Notes - November 19, 2007

The De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
November 19th, 2007

Senators and Officers present: Argyriou,  Bambhania, Beggs, Chenoweth, Cole, Coleman, Dolen, Gallegos, Glapion, Goodwin, Hanna. Hughes, Kessler, Kramer, Lathers Lee-Klawender, LaManque, Lee, Maynard, Miller, Paicius, Schaffer, Shively, Walton, White, and Winters
Senators and Officers absent: Mitchell, Schafer-Braun, and Setziol
DASB:       
Classified Senate:   Al Guevara
Administrative Liaison: 
Guests: Karen Chow
Curriculum Co Chair: Anu Khanna
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 with the following changes:
Item IV, the "calendar consideration" was discussed in relation to the notes from the previous meeting.
Addition of  Item IIA., Ms. Chow's presentation on the "Teaching & Learning Conference.”
Item VI, update on "Certificates" was then shifted up to become the new item IV.
Item VII was changed to "Community College Initiative.”

The notes were approved as distributed with discussion about the following:
•calendar change, clarifying that the Foothill and De Anza Academic  Senate presidents had approved a "pre-survey survey" (to measure faculty interest) at Foothill Academic  Senate President Paul Starer's request. 
•document distributed at the last meeting was Head of Institutional Research Bob Barr's "notes" on how a survey might  be constructed and administered.
II.  Needs and Confirmations:  A revised list of the Vice President for Instruction Search Committee was presented. The changes were apparently to increase representation by adding a faculty member from vocational education, and another from the biological health sciences. There was some discussion regarding lack of representation from the Social Sciences and Business/CIS divisions. It was mentioned that Senate could request to add more faculty to increase representation but that would contradict Senate’s past viewpoint of limiting committee sizes to maintain manageability without terrifying interviewees. It was also noted that the deans on the committee were new so that might affect their understanding of what the position would require since those deans have not yet had a full year of experience at De Anza. Lastly, it was noted that there was no start date yet for the hiring process.
A committee need was presented to Senate the Thursday preceding this meeting requesting a faculty member to participate in the interviewing of candidates for the Weekend College Coordinator to occur on Tuesday, November 20th. With the short notice, no one volunteered. If an available soul was to turn up before Tuesday, they were asked to let Kramer know.
An ad hoc Part Time Faculty Office Space committee needs 2 or more faculty members (FT or PT). If you are interested, please let Kramer know.
IIa.  Teaching and Learning Conference: Karen Chow, who is the new College Curriculum Facilitator, informed the Senate about the Teaching and Learning Conference. She proposed the tentative date of February 22nd, 2008 and requested that Senators inform her if any conflicts exist. She also mentioned that it was hoped to offer professional growth credit, stipends, and possible column change credit (for PT faculty) for attendees. One last idea was to use the conference as a scaffold for the state diversity conference.
III.  Technology Update:
ePortfolios: Paicius reported to the Senate about an ePortfolios conference he attended. He first defined ePortfolios as a means of archiving data about students that would follow the student for a period of time. The questions he raised were: what sort of information would be retained, for how long, and who would have access to the portfolios. He mentioned that it was important to determine the purpose of the portfolio, and noted that it would tie in nicely with the SLO and program review programs at De Anza. The question of cost arose, and a suggested estimate was a large initial expense, then minimal maintenance.
Security: A handout on “Information Security Best Practices” was distributed by Chenoweth, who also directed the group’s attention to an informative web site.
IV. Calendar Consideration:
The officers reported a request from the Other Senate to do away with the District Academic Senate President. After laughter subsided, it was clarified that the request concerned eliminating the position rather than the person. Eyebrows were raised and this issue will be revisited. There was some speculation as to linkage with the Calendar change issue.
It was noted that the Calendar change document was a brainstormed list from the District Institutional Researcher regarding many aspects of studying a possible calendar change. It was noted that Paul Starer, President of the Foothill Senate had requested a pre-survey survey of the need to study calendar change.
VI.  Certificates: Anu  Khanna presented the results of her discussion with the Community College System office regarding titles for certificates. She said the options were to either use Level I and Level II, which had not met with Senate approval, or to use Certificate of Achievement and Certificate of Achievement Advanced to indicate the number of units earned, or the level of expertise. Certificates not meeting the newly mandated statewide minimum would be labeled a “Skills Certificate” with disclaimers informing students that they would not appear on mtranscripts. Khanna also presented a document summarizing the changes and recommended following options (a), (b), and (c) listed on it. It was MSCU(Hanna/Goodwin) to follow Khanna’s recommended options.
V.  SLO Coordinator Position:  The officers presented a sample job description for the Senate’s consideration. Exclamations ensued regarding the long list of items and the small amount of release time offered. One response to this was to group the items in phases so as not to overwhelm the lucky candidate. It was suggested that the items be re-ordered, to wit: #9 would become #1, and #2 would remain #2, etc. It was also noted that the description appears to be more of a list of administrative functions, and that a more specific explication of how SLO’s are to be implemented needed to be provided. A suggestion was to elaborate on item #9 to address this concern. Ideally, the person hired would begin working in Winter 2008.
VII.  Community College Initiative: Goodwin presented information regarding the upcoming Community College Initiative which will appear on the February 5th ballot. It was MSC (Cole/White) to endorse the initiative.
VIII. Orientation: President Chenoweth informed the Senate about institutes sponsored by the State Academic Senate to be held this upcoming academic year. Institutes will cover: Accreditation; Counseling Faculty Development; Vocational Education Leadership; Faculty Leadership; and Curriculum. Please see the officers if you are interested in attending.
IX.  Good of the order: -  The college is seeking to hire Outreach Student Ambassadors. If you know of any potential candidates, please contact Rob Mieso at extension 8835.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:30

Back to Top