District Academic Senate Executive Meeting
March 24, 2011; 1:30-2:30 pm
District Office (6th Floor VCR)
Minutes
Attendance: David Beaulieu, Ken Sherwood, Lourdes Brent, Angela
Echeverri, Alex Immerblum, June B. Smith, Tom Rosdahl, Allison
Moore
1. Call to Order and Approval of Agenda: Meeting was called to order at 1:35
pm.
Requests were made to add the following items to the agenda:
 Child Development Centers (Gauthier)
 Cash Transactions (Beaulieu)
 Athletic Directors
Agenda was approved (Immerblum/Gauthier MSU).
2. Approval of Minutes:
 February 24, 2011: Minutes were reviewed with minor corrections.
Approval was postponed for later.
3. Public Speakers: None.
4. Consultation Topic Review: Beaulieu reviewed the consultation agenda
items. He added that Deputy Chancellor Barrera and LACCD Counsel Camille
Goulet would not be at today’s consultation meeting.
 District Response to Times Articles: Beaulieu asked DAS members to
candidly share faculty concerns and comments about the Los Angeles
Times bond program investigation with Chancellor La Vista.
 Achieving the Dream: Immerblum expressed his concerns about the
chancellor’s premature push for Achieving the Dream. Sherwood
expressed concern that La Vista is unduly influenced by his senior staff
including Goulet, Barrera, Gordon, and Delahoussaye.
 Faculty Hiring Policy: Jack Daniels sent out an e-mail about the Full
Time Obligation Number (FON) to the District Budget Committee (DBC)
members. The 2011-12 FON report lists a recommended number of fulltime hires for each college. Immerblum mentioned that East has started
the process to hire seven faculty members.
 Administrative Hiring Policy: Beaulieu reported there are no new
updates. Barrera brought up what she described as a “minor issue” of
classified representation. However, this is not really minor because it
throws the whole composition of the committee off. Smith argued
classified staff cannot be considered independent; they should be
counted as administrative appointments. One option would be to define
them as administrative/staff.
 Budget Update: Beaulieu reported there have been budget discussions
with Jeanette Gordon and Vinh Nguyen. He added he has contacted
Friedlander to express his dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of the
District Budget Committee (DBC). Co-chair Carl Friedlander has been
slow in providing the DBC minutes. Additionally, the FON handout was
distributed before it was ready. Rosdahl added that the DBC makes no
decisions; a real committee has agendas and action items. Sherwood
stated that DBC discussed the allocation model at its last meeting, but no
motions were put forward. John McDowell is the joint AFT-Senate
representative on DBC. The Fiscal Policy Review (FPRC) meetings take
place after DBC meetings. Gauthier argued that this is the time when we
have to be focused. Beaulieu added that Friedlander feels stymied by
Gordon and agreed we have to be more assertive. He added that as
former DBC co-chair he worked hard to be fair and transparent. McDowell
stated at a recent DBC meeting that East’s balance should belong to the
whole district. Beaulieu added that this is not true and is divisive. He
stated that if the budget gets extremely bad, the LACCD may have to
access the East and Pierce balances.
 Administrative Totals/Compensation: March 15th letters were sent out
to administrators, and furloughs are possible
 Senate Reassigned Time: Beaulieu argued that reducing faculty
reassigned time should not be the first option to cut, given concerns about
shared governance. We need to be talking about standards necessary for
shared governance instead of minimum amounts of reassigned time.
 Enrollment Management Priority Registration: There is a larger sense
of faculty involvement in academic scheduling that is conducive to student
success. Immerblum said there has been a longstanding view that
Enrollment Management was designed to fill seats rather than increase
student success. Rosdahl reported that Pierce formed a new committee,
the Scheduling Prioritization Committee, that will look at Enrollment
Management. He added that having a committee make recommendations
on enrollment management would make difficult decisions more palatable
for faculty and administrators.
 Board Resolution on SB 1440: Beaulieu stated that the Sociology and
Psychology Transfer Model Curriculum (TMC) degrees are not likely to
work for most of our campuses and we need to be able to develop our
own. If no students obtain these degrees, no one is helped and nothing is
accomplished. It looks like the TMC in Business, Early Childhood
Education, Math, Administration of Justice, Kinesiology, Geology and
History are more likely to be adopted by our colleges. The idea is to try to
create a regional degree model for disciplines in which the TMC’s are
inadequate. Our region would include Los Angeles, Glendale, Pasadena,
Santa Monica, and El Camino Community College Districts and several
CSU campuses (Los Angeles, Northridge, Dominguez Hills, and Long
Beach). The regional degrees would be an option, but colleges would not
be obligated to adopt them. We have been discussing regional degrees
since the fall of 2010. Beaulieu added that almost all the articulation
officers in every single region are against the 18 units required under
SB1440. Beaulieu will author a resolution at the ASCCC Spring Plenary to
conduct a study on the 18-semester-unit major/area of emphasis
requirement for the transfer degrees. The LACCD Board resolution on
SB1440 might be slightly amended to specify transfer degrees.
 Fall Summit: Beaulieu stated that we don’t necessarily have to hold the
annual DAS Summit with the district administration. We can just sponsor
it ourselves.
5. Constitutional Change: Beaulieu sent out the proposed constitution language
to local senate presidents ten days ago. He asked that it be sent out to faculty.
Immerblum stated that according to Article 8, an amendment to the constitution
must receive at least 2/3 of all votes cast. Furthermore, we must have a fourweek vetting period at each campus. The results of the vote have to be reported
within two weeks and before the May 12 DAS meeting. The amendment must be
approved by 2/3 of voting faculty at five of the nine campuses.
The language of the amendment will be as follows:
The Constitution of the District Academic Senate of the Los Angeles Community College
shall be amended to change Article 4 to:
Officers of the District Academic Senate will include: President, Immediate Past
President, 1st Vice President, 2nd Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and
Parliamentarian. Officers shall serve two-year terms.
6. Child Development Centers: Postponed
7. Cash Transaction: New draft language has been developed based on the
suggestions from faculty. The timeline was discussed for keeping receipts.
Goulet wants to approve this quickly; it sounds like the bookstore is concerned
about losing business to faculty. Beaulieu stated we cannot necessarily stop this
because it is not under the senate’s 10+1 areas; although one could argue it falls
under +1. Echeverri suggested adding a one-year time limit to keep receipts of
cash transactions.
8. Treasurer Report: Immerblum reported that he had received all conference
forms for Spring 2011 plenary.
9. Athletic Directors: Postponed.
10. Adjourn: Meeting was adjourned at 2:30 pm and was followed by
consultation with La Vista and his senior staff. Consultation ended at 4:20 pm.
Minutes respectfully submitted by DAS Secretary Angela Echeverri