Notes - October 30th, 2006
De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
October 30th, 2006
Senators and Officers present: Bambhania, Bresnan, Capitolo, Chenoweth, Cole, Coleman, Cordero, Dolen, Gallegos, Glapion, Goodwin, Hearn, Hertler, Jensen-Sullivan, Joplin, Kang, Kessler, Khanna, Kramer, Lathers, Lazardi-Foley, Lee-Klawender, Maynard, Osborne, Raffaelli, Schaffer, Setziol, Winters, and Zill
Senators and Officers absent: Miller and Mowrey
DASB: Sam Karimzadeh, Sarah Kim, and Emin Ismayilzada
Classified Senate:
Administrative Liaison:
Guests: Rich Schroeder, Brian Murphy, Judy Miner, and Anne Paye
[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 with 1) the renumbering of item III to IIIb and the insertion of a III (Statements by President Murphy) and 2) the removal of the distributed Item IV.
The notes of the meeting of October 23rd were approved as distributed with a typographical correction
II. Needs and Confirmations: Chenoweth pointed to the needs and proposed confirmations attached to the draft notes of October 23rd.
LaQuisha Beckum was confirmed for service on the Campus Center Advisory Committee
IIIa. Statements by President Murphy: President Murphy began by following up about concerns over a lack of student involvement in strategic planning to this point. He is engaging the current student leadership and is hopeful of significant involvement. The New York Times distribution on campus is soon to return with a concentration in the L Quad and a link with La Voz. The open source/public domain initiative has a potential new boost in the form of a possible linkage with a Hewlett Packard effort. A small faculty group is sought to take a lead role.
At this point, Murphy turned to new classified and faculty positions approved by the College Counsel last Thursday. There was no approval of the much favored telephone operator position. However, a Web designer, a scheduling assistant, a Director of Assessment, an Outreach assistant, and a Physics Lab Tech were positions approved on the classified side. On the faculty side, Biology, Chemistry, Physical Education, English, and Counseling positions were approved. A recommended second Counseling position related to the early alert system was held over because "that whole effort is a bigger deal" and there is a distinct possibility that position can come from matriculation funds. This must be approved by the District. Instead of that position, Murphy, personally, moved a Political Science position into the approved column.
Murphy was asked about the cessation of training for "Turn It In .Com" . He said he was unaware of the situation and would look into it.
IIIb. State Senate Plenary Session Report: Hearn asked Setziol to begin. He said that, among the breakout sessions he attended, one on distance education was particularly enlightening in that concerns voiced at De Anza are echoed seemingly everywhere with sometimes more glaring actual problems like over enrolling on line courses and, especially "Regular effective contact" with students. He also mentioned that, linked to this breakout, a resolution was later approved calling for separate approval of curriculum where ANY portion was to be at a distance (compared with an on campus offering) instead of the current 51% standard. He then turned his attention to what he characterized as the most important group of resolutions, those dealing with the Associate's degree. Principal among those was the passage of a resolution favored by the De Anza Academic Senate calling for a ban on degrees based solely on UC or CSU oriented transfer packages. The effect of this action was said to be immediate in that a moratorium on the approval of such degrees put in place by the Chancellor's Office because of Senate deliberations would likely be made permanent.
Chenoweth made a presentation which included his introduction to statewide budget spreadsheets, disappointment about the progress of equalization funding, guidance of the group to a helpful Chancellor's Office web site concerning grant preparation and another one on preparing to meet the new, higher Math and English standards.
Hearn, picking things up from this point mentioned that connecting the new standards with basic skills preparation still needed a lot of work and that there was, as yet, no mention of cultural competency for faculty likely to teach precisely those students most at risk of failing to meet the new standards. She also mentioned a very strong Keynote presentation by a professor Moreno from CSU Long Beach on the lack of significant improvement in the hiring of faculty from targeted groups over the last 10 years. Most of the reasons commonly given as reasons for this problem appear to Moreno to be dubious given statistics comparing numbers of advanced degrees awarded with numbers and percentages of new faculty hired.
VI: Strategic Planning Initiative: Hearn distributed a document iterating most of the ideas generated at the October 23rd meeting (some were said to be left off due to their being very general in nature)and organizing them in relation to the areas of primary Senate responsibility.
In the area of Curriculum and Programming, the officers are suggesting that individual proposals be handed to individuals or the curriculum committee rather than being the focus of the group's work. Similarly, in the area of Pedagogy and Professional Development, most of the ideas were suggested as being appropriate for individuals or small groups rather than the whole group. However, Hearn proposed that the first two items could be combined with what was going to be proposed as a major area of focus and said that having a real engagement of staff development would have to be done thoughtfully and with a longer term perspective.
It was in the area of Student Success that the officers recommend the primary of two group commitments. The first four items in this category were presented as interrelated and being both specific and conceptual with the concept being the increased success of students belonging to, accepted in, identifiable and faculty nourished student cohorts. The idea would include discipline major and career planning. In support of the concept, several people agreed with the assertion that faculty need to know much more about their students and hear their stories which are frequently remarkable and show a lot of motivation just to make it to De Anza. President Murphy added that the question needed to be answered by the college is "How do we craft a system that, at point of contact, gets us a lot more information about individual students."
One overarching goal not specific to Senate responsibility the group was asked to take a leading role on was staff development for all groups including administration in Institutional Readiness. While this will mean many things, it at least means being much friendlier towards and thoughtful about new and potential students - including communities of potential students. Many examples will be presented but Hearn began by bringing up the lack of a human voice on the telephone for those first inquiring about the college. With no further discussion, it was the sense of the Senate to commit to the officer's proposal.
Hearn then reiterated that a means needed to be found to ensure both individual commitments from Senators and a follow up commitment for the office of Senate President for the 2007-2008 year.
VII. Self-Authored Course Materials - Board Policy: Hearn, Setziol and others shared what had previously been the expressed concerns of the group about allowing faculty to profit from self published books they require in classes they teach. The current proposal was termed a retreat from high standards and an obfuscation of a central conflict of interest situation. Kramer and Setziol brought up a previous Senate study which found a clear national norm not allowing unfettered faculty profit in the way proposed. Anne Paye, representing the Faculty Association rebutted several of the statements made by focusing on the mandate in the proposal that the texts be of lower cost to students than otherwise would be the case. In the middle of deliberations IT WAS MSC (Cordero/Bresnan) to extend the time of the meeting by 10 minutes. Miner voiced appreciation for the distinction between legal and "right" made by the group in its thinking and offered the possibility that, even with adoption of the proposal, it would be possible to craft administrative procedures to address the Senate's ethical concerns. Schaffer distributed a spread sheet indicating gross sales by faculty authors at De Anza. At the end of the discussion a straw vote was taken with none in favor of the proposal and with those opposed and those abstaining about evenly split. Hearn announced that, had it been a formal vote, the abstentions would have been counted with the majority.
VIII. Good of the Order: - Raffaelli encouraged the group to look at the observance of Dios de los Muertos produced through Marc Coronado's efforts
- Hertler announced what was said to be an attractive assortment of retail coupons in support of De Anza Athletics. Interested people were asked to contact him at 8741 especially 11:30-1:30 to catch him in person.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:40p.m.