Notes - November 22, 2004

De Anza Academic Senate
Draft Notes for the meeting of
November 22nd, 2004

Senators and Officers present: Annen, Bresnan, Bryant, Castaño, Chenoweth, Cordero, Dolen, Dunn, Fritz, Goodwin, Illowsky, Jensen Sullivan, Logvinenko, Lopez-Morgan, Mitchell, Moreno, Mosh, Mujal, Salah, Schafer-Braun, Setziol, Sheirich, and Winters
Senators and Officers absent: Argyriou, Cole, Hearn, and Joplin
DASB: James Liang
Classified Senate: Dennis Shanakian
Administrative Liaison: Christina Espinosa-Pieb
Guests: 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 2:34, a quorum being present.

I. Approval of Agenda and Notes: The Agenda was approved as distributed. The notes of November 15th were also approved as distributed.

II. Needs and Confirmations: In addition to two needs carried over, Illowsky announced the need for a faculty member to act as a liaison person to Foothill for the Etudes Alliance. Volunteers are asked to be experienced teaching with Etudes.

III. Pedagogical Excellence Draft: Mitchell distributed copies of draft language coming from Martha Kanter. There were numerous responses:

  • Especially the item numbered 2D "Align best practices with tenure review and evaluation procedures" needs a lot of discussion and clarification – necessary for Senate discussion with FA.
  • Who defines Best Practices? Will the definition appear in print?
  • If there is to be training involved in this, it should include the deans.
  • An ability to find potential in students should be considered
  • The best practices approach is important
  • This is an opportunity to bring up, once again, the disparity between the tools available to part time faculty and those available to full time faculty
  • There was clear doubt about the possible nature, priority, and advisability of item 1.E. as written.
  • It was suggested that, logically, this initiative should lead to a revitalization of some good ideas and programs of the past that have fallen along the wayside (e.g. faculty mentors for probationary faculty [at one time even discussed for certain part timers] and Great Teachers Seminars). Instructional Skills Workshops were mentioned as something meriting more support.

IV. Subcommittee on Scheduling Issues: Sullivan, Fritz, Hearn (assumed), and John Fleming (the officers were not 100% certain of this at the meeting) were named as interested parties.

V. Student Success and Retention Issues: Mitchell essentially used the presence of this item on the agenda to prepare the group for adjournment to the all faculty and staff meeting. He ended by reminding the group that the topic of the all faculty and staff meeting was mostly a faculty responsibility with specific responsibility resting primarily with the Academic Senate.

VI. Adjourn to All-Faculty and Staff Meeting: Mitchell used the presence of this agenda item to allow for a "good of the order" request from Goodwin, representing the Bookstore Taskforce, for suggestions as to how the Bookstore can deal with inaccurate information about Bookstore prices being spread by word of mouth among faculty and students.

Next week's agenda will include a discussion of plagiarism detection services.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:55 p.m.

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