Jan. 17—The Odessa College Board of Trustees heard about recommended personnel and grading policy changes during its workshop Tuesday.
Vice President of Administrative Services Ken Zartner said there were three different policies for modification and two different policies modified on behalf of the college and its business operations.
One policy is meant to spell out the election schedule so there will be specific terms and election dates, as mandated by the state. Trustee terms are up every six years, Zartner said.
The next policy specifies the board's designee to may waive provisions addressing alcohol in certain circumstances at events off campus.
The policy also covers alcohol and controlled substances on college property or in college vehicles, so even if you're on college business out of state, the policy applies, Zartner said.
They also heard about alcohol and drug policies related to student conduct.
"The next one is same thing with alcohol, but it's for our community. Revisions to clarify rules related to using, possessing, controlling or manufacture in terms of distribution, selling, or being under the influence of alcohol that apply to visitors," Zartner said.
Along with state requirements and guidance from the Texas Association of School Boards, OC also updates its policies as its operations change.
They also want to add language to their student grievance policy to give it more flexibility.
"When a student files an official grievance or complaint, we didn't feel that we were clear enough on who was the responsible person to receive that complaint and then who was the next person to review that complaint. We don't have thousands of complaints by any means, but there are thousands of different situations that can occur so it's hard to build a policy to make sense for every one of those things. We wanted to take out some language that we don't use anymore, such as academic counselor or chairperson or all of those different things, and give the discretion to the person who is receiving the complaint to validate what those next levels would be," Zartner said.
The updated policy would be for complaints to go to Vice President for Student Services Kim McKay, for example, and she would delegate that to the person who could best handle it.
This affects level I and II grievances, but Zartner said level III, which goes to the president, and four, which goes to the board, remain the same.
Zartner said another policy on grading had not been updated since 1998.
The new rules would take effect immediately, McKay said.
"This policy does address academic achievement, grading and credit. One of the primary things that we use this for is to issue grades that align with the grades that students, or other institutions, or employers may see on a student's transcript. We had to update the grades because we had implemented a few new grades during the pandemic so that we weren't penalizing students for withdraws, also acknowledging that they may have needed an institutional pause during the pandemic process. That is now on this particular policy. It was also updated to reflect the new honors program so that a receiving institution, or an employer, would know that the courses a student took were honors courses at Odessa College," McKay said.
They also made some changes in language.
"This policy heavily used the word scholastic. We've changed all of that to academic and then we have taken a new approach in our academic probation and academic suspension. These were very punitive approaches that the college used, similar to the ones that we were familiar with in our undergrad experiences, but the college has taken a restorative approach to students who may not be performing well academically. We have a success coach that's dedicated to students who fall below 2.0; develop an academic achievement plan to get them back on track. And as you all know, we now are leveraging our Koonce dollars to actually provide scholarships to students who may need a second chance academically. ... It also addresses attendance in traditional classes and what the expectations are, not only for students, but also for employees," McKay said.
"We need employees to take what we call first-week attendance. By law, we're mandated to take that as part of our financial aid obligations. That has been updated to reflect that mandate ... and then (it) also talks some about records for our students and where they're kept. Finally, this is a practice that, unfortunately, we have to use more often than we'd like. When we're informed of a student who has passed away, we have a process to close and lock their records. This process needed to be updated to ensure that we added our digital and electronic communication so that the students' family was no longer receiving updates or notifications from Odessa College digitally, which could be text, email, and other ways," she added.
Trustee Trudy Lewis asked if this would make OC's policy consistent with other community colleges throughout the state.
McKay said that wasn't necessarily it.
"We've taken a different approach to students who may be falling behind academically. It's one of Dr. Williams' goals to remove the F grade from our vernacular and from our grading transcript and this is one step for us to give students who may have struggled in the beginning a second chance, academically. Often when students fall below 2.0, financial aid and other funding is no longer available to them. And they have to sit out a semester if they are placed in academic suspension and/or probation, so what this does is allow the student to continue with the support that they need to be successful. We know if they leave they're likely to never come back. We also know if they leave here with debt, they probably will never come back," McKay said.
She added that OC still does have an F grade.
"That's what brings the GPA to below 2.0," McKay said.
Nationally, McKay said this kind of move is supported.
"I think Dr. Williams can tell you in some of his national work, people really support this initiative. They aren't quite sure how to go about it, so I think this is a good framework to change how we look at students who may be coming to us and have a poor academic experience, but still have the options and still have the desire to continue to try again," she added.
President Gregory Williams said OC is a leader in this work not only in Texas, but nationally.
"We're trying to be smart about it," Williams said.
"As Kim said, these are baby steps that we're taking. We don't want to be too radical about it, but just to try to ease the burden and trying to ease the shame of students as much as we can. Once you reach the requirements, we celebrate that, but until you do, you're still becoming and we want to help you make your burden as light as possible," Williams said.
McKay said she would think the faculty is more grateful for the changes than the practice that was in place before.
"This practice allows us to let the faculty know, notify the faculty that this is a student on academic probation and they're in a case management program. These are the expectations we have of the student and of you, whereas before, unless you were a faculty that went out and looked at GPA and (cumulative) GPA you may not have known that student was struggling," McKay said.
Williams said he thinks it eases the faculty's burden.
"I think it allows them to be even more authentic when they know that simply because I give this grade it doesn't mean that I'm doing permanent harm. I think they can be more honest. I think they can be more authentic knowing that there are resources available to help," he added.
Board Chair Gary Johnson said they want everyone who attends OC to be successful. It's not like if someone flunks out that's it for them.
"We're going to do everything we can to make sure that they complete and they're successful," Johnson said.
