The meeting came to order 11:39 a.m. with Profs.  Stasz, Olson,  Munoz, Dean Susan Ryan and Directors Cathy Bellomo and Susan Sloan in attendance.

AGENDA: Continued discussion of a Learning Center for Wells College

Bird Stasz began the meeting with a oral report on the learning centers for Cayuga Community College (CCC) and Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS).  The report provided details on the services, organization, and cost of each learning center.

Summary of  the organization, cost, services of each center:
CCC: Managed by  1) a director of  the learning center (salary of $53,000), plus  2)a director of learning disabilities, plus 3) additional secretarial support.

HWS: Managed by  1) a director of the learning  center (a faculty member), and 2) a director of Learning Disabilities. In addition, HWS has a Writing Center (separate and directed by a full professor).

In addition, there was some general discussion of the possible costs of  such programs.

General Discussion:
Susan Ryan suggested that  Wells College is not large enough for separation into separate centers and that Wells College services should be centralized.

Bird affirmed that the CCC and HWS centers are open full time and provide such services as tutoring and test taking. In addition, both centers depend heavily on student help.

Cathy Bellomo raised the issue of supervision for these services, and Bird stated that supervision is all from the top at CCC and HWS. In addition, Bird noted that HWS has a director with lots of ESL experience.

Victoria Munoz asserted that getting full expertise for this new program is important.

Susan  voiced a concern for the needs of international students, and Cathy suggested that the proposed Wells College learning center probably needs to be headed by a combined, multi-duty position.

At this point, there was a general discussion of the pros and cons of combining international student concerns with learning disability issues. There was some question about the  ìbreakdownî in terms of usage for international students versus learning disability students at WHS. There was a general consensus that we need to accurately assess the specific needs of  Wells College students.
 

Previous AFA report:
Victoria noted that the assessment of diversity and learning disabilities has been done or is currently being done at Wells College, and Victoria then read the report and gave some assessment of  progress.

In terms of  fulfillment of the recommendations of the report, it was noted:

1) a budget is in place
2) the international student reception happened
3) a full ESL offering for the full year is in place
4) extra staffing in place
5) the presidentís diversity committee has been formed
 

Goals to be met include:

Web site still to be completed
Center needs to be created

The meeting then included some assessment of  the recruitment of international students in relation to Wells Collegeís interest in increasing diversity. The general consensus was that the diversity goals are being dealt with systematically and successfully, though with more limited success in the recruitment of Native American students.

However, the general assessment was that disability issues are not being dealt with successfully.
 In addition, there was agreement that diversity and disability issues are connected and perhaps should be housed in the same location.

PROPOSAL:  Recommendation for a committee -- consisting of faculty, staff, and students -- to plan a learning center. In addition, there was a call for an open meeting for a presentation of materials to the Wells College community. There was then the suggestion that it would be wise to first have a general call for email responses  (sent to Bird) from folk with ideas and suggestions about the proposed learning center.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 12:30.

Respectfully submitted,

E. Olson