June 17, 2024

I. Call to Order

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Welcome

Welcome to the last Senate meeting for the school year.

Erik Woodbury reminded everyone to complete their report out .

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Approval of Agenda and Minutes from June 10th, 2024

No comments to the minutes and agenda. No objections.

Agenda and minutes approved.

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Public Comment

Veronica Avila Acevedo described last week’s meeting as very vulnerable. There were comments about someone wanting to serve on the Equity Council. The comments referred to a public article. She was not sure if people had read the article. 

She suggested that the Senate as a body of representatives would come together in the beginning of the fall quarter to define and address such vulnerable conversations where there may be a pending allegation, like sexual harassment. A lawsuit doesn't mean that a person has committed harassment. The Senate will need to determine the procedure to deal with those vulnerable and difficult conversations. 

Veronica also thought that there are a lot of misunderstandings regarding Title 5 and GE requirements after talking with some deans and those involved

Both items are on the agenda for discussion and decision later..

Shagun Kaur: Please fill out the low cost and zero cost survey for the summer so your courses can be marked accurately: https://www.deanza.edu/academic-services/oer/ 

Michelle Hernandez, Dean, Equity & Engagement reminded everyone that Wednesday, June 19 will be a holiday in recognition and acknowledgement of Juneteenth when the last Africans were freed from slavery in 1865 in Texas in Galveston, Texas.

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II. Consent Calendar

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Approval of Consent Calendar (Attachment)

Tenure Review Committees that will start Fall, 2024

John Francis, BCAT/Business

• Manisha Karia, Dean, BCAT 
• Emily Garbe, Business 
• Byron Lilly, Business 
• Cinzia Muzzi, CHEM, At Large Rep

Farideh Dada, Journalism

• Thomas Ray, Dean, Language Arts 
• Julie Pesano, English 
• Veronica Avila, English 
• Dave Capitolo, AUTO, At Large Rep

Yacoub Moussa, BCAT/Accounting

• Manisha Karia, Dean, BCAT 
• Catherina Wong, Accounting 
• Andrew Stoddard, DMT 
• Diana Alves de Lima, Equity & Engagement, At Large Rep

Mirsaeid Abolghasemi, BCAT/Computer Information Systems

• Manisha Karia, Dean, BCAT 
• Mary Pape, CIS 
• Sukhjit Singh, CIS 
• Jayanti Roy, CD, At Large Rep

New Hire, BCAT/Auto Tech

• Manisha Karia, Dean, BCAT 
• Bill Wishar, AUTO 
• James Tallent, AUTO 
• Karen Chow, English, At Large Rep

James Tallent moved, Ravjeet Singh seconded to approve. No objection. Tenure Review Committees approved.

Shagun Kaur gave a shout out to the Senate officers for their commitment to get these committees completed and approved in the regular spring quarter to avoid scrambling in the fall.

Erik Woodbury: the officers will continue to review and approve tenure review committee requests over the summer in consultation with Shagun. These decisions will be reported to the first Senate meeting in the fall.

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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

Erik Woodbury emphasized the need for the Curriculum Co-Chair.

Patty Guitron lifted up the need for additional Tenure Review At-Large Representatives as she expected more requests over the summer. Both the At-large rep and the EO Rep need to complete the J1 Training.

Confirmations (Attachment)

Note: This item followed the GE proposal discussion

Veronica Avila Acevedo wanted to move forward with the affirmation of Joe D’Agostino to the EAC Equity Action Council. She has read the newspaper article. She thanked Cherly Balm for being honest and vulnerable in bringing up her concern. The article mentioned racial slurs used against black men. Last week, Joe D’Agostino and his term received the equity award. She observed reconciliation and forgiveness that was important for her. 

Veronica Avila Acevedo moved to confirm, Mark Landefeld seconded.

Discussion followed on the need for a process/procedure that provides a safe space for people to bring up, discuss, and resolve such concerns.

In this case Erik Woodbury reached out to the writer of the article, the individuals involved to ascertain the facts on the incident. He summarized the course of events for Senate members to make their determination. The incident happened 2 years ago in 2022. The faculty reported the incident to his dean and went through the administrative process.

The Senate should be a safe place for people to raise concerns. However, members should do their best to do their own due diligence to ascertain the facts. They can reach out to the officers if  they feel uncomfortable to do so on their own. Each member of this body has the capacity and responsibility to represent their constituents in a professional and respectful manner.

Motion to confirm passed with no opposition and 7 abstentions.

Jamie Pelusi suggested the need for an equity rubric for committee nominations. It would be uncomfortable to approve if there should be a serious outstanding allegation. 

Erik Woodbury: Every request to serve asks for a statement that includes  an equity portion. They can absolutely look into creating an equity rubric 

Veronica Acevedo valued Jamie’s comment. However, she wanted clarification from Michelle Hernadez regarding the Equity Champion  Award and her input on the equity rubric.

Michelle Hernandez. He won the team award which went toward their work with recruits. Regarding some kind of standard of equity for appointments, the Equity Office does make sure that any speakers or groups that invite are in alignment with the De Anza values. The Senate may apply a similar alignment in selecting someone to represent them across campus.

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IV. New & Continuing Business

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Election Update and Certification of Results

Sherwin Mendoza on behalf of the Election Committee reported and certified the election results for spring 2024.

The amended Constitution passed overwhelmingly. 75 yes, 3 no.

Part-time At-large Representative: Christina Wright 73 votes. 2 write-in votes, 1 for Mary Donahue, 1 for Daniel Solomon.

A warm welcome to Christina Wright as the new Part-time At-large Representative.

Ratification of the Amended By-Laws

The By-Laws amendment requires a two-thirds affirmation vote to pass.

Mary Pape moved to accept the by-laws as amended. Shagun Kaur seconded. No objections. Passed with unanimous consent.

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Continuation of Discussion on GE Proposal:
ICS and ESGC requirement

GE Proposal Presentation

Revised GE Advisement Sheet

Recap of the previous discussions. There was a general agreement on Areas 1 to 7. They splitted Area 1 into 1A, 1B, and 1C, separating Oral Communication and Critical Thinking. Added new state requirements in Area 2: Mathematical Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning and Area 6: Ethnic Studies. Maintained in Area 7: Physical/Mental Wellness and Personal Development.

Resumption on the ICS requirement discussion. There was a motion to remove the ICS required that was tabled. 

Veronica Avila Acevedo raised concerns over the Title 5 direction of moving toward just one GE pattern. She noted that some other colleges, like San Francisco State, have 2 GE patterns. They have their own GE pattern in addition to the Title 5 GE pattern. She asked if it would be possible to have more discussion on this topic in the fall. Because this will impact not just ICS, but also environmental sciences, climate change, and PE. She pointed out the history of how these divisions and departments fought hard to develop and promote these classes. She mentioned that other colleges have noticed the insular and difficult nature of the Ethnic Studies requirement and are moving in the direction making their requirements more rounded.

Sherwin Mendoza pushed back on the idea that the ICS requirement to be a second ICS requirement. They are different from the areas above. There are classes that could meet 2 areas. Students may decide which requirement they want to apply to that class. 

The ICS requirement and the ESGC requirements are fundamentally different. These requirements are the continuation for the social justice movement from the 1960s. The ICS requirement brings together these struggles that started with race, then expanded to include intercultural communications, women studies, gender studies, LGBT studies, and disability.

Many of the ICS classes are cross-listed and represent collaborations between divisions across campus. Sherwin pointed out that the ICS requirement created in the 1970s was the pride for the college and distinguishes what the college stands for. The ESGC requirement was a momentous decision that serves a similar purpose.

Sherwin Mendoza moved to table and postponed the decision to eliminate the ICS and the ESGC requirements until the fall.  Cheryl Balm seconded

There were concerns and discussion on the delay to the timeline for the curriculum office. If the decision is tabled, the finalization will not happen until week 3 or 4 in the fall, 

Felisa Vilaubi brought up how the additional requirements may affect students. While the ICS and the ESGC can both be double counted. A lot of students do not double count them and end up taking additional classes. That means a lot of extra time and money for those students. She questioned what ICS brings that Ethnic Studies does not.

Veronica Acevedo asked for clarification on the new Title 5 requirement, especially on the direction the state is going.

Sam Bliss: Area 6 should be wider to include the De Anza ICS components that are incredibly valuable. The Ethnic Studies requirement is very strict and limited. Practically, 80% of the students will follow the Cal-GETC, while 20% would go for the local AA GE pattern. His main concern was academic readiness. Under Cal-GETC students cannot apply a D to fulfill their requirement, while they apply D toward the local AA degree as long as their total GPA is above 2 point. Sam also described the possible impact with the upcoming implementation of the statewide common course numbering system.

Sam has contacted the state chancellor's office to see if they would expand Area 6 guidelines to include more ICS classes.

The approval for Ethnic Studies classes have been a challenge. There are many colleges that have only one approved ethnic studies class.

Mary Pape suggested having a task force to work and get more classes approved. She also was in favor of making a commitment to move forward.

Gynn Wallis questioned  the purpose of tabling.

Sherwin Mendoza: a lot of stakeholders are not here.

Marc Coronardo suggested that there is more information needed for people to make an informed decision. Disability and gender studies are not included in ethnic studies. That means sign languages and other important classes will be excluded. That is a good way to shut down a department. One of the reasons that there are not people here from ICS is that those people do not exist. They have just hired people who will be very interested in this, but they're not on faculty yet.

Shagun Kaur made the suggestion of giving the stakeholders the summer to work and gather more information for their case and be ready to present to the Senate in the fall.

Erik Woodbury called for a vote on the motion to table.

Motion to table passed. 

The delay will impact the work of the Curriculum Committee and the curriculum office. 

Erik Woodbury went over the proposed timeline for the finalization of the GE requirements, effective fall 2025, with the deadline for approval before Thanksgiving.

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Summary of Accomplishments for 23/24

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Good of the Order

Please review report out  and communicate contents to constituents.

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Adjournment at 3:30 

Mary Pape motioned, Ravjeet Singh seconded, to adjourn, no objection.

Follow by year end reception to celebrate and honor retirees and tenure recipients.

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Attendance

In person

Erik Woodbury, Patty Guitron, So Kam Lee

Veronica Avila Acevedo, Cheryl Balm, Sam Bliss, Mary Donahue, Kevin Glapion, Lauren Gordon, Mark Hamer, Elsa Jimenez-Samayoa, Rusty Johnson, Shagun Kaur,  Sherwin Mendoza, Lisa Mesh, Mary Pape, Jayanti Roy, Lakshmikanta "LK" Sengupta, Leah Smith, Ravjeet Singh, Li Wei Sun, James Tallent, Felisa Vilaubi, Glynn Wallis, Catherina Wong

Online

Mirsaeid Abolghasemi, *Ian Ang, Cecilia Hui, Mark Landefeld, Jamie Pelusi

Absent

*Deborah Armstrong, Anna Nguyen