Notes - June 18th, 2007

The De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
June 18th, 2007

Senators and Officers present:, Bambhania  Cadge-Moore, Capitolo, Chenoweth, Cole, Coleman, Cordero, Dolen, Gallegos, Goodwin, Guevara, Hearn, Jensen-Sullivan, Joplin, Kramer, Lathers, Lee-Klawender, Lizardi-Folley, Miller, Osborne, Raffaelli, Schaffer Setziol, Winters, and Zill
Senators and Officers absent: Glapion, Kessler, Paicius, and Walton
DASB:
Classified Senate:
Administrative Liaison:  
Guests:
Curriculum Co Chair:  Anu Khanna
[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 2:37 a quorum being present.
I. Approval of Agenda and Notes: The agenda was approved as distributed.
The notes of June 11th were approved as distributed with the restoration of an accidental cut and the revelation of an intentional wrong word use.
II.  Needs and Confirmations:  Dolen was confirmed for service on the Mandarin faculty Tenure Review Committee. Michael Chang was confirmed for service on the Biology faculty Tenure Review Committee. Clara Lam was confirmed for service on the ESL faculty Tenure Review Committee.  Ron Dunn, Bob Farrington, Laura Karst, Anna Poklewski, and Setziol were confirmed for service on the Music faculty Search and Selection Committee.
III.  Election Results:  A series of late breaking news items resulted in the upset election of Hearn as Senate President for 2007-2008, Goodwin as Part Time Faculty At Large Representative for 2007 – 2008, and Paicius as Part Time Faculty At Large Representative for 2007 – 2009.
IV.  Environment Subcommittee Funding Request:  $384.84 was approved to be reimbursed to Raffaelli for food expenses incurred supporting the recent campus clean up event.
V. Process for Hiring Committees :  The Executive Committee approved two documents codifying the Senate's process for confirming Search and Selection Committees.  One of the two, a flow chart, was corrected to include notification of the faculty in the appropriate division of an opening.
VI.  General Education Revisions:  Setziol led the group through a discussion of two alternatives which were detailed in a document distributed before and during the meeting.  After discussion, the group decided to adopt option two, calling for a Steering Committee with membership evenly divided between Curriculum and Executive Committee members.  Option two was slightly modified to clarify that what were subcommittee titles could be termed "tasks" done by the steering committee itself.
VII.   Strategic Planning Update:  Hearn presented.  Faculty are now being sought for division action teams working on retention.  This action team approach is only planned for a few divisions at the present time.  The divisions involved were selected based on request from the division and or need.  Part of the effort is the inclusion of a counselor on the team for 10 hours per week.  This amount of time per counselor was described as a very significant number of hours.  Cultural competency training is spreading through various means and will continue in the fall with numerous training opportunities.  Strategic Planning will be the main theme for the college opening day in September.
VIII.  Shared Governance Committee Reports:  The IPBT has been focusing on strategic planning activities.  The SSPBT has been working on measuring effectiveness.  There is no faculty representative to the College and Financial Services PBT, making communication difficult.  Some new understanding as to the roles of the Facilities Committee and its members is sought.
Chenoweth reported that the College Council has been asked to be more coordinating of the PBTs and between the PBTs and itself.  Written processes that can survive present membership are sought.   During discussion, several people expressed concern about a lack of basic budget information coming to the group.  The Curriculum Committee has worked through and approved many new courses over the last two years.  As a result, the college has well over 2,000 courses in its catalog.  A transition to an entirely electronic curriculum submittal and approval process is under way.  This year has seen improved training for new members.
IX.  Student Learning Outcomes: Based on the response to this point, a retreat on Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) appears to be a go.  Suggestions were made to invite the Matriculation Coordinator, a Transfer Center person, the Curriculum Facilitator,  and someone from the Testing office.  Setziol expressed concern that the list of participants appeared to be getting far afield from the original intent and mechanisms of SLOs.  Hearn responded that it would be good to be very inclusive at the beginning even if participants weeded themselves out in terms of having a direct ongoing role.
X.  Feedback on Leadership Retreat:  The Senate/FA/Administration leadership retreat revealed the need for ongoing work on relationships and clear communication.
XI Vision for Next Year:  Hearn organized the discussion into two categories, Closure (meaning items not yet concluded but which might be concluded in a very few meetings in the fall) and Ongoing, (meaning items begun this year which will run some unknown time into next year and perhaps beyond).
In the Closure group she included:  Hiring Process, Course Materials Policy, Instructional Testing (plan for the year at least), and General Education Review start up.
The Ongoing group listing was a more open ended spontaneous event. Items included:  Shared governance, finding out about the next Trustee election, inviting members of the Board and Martha Kanter, Faculty Advising, Updating various web sites, Student Equity, Academic Freedom Policy Statement, Student Accountability versus Student Rights (remembering to include Robert Griffin, reps for DASB, and the Curriculum Coordinator in discussion),  Environmental Sustainability, Sexual abuse, Mob psychology (be it among students or faculty) and establishing a role for counseling in dealing with it, reorganization, Tenure Review, tying class size to curriculum, pedagogy for Distance Education, consideration of a Distinguished Educator kind of recognition coming from the Senate, Program Review, and block scheduling.
XII.  Good of the Order:   -  Hearn repeated her plea to hear about Senator replacements
-    An open forum for the candidate for Vice Chancellor for Human Resources is upcoming.
-    Conversations will begin this summer about textbook rental.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:35


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