June 15, 2026

I. Call to Order

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Welcome

Shagun Kaur welcomed senators and guests to the last senate meeting for the school year.

Shagun reminded voting members online to add "VM" to their Zoom name to help identify them to the public.

Shagun Kaur asked senators to review the consent calendar as it has been updated over the weekend. This was important since the Senate must  complete its business at this last meeting.

Voting members attending in person and those joining online with their names and meeting locations published on the agenda used the roll call vote link to establish quorum. 

They also used the same link to approve the  agenda, the June 8, 2026 meeting minutes and consent calendar.

Roll Call Vote (21)

Alicia Mullens, Angela Winch, Angelica Esquivel Moreno, Barbara Dahlke, James Capurso, Jayanti Roy, Kevin Glapion, Lakshmikanta Sengupta, Lauren Gordon, Leah Smith, Mark Hamer, Mark Landefeld, Mary Donahue, Mary Pape, Rusty Johnson, Sherwin Mendoza, So Kam Lee, Veronica Acevedo Avila, Viviana Alcazar, Yuri Chang

Quorum reached.

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II. Agenda, Minutes, and Consent Calendar

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Approval of Agenda, Minutes from June 8th, 2026, and Consent Calendar

Approval of Agenda

Yes (21)Alicia Mullens, Angela Winch, Angelica Esquivel Moreno, Barbara Dahlke, James Capurso, Jayanti Roy, Kevin Glapion, Lakshmikanta Sengupta, Lauren Gordon, Leah Smith, Mark Hamer, Mark Landefeld, Mary Donahue, Mary Pape, Rusty Johnson, Sherwin Mendoza, So Kam Lee, Veronica Acevedo Avila, Viviana Alcazar, Yuri Chang

Agenda approved.

Approval of Minutes from  June 8th, 2026

Yes (21) Alicia Mullens, Angela Winch, Angelica Esquivel Moreno, Barbara Dahlke, James Capurso, Jayanti Roy, Kevin Glapion, Lakshmikanta Sengupta, Lauren Gordon, Leah Smith, Mark Hamer, Mark Landefeld, Mary Donahue, Mary Pape, Rusty Johnson, Sherwin Mendoza, So Kam Lee, Veronica Acevedo Avila, Viviana Alcazar, Yuri Chang

Minutes approved.

Approval of Consent Calendar

Yes (20) Alicia Mullens, Angela Winch, Angelica Esquivel Moreno, Barbara Dahlke, James Capurso, Jayanti Roy, Kevin Glapion, Lakshmikanta Sengupta, Lauren Gordon, Leah Smith, Mark Hamer, Mark Landefeld, Mary Donahue, Rusty Johnson, Sherwin Mendoza, So Kam Lee, Veronica Acevedo Avila, Viviana Alcazar, Yuri Chang

Abstain (1) Mary Pape

Consent Calendar approved.

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Public Comment

Mark Landefeld highlighted a discussion at the recent district board meeting on field replacements. Shagun spoke up on behalf of the Senate to express support for Kinesiology and PE in the De Anza general education pattern. Mark appreciated her voice in this matter and called it the Shagun mic drop moment. 

Mark Landefeld raised concerns about potential changes to the  parameters of the De Anza College Promise Program that will affect second year students at De Anza. They will reach out to Lisa Mandy for clarification

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III. Needs and Confirmation

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College Needs:

Jayanti Roy: Multiple faculty positions still need to be filled across various committees. Encourage colleagues to apply for open faculty positions on shared governance committees

Senators: Consider applying for or encouraging qualified candidates to apply for open faculty positions, as per protocol, applications will be open until the first Senate meeting in the fall, after which the Senate will elect from the body if needed.

• Campus Facilities [1 faculty]
• Equity Action Council (EAC) [2 faculty]
• Professional Relations Committee [3 faculty]
• SLO Committee [1 faculty]
• District Diversity & Equity Advisory Committee (DDEAC) [1 faculty]
• COOL Membership [1 faculty member each from Business and Finance, Affinity At-large]
• CPR Task Force [1 faculty from PE and Athletics, CTE]

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Confirmations: 

AI Summer Work Group- 

There were 12 applicants. See Candidate Statements 

The Work Group will spend the summer looking at AI guidelines, procedures, and policies from community colleges across the state to come up with a framework for future BP and AP policies on this important topic. 

The positions were open to both full-time faculty and adjunct faculty with REP.

Call for a Vote

Voting members used rank choice voting to select for their top 3 choices from the 12 candidates.

Election Results

It was nnounced at the end of the meeting.

Karen Chow, Amy Leonard, and Marx Gomez-Liendo were selected and confirmed as faculty representatives for the AI Summer Work Group.

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IV. New & Continuing Business

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Quick News:

Exec Director for Research/Planning Hiring Committee

• District Senate President Dolores Davison has filled the faculty rep position to represent both Academic Senates. This work will happen over the summer.

District Opening Day (September 16, 2026): Submit proposals

• The proposal deadline has been extended to June 30. 
• Mary Donahue pointed out that the submit proposal link still has June 3 as the deadline. People may get confused and believe it to be too late to submit.

Proctoring Discussion; 

• Shagun Kaur wanted to honor the work James Capurso and Dean Gabriela Nocito have put into the proctoring discussion. She apologized for not being able to agendize the continuation of this discussion before the school term ends. James and Gabby will monitor closely the work of the AI Work Group over the summer to further inform the continued discussion on this topic in the fall.

De Anza's 59th annual commencement celebration

• Saturday, June 27, at the De Anza College Stadium and Track
• Send RSVP to Natalie Aguilar if planning to attend in person to reserve seating on stage away from the sun.

Faculty Inquiry Tool

• Lisa Ly, the faculty inquiry tool is being phased out. They will transition to a new platform called Lakehouse using Snowflake data. The data that faculty previously referenced to in the Faculty Inquiry tool can be found within the Precision Campus reports

Board Action: 

• Approval of 2026-2027 Tentative Budget
• Vice President of Finance Farhad Sabit already gave an update on the De Anza budget in last week’s meeting 

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Counseling Task Force Update

Members of the Task Force

• Felisa Vilaubi, Melissa Maturino, Khao Nguyen (Counseling)
• Erik Woodbury (Academic Senate)
• Kathy Perino, Brandon Gainer, Danny Solomon (FA negotiations team)
• Michele Lebleu Burns, Laureen Balducci, Adrienne Hypolite (Admin)

Kathy Perino,  FA Negotiation Team shared 

Background History

During the spring and summer of 2025, former President Torres proposed changes to counseling. The plan was to have all counselors report to general counseling. Kathy noted that there has been a long history of embedded counseling and general counseling reporting separately.

Kathy reached out to President Torres about using an interest based bargaining approach to address and discuss the issues.

They formed the above work group in fall 2025. The group spent about a year exploring a variety of issues, common interests, options, and proposals. They took a collaborative, rather than an adversarial approach to build trust and dialogue.

In the middle of the task force work, 5 general counselors decided to take advantage of SURP, the supplemental retirement plan.

Implementation Plan for 26-27

See Update Document

First, Three Counselors who are currently Outreach/Promise counselors will move into GC and become General Counselors

Currently the Promise counselors case manage students receiving Promise support. 

Promise will become Financial aid designation.

All counselors will serve students receiving promise funds.

The goal was to provide high quality and accessible counseling service.

The majority of the students go to general counseling. Therefore general counseling needs the capacity to serve students, as well as work collaboratively with other counselors throughout the campus to funnel students to appropriate counselors and programs. 

Second, create embedded counseling “co-chair”to help coordinate with the GC chair(s) the work of general counseling and embedded counseling. See document for details on the work for this position.

Third, all counselors will go to joint in-service meetings co-planned by the two chairs to help with cross-training. (Max of 3 required two-hour in-service meetings per quarter.)

Recommendations for work to continue in 26-27

The work is not finished. It is a work in progress.  It will take more time to assess and adjust the model to be in line with student needs.

Plan/launch a campus wide drop-in counseling program.

The college prioritizes hiring additional general counselors to manage the high student volume (especially with 5 counselors retiring at the end of this academic year).

See document for more recommendations for continuing work.

There will be 24 hrs/week in load for the co-chairs. 12 hours for general, 12 hours for embedded. That could be one person for all 12 hours or 6 and 6 for two people

There were questions about who was in charge of planning orientation for new students .

Regarding orientation, Patty Guitron raised concerns about the lack of clear leadership and system for tracking orientation credit. There is an online orientation from outreach for priority registration

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Time Block Scheduling Task Force: Third Read

This was the third discussion on the time block schedule.

Recap

A task force was created 9 months ago with members from faculty, classified staff, students and administrators. They were charged with working on a block schedule for the college. A few weeks ago they presented two options to the Senate, Option A and Option B. Since then, two more options, C and D were created due to concerns from Bio and Chem

Update for the current meeting

Ram Subramaniam: Only Options A and B are still under consideration. Options C and D have been withdrawn from consideration because they were not created by the task force.

At the last college council meeting, the college council favored Option A, it will go back to the council for a final vote.

The student government DASG overwhelmingly favored Option A. 

The Classified Senate will be voting on their final position.

Option B with Flex

After extensive consultation with various departments, particularly lab sciences, a modified version of option B was developed to address scheduling constraints, with biology and chemistry faculty confirming support for this modified version.

Feedback summary 

Shagun has prepared a summary of feedback on the Time Block Schedule from Academic Divisions. 

(See summary document for more details.)

• Biological, Health and Environmental Sciences – Option B with Flex
• Career Technical Education and Workforce Development – Option A
• Language Arts Communication Studies – Option B
• English - Results of an anonymous survey indicate The English Department faculty do not unanimously endorse either block scheduling option. (See summary document for more details.)
• Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering 
• Chemistry – Option B with Flex
• Mathematics has sent an Open Letter to Senate
• Astronomy, Engineering, Geology, Meteorology 
• Physics – Option B with Flex
• Social Sciences and Humanities – Option B
• Counseling and Human Development has a tie between option A and option C.
• Environmental Sciences and Health Tech supported the Option B lab flex option

Conversation on the pros and cons

Sherwin Mendoza and others pointed out odd ending times and some possible overlap between blocks with some classes, like the 5-unit classes, math classes, PE classes and lab classes.

Jim Nguyen: at College Council, Math was very concerned about the 2 hr blocks for math classes. 

What do students want?

The students expressed interest in having a community hour, a midday break. Option B does not have it. There is room for it in Option A.

Lianna Wong: While Version A is being recommended for its student community hour, STEM students taking laboratory classes will be disproportionately excluded from these community activities. This is an equity concern that could impact hundreds of students taking lab classes across STEM programs

Jim Nguyen: Can someone provide a timeline? When is this body voting on an option and which College Council meeting will it be considered?

The Academic Senate will provide its recommendation, which will go to the college council which has the final vote on which option the college will adopt.

Angela Winch: version B with flexibility for the labs addresses several issues in BHES division. The 8 am lab start time is better for students. The 7:30 lab start has had low enrollment in the past. It also allows more time for the lab to be set up before that first time block. It is a more realistic scheduling for students, staff, faculty with childcare and transportation needs. It also has the extra 30 minutes transition time for lab cleanup and setup

Rebecca Board Liljenstolpe, Task Force Member

I think one of the options today, especially given that we can not even keep all of the new scenarios straight, could be to postpone the vote and allow groups to continue to evaluate the various scenarios. As a faculty member on the task force, I maintain a neutral position and did not endorse the block schedule our group put forward because I felt faculty and students need to have more conversation about it. No block schedule will be perfect and solve all of our scheduling issues—given all the feedback and tweaking. We can not rush to implement something that raises so many questions.

Rusty Johnson:

Our athletes take all their classes before training in the afternoon. Option A gives them much more options to get their classes. Athletics support Option A.

Megan Brophy raised concerns for the evening physics and chemistry programs. The current timing with labs at 6:30 and lectures around 4:00-4:30, will be difficult for non-traditional or working students.

Several more people voiced concerns about moving forward without a consensus and recommended waiting until Fall

Senate Voting

The Academic Senate was asked to vote for four options - A, B, B with flex, or keep the current schedule. VPI mentioned that if one of the first three options/schedules were to be selected, the task force will continue working next academic cycle to adjust as needed.

Voting Result

• 24 votes cast
• Option A-- 3
• Option--B-- 4
• Option B with flex-- 15 votes
• Maintain current schedule--- 2

The Academic Senate selected Option B with Flex Schedule to recommend to the College Council. The vote result will go to College Council for their approval/final vote, on Thursday 6/18

There was a suggestion that this scheduling model be implemented on a trial/interim basis for 1 year. They will extend the task force to continue its work, then modify the plan after feedback for the following year. 

• Recommendation from Task Force:
• Appendix E - Version 4 Time-Block Model
• Final Report - Spring 2026
• PresentationSupporting Documents:
• Appendix A - Guiding Principles
• Appendix B - Timeline & Development of Time Blocks
• Appendix C - Final Membership
• Appendix D - Sample Pathways
• Appendix F - Analytical Support and Transparency
• Option C [presented as an option on June 8th]
• Sample Schedule - 6-6-26
• Modification to Version B [proposed by Biological Sciences on 6/11]

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Scholarship Committee

Scholarship Presentation

Veronica Avila Acevedo gave a report on the work of the scholarship committee. She went over the award guidelines as well as the award distribution for 25-26. The Senate financial awards went to students experiencing hardship and demonstrating persistence towards their academic goals. The  total budget of $5,000 was distributed across multiple quarters. She urged people to recruit more due paying members to increase future funding.

The current flat rate for eveyon is $15.

Mary D; dues based on earning; made the mistake of making the same for everyone; change part time to lower; 

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District Climate Survey Discussion

Presentors: Mallory Newell, Director of Institutional Research and Planning and Gohar Momjian, Vice Chancellor for Strategy, Institutional Effectiveness and Engagement

Mallory Newell presented the results of the Campus Climate Initiative conducted in 3 parts. 

First, a district-wide employee and student survey conducted last spring that is long overdue. They have not done one in over 12 years. Moving forward, they plan to conduct one every other year. 

Second, they held focus groups as a follow up to the climate survey in May. There were 2 focus groups for faculty, 2 for classified professionals, and 1 for administrators.

Third, they administered a very short 12-question survey that was district-wide. This pulse survey is modeled after the Forbes Employer of Choice survey, that is based on six themes: holistic well-being and support, purpose-driven culture, empowerment and career growth, transparent and ethical leadership, recognition and belonging, and intentional employee experience

The first theme is holistic well-being and support. In the climate survey last spring, about half of the respondents felt that their district, the college, prioritized their well-being. They collected examples from the district around ongoing improvements, such as the walking competition sponsored by HR. From the focus groups, there was interest in collectively defining what well-being meant for different people. There was a strong emphasis on work-life balance and reducing chronic overextension.

Vice Chancellor Momjian and Mallory will work on defining "well-being" collectively across the district and consider strategies to improve transparency, recognition, career growth, and sense of belonging, as identified in the survey results.

The slides cover the same 3 topics for each of the themes. Result of the survey, examples for improvement, and focus group feedback

(See Campus Climate: Spring 2026 Presentation for details).

Vice Chancellor Momjian and Mallory will continue to collect and disseminate results of the climate and pulse surveys, including plans to disaggregate by campus in future climate surveys and to administer the pulse survey annually or biennially as capacity allows.

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Other Matters

Veronica Avila Acevedo will work with Laruen Gordon to improve dissemination of information about major initiatives (e.g., block schedule) to ensure broader faculty awareness and input from their division (Language Arts) and department (English), including possible updates and input sessions in the fall.

She would like to see people feel informed and have the information they need to make an educated decision for themselves and their departments.

Shagun Kaur asked the body to join her in congratulating So Kam on a successful last meeting after serving as Executive Secretary for seven years. 

Shagun: For seven years now, one person has made sense of this chaos. One person has kept up with all of the conversations that happen in real time, and one person has been responsible for archiving the history and the work of this body.

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Good of the Order

Alicia Mullens: Lavender graduation is this Wednesday, 6/17.

Angela Winch: Annual pinning ceremony for Nursing next week, with 43 graduates

Veronica Acevedo Avila: LatinX graduation 6/23 (expecting over 1,000 people!)

Ram Subramaniam: College graduation is next Saturday 6/27, here on campus. Faculty, please join this wonderful, beautiful celebration for our students.

Leadership and Social Change certificate graduation today, 6/15, 20 graduates

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Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:25 pm.

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Attendance

In person

Shagun Kaur, Jayanti Roy, So Kam Lee

Veronica Avila Acevedo, Viviana Alcazar, James Capurso, Barbara Dahlke, Chris Dileonardo, Kevin Glapion, Lauren Gordon, Mark Hamer, Mark Landefeld, Sherwin Mendoza, Angelica Esquivel-Moreno, Alicia Mullens, Mary Pape, Lakshmikanta "LK" Sengupta, Leah Smith, *Ram Subramaniam, Angela Winch

Online

Yuri Chang, Mary Donahue, Rusty Johnson

Absent

James Adams, *Deborah Armstrong, Dave Capitolo, Lisa Castro, Umar Douglas, Dawnis Guevara, Jamie Pelusi, Christian Rodriguez, Ravjeet Singh, Sukhjit Bob Singh, 

*Non-voting members

The meeting adjourned at 4:25 pm.

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