February 3, 2025

I. Call to Order

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Welcome

Erik Woodbury welcomed everyone to the first Senate meeting in February.

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Approval of Agenda and Minutes from January 27th, 2025.

Alicia Mullens moved, Mary Pape seconded to approve both minutes and agenda. No objection.

Agenda and minutes approved by unanimous consent.

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Public Comment 

Alicia Mullens spoke on behalf of the population groups being targeted by the administration. They, students and faculty, are scared. She wondered if the Senate as a body may put together a resolution to affirm their commitment to support groups like the undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ and transgender.

Erik Woodbury thanked Alicia for her comment. He pointed out that the Senate passed on December 2, 2024 “Academic Senate Resolution in Support of Vulnerable Students and Employees.”  

Veronica Acevedo shared personal experience with undocumented students living in fear with ICE raids reported all over the country.

Mark Landefeld, update from the Affordable Housing Task Force 

Wolfe Road Housing has emerged as a local project to build housing for educators, specifically De Anza College, West Valley College, and local K-12 districts. The housing project is seeking support for a battle over public safety access from the neighborhood west of the project.  https://www.wolferoadhousing.com/   

Also, the district is in negotiations to acquire McClellan Terrace, (7954 McClellan Rd), an apartment complex, which would potentially provide up to 300 beds for students.  There is also a desire to find a separate facility for faculty/staff housing (no potential sites disclosed).

The district’s Affordable Housing Task Force has been directed to move forward with policy creation regarding selection of tenants and operation considerations.

The board has been meeting in close sessions. They shared the above information with the union and the task force recently.

Erik Woodbury thanked those in the room for making the time and effort to be present. He personally found it helpful to have people sharing the physical space. He expressed his appreciation for their continued work and presence.

Erik Woodbury shared a flyer he found posted on campus. It has to do with AI claiming that it has the best paraphrase tool and citation generator. He encouraged people to look out for and take down anything advertising cheating services. This flyer was not approved for posting. As a reminder, anything approved for posting should have a stamp with a date of approval.

Erik Woodbury in recognition of the Black History Month: Benjamin Banneker, an African-American scientist, was the first to observe, predict, and publish "study of the locust" a detailed observation of the 17-year cicada. The emergence of enormous swarms of these insects last summer was big and noisy news on the east coast.

There was a one day conference in Southern California last Friday on Credit for Prior Learning. The Curriculum Committee will give reports and updates in the coming months.

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II. Consent Calendar

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Consent Calendar

RAPP Representative --PT Faculty preferred

Christina Wright

Hiring Committee for VP of Finance and Administrative Services -- Faculty Representative

Erik Woodbury

Sherwin Mendoza moved to approve, Lisa Mesh seconded. No objections. Consent Calendar approved.

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III. Needs and Confirmation

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District and College Needs (Attachment)

Senate Events Committee

Looking for volunteers to identify, plan, or organize events for the Senate to sponsor or co-sponsor. Last week, they mentioned speaker series and social gatherings.

Senate Elections Committee- 

Need 3 volunteers from the executive committee. According to the bylaws, the committee should be formed by next week. The committee is to organize the election for Senate officers and part-time representatives for the next term. It's a great opportunity to engage in the democratic process valued at De Anza College. Sherwin Mendoza who served on this committee last year estimated the time commitment to be 5 hours over several weeks.

Ongoing needs:

• COOL Committee
• Tenure Review At-Large Representatives
• EO Representatives

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Confirmations - 

None

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IV. New & Continuing Business

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Quick Notes:

RAPP & College Council Update

RAPP forwarding its recommendations for two non-instructional and eight instructional positions to the College Council. RAPP did not have time to complete their deliberations. Their recommendation was one position short of the estimated available funds. The College Council accepted the recommendations and forwarded them to the president for decision. President Torres has all of the RAPP (the descriptions, information, and data) on all the personnel requests to make the final selections. It will not go back to RAPP for more work.

RAPP will start evaluating program reviews, about 84, over the next month.

Listening Project - Volunteers Needed as active listeners

This relates back to Alicia’s question in Public Comment about how to support our most vulnerable students? Senate would like to conduct discussions across campus to collect information. Michelle Hernandez from the Equity Office suggested a format that involved active listening. The idea for the listening project was to have a row of chairs with listeners. Then people come in, sit down, and talk with the listeners. The listeners will distill the information and report the issues and problems back to the committee anonymously. 

They will be looking for volunteer listeners. The listening sessions will be an hour each and most likely in person.

FHDA Board Meeting Tonight

The agenda is published the Friday before the board meeting. Check it out. Email Erik with any questions or thoughts.

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OERI Update

OERI Update Senate.pptx

Amy Leonard, OERI Liaison, English

She started by acknowledging the National Day Without An Immigrant Protest that encouraged immigrants to stay home from work, school, and business. She also asked for support for the LGBT+ community.

Amy described her  job as the OERI Liaison. Inform faculty about discipline specific workshops. Also, to communicate from the state potential opportunities and report issues back to the state.

Highlights for the winter and spring. (See powerpoint above.)

A facilitator-supported OER basics course that gives an overview on creative commons, OER evaluation, curation, and accessibility. Weekly office hours to answer questions and help faculty to use OER in their courses.

hey are seeking discipline leads to support OER advocacy and connect with colleagues. There is a $500 stipend per quarter.

Academic Academy 2025-AI in Education, February 20-22.

How is AI shaping teaching, learning, and daily life? How to harness its power while staying aware of its limits?

February OERI Events

Weekly Friday Forums (10:30-11:3)

The first will be ZTC OER degrees program on February 7th

There will be different webinars. (See powerpoint.)

The last will be an introduction to business, February 28th

There are dedicated office hours for math and physics. 

Sherwin Mendoza asked about OER material for literature, like literature anthologies.

Lots of work has been done for English and anthologies. Contact James Adam in the library for help with putting together OER materials for discipline specific courses.

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Campus Safety Resolution (First Read)

• Report out from Uvalde Critical Incident Report Presentation
• Review of current resolution draft
• identification of Resolution sponsor

Christian Wright wrote the resolution. She had to step off the Senate as part-time at-large representative due to schedule conflict.The resolution will need a new sponsor, a person to shepherd this through the review process

Erik Woodbury shared his experience from attending the Uvalde Critical Incident Report Presentation last week. The report reviewed the events at Robb Elementary in Valdi.

It was a super tragic event where 21 people died, 19 children, 2 adults when a gunman entered the elementary school. They spend a lot of time just going through the timeline. There was serious research to line up all the data that went through what they knew, what they didn't know

the points of failure, the kudos, and recommendations going forward.

This presentation was eye opening and educational. Two major takeaways. First, it was really fast. Approximately 10 minutes elapsed between the time that the gunman got to campus and when he was inside a classroom with police outside.

Second, planning and communication is the key.

One of the major problems at Rubb Elementary was that the doors all locked from the outside, not the inside.

This incident related to the proposed resolution on the agenda. Foothill has already passed a similar resolution last spring.

There were robust discussions and comments on the resolution:

At De Anza, some doors are electronically locked and unlocked from a central location; however they cannot be from the inside by instructor or students. 

The resolution does not go far enough. This is just a band-aid. The body needs to think about what and how to advocate. Make it more robust and date specific. There has been no action. 

The solution does not have to be perfect. Must start with something right now. 

Check what the district is already doing. Someone noticed the police department doing inventory on the doors. They may be responding to the Foothill resolution. 

The goal should be safety and security, not just locking doors. Need assessment on building and campus safety.

The resolution is just a starting point. There should be an emergency notification system for warning and lockdown. One of the failure points at Robb Elementary was that the notifications went out to people's personal cell phones which a lot of the teachers didn't have on them during class. They didn't know that the school had gone into lockdown.

There will always be the issue of funding. The full implementation will be a multi-year and expensive commitment. The Senate does have purview per 10+1 on advocating budget priority. 

There was the need for a new sponsor for this resolution to incorporate feedback for further discussion and action.

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Resolution in Support of Part-Time Faculty Compensation Equity (First Read)

Ishmael Tarikh, Part-Time Faculty at-large Senator, presented a draft of “Academic Senate Resolution in Support of  Part-Time Faculty Compensation Equity” 

The resolution stands on 2 pillars. 

First, compensation equity for part-time faculty for the non-teaching activities.

Second, a recruitment tool to boost morale among part-time faculty. Morale has been low. Part-time faculty felt like second class citizenship.

In a conversation with the Foothill Academic Senate president, Ishmael discovered that in 2016 the Foothill Academic Senate passed a resolution to create compensation parity between those engaged in non-teaching activities. They amended their bylaws to include a stipend of $750 per quarter for part-time faculty who were either serving as a part-time faculty rep on their academic senate or serving in shared governance committees. De Anza currently pays $300 per quarter.

At Foothill, there was dissatisfaction with the $750 as proper compensation so they switched to an hourly rate for every hour of non-teaching activity a part-time faculty member engages in. They calculated it to about $50 per hour.  For this resolution, Ishmael estimated the hourly rate to $56 per hour.

The Ask was for the Senate to support this resolution and amend it bylaws accordingly. Also, if it passes, how would the stipend or pay be funded. It will drain the Senate funds. At Foothill, this was being paid by the college, outside the Senate budget.

Therefore, Ishmael suggested that De Anza mirror its sister college in creating a greater amount of compensation equity for non-teaching assignments. And it could be a very effective recruiting tool for getting more part-time faculty to serve on shared governance committees and even to run for offices like the two at large for part-time faculty rep.

Ishmael will do additional work to find out funding sources for these compensations. What is the source at Foothill? It is outside of their Academic Senate budget and funds. How do other colleges fund such compensations? He would like to have academic support when he brings this issue to the president. 

Several people commented on the much lower compensation at De Anza for non-teaching activities compared to other nearby colleges.

Shagun Kaur moved to approve the resolution without a second Read. Ishmael stated his intent to do more work in finalizing the resolution. This will include identifying funding sources, making negotiation, and establishing guidelines. 

Shagun withdrew her motion.

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Funding request for Immigrants Rights Conference (First Read)

Cynthia Kaufman requested $200 from the Senate to support a speaker at the 2025 Global Issues Conference

Uplifting Immigrant Voices

Wednesday, February 26, 12:30 -3:20 pm, conference rooms A & B

Mary Pape moved to approve $200 to support the conference, Alicia Mullen seconded. No objections. Motion passed.

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Equity Rubric (Second Read)

Felisa Vilaubi returned to answer questions about the equity rubric. 

Sherwin Mendoza had a question about “DISPROPORTIONATELY

IMPACTED” Prioritized Group listed in slide 9. The other groups are 

categorized by race and ethnicity. But it isn't just about race, there are other factors.

Felisa explained that the language was pulled from the FHDA Board Priorities, Equity Plan Reimagined, and the Educational Master Plan. The application manual that is about three pages long clearly writes about groups like foster youth, LGBTQ, as well as ADA accessibility. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vZZglNEmGdj8occzEJkH4JC1j_Kr_WT0/edit

There were questions regarding the evaluation process. Will a program be denied?

The valuation process is on slide 20.

The EAC/ERC that does the evaluation will be meeting every week. They  need 2 weeks lead time. Their intent is not to deny event but to make sure students feel safe

There were concerns over the timeline, the amount of back and forth in the process, capacity issue, and its sustainability. It is one more thing to do in planning a program. The required time seems long.

Felisa: The intent was to make the event more successful, not another thing to do. This applies to any event that is open to all students

Someone asked if this applies to smaller events of less than 50 students. Also, what about club or department events.

What is the logistics, the order or flowchart for planning a college wide event? What is the Best practice?

Sherwin Mendoza suggested giving a badge for equity approved events.

Felisa thanked everyone for their  good questions.

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Good of the Order

50 marches, 50 capitals on the 5th at noon.

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Adjournment

Cynthia Kaufman motioned, Mary Pape seconded, to adjourn, no objection.

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Attendance

In person

Erik Woodbury, Patty Guitron, So Kam Lee

Veronica Avila Acevedo, James Adams, Viviana Alcazar, Umar Douglas, Mark Hamer, Kevin Glapion, Lauren Gordon, Julie Hughes, Rusty Johnson, Cynthia Kaufman, Mark Landefeld, Sherwin Mendoza, Lisa Mesh, Alicia Mullens,, Mary Pape, Victor Pham, Christian Rodriguez, Jayanti Roy, Lakshmikanta "LK" Sengupta, Ravjeet Singh, Sukhjit Bob Singh, Leah Smith, James Tallent, Ismael Tarikh, Lianna Wong

Online

*Sam Bliss, Shagun Kaur, Mark Landefeld, 

Absent

*Deborah Armstrong, Mary Donahue, James Capurso

*Non-voting members