suggested new protocol for BIO3: station set-up sheet for instructors to enforce students cleaning up and putting back all equipment (Diane): Mike recommends that the lists of materials at each student station be incorporated in the new version of the Bio 3 lab manual. Mike will contact Nadine about compiling the lists to have them ready to incorporate in the manual. Steve will contact Pong about printing list cards of supplies at each station in the Micro lab.

4. Open House for 5th Graders at Harvard Elementary (Angela): Angela thinks it would be good to have them visit CNA as well as labs in CMS. She will contact the department about setting up the plans for this tour.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On hold:

1. Postponed: Organization of the College website (Steve) – deadline by Sept 1, 2016

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next meeting: Friday, April 22, 12:30-1:30pm CMS 104

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download