Northern Essex Community College Board of Trustees
Minutes of Meeting (OFFICIAL) – November 1, 2023
A meeting of the Northern Essex Community College Board of Trustees was held in room LC301 in the El Hefni Technology Center at the Lawrence Campus on November 1, 2023 at 5:00 PM.
PRESENT:
Ms. Borislow
Ms. Sanchez
Mr. Hamm
Mr. Silverio
Ms. O’Rorke (via Zoom)
Mr. Vasquez
Ms. Paley Nadel
Ms. Quiles
UNABLE TO ATTEND: Mr. Gomez, Ms. Fernandez
ALSO PRESENT: President Glenn
CALL TO ORDER: Chairwoman Borislow called the meeting to order at 5:08 PM with a roll call of attendance and a quorum present.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Chairwoman Borislow asked for a motion to approve the October 4, 2023 meeting minutes. Trustee O’Rorke noted that there was one error on the recorded attendance in the minutes. Trustee Sanchez was listed twice. The error was noted and corrected by the secretary of the board.
On a Motion presented by Trustee Silverio and seconded by Trustee Paley Nadel, by roll call vote, the Board approved the edited October 4, 2023 minutes as presented.
CORRESPONDENCE: There was none.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS:
a) Introduction of Newly Hired Employees (Verbal)
President Glenn introduced three new employees:
· Vivian Cavazzi is NECC’s new Vice President of Human Resources;
· Dr. Kirsten Kortz is not new to NECC, but she is new in her role as Executive Director of Institutional Research and Effectiveness;
· Carlos Taveras is NECC’s new fulltime Academic Counselor; and
· Patricia Tupaj is NECC’s Associate Professor of Accounting.
The board welcomed the new employees to NECC.
EDUCATION REPORT:
a) Sabbatical Report: Information Literacy-Development of Structured Learning Modules for ENG102 (ADM-3824-110123)
Dr. Paul Beaudin, Provost, introduced Professor Patricia Portanova who would be providing the education report on her recent sabbatical. Dr. Beaudin noted that Dr. Portanova has been a member of the NECC English department for ten years and holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from Bridgewater and a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from UNH. She has published two edited collections on the subject of cognition and writing and teaches composition, creative writing and technical/professional writing.
Dr. Portanova thanked Dr. Beaudin for the introduction. She noted that for years, she has taught literacy like she was taught several years ago, but those methods don’t really make sense any more. In her sabbatical, her goals were to develop updated teaching modules, provide students with tools to locate/evaluate sources as an alternative to Google search, to engage students with the Media Bias Chart and to understand the use of evidence. She wanted students to have a critical eye regarding information and to design a reflective source-based essay linking information literacy to citizenship.
Dr. Portanova ended up creating six information literacy modules: 1) Habits of Mind which included curiosity, persistence, responsibility and metacognition; 2) Info Literacy Essay where students explore information literacy habits in response to three sources; 3) Inquiry Project where students synthesize six sources from an annotated bibliography; 4) Research Logs which is a method for documenting sources; 5) Annotated Bib which includes ten citations, summaries and statement of credibility, and 6) Writing in Future where students explore writing in future career and reflect on information literacy as citizens in their field.
She piloted this course over the summer and shared student artifacts from those who took the course (reflective essays). The best way to improve society, she noted, is to value self- awareness to hopefully influence those around you. In closing, Dr. Portanova noted that the constructed modules are designed to be shareable with an intent to change Eng102 classes whereby they would produce robust conversations.
Trustee Paley Nadel asked about Dr. Portanova’ s thoughts about the use of AI? The professor noted that AI is just another tool for students to use. Plato didn’t like writing as a tool, as he believed it would interfere with our ability to memorize. So, she noted, that students have to learn the tools available to them and adapt with them. She noted that many students are resistant to AI, and we all need recognize what is truth and understand how to use AI.
In closing, Chairwoman Borislow asked if this will be required of all students at NECC? Professor Portanova said yes. Now everyone can use the structured learning modules and each individual faculty member has the ability to teach the course. Chairwoman Borislow thanked Dr. Portanova for her report.
b) All College Assembly Annual Report (ADM-3825-110223)
President Glenn reported that the All-College Assembly annual report was included in the board packet for trustees to review at their leisure.
BOARD CHAIR UPDATE:
Chairwoman Borislow noted that she had a few items to convey this month.
1) Congratulations to the NECC sport teams for their tremendous accomplishments over the fall semester. The teams continue to make NECC proud.
2) Chairwoman Borislow then provided Trustees with an update on President Glenn’s evaluation and presidential compensation request to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education and provided the chronology of events below:
a) In early February of 2023, Chair Borislow asked Commissioner Ortega to approve a 5% “Salary Retention Adjustment” for President Glenn, retroactive to July 1, 2022, something the DHE determined last year that “high performing presidents with significant tenure” are eligible for. Since the DHE guidelines for determining this eligibility based on a “five-year comprehensive evaluation” were vague, she submitted the last few years of President Glenn’s annual evaluations, each of which was forty or more pages of material and included dozens of interviews with faculty, staff, community, and business leaders.
b) When she had not heard back from the DHE by February 27, 2023, Chair Borislow sent a follow-up email, advising them that our Presidential Evaluation committee would be meeting soon, and the committee would like to know if the request had been approved or not.
c) On February 28, she received a reply indicating that the request was under consideration, and she would hear from them soon.
d) By Commencement, May 13, she noted that had still not heard anything from the DHE, and the Evaluation Committee was nearly finished with its work. She spoke with DHE representative Dena Papanikolaou at Commencement about the issue, and followed up with an email to Commissioner Ortega on May 15.
e) After two weeks, there was still no response from the DHE, so Chair Borislow asked Nate Mackinnon to raise the issue at a meeting with DHE staff. This led to a phone call from the Commissioner to Chair Borislow on May 30, nearly four months after the original request was sent. In that call, the Commissioner and legal counsel provided some additional information about what would be needed in a “comprehensive evaluation” in order for it to be considered for the 5% “Salary Retention Adjustment.”
f) Over the next couple of weeks, Chair Borislow noted that she took the feedback provided and tried to build a case for making changes to the near-final comprehensive evaluation that had been completed, but the Commissioner declined, instead indicating that Trustees should wait until this year to make the request.
g) Since the delay in communicating what was needed for the evaluation is the fault of the DHE staff, when President Glenn’s evaluation was submitted on June 30, we requested an extension of this year’s deadline so we could complete the remaining elements of the “comprehensive evaluation” we had asked about.
h) Even after June 30, it has taken a few months to get all of the necessary information in order to complete the process, but we are now prepared to do so. President Glenn is preparing a five-year “look back” at his accomplishments and a 3-5 year “look ahead” at goals for the future, and we will be administering a survey about President Glenn’s performance over the past five years to a number of campus and community members.
i) Presidential Evaluation Committee Chairwoman Sally O’Rorke and I will oversee the completion of these two tasks in November, with the anticipation of discussing them in December, then making our final recommendation about President Glenn’s five-year comprehensive evaluation at our December 6 Board meeting.
In closing, Chairwoman Borislow thanked the Presidential Evaluation Committee for their continued work on President Glenn’s comprehensive evaluation.
REPORT OF BOARD COMMITTEES:
a) Audit and Finance Sub-Committee (Verbal):
There was no report.
a) Alumni Advancement Sub-Committee (Verbal):
Vice President of Institutional Advancement Allison Dolan-Wilson noted that Trustee Fernandez was recovering at home, and reported in her absence that the college is looking forward to the upcoming impact awards. In addition, she noted that the Foundation had the highest income to date and has raised over $2 million this year.
b) Equity Imperative Sub-Committee (Verbal):
There was no report.
c) Nominating Sub-Committee (Verbal):
Committee Chairwoman Shalimar Quiles noted that a number of qualified candidates had been discussed and submitted to the Governor’s office for consideration.
REPORT OF ADMINISTRATION:
Before providing his report, President Glenn noted that a week ago, NECC’s MCCC chapter voted to go on Work-to Rule due to their frustration with the lack of approval of the final budget. In this case, he noted, labor and management are in the same place and he noted that he had also shared his frustration along the way. He reminded Trustees that the contract was settled quite some time ago, but unfortunately this time, final approval has been caught up in House and Senate negotiations along with 81 other contracts that are being held up. There are few actions that the union can take, but protesting with Work-to-Rule is one option, and the college administration is fully supportive of the MCCC member’s action. President Glenn noted that he is in weekly communication with members of the legislature, encouraging them to get this done. We are trying to get some justice for the process, and will keep Trustees informed when any news comes forth.
a) Human Resources Data Analysis/Presentation (Verbal)
President Glenn noted that it has been two years since he has shared some of this employee demographic information. Most of decline in total employees is directly related to adjunct faculty. In terms of ethnicity, as the number of employees has declined, the number of Hispanic employees has risen, albeit a very gradual increase. Dr. Glenn noted that the college does not have a numeric goal on the number of Hispanic employees, but we have better diversified the membership on our board and leadership so that we better represent the demographics of our student population.
President Glenn noted the continued challenges in the college’s data systems, but as a result of an extensive data clean up, information on all fulltime benefited employees is much more accurate than it was just a few years ago. While there are still issues at hand, the Human Resources staff continue to improve the systems and data.
In closing, President Glenn noted that NECC’s broadest goal is to serve our local and diverse communities and offered questions to consider moving forward. How should we establish goals? What categories of employees or organizational structure should be considered? Should we establish priority areas of the college? What aspects of diversity are most important to us as a college? He ended by noting that some of these questions could be reviewed by the Trustee’s Equity Imperative committee for input and consideration.
Trustee Quiles noted that the data is important as we think about our future workforce and how to best attract new employees. Trustee Paley Nadel noted that the Equity Imperative committee can certainly review, but it will also be important to engage the full board in a robust conversation.
b) UMass/Community College Advantage Scholarship (Verbal)
President Glenn noted that he had hoped to have more information on this topic by meeting time, but he is still waiting for an update and will provide Trustees with an update at a future meeting.
c) MassReConnect (Verbal)
President Glenn noted the wonderful impact that MassReconnect has had to campuses around the state. Currently, the program has brought in about 200 students and approximately $400K to NECC. President Glenn noted that he, Allison Dolan-Wilson, and Paul Beaudin are working on some very specific strategies with employers on how they can help their employees to gain degrees by utilizing the MassReconnect program. While the program has initially been overall successful, there are some continued concerns as well. Specifically, when tuition is “free”, retention rates have a drop off. Dr. Beaudin and his staff have provided access to more evening support services to help combat that issue.
Dr. Beaudin noted that NECC’s Interim Director of Admissions conducted over 40 Zoom meetings last Saturday, and she continues to reach out to potential students. In addition, our Marketing Team continues to advertise the program and the college also offers Prior Learning Assessments so students can get credits for life experience.
d) Free College (Verbal)
President Glenn noted that there is actually quite a lot of money in the state budget for planning for free college next year and it will be channeled through the Mass. Association of Community Colleges office. Several groups and organizations are involved, and they are trying to convince lawmakers to consider free college for everyone in the state, not just for community college students. There will be more discussion on this in the future.
e) 2024 Legislative Priorities (Verbal)
President Glenn noted that he included two of his recent testimonies on Student Financial Aid (FASFA) and urgent community college equity through student services (SUCCESS) program. He asked Trustees to review and feel free to reach out with any questions.
f) Save-the-Date: Annual Statewide Trustee Convening on Thursday, November 16th (Verbal)
President Glenn noted that this event has been cancelled by DHE, and we will notify Trustees when it has been rescheduled.
g) Communique (Verbal)
President Glenn noted that the monthly Communique was included in this month’s packets.
h) Haverhill Campus (Verbal)
President Glenn noted that last night’s midnight madness basketball game against Bunker Hill was a great one as the stands were filled with spectators and the Knights won 95-55.
i) Lawrence Campus (Verbal)
There was no specific update to the Lawrence Campus.
NEW BUSINESS:
a) Grants: Chairwoman Borislow noted there were two (2) grants slated for approval and totaling $891,787. They are:
1) Massachusetts Department of Higher Education: ARPA Food Security Grant – ADM-3828-110123
2) Massachusetts Department of Higher Education: Community College Career Pathways in Community –
ADM-3829-110123
On a Motion presented by Trustee Paley Nadel, and seconded by Trustee Silverio, by roll call vote, the board approved the two grants (ADM-3828-110123 and ADM-3829-110123) in the total amount of $891,787.
OTHER BUSINESS: There was none.
ADJOURNMENT: With no other business, Chairwoman Borislow adjourned the meeting at
5:58 PM.
