District Academic Senate Executive Meeting
January 22, 2009
District Office
Minutes
Attendance: David Beaulieu, Kathleen Bimber, Angela Echeverri, Tom Rosdahl, June
B. Smith, Alex Immerblum, Kindra Kinyon, Ken Sherwood
1. Call to order: Meeting was called to order by President Beaulieu at 1:35 p.m.
A motion to accept the agenda was approved (Immerblum/Echeverri M/S/U)
2. Approval of Minutes of December 11, 2008: Minutes were approved with minor
corrections (Smith/Immerblum M/S/U).
3. Public Speaker: None.
4. Adjunct Unit Proposal re Hiring: Sherwood stated that Mattie Moon from the AFT
at City is going to approach the Academic Senate about a contractual change requiring
campuses to hire new probationary faculty from existing seniority lists. Smith expressed
concern that such a change might be approved if it got out of committee, because the
AFT is primarily a part-time union. Beaulieu replied that most full-time faculty would
oppose such a change. Bimber inquired how this change could occur since the Senate has
purview over hiring policies. Kinyon added that many disciplines have very small adjunct
pools, which would restrict who could be hired. Beaulieu reiterated that this is one of
many of his concerns about the union encroaching on the Senate’s role. He added that the
issue of hiring adjuncts and not recruiting much beyond the adjunct pool came up at the
DBC last spring. Kinyon stated that while she opposed the proposal, she supported
adjunct faculty and acknowledged the importance of their contributions.
5. District Budget Committee (DBC) Report:
-State Budget Update: Beaulieu stated that the likely budget for community colleges
will have relatively small cuts and that the state legislature may reach a deal soon. He
added there s a possibility of the suspension of Proposition 98, which will be problematic
for all of us. Yesterday’s DBC meeting was cancelled because there was no state budget
agreement; the next meeting is scheduled for 2/18/09. The Fiscal Policy Review
Committee will meet on 2/4/09.
-Trade Augmentation: Beaulieu stated that Trade has over 60% Career Technical
Education (CTE) programs; whereas East only has around 25%, at a rough guess. Trade
made the argument that their high number of CTE programs costs them an extra $1.3
million/year to operate. Additionally, they claim they lost a large differential with the
new funding formula, while East and others got a boost. One argument was to let the state
address the funding disparity. After a long, extended discussion on the matter, the DBC
agreed to give Trade a $500,000 budget augmentation. Beaulieu added that the smaller
campuses got $500,000 augmentations three years ago. Bimber expressed concern about
how Trade will use this money. Kinyon replied the money will be used to pay off their
deficit. Bimber expressed concern about Trade’s plans to offer new Basic skills and
Cinema programs which will compete with City’s programs. Sherwood asked what the
rationale was for only looking at Trade’s budget. He suggested an ad-hoc adjustment to
review the budgets of all campuses, factoring in nursing and all other pertinent variables.
Beaulieu replied that such an analysis would be very complicated and that we would end
up with the same allocation breakdown. Sherwood stated that we need to have a broader
discussion about the cost and value of CTE programs. Beaulieu replied that the Obama
stimulus plan will probably allocate funding for CTE; up to $61 billion may be given to
educational agencies. Funds may be available in as little as six weeks once the stimulus
bill passes.
-Proposed Role Change for DBC: The chancellor wants to alter the DBC somewhat to
make it analogous to campus budget committees, so that it can receive reports. Beaulieu
stated that we have an empowered DBC, a weakly empowered District Planning
Committee (DPC), Consultation, but no shared governance committee. The current DBC
faculty leadership does not include senate nor AFT presidents. Vice Chancellor Colombo
is the chair of DPC, which has no co-chair. There are only two senate presidents
attending DPC. Beaulieu added he wouldn’t want the DBC in its current form to make
recommendations about district policy. He added we need to be cautious about this
proposal because budget questions often involve policy issues. Fiscal decisions will
impact Distance Education (DE), Instructional TV (ITV), and enrollment management,
for example. Vice Chancellors John Clerx, Gary Colombo, Adriana Barrera, and
President Mark Rocha met with David Beaulieu yesterday to discuss DE reform, but he
objected to discussing DBC reform with them without other faculty present. He will meet
with Senate representatives and Vice Chancellor Gary Colombo at next week’s Board
meeting at Mission to discuss this. Beaulieu asked, “What does your College Council do
that is not done by Academic Senate? Rosdahl replied that the Pierce Council deals with
facilities, budget, planning, and master planning. Immerblum replied facilities, budget,
and strategic planning. East has an Educational Planning Committee that reports to the
shared governance council. Beaulieu added that three contracts ago Article 32 specified
the required and recommended campus committees and their membership. The Budget
committee is required and has equal number of senate and AFT members. Sherwood
stated that at City faculty always have majority vote on budget decisions. Beaulieu
replied that our purview is not to control the budget process, but to establish what it is.
Immerblum stated that the DAS has always been a shared governance committee for
academic matters. Beaulieu stated that DE is not exclusively a Senate or an AFT issue.
He added that he opposed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) authorizing increased
stipends for high enrollment DE classes. After the discussion, Beaulieu concluded that his
inclination was to move slowly and hold off on discussions on reconfiguring the DBC.
Smith suggested having an initial conversation about the proposal and figure out what
they want. One idea would be to have a DBC meeting once a month and a shared
governance meeting afterwards.
There was a long discussion about CTE coordination, and how CTE funds should be
used. Diane McBride chairs the CTE Committee; it is supervised by Marvin Martinez.
6. Bond Steering Committee
-Impending Improvements to Committee: Don Gauthier is now attending the Bond
Steering Committee. Beaulieu stated that meetings are often cancelled, short, and poorly
attended. He expressed his dissatisfaction about this and stated that they are moving to
invigorate the committee by meeting more regularly, finding a third faculty member,
keeping minutes, and pressuring college presidents to attend. He added that district
facility policy issues should involve shared governance discussions.
-South Gate-Firestone: Beaulieu stated that there is interest in developing a
sustainability program to serve the entire district. He suggested that possibly a
consortium of campuses should run it (e.g.: Trade, East, SW), instead of East only. He
added that Larry Eisenberg and President Moreno from East have been meeting about
this, but need to have a larger group involved in the discussions. Sherwood expressed
concern that there is no discussion about the large number of consultants being hired by
the district. He added that Eisenberg decided that 14% of all of Measure J funds would be
set aside for him to determine how to use. Beaulieu said that actually the money was for
energy, technology, American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance, and off-site centers.
There was some unallocated bond money, but it was only $50 Million, out of this $40
million went to Valley. The remaining $10 million is unallocated. Smith stated that we
are not in the real estate acquisition business and that Eisenberg should not be making
these decisions unilaterally. Bond Steering has four college presidents (Moore, Daniels,
Garber , and Moreno?), Chancellor Drummond, Vice Chancellor Barrera, two Build
LACCD representatives, Camille Goulet, and Jeanette Gordon, along with Beaulieu and
Gauthier. Immerblum wanted to know where the committee membership is spelled out.
The committee will meet on Tuesday 2/3/09 at 8:30 am, March 3, April 7, May 5, June 2
in the 9th or 6th floor conference room.
-Atwater Issues: Beaulieu stated there is talk about handing the Atwater Center off to the
district for five to ten years, because City cannot afford to run it. The district wants to put
work force programs at Atwater and offer contract education, noncredit, and extension
courses. It was bought with bond money from City’s initial allocation. Mary Spangler,
the City president at the time, really wanted to purchase the center. The faculty has
always been opposed to it. Glendale College has an Educational Center nearby. Beaulieu
stated this needs to be a district discussion. This committee needs to put together policies
and procedures to see that there is adequate oversight of the bond program.
7. Financial Aid: Beaulieu stated that on 2/18/09 from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m., the first joint
Financial Aid Town Hall Meeting will take place at each of the campuses in the district.
This effort is being coordinated by the Associated Student Organization (ASO),
Academic Senates, and financial aid managers. Please encourage faculty participation.
Beaulieu stated that state financial aid will decrease this year, but federal aid will
increase. Our students can get over $8,000 a year in financial aid; federal Pell grants can
reach $5,300 to $5,600. March 1 is the deadline for Pell grant applications. One
suggestion is to include a financial aid blurb in all syllabi. Beaulieu distributed handouts
with financial aid information specific to each campus; see example below:
If you need help for paying for books and other college expenses,
Call the Financial Aid Office at
(818) 364-7648
Or see them in the Instructional Building-Administration Wing
http://www.lamission.edu/financialaid/
8 Distance Education Issues: Beaulieu had a meeting with President Rocha and Vice
Chancellor Colombo to discuss this topic. They will meet with DE coordinators next
Tuesday morning about class size issues, out of state DE and whether we should pursue
DE as an LACCD program. West may run a pilot with the LAPD to study the feasibility
of running a DE program with full services. Our current Student Information System
(SIS) does not allow a full service DE program; we can’t do it before we update it. The
DE coordinators meet once a month; they even have a Senate representative, Richard
Skidmore, who was appointed by former DAS President Leon Marzillier several years
ago. Beaulieu was never informed of this by either of them. The implementation of DE
should be reviewed by a DE committee that works with the District Curriculum
Committee and Academic Senate. Joe Perret is the chair of the ISST Committee. An
MOU on increased stipends for large DE class sizes is in the new AFT contract. Pierce
has a provision to increase compensation for faculty teaching larger classes (60 or more).
Several issues of concern include centralization of counseling and marketing for DE
programs, access to financial aid and library, faculty training, and student orientations.
The district is currently up to 8% online instruction (including hybrid courses); West is at
24%.
9. DCC Report (Bimber): These came through DCC and should have come to local
Senates.
-Competency Requirement for AA (Informational): Board rule E79 was sent to the
Math and English discipline committees in November and is still there. Echeverri asked
about Journalism 101 and ESL 8 not being listed under the old reading and written
expression competencies. Bimber suggested the ESL discipline committee look at the
document. Needs to be approved before fall 2009 before the new graduation requirements
go into effect.
-Nursing Standards (Noticed): Make sure the DAS representatives know what the
changes are.
-Independent Study: Very minor revisions to comply with Title 5 changes, passed in
May.
-Unit/Hour Alignment: Minor changes.
-Essential Academic Skills (EAS): Highlighted in Course Outline of Record (COOR):
Finally passed by DCC after many revisions. Purposeful collaboration was moved to
Methods of Instruction (item 11) as an option. These changes will only be in the
Electronic Course Development (ECD) system. All these EAS are together at the
beginning of section II (Course Content and Objectives). No other district in the state
highlights academic skills in this way. Bimber asked whether DDC approval is sufficient
or whether this needs full DAS approval because it is a change of the curriculum form.
The ECD system data configuration must happen within the next month; these changes
must get in by February 2009 to minimize the costs to the district. Item will go on the
agenda for the next DAS meeting on 2/12/09. Immerblum stated that the DAS has always
reviewed and discussed changes to the curriculum form. Smith replied that it has been
discussed extensively and is not a new issue. She added we should consider having a
consent calendar for items that are not arguable and are approved as a package.
-External Exam BR 6201 General Education regulations: Bimnber wants to put this
on the DAS agenda as an action item for 2/12/09.
-Community Services (E-XX): Changes word classes to offerings to align with Title 5
language.
10. EPAC Report: Eloise Crippens is working two days a week on equivalency requests.
11. SSISC Report
-FTLA Academy Begins: Great group of people; the program started last Monday.
-First Year College Success Ad Hoc Group: Will be meeting tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.
Group includes Joy Fisher from Harbor, Darryl Kinney from City, and others. Personal
development courses would continue, but we would develop other courses for first-year
students.
-BSI Role for LACCD: The district was awarded the grant by the state chancellor’s
office and Deborah Harrington will coordinate BSI efforts for the state.
12. Adjourn: Meeting was adjourned at 4:50 p.m.
Minutes submitted respectfully by DAS Secretary Echeverri