Notes - March 17th, 2008
The De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
March 17th, 2008
Senators and Officers present: Argyriou, Bambhania, Chang, Chenoweth, Coleman, Dolen, Gallegos, Glapion, Goodwin, Guevara, Hanna, Hughes, Kessler, Kramer, Lathers, Lee-Klawender, Maynard, Miller, Mitchell, Paicius, Schaffer, Setziol, Shively, Walton, and White, and Winters
Senators and Officers absent: LaManque, Ng-Lee, and Schafer-Braun
DASB: Classified Senate: Al Guevara
Administrative Liaison: Christina Espinosa-Pieb
Guests: Brian Murphy, Linda Elvin, Marisa Spatafore, John Swennson, Robert Griffin, MaryKay Englen, Alex Swanner, Marianne Ifft, Pauline Yeckley, Lena Chang Curriculum Co Chair: Anu Khanna SLO Coordinator: Maryalice Bonilla
[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 2:33 a quorum being present.
I. Approval of Agenda and Notes: The agenda was approved as distributed.
The notes of February 25th, 2008 were approved as distributed.
II. Needs and Confirmations: There were no confirmations. For the third time Kramer reminded the Senators of the timely need for an Elections Committee. Kessler kindly agreed to serve.
III. Reorganization and Administration meeting: President Murphy began with an item previously unanticipated. He announced that the Fujitsu corporation has offered to donate $1,000,000 to the college, $500,000 to the planetarium and $500, 000 to the college as a whole for the privilege of having its name on the planetarium building.
He asked for support of the Academic Senate, if not by vote, by allowing Chenoweth to support the donation before the Board of Trustees. There was no formal vote but there was also no objection to Chenoweth supporting the donation on behalf of the group.
Murphy gave a long awaited presentation of his proposed administrative reorganization.
There were no copies of it for distribution. However, a version of it was projected as Murphy spoke.
In what seemed likely to be the first of several discussions, the most discussed specific items were the library and the distance learning office. Most of the guests were from one of those two entities and those who spoke expressed thoughtful reservations about the proposal. In larger terms, a topic of great concern sure to be a focus of future discussions was the proposed shift of entities out of the office of Instruction into the office of Finance and College Services. The latter office is proposed to have a name change to include "Educational Support". This prompted several comments about the vagueness of that term and the extent to which analogous entities were proposed to be housed under "Instructional Support". This in turn brought into focus the idea that what had previously been primarily a position of finance was becoming finance and instruction.
IV. University Studies Degree: After careful consideration it was MSC(Maynard/Paicius) to accept the Curriculum Committee recommendation not to approve a newly revised University Studies Associate's degree.
V. State/District Policies/Updates: Due to a lack of time, only the principles for budget reduction deliberations and actions were discussed. Chenoweth was only able to ask the group to study the rest of the materials (four handouts were distributed) for quick action Spring quarter. About the budget reduction document
- Only sections I and II were discussed.
- Several people wondered aloud whether or not the first mention of diversity in section I was gratuitous and called into question the sincerity of its use.
- Language calling for "Care" in section II was discussed with some thinking the language might not express anything more than the desire of those with the power to cut to feel good about cutting and others thinking that it is important to have such language.
VI. Good of the Order and announcements: - Chenoweth and Kramer returned to the topic of a reported extraordinarily high District cash reserves. There were two aspects to the explanation, one that in a $200,000,000 annual budget there are bound to be specific points in time when an unusually large amount of money might seem to be available for discussion and the other breaking down a $38,000,000 into normal 5% reserves (approximately $10,000,000) plus various other amounts which could be lumped together as encumbrances of one kind or another including contingency subsets and one time monies carried over for four years.
The meeting was adjourned to fruit, cookies, and non alcoholic libation at 4:34.