Notes - November 29, 2004
De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
November 29th, 2004
Senators and Officers present: Argyriou, Bresnan, Bryant, Chenoweth, Cole, Cordero, Dolen, Dunn, Fritz, Goodwin,
Hearn, Illowsky, Jensen Sullivan, Logvinenko, Lopez-Morgan, Mitchell, Moreno, Mosh,
Mujal, Salah, Schafer-Braun, Setziol, Sheirich, and Winters
Senators and Officers absent: Annen, Castaño, and Joplin
DASB: James Liang
Classified Senate:
Administrative Liaison:
Guests: Martha Kanter and Karl Schaffer
[NOTE: Item numbers are reflective of agenda numbers in the order they are actually taken up at the meeting.]
The meeting was called to order at 2:32, a quorum being present.
I. Approval of Agenda and Notes: The Agenda was approved as distributed. The notes of November 22nd were also approved as distributed. [Note: The statement in the November 22nd Notes "(Sullivan, Fritz, Hearn, and John Fleming have already been recruited)" turns out to have been inaccurate in that Hearn never agreed to serve.]
II. Needs and Confirmations: A question was raised and answered about the nature of the Etudes Alliance at Foothill. Dolen was confirmed for service on the Library Classified Staff Search Committee.
III. Student Success and Retention Issues: Mitchell began with a recapitulation of the current focus on this issue. He outlined the problem of enrollment decline and the fact that, whereas it is easy to drop 5% in a single year and lose that percentage of apportionment generated by enrollment, we can only grow (i.e., in this case, recapture previously lost enrollment) by the growth factor each year.
He then went on to revisit the need for both short term and long term ideas from faculty to make up for the decline and gave some examples of short term strategies. As to the longer term, he spoke in broader terms, especially about the need to retain students and get those students to persist over a number of quarters. He emphasized that, while it may be self serving to focus on these ideas in the short term, over the longer term, most of the ideas were things related to our basic purpose as an institution and as caring, ethical faculty members.
Others also spoke about classroom strategies with current students like promoting lower unit courses outside their major concentration, while still others brought up the marketability of De Anza and the idea that marketing, at least in the short term, should be "turned on" to let people know that the parking has gotten better, that there is room in classes, etc.
More specifically regarding persistence on the part of students, Mitchell and others brought up ideas promoting student to student and faculty to student community (thereby breaking down barriers between students and between students and faculty). Mitchell ended the item by suggesting that instructors return work to students or otherwise discuss work by the student during the first week or two. Mitchell also mentioned the previously suggested idea of establishing a website specifically for faculty focused on sharing best practices regarding student retention and successful persistence.
IV. District Update from Chancellor Kanter: Martha Kanter began by saying that she missed her previous connection with the De Anza campus and that, for other reasons, she wants to meet with the De Anza Academic Senate at least once a quarter. She also invites communication with the group in general.
The next topic was an update on the revision of the District Mission Statement.
Following that, Kanter shared with the group a question she has asked herself: "If I died tomorrow, what would I want to be known for?" Her answer was pedagogical excellence and diversity. She then talked about her current role in general terms to be a broad based facilitator as opposed to a micro manager.
Other topics raised by Kanter as worthy of priority on both her and the Senate's parts were public domain, accreditation, and legislative issues.
She was asked one final question about her pedagogical excellence initiative. Her response indicated that she sought private funding for most aspects of the initiative, including staff development.
V. Textbook Policy: It was MS(Illowsky/Cordero and Logvinenko) to accept the current language of the section on textbook choice as completing the discussion on textbook choice. It was MSC(Hearn/Cordero) to amend the main motion with language offered by guest Karl Schaffer: "Any decision by the Senate limiting textbook choice will apply only to the textbook in question." The main motion then carried unanimously.
Mitchell reminded the group that the desire to craft procedures for Senate action on textbook policy had been discussed earlier and that it was the sense of the Senate that this would follow agreement on the policy now under consideration.
VI. For the Good of the Order:
- A discussion of Internet plagiarism, including a specific proposal to use a service called "Turn it in", will be on the January 10th agenda.
- A request was made to invite someone or some group from the Associated Students to have a discussion about issues involving outside speakers.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:32 p.m.