District Academic Senate Executive Meeting
October 28, 2010, 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
District Office
Minutes
Attendance: David Beaulieu (President), Kathleen Bimber (Vice President), Angela Echeverri (Secretary, Mission),
Alex Immerblum (Treasurer, East), Adrienne Foster (West), Lourdes Brent (Trade), Ken Sherwood (City), Allison
Moore (Southwest), June Smith (Harbor), Don Gauthier (Valley).
Guests: Jorge Mata (Chief Informational Officer, LACCD), Subod Kumar (Technology Consultant from CFM Group),
Yasmine Delahoussaye (Vice Chancellor, LACCD).
1.
Call to Order and Approval of Agenda: Meeting was called to order by President Beaulieu at 1:40 pm.
Agenda was approved (Gauthier/Foster M/S/P).
2.
Approval of Minutes of August 19, 2010 Meeting: DAS Executive minutes for 8/19/10 were approved
without corrections (Gauthier/Sherwood M/S/P).
3.
Public Speakers: Interim Vice Chancellor Yasmine Delahoussaye spoke to the DAS members about her plans
to support Student Success. See item 9 below.
4.
Shared Governance Update (Mission, Trade): Echeverri reported that the hiring of a dean of Student Services
at Mission had been delayed due to several problems and concerns surrounding the process. One of the main
objections that Echeverri raised was that President Valles appointed two faculty members to the committee,
while removing others from it. Chancellor LaVista promised a meeting between Deputy Chancellor Barrera,
LAMC President Valles, LAMC Senate President Echeverri, and DAS President Beaulieu to resolve the issues
before the hire progresses further. Beaulieu will meet with Barrera and AFT President Joanne Wadell next
Tuesday to review proposed changes to the Administrative Hiring Policy.
5.
Smart Classrooms (Mata, Kumar): During the last consultation with Chancellor LaVista we discussed the
inadequacy of smart classrooms. Gauthier and Beaulieu later met on this issue with Jorge Mata and Barrera.
There was also a long discussion on this topic on 10/21/10, at the Technology Policies and Planning Committee
(TPPC) meeting. Many faculty agreed that inadequate classroom technology was a big problem. Mata stated
that when Prop A/AA building started, the district had not yet established technology standards. He added that
technology standards are being created by the colleges with funding provided by Measure J. Mata and Kumar
have proposed developing a Smart Classroom Task Force to create district-wide standards for instructional
technology. To date, faculty from Valley, Trade, East, and Pierce have agreed to serve on this task force. Mata
added that colleges can have more than one representative. There will be a meeting on Friday, November 5 th at
10:00 am in the LACCD 3rd floor Conference Room. Mata added that classroom standards can be modified for
particular academic programs. Once established, colleges could go above the minimum guidelines, but not
below. Trustee Pearlman has expressed her concerns about buildings going up without adequate technology.
Beaulieu asked what could be done to fix buildings once they are completed. He used the Science Building at
Pierce, which does not have enough power outlets, according to Pearlman, as an example. Mata replied that you
would have to look at the standards and see what it would cost to fix the problem. Mata stated there are
technology acceptance forms and procedures that need to be signed off on. Gauthier replied that faculty usually
don’t see them. Beaulieu suggested having Mata come to the November 17 Bond Steering Committee meeting.
Mata discussed Identity Solution, which is a district-wide effort to get rid of different passwords. Valley has
used this for years. It will create 10 virtual servers and put them in one box and will do the same virtualization
for desktops. Another project will create a fiber optic ring to back up LACCD data (SIS, payroll, schedules,
etc.) at two different colleges. All of these new technologies will have a training component. Most of the
technology related complaints have come from Valley, East and Southwest. There was a brief discussion about
flexible versus smart classrooms; Mata stated that furniture is part of technology. Beaulieu reported Chancellor
LaVista was interested in drawing up a list of faculty support services that could not be funded because of the
bond constraints. Gauthier said that a lot of the equipment that has been ordered is not being used. Mata replied
technology support staffing needs are very critical given the amount of technology that has been deployed. Mata
encouraged faculty to share best practices, such as shared printing at Southwest. Mata stated that the LACCD
Technology Plan was recently approved and he encouraged DAS members to review it. Immerblum stated that
many of the new architects and construction companies had limited knowledge of smart classrooms. Beaulieu
said these two issues will also go to Bond Steering for discussion. Sherwood added that another big issue is
wireless Internet service; there has been no communication on how to compensate campuses for the additional
expenses. Gauthier stated we will forward the following issues to the Bond Steering Committee for further
discussion: Smart classrooms, flexible classrooms, and wireless Internet.
6.
DCC Report:
SB 1440 Update: Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 1440 (Padilla) on October 4th, at a ceremony at
Los Angeles Mission College. State Chancellor Jack Scott, ASCCC President Jane Patton, State Senators
Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) and Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), Chancellor LaVista, and others were in
attendance.
CB-21 Coding: Gauthier inquired about the status of CB-21 coding. Beaulieu added that there is a new
district problem with coding and that Clerx and Kimble should have been more proactive in addressing the
issue. It is not just an ESL problem. We have until December 1 st to fix it. Because of the coding
discrepancies, East and West appear as having 0% success, which will make the ARCC data look worse.
Sherwood added that there are four or five areas where Title 5 was changed, and people at the district were
not alerted.
7.
Bond Update

West LA Bond Overrun: Foster reported that $40 Million from the sale of property would cover
some of the additional construction costs authorized by outgoing President Rocha without
consultation. Several buildings and/or projects had to be eliminated, including the Watson Center for
Performing Arts, the Wellness Center, the second Parking Structure, and the 7th floor President Office
& Board Room. The ASO space is still up in the air. Foster added that West leaders had drafted a
report, but she has not sent it out yet because the campus e-mail has been down for one week.
Contract Issues: Senate and AFT faculty leaders have been working very closely in recent months. Joanne
Wadell and Armida Ornelas (who will be in charge of contract negotiations) have been very helpful with bond
issues. Beaulieu wrote Wadell an e-mail detailing DAS contract concerns. There are several big issues that
stand out:

Article 32-Committees: Faculty Hiring Prioritization Committee (FHPC) and Curriculum
Committees have an AFT representative (Article 32 C & G).

Article 33-Replacement and New Faculty Positions: It’s inappropriate to have the contract
prescribe hiring practices..

Article 40-Distributive/Distance Learning: Beaulieu reported that the Distance Education (DE)
stakeholders group meets twice a year; the next meeting is November 22nd. He added we have
established a Senate role in DE issues, but that the union also has a role. Immerblum pointed out the
inconsistency of allowing someone to limit enrollment to 25 the first time an online class is offered,
and then to go up to 80 or 100+ in some cases for extra compensation. Beaulieu stated we are now in
a stronger position to argue for changes in the DE clauses. Gauthier reported that Valley pays up to
$100,000/year for Etudes and will have to change platforms. This means that each DE instructor will
have to be paid $1000 to switch over to the new platform (as per a signed MOU).

Article 42-Faculty Evaluations: Immerblum said the current evaluation process and form is very
flawed. When Vice Chancellor Peter Landsberger was here in 2000, they changed the evaluation form
and made it more deliberative. Immerblum argued that we need substantial changes in the evaluation
process. Echeverri added that the Senate representative is not a voting member of tenure evaluation
committees, which has been a problem at her campus.
8.
Sherwood mentioned that because of Article 14 (dealing with non-classroom faculty), athletic coaches are
very expensive. He added that City suspended Athletics because it was a $ 1 million program. Brent
replied there would be a lot of reluctance to open up this article.
Smith stated that they had a problem on her campus (Harbor) because the AFT president sent out an e-mail
stating that adjunct faculty don’t have to work on SLOs. As a result many faculty are not participating in
SLO assessment and won’t even put SLOs on their syllabi. Gauthier replied that SLO work is on the
evaluation form.
Beaulieu asked DAS members to carefully consider to what extent we want to use the contract to achieve
certain goals, because in the end it may make us dependent on the union. Sherwood agreed, adding it can
limit the ability to develop local procedures. Brent countered that some presidents are less likely to follow
Board Rules, Administrative Regulations or Title 5 than the contract. Gauthier stated that the timeline for
comments on the contract is the end of November. Brent brought up the issue of Instructor Special
Assignment (ISA) hiring at Trade and the idea of the AFT negotiating reassigned time for Senate officers.
9.
Student Success/Transfer

Achieving the Dream Application (AtD): Delahoussaye distributed two handouts: Achieving the
Dream and a Summary of Basic Skills Course Completion Data. She stated that 30-40% of our
students take their first math class and never come back. English success rates are a bit better.
Achieving the Dream is a nationwide initiative with 140+ institutions. One of its main goals is to get
students to successfully complete their basic skills instruction. They start by looking at the gap
between underprepared and college ready students. Colleges that have been in the program for a
number of years are called “leader colleges.” She mentioned that East students tend to do better than
others in Math, possibly because of the Escalante Program. Shulock and Moore will be coming out
with a study on student success in the LACCD by the end of the year. They have found that many of
our Latino and African American students are transferring to for-profit institutions such the
University of Phoenix. The initial plan is to ask Pierce and East to pay to join AtD, which costs
$75,000/year, but for the district to pay for the others. This pays for college data coaches to help
pinpoint where and how we are losing students. It also funds another coach, usually a former college
president. Now it will be a district-wide application, 7 or 8 pages long. She added that they want to
know that there is buy-in from faculty. AtD does not accept everyone; the application deadline is next
week and the announcement of accepted colleges is in January. She added that Valencia Community
College District in Florida joined AtD five years ago and has closed the gap between white and Latino
students, and are close to closing the gap between black and white students. Smith asked how it would
coordinate BSI and SS Initiative efforts. Delahoussaye replied they are complementary. Beaulieu
added that this is a more focused effort and that he was very impressed by two of the coaches he met.
Delahoussaye added that most of our colleges are undertaking initiatives now, but they are not data
driven. BSI coordinators would welcome a data coach. The Bank of America and/or Kresge may
provide some of the funding. Foster asked how we could get the Math faculty to buy into AtD and she
asked about the assessment tool for Math. Delahoussaye replied that one of the schools in Texas was
able to solve this by doing something that is done at Pierce: an intervention before math assessment. If
a student starts in Math 115 they have a 30% chance of getting to college level algebra. If they
participate in a math intervention program, that figure goes up to 60%. She asked everyone to have
conversations with their Presidents and local Academic Senates to discuss AtD. The Request for
Proposals (RFP) will come out next month. Immerblum stated the other issue is curriculum, so it
makes good sense to have a district effort. Each participating college will have a data coach and a
college coach. Brent argued that success does not necessarily mean a student reaches college level
Math and English. At Valencia CC, they take a class and find a topic in which students get stuck on,
and they use the data to help them get through. Delahoussaye also met with Shelly Westin, a
Superintendent of the LAUSD. They want Math and English faculty to collaborate to address the
large numbers of underprepared LAUSD graduates. The Math and English faculty will be invited to
meet with them. Beaulieu added that there are only three colleges in the state of California that are in
AtD.
Beaulieu recapped upcoming meetings related to student success:

SSI Meeting: On Monday at 1:30 pm downtown.

Transfer Meeting: On Tuesday at 2:00 pm at Trade.

Special meeting with CSU representatives to discuss different ways to General Education. Friday,
December 3rd.
10. Treasurer Report: Immerblum reported that they were able to implement a payroll deduction process at East
through their foundation. As far as getting a district process, they hit a wall. Beaulieu replied we could still try
to pursue payroll deductions.
11. Faculty Leadership Summit: Will be for faculty only and will take place on Friday, March 4th. Smith
suggested discussing Achieving the Dream at the Summit.
12. Adjourn: Meeting was adjourned at 4:10 p.m.
Minutes submitted respectfully by DAS Secretary Angela Echeverri