Notes - May 23, 2005

De Anza Academic Senate
Approved Notes for the meeting of
May 23rd, 2005

Senators and Officers present: Argyriou, Bresnan, Bryant, Castaño, Clavijo, Cole, Cordero, Dolen, Dunn, Fritz, Goodwin, Guevara, Hearn, Illowsky, Jensen Sullivan, Joplin, Logvinenko, Lopez-Morgan, Mitchell, Mosh, Setziol, Sheirich, Winters, and Zill
Senators and Officers absent: Chenoweth and Moreno
DASB: Alex Candia
Classified Senate:
Administrative Liaison:
Guests: Beth McPartland, Cathryn Hryck, Joanne Yamaoka, Ben Kline, Rich Schroeder, Tim Shively, Pat Quarato, and 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 3:00, a quorum being present.

I. Approval of Agenda and Notes: The notes of the meeting of May 16th were approved as distributed. The agenda was approved as distributed noting that Items VII and III would be taken out of order.

VII. Equity Report: The State mandated report uses different terminology and calls for some different information organization than our own indigenous equity report, therefore causing what some might perceive to be extra work. There is still insufficient accountability in the area. The featured finding in the report was that disproportionately few white students from our official service area attend De Anza. This is difficult to reconcile with the fact that only 25% of De Anza's students come from that traditional service area Also, white ESL students succeed at a disproportionately low rate. The numbers may be a bit misleading since 19.6% of those surveyed declined to state their ethnicity. It was suggested that this may be due to Middle Eastern and Eastern European feeling that "White" was not the suitable category.

III. Accreditation Draft Documents: All four standard drafts were announced as being completed. As of the time of the meeting only two (1 and 4) were available on line.

II. Senate Election Results: Lydia Hearn was elected President of the Academic Senate for the 2005-2006 year and Ben Kline was elected Vice President for 2005-2007.

IV. Needs and Confirmations: Most of the remainder of the meeting dealt with proposed Biological and Health Sciences tenure review committees. First, however, the Jack Lynch Tenure Review Committee was approved as distributed and Eugene Rodriguez and Diane Pierce were approved for service on the Moto Otake Tenure Review Committee.

During the long and emotional discussion and vote on the proposed Biological and Health Sciences tenure review committees, two points emerged and then reemerged: One, the division DID follow their procedures in coming up with the names under consideration and two, the Academic Senate is responsible for approving such committees according to the Tenure Review provisions in the faculty contract. Specifically, the following was said to be problematic: that division policies and procedures a) call for the automatic inclusion of department chairs (contrary to FA and Senate expectation that committee slots are open to all eligible faculty – in this case, all department faculty) and b) make the other four year term another faculty member from the same department (contrary to FA and Senate expectation that the other faculty member ordinarily comes from within the division but outside the department.

A motion to approve the names forwarded for confirmation failed. The group will consider the matter again when the division resubmits names for these tenure review committees.

V. Textbook Policy: The item was held over

VI. Opening Day Planning: The item was held over

VIII. Good of the Order:

  • Several people expressed unhappiness at the contentiousness of the Needs and Confirmations item. It was suggested that there was a misunderstanding that questioning committee nominations was a personal statement.
  • A flyer was distributed announcing a special event about the future of democracy in Iraq (Thursday, June 2nd).
  • A report on De Anza's involvement in "Equity for All" will come to the Senate.
  • The Boulder Creek Art and Wine Festival will include the work of some De Anza students.
  • Bresnan announced her candidacy for the FA Executive Council and asked for support.
  • Alex Candia commended the group for the passion shown during the meeting.
  • A visitor from Rwanda would like to meet faculty – see Jensen Sullivan
  • The student nurses raised enough money for Tsunami relief to enable the building of a house and to donate $600 for relief efforts.
  • An Etudes II demonstration was announced as taking place May 31st - see Illowsky

The meeting was adjourned at 4:37

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