The De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of

 January 25th, 2010

Senators and Officers present: Anderson, Annen, Argyriou, Beggs, Botsford, Brennan, Cordero, Glapion, Goodwin, Guevara, Hanna, Larson, Lee-Klawender, Maynard, McNamara, Nengo, Nickel, Roberts, Schaffer, Setziol, Singh Stockwell, and Tao

Senators and Officers absent:  Beckum, Lathers, Mjelde, Norte, and Swanner,

District Senate President: Alex Kramer

DASB: Classified Senate:

Administrative Liaison: Rich Schroeder Guests: David Howard-Pitney, Margaret Stevens, Greg Knittel, Tom Dolen, Jackie Reza, Kulwant Singh, and Fran Frazier

SLO coordinators: 

Curriculum Co Chair:

[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 draft notes of January 11th were approved with minor corrections.

II. Needs and Confirmations: There were no confirmations. Lee-Klawender pointed out two needs, for scholarship application readers and for Accreditation Standards. A question was raised about an Accreditation Steering Committee, an entity in prior accreditation self study efforts.  Argyriou responded that such a committee had not yet officially coalesced out of ad hoc efforts akin to those normally coming under the aegis of such a committee.

III. Late Adds Update: Argyriou showed a revised form for late adds. She and Kramer explained that it was temporarily in effect pending further review and an examination of the number of late adds along with the reasons cited for those adds.

IV. Academic Senate Budget: Argyriou took the group through the Senate’s College account in terms of dollar amounts and through both College and private “dues” account items in terms of expenditure types past and projected. Setziol walked the group through the specifics of the “Dues” account and added a few more projected expenditures. A basic message was that the College account is dominated by State Senate dues, the summer stipend, and printing costs. Other messages were that the dues account was for all ad hoc and other needs and that the January 15th balance was an unprecedented high for the organization. Argyriou was asked whether or not there was a need to increase the amount annually given to the financial aid office contingency fund in light of the current economic conditions. She said she would inquire and report back.

V. Academic Senate Office Budget Request: Setziol made a request for a new computer for the Senate office citing problems with the current computer. It was MSCU(Hanna/Goodwin) to authorize Setziol to purchase a Macintosh computer with dual platform capacity in the vicinity of $1,200.

VI. Faculty Hiring: Extensive presentation and discussion yielded a list of criteria for use by the IPBT in determining which departments would get positions. 10 full time faculty are to be hired to meet the 75-25 maintenance of effort standard set by the state. The list consisted of 1) Proximity to the 75/25 full to part time ratio standard, 2) Small (one or two full time faculty) departments, 3) enrollment, 4) viability of the department with and without a hire, 5) Comprehensive curriculum expertise, and 6) carry over searches from 2008-2009. It was MSC(Guevara/Cordero) to adopt the list as unweighted. Concerns were expressed about how counseling (asking for two positions) would fit into the criteria given that teaching classes is not their principal responsibility. It was suggested that they could make a parallel with the basic 75-25 criterion by comparing their counselor to student ratio with the statewide average and the standard proposed.

VII. Senate President's Update: Argyriou reported on an arduous Board of Trustees meeting lasting somewhere between 4 and 12 hours. The meeting revealed that the Board is, with some difficulty, understanding the perspective of the college and its tentative budget cutting recommendations. Argyriou commended President Murphy on his presentation. Murphy presented the processes and philosophy leading to the De Anza plan and described Foothill’s approach as being “quite different”. An important step for the Board is deciding whether or not to have another position escrow account like the one set up last year. 

VIII. IPBT - Budget Reductions:  Lee-Klawender and Argyriou made detailed presentations on the time line and processes for IPBT deliberations. Included was the timing and structure of presentations by division deans and discussions and questions about those presentations. When asked about the two divisions said to have had little or no division level discussion and to have had an insecure relationship between department input and division dean presentation prior to the all day meeting January 22nd, the officers pointed out that they had solicited direct feedback from the departments in those two divisions and what was forwarded was used to inform the discussion.

In general, Lee-Klawender and Argyriou shied away from line item specifics. This was mostly because much of the proposed cuts were in the form of position elimination and the need for meetings with the people in those positions prior to public disclosure of the positions targeted. However, as requested during the item, they did iterate some things previously under consideration for cutting which were not cut.

IX. Wrap Up: The item was held over

XI. Good of the Order and Announcements: The officers distributed two flyers, one announcing a workshop on “Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Liaison Opportunity” Wednesday, March 3rd and the other announcing an “Activist Film Festival” Thursdays biweekly in Conference room B.

David Howard-Pitney and Margaret Stevens, full time faculty in the History department and Instructional Associates Greg Knittel, and Fran Frazier were present to protest the work of the IPBT in its decision to recommend the elimination of instructional associate positions in the History and Psychology departments. 

The meeting was adjourned at 4:36.

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