Notes - April 18, 2005

De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
April 18th, 2005

Senators and Officers present: Argyriou, Bryant, Chenoweth, Cole, Cordero, Dolen, Dunn, Fritz, Goodwin, Guevara, Hearn, Illowsky, Jensen Sullivan, Joplin, Logvinenko, Lopez-Morgan, Mitchell, Moreno, Setziol, Sheirich, Winters, and Zill
Senators and Officers absent: Bresnan, Clavijo, Mosh, Pierce, and Salah
DASB: Alex Candia
Classified Senate:
Administrative Liaison:
Guests: Karl Schaffer

[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 notes of March 14th were approved as distributed. The notes of April 11th were approved with corrections in the attendance section. The agenda was approved as distributed.

II. Needs and Confirmations: At long last, the need for a faculty member to serve on the Facilities Committee was filled by Phil Green. The rest of the previously presented and distributed needs remain. Confirmation of a Language Arts hiring committee was postponed until the meeting of April 25th.

III. District Senate President Selection: A document proposing a new procedure for the selection of District Academic Senate Presidents was distributed. Again, Mitchell introduced the item and then Illowsky chaired the group for the remainder of the item. After modest editing, it was MSCU (Lopez-Morgan, Cordero) to adopt the proposal going to the Foothill Senate minus the section on Compensation. A Compensation section will be considered April 25th.

IV. Senate Election Update: Bryant reported that the work of the Nominations Committee was on schedule and that the election would be May 17th and 18th with a deadline for nominations (self or other) of April 29th. There was a discussion about the potential for part time faculty running for one of the officer positions. At the present time it would be difficult if not impossible for a part time faculty member to be an officer because a) there are no funds identified and b) in the case of the President position, having the released time would present a kind of catch 22 wherein a person would not be able to have a teaching assignment within 60% law provisions which would mean that they would not be a current faculty member which would make them ineligible to hold the office. The group was reminded that sign up sheets for Senators to work the polling station will start circulating at a meeting near them soon.

V. Senate Scholarship: Illowsky explained the background of the two scholarships and urged that new people join those who have already contributed towards an endowment for the scholarships.

VI. Textbook Policy: Mitchell distributed a document proposing new language for the sections on Ethical Issues, Printing Services, Library, and Copyright Issues that was based on previous discussion. The group ended up only discussing the Ethical Issues section. It was soon apparent that the principal concern of the group was the principle of avoiding conflict of interest – some said avoiding even the appearance of it. It was a sense of the Senate that a subsection be added specifically referring to conflict of interest. During the discussion, it became apparent that there was no shared specific definition of conflict of interest as it would pertain to textbook and other course materials issues. Having a section on conflict of interest would serve to produce a commonly held definition.

The group spent some time rewording the first subsection (Collecting money in class from students), accepting, after several other attempts, student Alex Candia's elegantly simple solution. The next version distributed will contain that language. After numerous further comments, two needs became apparent: one, everyone would be well advised to go back and read previously approved sections of the document – especially that on Faculty Authored Texts - as people were making suggestions for inclusions already made, and two, there needs to be language linking sections covering similar topics to enable a reader looking for something specific in one section to find it in, perhaps, another.

Mitchell will attempt to mold the large amount and great variety of input into a new version and will bring it back for reconsideration.

VII. Accreditation Draft Documents: Mitchell and Illowsky told the group that to distribute or to ask all of the individuals of the group to read the over 150 pages of the self study by April 25th is impractical and just "isn't going to happen". Mitchell suggested that an option would be to ask volunteers to read one or more of the four standards reports. The officers were asked what the role of the Academic Senate was in this situation. The answer was a structural one – the legitimate interest of the Academic Senate is to determine the role of faculty in accreditation and, since there was no previous specific provision for approval or even review by the Executive Committee, there was no specific responsibility. Mitchell did ask, as was suggested by a couple of people in the group, that everyone read the "Planning Agenda" sections of the four standards by the April 25th meeting and prepare to comment on the good, the bad, and the missing from those "Planning Agenda" sections.

VIII. For the Good of the Order:

  • There will be a rally this Wednesday at 12:00 by students in support of a statewide call for a walkout protesting the status of Community College and other education funding in California. Faculty were encouraged to allow students normally in class at that time to attend the rally without penalty.
  • It was reported that there is an upswing in anger towards faculty on the part of classified staff due to the laying off of classified staff. Specifically, faculty were being asked if they took a stand against the layoffs. There was a discussion about the importance of faculty/ classified relationships. A further discussion of the situation and this important will be on the April 25th agenda.
  • Earth Day is Friday, April 22nd.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:38 p.m.

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