Notes - February 13, 2006

De Anza Academic Senate
Notes for the meeting of
February 13, 2006

Senators and Officers present: Argyriou, Barney, Bryant, Chenoweth, Cordero, Dolen, Dunn, Fox, Goodwin, Guevara, Hearn, Jensen Sullivan, Joplin, Kramer, Logvinenko, Moreno, Osborne, Setziol, Sheirich, Ujifusa, Winters, Zill
Senators and Officers absent: Annen, Capitolo, Cole,  Fritz,  Mosh, Olsen, Rodriguez
Curriculum Cochair: Anu Khanna
DASB: Saleha Pirzada, Menglan Fan (Susan)
Classified Senate: Olivia Patlan
Administrative Liaison: Christina Espinosa-Pieb
Guests: Elizabeth Bresnan, Rich Schroeder

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.
The notes of the meeting of February 6, 2006 were approved with amendment and correction noted.

II. Needs and Confirmations: Needs: faculty to serve on tenure review committees (one year appointments); Coordinator of Distance Learning Search and Selection Committee (one faculty member).   

Confirmations: The following were confirmed as at large faculty for tenure committees:  Mary Pape, Carlos Mujal, Karl Schaffer, Sukhjit Singh, Janice Hector, John Cognetta, Letty Wong, Charles Ramskov.   The following were confirmed for committees:  Interim Director of Technology Resources search (following position approval):  Dan Mitchell; Professional Relations:  Monica Sheirich; Director of Marketing and Communications search:  Dave Stringer; Environmental Sustainability sub committee:  Dan Mitchell and Stephen Zill.

III.  Academic Calendar – Graduation and Summer: Hearn distributed copies of a proposed summer schedule.  After discussion it was MSC (Sheirich, Cordero) that because of the Tuesday holiday of opening week, that upon student approval, the Academic Senate is in favor of beginning summer session on Wednesday, not Monday, with the resulting class time changes as noted.  The other part of this item, graduation, was discussed.  The Executive Committee is in agreement that Hearn will contact the faculty affected and see if 100% will accommodate students in finals who also want to participate in graduation exercises at the same time and report back to the Senate for further action.

IV.  Senate Representation by Part-Time Faculty: Hearn distributed copies of ideas for proposed changes to the Senate constitution, which were discussed.  It was decided that Hearn will return to the Executive Committee with proposed wording changes to the constitution reflecting the will of the group:  1/  The Academic Senate representatives for part-time faculty will be elected.  2/ The election will be for a two-year term.  3/ Two positions will be designated for part-time faculty representation, staggered so one is in the first year of the term and the other is in the second year of the term.  4/  All faculty (FT/PT) will be eligible to vote for part-time senate representatives.  5/  Stipends will be awarded from Senate funds to the two part-time faculty senate positions.  

V.  Child Development Practicum: Juanita Cordero addressed the content of the Child Development Center letter to Brian Murphy that was distributed at last week’s meeting.  The letter draws attention to the unilateral nature of decisions that were made by Jeanine Hawk and other administrators and the negative impacts that these decisions have had on the practicum internship required for students to receive AA degrees.  It also addressed enrollments, public perception, confidence of parents, decreased services, instructional goals and outcomes for students, staff morale and confidence in administration to respect shared governance laws, and the contract with students that is entered into through the catalog when we offer courses.  Senators voiced strong support for urgent meetings between senior administration and Senate officers to address these continuing serious issues:  shared governance as a cornerstone of De Anza decision making, areas of academic and professional matters (10 + 1), unilateral decision-making and its impact on students, faculty and the institution, and the apparent shift on the part of senior administrators to a top-down model.  

VI.  ETS Service Agreement: Hearn distributed a summary of Senators’ Audio Visual Services (ETS) concerns from the prior meeting and initial discussions ensued.  It was the sense of the Executive Committee that the existing document as submitted by ETS falls short of expectations.  The Executive Committee will develop a document identifying instructional needs.  This document can then be used by ETS to develop a plan to meet those needs. This item will be continued at future meetings.  Hearn will coordinate with the Technology Task Force as they develop a technology plan.

VII.  PBT Reports: Winters presented a report on the SSPBT, noting the development of program review guidelines.  She had several questions that were addressed:  1/  How are recommendations carried forward?  What happens when an administrator vetoes or fails to represent PBT recommendations?  (Reports of this incident should be brought to Executive Committee and the Senate representative on College Council will make that fact known in that setting.  SS College Council representatives should also make that known in that venue.)  2/  What is the role of the Academic Senate in the decision-making process?  (Executive Committee oversees the program review process.)  3/  Concern was brought forward that current members of this PBT (and, as it turns out, others) have not been approved by Academic Senate.  (If this is true then those faculty without approval by Senate are invalid members and will need to be submitted for confirmation.  Senate must approve faculty participants in all College-wide committees and needs to clarify the process of selection and term length of faculty participants.)   These concerns were echoed in IPBT where Setziol highlighted an absence of written policies.   He reported on the latest IPBT meeting, which was filled primarily by the correction of errors in reporting of a meeting on the proposed bond measure.
Since by now the time was short, a motion was approved to extend the Senate meeting by 10 minutes.
VIII: Hearn distributed a list of possible meeting topics to be addressed over the next thirteen meetings and asked senators over the next few days to consider priority among them and note which ones might successfully be addressed in a subcommittee structure, or done in working groups.

IX.   Spring Teaching Conference: Hearn announced that the preferred date for this is April 29th and that she would the Senate to act as one of the sponsors of the event.

X.  Good of the Order: Winters announced a Rosa Parks film on 2/14 in G6 at 11:30.  Guevara announced the last home basketball game, also on 2/14, at 5:30 and 7:30 and noted the scholar athletes awards won by De Anza athletes and teams.  

The meeting was adjourned at 4:45.

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