Notes - October 1st, 2007
The De Anza
Academic Senate
Approved Notes
for the meeting of
October 1st, 2007
Senators
and Officers present:, Argyriou, Bambhania, Chenoweth, Cole, Coleman, Cordero, Dolen,
Gallegos, Hanna, Hughes, Kessler, Kramer, LaManque, Lathers, Lee-Klawender,
Maynard, Miller, Mitchell, Osborne, Paicius, Schaffer, Setziol, Shively,
Walton, White, and Winters,
Senators
and Officers absent:, Cadge-Moore, Glapion, Goodwin,
DASB:
Classified
Senate: Al Guevara
Administrative
Liaison: Christina Espinosa-Pieb
Guests: Brian Murphy, Rich
Schroeder, and Jeff Dickard
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 2:34 a quorum being present.
I.
Approval of Agenda and Notes: The agenda was approved as
distributed. The group worked from a
revision of the Agenda template updating the membership of the group and
attaching a document for Item VII on the back. As this was the first meeting of the year and
the notes of the last meeting of 2006-2007 were approved by mail in June, there
were no notes to be approved.
II. Needs and Confirmations: The ongoing Tenure Review Committee Membership spreadsheet was
distributed including the names of
faculty newly proposed for service. Rich Schroeder was present to deal
with Tenure Review committee slots and to show the group that a large number of
people previously confirmed for service had not yet gone through the required
training for the service. In addition to
all the people proposed on the spreadsheet, Mae Lee was confirmed for service
on the Antonio Ramirez Tenure Review Committee.
Appearance
of Brian Murphy: Dr. Murphy said he came
primarily to prepare the group for the upcoming searches for the Vice
Presidents of Instruction and Student Services.
He said he was expecting an Academic Senate officer plus one additional
faculty member to serve on each of the search committees. Murphy then went on to recognize that there
would be perhaps some second guessing about filling the position due to
simultaneous discussions of reorganization but thought that position
announcement would be generic enough to allow latitude for possible
reorganization.
Murphy
then went on to observe that the Senate’s plan for the review of general
education was a great opportunity to start from scratch in considering the
difference between satisfying UC and CSU transfer requirements and
what we as an institution want our students to know and how this connects to
student learning outcomes.
A
breach of confidentiality occurring in a search process was brought up from the
perspectives of both prevention and accountability. While Murphy acknowledged that training could
be better and more consistently given and that the strength of Equal
Opportunity representatives was quite various, he said that, as far as he knew,
breaches of confidentiality are an exception to what is mostly good work by
everyone participating in search and selection processes. The possibility of
not allowing faculty who breach confidentiality to serve on subsequent Search
and Selection Committees was offered for future consideration and was well
received by Murphy.
Back
to II: Kramer took the Executive
Committee through a list of committee needs projected onto a screen.
III. Certificate Changes: Anu Khanna made a gripping presentation of
required changes to De Anza certificates.
Much work lies ahead as all certificates must be examined and nearly all
changed in one or more ways. She urged
that programs be asked to especially consider whether low unit certificates
should continue to be offered especially in light of the mandated change
disallowing those certificates being noted on student transcripts. A simple problem with no easily apparent
solution is what to call reconsidered certificates since almost all need to
change title. These changes need to be
made starting with the 2008-2009 catalog. As soon as the group began thinking
of names the difficulty became apparent with Shively offering the oh so helpful
solution of “Certificate of Certification” as a title. Both Academic Senate Executive Committee and
Curriculum Committee will need to be directly involved since so many programs
and faculty will need to be involved in a fairly short period of time. Response
to her presentation was respect for the work ahead and for her presentation and
ideas on how to proceed.
Khanna also noted Title V changes to distance education (DE)
with regard to curriculum. DE is defined
as: Instruction in which the instructor
and student are separated by distance and interact through the assistance of
communication technology. Title V
changes now require a separate course approval if any portion of the
instruction in a proposed or existing course or course section is designed
to be provided through DE in lieu of face-to-face interaction between
instructor and student. The college will
need to have ongoing discussions about criteria and guidelines and the
implementation of them.
IV. General Education
Pattern: Chenoweth reminded the group that in June it had established
October as the beginning of the process of reviewing general education at De
Anza (only five years late). The first
step will be for the Curriculum Committee to select its six division
representatives for the steering committee.
The executive committee will then fill out division representation from
its membership. An officer plus the
faculty Curriculum Committee co chair will complete the initial membership. Khanna announced that the Curriculum
Committee meeting of Tuesday, October 2nd will include the selection of its portion of
the steering committee.
V. Academic Calendar: Chenoweth and Kramer
brought to the group’s attention the fact that the Foothill Senate is asking
for a serious consideration of changing from quarters to semesters. The officers were asked to determine the
official status of the request before any serious consideration at De
Anza. Several points were made in the
direction of an immediate discussion but Chenoweth declared that they were
premature and that the item would undoubtedly return for discussion soon
enough.
VI. Textbook Adoption: Setziol quickly took the group through some of
the history of textbook adoption problems at De Anza leading to the Course
Materials policy adopted by the Executive Committee in the spring of 2005. At the time of passage the group made a
commitment to create a companion implementation document outlining procedures
and possible outcomes which it has not met.
Currently, the math department is demonstrating the need for help in
this area.
VII. Senator Orientation: Chenoweth walked the
Senators through the list of “ten plus one” areas of academic and professional
matters which encompasses much of what the Academic Senate does. More such bite sized orientations are to
come.
VIII. Good of the
Order: Nothing came to
light.
The meeting
was adjourned at 4:30
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