June 10, 2024

I. Call to Order

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Welcome

Erik Woodbury: Next week, the last Senate meeting for the school year will conclude with a reception to honor the retirees and newly tenured faculty, 3:30 to 5 pm in SEM2, the Health and Life Sciences Village.  The Senate will provide bottled water, cake, utensils and paper goods. People may contribute to the celebration by sharing their favorite treats or drinks.

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Approval of Agenda and Minutes from June 3rd, 2024

No changes or corrections to the agenda and minutes. Agenda and minutes approved by unanimous consent.

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Public Comment 

Ravjeet Singh noticed that the water fountains around the campus have been removed. 

Erik Woodbury: They are replacing them with water fountains with bottle filling stations. The mystery was why some water fountain units with filling stations were removed as well.

Mary Pape noticed the same happening at the San Jose airport.

Cheryl Balm: In the Math department they were told they must stop offering pre-Calculus starting Fall 2025 under the new law AP1705. She questioned its validity of this interpretation. She believed according to the new law they could no longer require pre-Cal for majors. However, pre-cal classes, like Math 31/32 should still fulfill GE requirements and they are transferable.

Erik offered to get together with Cheryl and anyone else interested to proceed with the next step for this concern over some math courses. He planned to bring it back to the Senate for discussion

Mark Landefeld shared in chat a link to the article on what happened at Harvard in the last 6 months that may be of interest: https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-harvard-corporation-tries-to-kill-faculty-governance?cid=at&sra=true

Mark also announced that this Thursday will be the Athletics Awards Night when they will recognize student performances both in the arena of competition and in the classroom. Any faculty interested in attending, should contact their dean Eric Mendoza.

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II. Consent Calendar

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Approval of Consent Calendar (Attachment)

Tenure Review Committees for

• Brett Johnson, Auto Tech
• Phong Lam, Counselor 
• Lisa Teng, Photography
• Angélica EsquivelMoreno, Chicanx/Latinx Studies
• Susana Ramirez, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
• Ashley Kipple, Childhood Education

Mary Pape moved to approve the consent calendar, Jayanti Roy seconded. No objection. Committees approved.

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III. Needs and Confirmation

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District and College Needs (Attachment)

• AS Scholarship Committee members
• COOL Committee
• Curriculum Co-Chair
• Due Process Pool for Tenure Review Committees
• EO Representatives for Hiring Committees
• Hiring Committees
• Tenure Review At-Large Representatives

Curriculum Co-Chair

Erik Woodbury stressed the urgent need for someone to fill this position. Anyone with interest should contact him or Catherina Wong.

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Confirmations (Attachment)

1. ASCCC OERI Liaison
2. FA Office Manager Hiring Committee
3. DA President Hiring Committee
4. AS Vice President (fall 2024 quarter)
5. Equity Action Council (EAC)

Each Need has the exact number of volunteers to the number of faculty open seats.

There was no call to serve for the FA Office Manager Hiring Committee faculty member because a representative was selected by the FA. That appointment came to the Senate for confirmation.

Cheryl Balm moved to approve all but #5, the EAC. Felisa Vilaubi seconded, no objection. #1-#4 approved.

Discussion followed over the proper procedure when someone raises concern, needs clarification, or needs more time before making a decision.

It would be proper for the Senate to discuss and clarify the concerns. Then the voting members should based on their own understanding and conviction. If any member should be uncomfortable with voting at the time, the body may postpone the voting to allow members time to consider their decision.

Mary Pape motioned to table #5 until the next meeting. Lisa Mesh seconded.

The Academic Senate has 3 seats on the Equity Action Council (EAC). Steve Nava was confirmed last week as the faculty tri-chair. Another faculty member Vernon Gallegos, was appointed earlier.

Erik called for a vote by raised hands in the room and a checkmark on zoom. Yes 16. The motion passed unanimously.

Erik will contact those involved and move forward according to procedure. The Senate will not take any new applications for this position until this is settled.

Mary Pape moved to table the next item, the Quick Updates, and to move ahead to the Proposed POCR Plan. Cheryl Balm seconded. No objections.

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IV. New & Continuing Business

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Proposed POCR Plan  

James Capurso presented and explained the Local POCR Process that the De Anza online education team has developed. A special shout out to Cheryl Chapman who took the lead on the project. She was also the POCR lead at the state level for several years. This POCR plan has been approved by the COOL committee. Their next step was to have the proposal endorsed or approved through the Senate for adoption at De Anza.

The Local Peer Online Course Review (POCR) was established in 2014 by the CVC-OEI Professional Development Workgroup to ensure that students in the California Community College system have access to high-quality online courses designed to support student learning and success. This process is voluntary and separate from department instructional evaluations.

The De Anza  Local POCR Team will utilize the CVC-OEI Course Design Rubric to review a course for alignment with the course design guidelines in content presentation, substantive interactions, assessments, and Accessibility.

Once aligned, courses will receive a “quality-reviewed” badge that is visible in the student search for courses in the California Community College Online Course Exchange. (cvc.edu) Badged courses rise to the top of the list for courses that have empty seats.

At this time, the De Anza POCR Team included James, Sean, and Cheryl. They are will build the team by adding more faculty reviewers 

James went over the Local POCR Process and the steps as listed and described in the proposal document.

Ravjeet Singh asked how she may include the POCR training in her PDL application.

That would be a question for the PDL committee.

Cecila Hui asked and was confirmed that POCR was optional and not mandatory at this point.

James explained that POCR is different and separate from RSI review. RSI certification meets the minimum standards, whereas POCR is the  next level for  online course training. The POCR badge follows the instructor that teaches the course. POCR was a state run program. It is now done at the local level. Both Cheryl and Shawn were part of the state POCR team,

Representatives should discuss and share this information with their constituents.

This proposal will come back for discussion and approval in the next meeting.

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Governance Updates: Approval for Ratification

By-Laws

The Senate went over the updates in the same manner as they did for the Constitution last week. All the changes were outlined in red. 

If the Constitution gets ratified in the General Election, the Senate will return and vote to approve the updated By-Laws.

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Continuation of Discussion on GE Proposal

GE Proposal Presentation

Revised GE Advisement Sheet

The Senate resumed its discussion on the GE proposal. Last week, the Senate voted to separate oral communications and critical thinking into 1B and 1C with units to be assigned to each accordingly. The separation aligned with Cal-GETC. The Senate also agreed on Areas 1-7.

The remaining items were the last two, the ICS and the ESGC requirements. For example, if someone fulfills the Cal-GETC requirements, will that person be eligible for a local AA degree?

Sherwin Mendoza asked about the relationship between the Cal-GETC requirements and the De Anza requirements for the AA degree. 

According to the law, if one completes Cal-GETC, they are qualified for the local degrees.

By agreement with other local colleges, De Anza will accept the completion of the GE pattern in these other colleges. However, if the student gets a D in any GE classes, they will not be able to apply that course toward their requirements. Those students will need to follow and complete the De Anza GE pattern.

There were concerns over the complexity of the requirements for the students and counselors to advise student.

There were discussions and disagreements over the ICS requirement and how that relates to the new Ethnic Studies requirement under Area 6.

Sherwin Mendoza read the following statement presented to the GE committee.

Important Courses: IIS faculty feel it is important still to have students take an “approved ICS course,” even in addition to an approved Cal-GETC/CSU/CCC ethnic studies course. The approved ICS courses introduce students to foundational knowledge and scholarship pertaining to long-standing, systemic forms of social inequality in the U.S.—such as disability studies; women, gender, sexuality studies. In the foreseeable future, the IIS division is likely to offer courses in the vibrant and growing fields of critical refugee studies, queer and trans studies, critical mixed race studies, and Arab and Muslim ethnic and diasporic studies. IIS faculty believe that “we are ahead of the times” by asking students to take these “ethnic studies plus” classes–ones that are related to ethnic studies but don’t count as formally “ethnic studies.” The “times” may never catch up to De Anza, but we believe asking students to take these classes is critical to having them be intellectually informed and socially responsible given the world we live in.

He concluded with saying: The ICS requirement signals De Anza’s  long standing commitment to educating students about persistent and ever-evolving forums of social inequity in our nation and beyond. Importantly, the ICS requirement supports De Anza’s  institutional mission of preparing students to be socially responsible leaders in an ever-changing multicultural world.

Marc Coronardo pointed out the limited ICS classes approved for Ethnic Studies, Area 6. The approval process has been challenging, controversial, and slow. Keeping the ICS requirement would allow them time for transition.

There were concerns over how additional requirements may impact student success in competitive majors. While some people supported the ICS courses, they worried about the implementation process.

Sherwin pointed out that there are many different ways and classes that could fulfill the ICS requirement. 

Some people perceived the ICS requirement as an additional requirement to the GE pattern. While they see how students may benefit from these courses, there are other areas and courses that are valuable as well. 

Marc Coronado: I would be very sad to see our ICS requirement go away because of its history at De Anza. Because it's important to us as a people at De Anza, stating who we are, what we believe in. And I appreciate what Veronica and Cheryl and Sherwin, all of you are saying. But I'm at a loss, folks. I just think that doing away with the ICS requirement is a sad day.

Cheryl Balm moved to remove the ICS requirement, Veronica Acevedo seconded.

After some more discussion, James Tallent moved to table. Sherwin Mendoza seconded. Vote by raised hands in the room and check marks in zoom.  The motion passed, 10 to 8 with one abstention.

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Reminder: Updates to AP/BPs: Current Proposed Updates and Legal References.

This item was tabled by default due to the lack of time.

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Good of the Order

Sherwin Mendoza: The General Election link will be open from Monday to Friday. Vote for the Part-time At-large Representative and the amendments to the Constitution.

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Adjournment

Cheryl Balm motioned, Mary Pape seconded, to adjourn, no objection.

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Attendance

In person

Erik Woodbury

Veronica Avila Acevedo, *Ian Ang, Cheryl Balm, Sam Bliss, Kevin Glapion, Lauren Gordon, *Sean Hendrata, Elsa Jimenez-Samayoa, Rusty Johnson, Shagun Kaur,  Sherwin Mendoza, Lisa Mesh, Mary Pape, Jayanti Roy, Lakshmikanta "LK" Sengupta, Rachel Silveria, Leah Smith, Li Wei Sun, James Tallent, Felisa Vilaubi, Catherina Wong

Online

Mirsaeid Abolghasemi, Mary Donahue, Cecilia Hui, Mark Landefeld, So Kam Lee, Ravjeet Singh

Absent

*Deborah Armstrong, Patty Guitron, Anna Nguyen, Liliana Rivera, Glynn Wallis