District Academic Senate Meeting
1
2
3
4
5
6
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
Los Angeles City College
MINUTES
Attendance
Officers
City
East
Harbor
Mission
Pierce
Southwest
Trade
Valley
West
Guests
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Present
David Beaulieu (President), Kathleen Bimber (2nd Vice President), Don Gauthier (1st Vice
President), Alex Immerblum (Treasurer), Angela Echeverri (Secretary)
John Freitas, Mattie Moon, Dana Cohen
Alex Immerblum, Jeff Hernandez, Jean Stapleton
Susan McMurray, William Hernandez
Angela Echeverri, Mark Pursley, Pat Flood
Tom Rosdahl, Elizabeth Atondo, Pam Brown
Alfred Reed Jr.
Lourdes Brent, Larry Pogoler, Elton Robinson, Fred Padilla
Josh Miller, La Vergne Rosow, Vic Fusilero
Adrienne Foster
Dr. Mary Callahan (City VP Academic Affairs)
1. Call to order/Approval of Agenda: President Beaulieu called the meeting to order at 1:33pm.
Agenda was approved (Rosow/Freitas M/S/U).
2. Approval of May 12th Minutes: Minutes of the 5/12/11 DAS meeting were approved with
several corrections and an amendment by Pogoler and Beaulieu (Gauthier/Brent M/S/U).
3. Public Speakers: Dr. Mary Callahan greeted DAS members and welcomed them to City College.
Beaulieu introduced the newly elected senate presidents: Susan McMurray (Harbor), Josh Miller
(Valley), Alfred Reed (Southwest), and John Freitas (City). All DAS members briefly introduced
themselves.
Action Items
4. Academic Rank Policy Change Proposal, noticed: Immerblum distributed a document titled
Notice Motion for September 8th DAS Meeting to Revise DAS Academic Rank Policy. The DAS
will consider this proposal at its next meeting; the DAS Executive Committee (Exec) discussed it
most recently in May. Immerblum reported that East’s Senate reviewed its Academic Rank (AR)
process last year. East consulted with the DAS, but could not find the old DAS Academic Rank
policy. Even if they found the policy, it would probably be too cumbersome to use because of
the large number of faculty at the campus. East devised a simpler, more direct way of assigning
academic rank and they want the DAS to have a policy in place that supports their policy. They
are asking to retire the current academic rank policy and develop a new one. He added that
some colleges do not want to offer academic rank to adjunct faculty. The proposal states as
follows:
1
30
Move that the DAS:
31

Retires the current Academic Rank Policy,
32
33

Creates a new DAS Academic Rank Policy that states: “Each college may establish its own
Academic Rank policy that is approved by that college’s academic senate,”
34

Maintains an official file of each college’s policy, and
35
36

Ensures that each college in the district accepts academic rank titles of those full-time
faculty from sister colleges that have senate approved policies.
37
38

Additionally, if verification forms for Academic Rank are required as part of a college’s
academic rank policy, each college will manage this clerical task locally.
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
McMurray said this was very timely because Harbor recently updated its AR policy. She added that
many adjuncts applied for rank and submitted their paperwork to the district Human Resources
Office (HR). However, all non-tenured applications were denied and none of this went through the
academic senate. Beaulieu reported he had never seen the DAS Academic Rank policy. There is an
extant policy from 1986, which was amended in 1996, but no one on the current DAS Exec has ever
looked at it. He added that the only rank-related issue discussed in the ten years since he has been
on the Exec was whether one college would honor another college’s rank. Freitas stated he was the
former rank chair at City in 2005. He became tired of sending rank applications to the LACCD office
to verify work history, so City modified its policy to grant automatic assistant professor status when
tenure was granted; a couple years later they added adjunct rank. Rosow added that the LACCD HR
Office has trouble keeping accurate employment records. Bimber said she was called in to HR to
discuss rank policies on various campuses because each campus has different policies and forms.
She added that Academic Rank is very low on the HR priority list and the district should not be
verifying these applications. Some policies required the LACCD to evaluate things like projects,
which they had no business doing. Bimber added that HR will be happy to get rid of this faculty
responsibility, so it is a win-win for us. Brent stated that all this does is to further decentralize what
is already decentralized. She added that Trade has had to amend certain policies, because they have
a large number of vocational faculty. Immerblum added that AR was aligned with the faculty
evaluation process at East. The former process required that the AR committee meet with the
department chair to discuss faculty performance.
59
Immerblum/Rosow moved to suspend the notice and vote on the proposal today.
60
61
62
63
64
Beaulieu said we are not obligated to notice the proposal. The default requirement under the Brown
Act is to notice for 72 hours. We don’t have to notice at a previous meeting, but that has been our
past practice. Pogoler said that the DAS could approve the proposal even if it had a notice rule, but it
could lead to a Brown Act issue because it was noticed on the agenda. Freitas said if you have 2/3 of
vote it should be OK. Hernandez said the Brown Act provides that option for an emergency, but this
2
65
66
would not qualify. Beaulieu stated he would urge the DAS to wait until the next meeting. McMurray
asked if there was a Board rule on AR in place. Beaulieu replied that there was not.
67
Immerblum withdrew the motion to vote on the proposal today.
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
Pogoler pointed out that the 1996 modifications to the DAS AR policy were in response to the
original decentralization and allowed colleges to adopt local policies. The effect of the proposal
would be to retire the 1986/96 LACCD policy. He added that Trade asks the District for verification of
salary points and we need to find out if this can be done at the campuses before we eliminate HR
involvement. Bimber replied that the campus SPOC does not have access to salary points. However,
she argued that HR should be left out and we should not rely on salary points because they are hard
to verify. She added we should rely on years of service, which can be easily verified at each campus.
75
76
Foster asked to add the effective date in the proposal. Beaulieu replied it would be immediate upon
DAS approval (12/8/11).
77
5. DCC Report:
78
79
80
a. Cross-listing Revision (E-65), noticed: Bimber explained that the DAS recently approved this
administrative regulation, but it has become apparent that it is necessary to move the following
step earlier in the process:
81
82
83
84
Step 5: Following all college approvals, the initiator of the proposal will consult with the
appropriate DAS VP to obtain contact information for each District Discipline Committee and
will be responsible for obtaining approval from each of the District Discipline Committees. The
initiator will have ninety (90) days (excluding summer) to gain approval.
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
Bimber explained that once the home college gets the proposal, it is up to them to get District
Discipline Committee approval. Bimber added that it takes a lot of time to get the discipline
committees together. This change forces the Discipline committees to meet and discuss the
cross-listing proposal. Immerblum and Echeverri argued for a longer time period than 90 days.
Bimber replied the 90-day period only starts after the DCC is notified; the initiator can get the
sign-offs earlier. Atondo and Bimber explained that cross-listing is a districtwide attribute. This
latest revision to E-65 should be coming to the local senates via the curriculum chairs.
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
b. Residence Requirement (BR 6201.13), noticed: Bimber explained that under the current policy,
if a student at one college has to take his/her last classes at another college, the degree
awarded will be from the latter college. The proposed residence requirement states the
following:
Residence Requirement: Students must complete at least twelve (12) units of work in residence
with at least six (6) in the major for the degree being awarded at the college conferring the
degree. Students must be in attendance at a college within the district during the semester
within which the student applies for graduation. The governing Board may make exceptions
when it determines that an injustice or undue hardship would be placed on the student
3
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
The consensus was that the second part of the proposed Board Rule, requiring that students be
in attendance at a district college, was problematic. Bimber asked whether this meant a student
would not get a degree if their last classes were taken at a college in another district. Brent
argued we must ask ourselves whether we want to support students getting more degrees or
fewer degrees. Trade offers Culinary Arts courses, but if a culinary student who lives near Pierce
takes his/her GE courses there, Pierce should not confer the degree. Currently a student does
not have to be in attendance at any of our colleges to get a degree. They can file an application
after leaving, but with this change the students would not be able to apply, so this is a problem.
Atondo agreed with Brent. Bimber said students should be able to choose which college they
want to get their degree from. Pogoler argued that the residence requirement is not a bad thing
and is merely asking students to do a bit of work and pre-planning because they can take their
final courses at any LACCD college. He added that the college that does the major work should
grant the degree. However, he acknowledged he had no solution for students going outside of
the district. Rosow disagreed with Pogoler and argued that our students have complex lives and
we should do anything we can to help student success; on the selfish side it also helps us get
more degrees. Immerblum recommended splitting the Board Rule into two different sections.
Beaulieu summarized the complexity of the two issues: tension between increasing college
accountability, on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing mobility of our students and
our desire to accommodate them. He suggested the DCC committee work on the language and
then bring it back to the DAS.
6. Priority Registration Problems:
a. Districtwide Priority Enrollment: Vice Chancellor of Institutional Effectiveness Yasmine
Delahoussaye came to the DAS in January of 2011 with a proposal for district-wide
enrollment. The deans of admissions decided that any continuing student could enroll in
classes as a continuing student at any other LACCD college; this went into effect in the
Fall of 2010. It appears that the Admissions and Records deans made this decision
without consulting the vice presidents. East soon alerted the DAS to possible problems
with this policy. The problem they have encountered is that many students outside their
service areas wound up taking classes at East. They estimate that about 1800 of their
students were displaced by other students in the summer of 2011. Beaulieu explained
that this was partly a consequence of the budget aberration of East having very large
summer sessions compared to other campuses. Several years ago, former Chancellor
Rocky Young wanted to have a district-wide application and there was one consultation
on this topic. We had a big phone conference meeting about district-wide registration in
mid-August of this year. We were going to meet with Chancellor LaVista to discuss this
tomorrow, but the consultation has been rescheduled. The VP Council will discuss this
as well. We need to try to come to a collective DAS position.
Immerblum distributed a handout dated May 12, 2011 and titled “Primary Reasons ELAC’s
Senate Has Rejected the Current VP Task Force Districtwide Registration Proposal”.
4
140
141
Immerblum added that the minutes indicate we discussed this issue at the May, 2011 DAS
meeting. East is submitting the following motion against district-wide registration:
142
143
The District Academic Senate recommends that any college in the district have the option to
“opt out” of the district-wide priority enrollment practice.
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
Rosow asked why this was necessary. Immerblum replied that a district-wide registration
priority enables colleges to not plan their offerings to serve the needs of their students, because
other colleges such as East will pick up the slack. Pogoler stated that service areas were
abolished by the state legislature years ago and today students can take classes anywhere. He
added that we want to serve and attract students; we have to make the fundamental decision
whether we operate as nine separate colleges or one college with nine satellites. Reed asked
what happens when students are no shows; some schools have no standby lists while others are
first come first serve. Beaulieu replied this as a different issue altogether. McMurray stated she
has two concerns at her campus: sudden high enrollment in upper level courses due to a recent
influx of students coming in from other campuses. Furthermore, Harbor has not had a full
summer or winter for two years, which unfortunately affects student success. Hernandez added
that the registration policy went into effect in January of 2011. East sees this as undermining the
principle of decentralization. East faculty brought their concerns to a Board meeting, which
resulted in the task force looking at the impact of the policy. Hernandez added that when
colleges develop their enrollment plans, they are based on their service area. There are many
challenges involved with trying to make institutional changes in the area of Student Services, our
transfer numbers are not good and this undermines our efforts. It became very clear this
summer that many East students were displaced by students from other colleges. Hernandez
added that the idea of opting out is technologically feasible and there should have been
consultation with the senate. The sentiment about this is very strong at East. Brown stated that
when a college funds its own decisions, it encourages innovation. However, she added that if
East were on the other side it might sing a different tune. Reed stated that Southwest students
have been disproportionately hurt by budget cuts and are flocking to East. Beaulieu replied we
should think in terms of decentralization. We are not one college with nine satellites; we are a
confederation of nine colleges. The question becomes “How loose is this confederation?”
Beaulieu thinks we can work this out. Delahoussaye was initially very skeptical of the concerns,
but her position shifted once the task force was formed, they looked at the numbers and found
that 1800 students from other colleges took summer 2011 courses at East. This is largely a
summer/winter problem, because of the disparity in offerings between East and the other
colleges. Gauthier said colleges have to have better enrollment management, and may have to
cut fall and spring offerings to offer summer ones. McMurray and Echeverri agreed with
Gauthier that there must be equity of access to summer classes; students will go to any college
that offers the classes they need. Pogoler stated that Trade pulls people in from across
southern California. He would not want one of his students to become disadvantaged because
he does not live closer to a given college. Immerblum replied that priority is given based on the
number of units, not geographical location.
5
180
181
182
183
184
Beaulieu stated the motion against district-wide registration has been noticed for the December
2011 DAS meeting. We will keep the discussion going, but we do not have the only say in this,
even though enrollment management is under the senate’s 10+1 areas. Delahoussaye will
present the issue to the Vice President Councils and we will discuss this with the chancellor at
our next consultation meeting.
185
186
b. Continuing Student Priority: Beaulieu explained that there is a question whether as a district
we should prioritize differently.
187
Two changes to the current priority policy have been proposed:
188
189

Add another group of students called “continuing students on probation”, who would
have less priority than continuing students.
190

LACCD students would be limited to 19 units in the district.
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
The district is concerned that new students and recent high school graduates are being shut out
of the community college system under the current priority system. In order to address this
concern, they would like to give continuing students on academic probation lower registration
priority than new students. Delahoussaye approached the DAS Exec for its authorization, but the
Exec was mixed on the proposal. We did agree that no student should register for a total of
more than 19 units in the LACCD, a position which should be formalized at our next meeting.
However, there were mixed feelings about giving lower priority to students on academic
probation. Delahoussaye later wanted to move the priority for students on progress probation
instead. As written, the proposal is for those who are on progress probation after one semester.
Echeverri reported that the proposed priority change was discussed at Mission’s Senate meeting
earlier this month. The faculty consensus was to develop a compromise which would give lower
priority to students on progress probation only after two or more semesters. McMurray asked
why we are waiting until students fail to intervene, this would guarantee that they fail. By the
time a student is on probation, you can’t get to any intervention until the 3rd semester. Pogoler
asked why a diligent student should be penalized. There has to be some mechanism to reward
them with a higher priority than students who are on probation. He added that we cannot
continually reward students who repeat many courses. Since we are just embarking on
Achieving the Dream, there are too many issues and it seems premature to develop policy
without looking at the data. Hernandez wondered if it is not premature based on the current
technology that is in place; we may have to deal with this on a college-by-college basis. We
might be in a better position to explore this once the new Student Information System (SIS) is
implemented in a couple of years. Freitas asked whether this was proposed for one semester.
Beaulieu replied that Delahoussaye did agree to the possibility of changing the probation
threshold to two or three semesters. The rush was to get us to agree for implementation in
Spring 2012, but we did not agree to it. Brent added that there is already a mechanism in place.
When a student is on academic or progress probation for three consecutive semesters, they are
subject to being academically disqualified. The second point is that intervention is not readily
6
218
219
available to all students. Matriculation has been cut by 50%, so early alert does not occur very
early. We need to assess the situation further before we make a decision.
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
7. District Budget Update: Beaulieu reported that the DBC meets again next Wednesday; they
have not met since July. The DBC Executive Committee has been meeting regularly in the
summer and is working on the district allocation model. It is apparent that we probably need to
make some adjustments, but they won’t be that large. Some of the smaller colleges, such as
Harbor and Southwest may get a bit more money. The revised allocation model will go to the
full DBC. We are facing midyear cuts (about $7 million, $72 million statewide) and have passed a
resolution to ensure that these cuts do not come out of the college budgets for this year (classes
and student services). There is a balance of $11 Million that could be accessed. They will look at
cafeterias, Child Development Centers, and other programs, as well as negotiated items to ask
for potential givebacks. The colleges should be able to plan for this year without taking a huge
hit. Reed asked if the District Office building was owned by the LACCD. Beaulieu said it was
leased initially, but was purchased by the district several years ago. Reed proposed selling the
building. Beaulieu replied that Carl Friedlander proposed moving the district office to the Van De
Kamp center 12 years ago. There has also been talk about recentralizing certain functions such
as purchasing.
235
236
237
238
239
8. DAS Summit: Beaulieu reported that the senate and college presidents will determine the teams
attending the summit. Materials to team members will go out by Monday. The summit will be
held at Valley College in Monarch Hall, on Friday September 23rd from 8:30 -3:00 pm. Southwest
College is in the second year of the Achieving the Dream Program and will be conducting a
breakout session.
240
9. President’s Report:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
a. Article 33: There is a stipulation in the current AFT contract that allows the union have a
say in the faculty hiring prioritization list. This has created considerable problems at
Trade and other colleges. Beaulieu and Gauthier met to discuss this with District Counsel
Camille Goulet and Deputy Chancellor Barrera. Goulet appeared to agree that the issue
needs to be worked out. Moon asked why this is all of a sudden a problem. Beaulieu
replied that the language of Article 33 was changed considerably in 2005 and the union
role was beefed up. The key objection is not about having a union representative on the
prioritization committee. The objection is that the contract states that the process and
policies should be made jointly by the senate, union, and administration. After three
years passed from 2005 to 2008, we became aware of this language. It has not been a
problem at City, but it is a huge problem at Trade and they have a hiring impasse. Article
33 has fueled the dispute. Whenever possible shrewd administrators play faculty off
each other. Moon replied that the situation at Trade was because the union and senate
are at loggerheads. That college needs to try to work out its differences. Fortunately
most colleges have tried to maintain unity between senate and union. Beaulieu has
talked to Carl Friedlander and Armida Ornelas, to see a rationale as to why the language
7
257
258
259
is in the contract. As far as we know, there is not any other district in the state in which
the union has a role in faculty hiring. Meanwhile, we are working collegially to resolve
this issue.
260
Motion to extend 10 minutes (Gauthier/Echeverri MSP)
261
262
263
264
Echeverri stated that even if it has not created a problem on other campuses yet, the language
creates the potential for problems. Pogoler stated that the new contract stipulates that union
presidents have to agree on faculty reassigned time. Moon asked how he knew that since
contract has not been ratified.
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
b. Bond Audit report: The Board has agreed to bring in City Controller Wendy Greuel to
investigate the LACCD practices during the hiring of Inspector General Christine Marez
and to make a recommendation whether to investigate further. District Attorney Steve
Cooley could still decide to initiate an investigation without further prompting. Beaulieu
has not been happy with the district’s response to the audit. He sent Chancellor LaVista
an e-mail, asking him how he could possibly accuse the controller’s office of retaliation.
The chancellor did not respond. The Atwater coalition argued that Gruel cannot be
trusted since she has taken money from contractors in the past. Beaulieu stated we
need to be fair to all parties; if you read the details there appear to have been some
errors of fact in the audit. The controllers are downtown today. Beaulieu added that it
was a big political error to hire the Inspector General in this manner and the two
trustees should have never been on the selection panel.
277
10. Second Vice President’s Report (Gauthier)
278
279
a. Constitution & By-Laws Committee: The constitution will be revised and a draft sent out before
December 2011.
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
b. Sustainability Institute: The members have been discussing the opportunity to cooperate with
USC, the CSUs, and UC’s to get students involved in research at the Port of Los Angeles. They
also want to explore other opportunities for collaboration such as sharing resources and space.
When the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is completed, we should be able to move forward.
They have discussed the establishment of nonprofit agency for sustainability; the best way to do
this may be through the LACCD foundation because it could take in grants for the institute. The
next meeting is on Friday, September 30th in the afternoon.
287
288
289
290
291
292
c. Reassigned Time Proposal: Gauthier distributed a document titled “Academic Senate Release
Time” dated 9/8/11. He explained that the current Board Rule (10404), which was adopted in
1972 and amended in 1973 and 1985, states that release time for academic senate officers may
be granted as follows: DAS President (0.4), DAS Vice President (0.2), and Local Academic Senate
Presidents (0.2). Gauthier pointed put that the correct term should be reassigned time, since
the current contract defines release time as service provided to the AFT. Gauthier summarized
8
293
294
the reassigned times given to senate officers on all nine LACCD campuses in 2009-2010. The
following preliminary proposal to develop reassigned time guidelines was discussed:
295
296
297
298
To create a District-wide policy, updating Board Rule 10404, that provides for a minimum of
0.6 D-basis for all Presidents, 0.4 D-basis for Campus Curriculum Chairs, and 0.4 C-basis for
other campus Senate Exec members (VP/Sec/Treasurer). In addition, some provision should
exist for updating DAS Exec reassigned time, as well, if the need exists.
299
300
301
Any additional positions such as Ed Planning or shared governance positions should be decided
by each campus in consultation. Campus senates would also be allowed to negotiate for larger
amounts of reassigned time based on local needs.
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
Reed reported that the president at Southwest recently took 0.2 from the academic senate and
gave 1.0 reassigned time to Achieving the Dream. Beaulieu replied that the point of this
proposal is to take this decision out of the hands of the president. During consultation the
Chancellor seemed receptive but did not think a one size fits all approach was adequate. We are
accommodating that. Reed added college enrollment should not determine reassigned time,
because all colleges have to undergo accreditation. Gauthier stated that is why we are arguing
for a baseline. McMurray reported that her curriculum chair at Harbor is not being compensated
on D-basis, but C-basis. Beaulieu stated that we agreed that all curriculum chairs would be on Dbasis at least through June of 2011; we worked hard to get this. Gauthier asked the DAS
members for suggestions and comments on the proposal.
312
313
314
315
316
317
d. Equivalency Committee: Meets Monday, September 12th at 811 Wilshire at 2 pm. The
committee will meet the second Monday of every month. There are five to six cases to review.
Gauthier acknowledged Eloise Crippens and Linda Larson Singer for all their help. The Smart
Classroom task force is meeting on Friday September, 16 at 1-:30 and 1:30 at the District Office.
IF you plan to attend, please contact Wendy Bass form Pierce for the meeting materials
materials.
318
319
320
321
322
11. Treasurer’s Report: Immerblum reported that he still needs to collect dues from six colleges.
We have reduced the local senate assistance allotment from $2500 to $2000. We were asked to
cut our budget by 5% this year. Rosow gave Immerblum kudos for his transparent reports.
Gauthier added that Immerblum’s assistance with plenary paperwork has made attending these
events much easier.
323
324
12. District Strategic Plan: Beaulieu reported that separate focus group for administrators, staff,
students, and faculty will be conducted at all colleges.
325
13. Announcements: None.
326
14. Adjourn: Meeting was adjourned at 3:50 pm.
327
328
9
329
Minutes submitted respectfully by DAS Secretary Angela Echeverri
10