Notes - October 15th, 2007The De Anza Academic
Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
October 15th, 2007 Senators and Officers present:, Argyriou, Bambhania, Beggs, Chenoweth, Cole, Coleman, Dolen,
Gallegos, Goodwin, Hanna, Hughes, Kramer, LaManque, Lathers, Lee-Klawender,
Maynard, Miller, Mitchell, Paicius, Schaffer, Setziol, Shively, Walton, White,
and Winters,
Senators and Officers absent: Glapion and Kessler, DASB:
Classified Senate: Al Guevara
Administrative Liaison: Christina Espinosa-Pieb
Guests: Brian Murphy, Barbara
Illowsky, Willie Pritchard, Mary Alice Bonilla
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 2:30 a quorum being present.
I. Approval of Agenda and
Notes: The agenda was approved as distributed with the
addition of an Item IB, “Three Short Part Time Items”.
The notes were modified, including minor editing
and adding language clarifying statements made by Anu Khanna in the Certificate
Changes item. IB. Three Short Part Time Items: Goodwin
raised three questions – 1) If an instructor gets permission from a student to
post something written by that student on a web site, What are the limitations,
if any, on subsequent uses of that writing, 2) Isn’t temporary part time
faculty office space supposed to be available this quarter, and 3) What’s the
status for this quarter of Instructional Testing?
To 1) several people responded that the use on
the web site could continue despite the fact that the student is no longer at
the college and that others could download that material but that use of the
material in another form not directly connected to the web site for which
permission was granted was questionable to say the least.
To 2) Chenoweth responded that temporary part
time faculty office space is now available in Mod Quad C with access by means
of a D44 key.
To 3) Chenoweth responded that getting
Instructional Testing up and running for the quarter is a work in progress. He made note of the fact that, given three
weeks having already gone by in the quarter, time is running short to get it to
work for Fall. II. Needs and
Confirmations: The latest update to the Tenure Review Committee Spreadsheet was
presented and approved. A proposed
Search committee for the Environmental Studies Area classified position was again
considered. After considerable
discussion, it was decided that Kramer should communicate to Stephanie Sherman
a concern for ethnic and especially gender balance on the committee, hoping
that classified union and Equal Opportunity representatives yet to be
determined could help make for a more balanced committee.
III. Diversity
Advisory Council - Conference: Two handouts were distributed. Winters reported
that De Anza is to host a conference on student equity in April,2008. Using some money from the strategic planning
initiative, De Anza will share its leading work in the area with attendees
invited from across the state. Those
invited include, among others, college presidents and vice presidents and
representatives from the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges,
which organization may serve to facilitate a more robust statewide effort. The conference will be located at a hotel
near the San Jose airport to accommodate those from out of the area and will
feature James Banks, nationally known figure as keynote speaker. Volunteers are needed to help with the many
tasks involved in putting on a conference like this. Interested people are asked to contact
Winters directly or come to a meeting of the Diversity Advisory Council which
meets the second and fourth Wednesdays of every month during the academic year
from 2:00 to 3:30
p.m. IV. Courses Into Disciplines: Setziol
shared with the group his observation that recently approved courses show a
more conservative trend in terms of the number of disciplines assigned to
courses. This trend reduces flexibility
in hiring faculty and increases the potential for Equivalency hearings. He asked the Senators to communicate with the
faculty in their divisions about being mindful of possible appropriate
discipline preparation for individual courses beyond the base discipline(s) of
a department.
VI. Tech Update: Open Educational Resources,
ePortfolios, Security: The primary focus of the item was a presentation on the Community
College Consortium on Open Educational Resources. Barbara Illowsky and Willie Pritchard
presented with Illowsky making most of the introduction. A wide variety of particulars were presented
including pros and cons and possibilities and limitations. Various avenues are being explored which will
allow interested faculty to move in the direction of using Open Educational
Resources. Pritchard’s faculty web site
was suggested as a good source of information and links to more information. V. Student Learning Outcomes: Two handouts were distributed, one titled “An
Overview of De Anza’s Anticipated SLOs’ Efforts and one titled “Rubric for
Assessment of Progress Towards Implementing a Student Learning Outcomes
Framework at a Community College. Anu
Khanna presented and raised awareness on the part of the group of the necessity
and importance of the work involved.
Concerns about Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) were both general and
specific. Specific concerns will be
addressed at length in a variety of venues.
A more thorough discussion of general concerns will be needed before
most specific things are appropriate. An
example of the interaction between general and specific came with Khanna’s
suggestion to look at Cabrillo College’s work for
information and to invite a team from Cabrillo to come to share their
experiences. A response to that was a
statement that to invite a team from a specific school and to look at their
work might make sense but might have unintended consequences like reduced
faculty participation or uncritical acceptance of the work as a model to be
copied in order to avoid doing work on something the Executive Committee
already knows to be, at least in part, a hard sell.
The Senate will follow a process for choosing a Student Learning
Outcomes Coordinator as we do for Curriculum Committee Co Chair. There will be a job announcement and a
selection committee will forward its recommendation to the Executive Committee
for confirmation. VII. Senator Orientation: The item was
held over due to a lack of time
VIII. Good of the Order: A question was raised about putting items on the
agenda. Agenda items can be requested by
anyone. To get an item on the
agenda, see an officer by 1:30 on the Wednesday
before the meeting at which you want the item taken up.The meeting was adjourned at 4:32
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