Notes - November 20th, 2006
The De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
November 20th , 2006
Senators and Officers present: Bambhania, Capitolo, Chenoweth, Coleman, Cordero, Dolen, Gallegos, Glapion, Goodwin, Hearn, Hertler, Jensen-Sullivan, Joplin, Kang, Kessler, Kramer, Lathers, Lizardi-Folley, Lee-Klawender, Maynard, Mowrey , Osborne, Raffaelli, Schaffer, Setziol, Winters, and Zill
Senators and Officers absent: Bresnan, Cole, and Miller
DASB: Sam Karimzadeh and Celeste Enriquez,
Classified Senate:
Administrative Liaison:
Guests: Jean Miller, Melinda Hughes, Shirley Kawazoe, Scott Heffner, and Sarah Kim
[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 2:35 a quorum being present.
I. Approval of Agenda and Notes: The agenda was approved as distributed .
The notes of the meeting of November 13th were also approved as distributed.
II. Needs and Confirmations: Chenoweth distributed the needs and proposed
confirmations for the meeting. John Walton and Marilyn Patton were confirmed for service on the Campus Facilities Committee. Judy Chiu was confirmed for service on the Mandarin Chinese Search and Selection Committee. Ulysses Pichon was confirmed for service on the English Search and Selection Committee. Rich Schroeder, Kulwant Singh, Jeff Foreman, Marcia Peterson, Debi Schafer-Braun, and Gary Zarecky were confirmed for service on the Head Football/Physical Education Search and Selection Committee. Tom Dolen was confirmed for service on the Interim Dean, Library Services Search and Selection Committee. Truly Hunter, Don Nickel, and Lan Tao were confirmed for service on the EOPS Counselor Search and Selection Committee. Judith Clavijo, Sherri Cozzens, Catherine Hrycyk, and Pat Quarato were confirmed for service on the Allied Health and Nursing Specialist Search and Selection Committee.
III. Student Equity plans: Winters introduced Shirley Kawazoe, Jean Miller, and Melinda Hughes, present to assist her in a presentation. Jean Miller began with a brief history of the Student Equity effort and emphasized the central operational goal of closing the achievement gap between targeted groups of students and other groups to no more than 5%. Those groups at De Anza are African American, Latino, and Fillipino students. Progress has been made, especially in the area of numbers of degrees and certificates awarded.
Melinda Hughes introduced the group to the specifics of one and five year plans by department and program. Winters then said that a major focus had to be on retention and persistence. Persistence from quarter to quarter lags below 50% across many of the programs on campus. She then focused on accountability and the Senate's role in that.
Questions included a request for more sharing of the data used by the Equity planning group, a request for more help with defining terms like cultural competence, a question about the class size ramifications of targeting curriculum, and a question about equity plan reporting cycles. The group then focused on the long term problem of how retention is calculated and the fact that early drops are not counted. This was said to be hiding a first or second day "turn off " situation said to be more of a problem for targeted populations than others.
IV. Courses Into Disciplines/FSAs: Setziol introduced new Senators to and reminded continuing Senators about the report. Following a brief explanation about negotiating the format, Setziol asked each division to designate a Senator point person for the update to the report now underway.
V. Allocation of District One Time Monies : Hearn distributed three new documents, one titled "Foothill and De Anza Colleges Request for District Ending Balance Fund Allocation", one titled "Possible split and uses of one time funds", and one showing a decline in B budget over the last five years. Hearn mentioned that the officer's discussion included a concern for the District's ability to abide by the 50% law with such a high one time balance and the high percentage proposed to go to Central Services, a separate but linked concern. It was MSC(Hertler/Joplin) to extend the time of the meeting by 10 minutes. Subsequent discussion revealed support for the Faculty Association proposal to use $975,000 of the money to fund the ongoing retiree benefit deficit, a reduction in the amount proposed for Central Services, and augmentation of B budgets especially if that augmentation is done thoughtfully.
VI. Community College Initiative: Scott Heffner was present for a brief presentation on the status of the initiative and provided information on the consequences of passage and non passage as well as efforts to obtain the necessary number of signatures in order to get the initiative on the ballot.
VII. Good of the Order: - Hearn reminded the group that the meeting of November 27th would be in Admin 109.
- Capitolo proudly announced that Auto Tech students had collected four truckloads of food for a community food drive.
- Maynard proudly announced the return of a long overdue book to the library, thereby ensuring library funding owing to a presumed enormous late fee.
- Raffaelli announced that the Writing and Reading Center is prepared to help any and all students with "Personal Statements" required for transfer to some universities.
- Hearn reminded those who, earlier in the quarter, volunteered to write articles for the next Newsletter due to be distributed the first day of Winter Quarter to contact Setziol.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:44