ACADEMIC SENATE
COLLEGE OF SAN MATEO
csmacademicsenate@smccd.edu
Governing Council Meeting
Members Present
Jeremy Ball
Lloyd Davis
Rosemary Nurre
Tom Diskin
Others Attending
President
Secretary
Treasurer
Past President
Oct. 24, 2006 meeting notes
Alain Cousin
Eileen O’Brien
Jim Robertson
Brandon Smith
ASCSM
Student Services/Counseling
Social Science
Language Arts
Bev Madden
Student Services
Jeremy began the meeting at 2:25 p.m. in the absence of a quorum. President Kelly’s retirement party is Nov. 2.
Rosemary said the president’s office is quite firm that President Kelly wants donations for Project Star Gaze and
the planetarium, not a personal gift.
PUBLIC COMMENT Bev Madden, CSM Connects Program Services Coordinator, reported on two upcoming
events: Making a Difference Days, Oct. 27 and 28, and the 2006 Service Learning Faculty Workshop, Friday,
Dec. 1, noon-2 in 18-206. The workshop is cosponsored by CSM Connects and Youth Community Service
(YCS.) Don Hill has agreed to be co-facilitator of the workshop. He is a national leader in K-12 service learning
and formerly taught social studies at Aragon High School. He started Youth Service California, and is now
working on an international service learning conference. Tania Beliz will speak on the environment-related
volunteer work she and her students have done. Lezlee Ware, a political science professor at Canada, will also be
a presenter. With financial support from the SMCCCD Foundation, Lezlee integrated a civic involvement
component into her political science and government classes. The workshop agenda will include a chance to
brainstorm, and classroom exercises for participants. Bev belongs to YCS, which is paying for lunch. Please
reserve early to help Bev plan lunch and activities. Service learning is also called community based learning. It
is the component of education in which students apply knowledge and give back to the community, and can be
made part of learning communities.
Making a Difference Day. On Friday Oct. 27 the film The Constant Gardener will be shown. On Saturday Oct.
28 a campus cleanup with be held between noon and 4 p.m. Diane Martinez agreed to have a facilities person
available at the pond by library to provide gloves and garbage bags. Steve Robison and Bev Madden are
organizing these events. Bev submitted an article about them to Mike Habeeb.
Members noted the low attendance at recent Governing Council meetings. This is a busy semester, with ongoing
work on accreditation, planning for new buildings, SLOs and assessment. Alain pointed out interviews for the
presidential and VPSS hiring committees are finished. Public forums for the candidates will be next month.
Brandon noted that our last meeting conflicted with a Language Arts division meeting. Jim Robertson has had an
ongoing physical therapy commitment, and only now is able to attend meetings. Jeremy observed we get good
participation when there are hot button issues, but right now there are not a lot of pressing issues to which the
senate must respond. He expects better attendance when we have new administrators in place, pushing or
following through on things. In the absence of a quorum, he asked for discussions today to bounce ideas around
before bringing them to the senate officially.
NEW BUSINESS – FACULTY INPUT TO THE BRIDGING ARCHITECTS The new bridging architects
are doing a needs assessment. They will write a report about both new buildings and outside spaces for the design
team, which will come up with ways to meet those needs. Jeremy is putting together groups of faculty to meet
with the bridging architects as early as Oct. 26. Members of these groups will be talking with the rest of us about
needs in our areas. The Bridging architects are also planning on coming to division meetings for input.
NEW BUSINESS – DIVERSITY IN THE CURRICULUM Jeremy was invited to the most recent meeting of
DIAG. He discussed with Henry Villareal and Mike Claire how to address diversity issues in how we deliver
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content. Rosemary asserted our mission statements already embrace diversity: we will teach everybody. She is
not comfortable with the school telling us to address all groups through our curricula. We treat people in a
professional and courteous manner. She has similar reservations about the proposed Mutual Respect Policy.
Tom recalled DIAG representatives attended our April 25, 2006 meeting. An observation from that discussion
was diversity in the curriculum is more about interpersonal relationships – how we relate to our students, and how
they relate to one another – than about a need to weave our subject matter into diversity issues. As managers of
instruction in the classroom, we assure mutual respect all around. Incorporating diversity into content is hard in
subjects focused on analytical skills. The educational process is about people working together, and the
importance of respect. Rosemary asked whether institutionalizing diversity means framing another document.
Tom said this topic was on the table when he became Senate president. He has asked people at ASCCC plenary
sessions how they deal with it. Some incorporate a cultural diversity course into their general education core.
That puts diversity into the curriculum, but they agreed it doesn’t address the real issue, which is putting diversity
awareness into practice day to day. Tom made that point at our meeting with DIAG last year. Rosemary said we
already model that in the classroom. Jeremy has shared Rosemary’s concerns with DIAG.
Jeremy discussed with DIAG looking at institutionalizing diversity in terms of such parallel cases as integrative
learning and learning communities. It was hard to fill some learning community (LC) classes, especially for
paired LCs in which all students take the same two classes, so we wanted to institutionalize them, that is, integrate
them into how we did business on campus. In trying alternative learning community models, eportfolios, and
writing across the curriculum, we found that things not institutionalized are stuck-on appendages, like DIAG.
Those interested in diversity issues attend DIAG meetings, but the people whose views need challenging do not.
Appendages get ripped off. How can we see how to implement diversity? The College Assessment Committee
has done good work on institutionalizing SLOs. There is no expectation for every class to address every SLO.
The hope is each SLO occurs meaningfully, somewhere in the curriculum.
A particular kind of learning community configuration is the confluence model. Participating classes in different
disciplines, say math, history, and philosophy, meet at the same hour. The instructors meet beforehand to work
on the common theme and to select a common set of readings. Tragedy of the Commons did this on
environmental issues. Another group is putting together a monograph. Their community has classes in web
design, broadcasting, and photography. Next fall will see What the Fork, with a food theme. Every three or four
weeks the whole group will meet in the college theater. Participating faculty will figure out how to use that
common time. One goal is to show how the different disciplines function together to give students a systematic
approach. This is a popular model. We didn’t have to convince students to sign up for extra classes. Some end
up in learning communities by accident. There is lots of back end work for faculty. Counselors and library
personnel and reading specialists have also worked with learning community classes. For Jeremy, one benefit is
the faculty development opportunity: looking at readings from other perspectives, and getting a clear
understanding of what is done in other classes, for example discussing with Daniel Keller expectations of reading
ability in English 100. If exploring what interests you is a way to institutionalize diversity, we have a model. Use
a common theme, e.g. hip hop culture. Have no expectation that all faculty will participate. Create space on
campus to tie in different fields. Jim asked about extra compensation, since this will entail substantial extra
work. Jeremy said we’ve had large numbers of faculty interested in integrative learning models we have, because
the activity is exciting and the focus is on teaching. While there is no expectation of participation by all faculty,
the opportunity is there.
Jim said teaching how diversity works is inherent in his discipline, history. Others suggested comparative
religion and perhaps ethnic studies. Jeremy said he wants his students to understand there are alternative ways of
doing and dealing with things. Diversity – seeing things in a different way – is more an experience than a subject.
In a class in cultural studies Jeremy taught at another institution, some students did a study of hip hop culture,
which made hip hop extremely interesting to Jeremy. He can now listen to hip hop music and “get it.” Jeremy
and Henry see this as a good way to get faculty involved. Tom said institutionalizing diversity is about promoting
open communication in the classroom, and taking an inclusive rather than exclusive approach in teaching your
subject. Rosemary asked whether there is concern CSM does not do a good job of embracing diversity. Tom
reported hearing lots of talk about the ethnic balance of faculty and administration being very different from that
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of the student body. There is talk of having more people of color on the faculty, to interface better with students.
Tom said he feels no matter what we do it’s not good enough.
Tom would like issues of race and ethnicity to become enriching elements rather than barricades, and that is how
he conducts himself, in meetings and in classes. How you see them depends on where you are on the continuum.
Someone of color who feels denied equal or good opportunities, and sees people who have had the opportunities,
will see them as barricades. Give classes and topics a diversity twist. In LCs a common element is addressed
through several courses. Jeremy said learning communities are one way to have a formal model that addresses
diversity issues. One example is the immigrant experience. There will be vastly different individual experiences.
It might prove to be a big hook with students. Get cool seductive names for confluence models. Jeremy said in
his cultural studies class someone showed how Kid Rock imitated African-American artists, who themselves were
mimicking white guys in the Godfather movie. Whose culture is it anyway? They even showed how rap music
and calling out went back to square dancing. When schools lost funding and cut music programs, students would
play music over and over, and do calling to it. Jeremy’s students decoded the history of the music. These models
could formalize creating environments of understanding here, on issues that interest students. Tom said having
common elements of understanding is important. When Tom returned from the Museum of Tolerance, DIAG set
up a big meeting. Tom was there with people from previous workshops. He pointed out much time on the subject
of diversity was discussing our differences. Let’s go beyond that to how we’re similar. We’re all on the
continuum, and can make a contribution. We’re bringing in guest speakers to talk about their experience. We
need to move beyond that. Jeremy’s idea could be a vehicle for that, but we need to make clear what we want to
do. Get a team to put something together, present it to DIAG and others for feedback, and get moving in the right
direction.
Jeremy said we are also looking at implementing eportfolios. College Assessment Committee chair Sandra
Stefani Comerford sees this as a way to assess institutional SLOs. One SLO is diversity awareness. Sandra and
Jeremy agree identifying ISLOs was easy, but assessing them is hard. We have to look at student work, which
online portfolios allow. Students could be asked to showcase work they think meet particular institutional SLOs,
for example critical thinking. The results might be telling. There may be few places people perceive they’re
meeting an SLO. Jeremy said most portfolio work would be produced as class assignments. At some point we
can ask students to select portfolio items which best exhibit ISLOs, and write a reflective piece on the reasons for
their choices. Lots of institutions are doing this. Eileen said all the classes in a learning community could start a
portfolio together, as long as all the instructors are on board. Jeremy said people are still working on the content
and nature of portfolios. Rosemary asked whether we would have the opportunity to include the fact we have a
really diverse campus.
Jeremy said when he talks about institutionalizing diversity, the issue is how to formalize it, to weave it into what
we do. We have woven in quantitative literacy through different courses. How can people live in this area and be
unaware of diversity issues? We aren’t perfect but we’re good relative to the rest of the country. Our faculty is
less diverse than it could be. It is hard to get faculty from outside the area. There is high demand at all
institutions for diverse faculty. With high housing prices and not-so-high salaries, our buying power is pretty low.
We get outbid by other folks, but we are making inroads into that. Jeremy asserted we do not have an
environment which alienates students. We are a student-centered learning institution. Brandon noted faculty
evaluations include student surveys which include how faculty members address students in the classroom.
Jeremy said such information is confidential, and not aggregated. There were questions about this on the
assessment survey.
Alain said no one has asked ASCSM for its opinions. Rosemary asked whether students feel instructors are
receptive to all different kinds of people. Alain said it feels perfectly fine to him, but he has heard of faculty who
treat female students differently. Jeremy has heard from Persian students that with the political situation changing
they feel more alienated. Sometimes we don’t see subtle differences that are important to people, or are simply
ignorant, resulting in things like referring to Persian students as Arabs. Tom said we are preaching to the choir.
Last year we couldn’t get new people to go to the Museum of Tolerance. We’ve gone through the list of people
who really want to go. Now we want the people who really need to go. That’s a tough problem. Eileen pointed
out there is no required diversity training for faculty. Jeremy said other schools do it, and we could set it up.
Rather than continue the Museum of Tolerance activity, which is too pricey, Jeremy suggested bringing in experts
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to provide training and access more faculty. He would like to see stipends for participation in faculty
development. There are lots of opportunities for training besides diversity training. Eileen cited the example of a
woman who led a role playing activity at a student services retreat last month.
Jeremy reported meeting with Mike Claire and Henry about diversity. At Henry’s invitation, Jeremy presented
his ideas to DIAG. Jeremy missed the DIAG discussion because he had another meeting, but he understands
DIAG came up with interesting, doable alternatives. In reading through DIAG literature, a lot of it seemed like
the vague advice one gets from a broker, buy low and sell high, but not how to do it. Eileen suggested integrating
diversity awareness into day to day teaching. For example, in career center sessions on applying for jobs, she
must take into account that people from some cultures are not used to promoting themselves. Submitting a
resume is not the norm in some countries. We need to acknowledge such differences. Jim remarked that the Oct.
19 lecture by Barbara Petzen of Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies was mostly about
Western misperceptions of Islamic culture. On the recent controversy in England about Muslim women wearing
the hijab, Ms. Petzen noted that women and men in both Islamic and western cultures use the wearing (or
removal) of head coverings to show humility and respect.
Jeremy said using the confluence model is not intended to do away with other things DIAG does. We want to
broaden opportunities to find points of commonality for students, to see more differences as superficial. Jeremy
will talk to DIAG again to get these ideas into the planning process. Interested people, including students, can
participate. Eileen suggested attaching a short survey to student registration to get student opinions. Rosemary
said it would be good to know how students feel, and to show our concern.
NEW BUSINESS – DISTANCE LEARNING Mike Claire will discuss this with us at our next meeting. Now
is the time to construct a set of questions and concerns. Distance learning is one of Chancellor Galatolo’s two
main initiatives, but in the absence of a proposal its actual scope is unclear. Jing Luan is in charge of managing
the initiative for the chancellor. Our present collection of online courses is an unsightly mixed bag, a patchwork
which lacks continuity. A student taking a distance learning course is not helped in finding or taking another,
because of the large differences among courses. We have no formal evaluation process for online courses. Tom
said we showed a preference last year for a particular model for evaluations. Julie has developed an evaluation
tool, but there has been no decision on how to implement it. Tom expressed concern distance learning courses
will start to replace rather than supplement what we’re currently doing. Some courses do well in a distance
learning format, but others don’t. We must be careful that what we implement is not inferior to what we already
have. Jeremy said there are potential students out there we can access only through distance learning, but would
we just get students who would otherwise take traditional courses? Many of us feel traditional courses are more
beneficial than online courses. Eileen said it depends on the type of student. Some students feel freer to express
opinions online. Some full-time workers don’t have time to come to class, but could connect and work late at
night, early in the morning, or during lunch hours.
Foothill offers associate degrees in 12 different subjects, and has arrangements with two universities for
completion online of four year degrees. Eileen said to her knowledge Foothill has not lost regular students as a
result. Foothill can draw in students who cannot attend regular classes. Jim noted the University of Phoenix just
lost its accreditation. Jeremy feels it is the role of academic senate to protect the curriculum and be sure quality is
maintained in our quest to increase headcount. We don’t do that by lowering our expectations of students. An
open question is whether online programs do, to get a larger audience. Rosemary said a certain kind of student is
successful in an online environment. Some 18-20 year olds see not having to go to class as meaning not having to
work. They are shocked to find there is a lot of work, and they drop. The question is really who is the target
audience. It’s not everyone in the world. Rosemary has students who are successful online. They are older,
working full time, and committed to learning. Blanketing the school with online classes would be a huge mistake.
We do wish we had a better on-campus experience for students. Tom said he looked through Foothill’s material
last year and saw it as a blanket approach to change over to online courses to increase ADA. We looked at some
subjects and courses and asked how they can be done effectively online. Roy Brixen and Tom say we can do
parts of some courses online or by TV, but students must be able to come in and do work. Electronics technology
involves fine motor skills. Tom said lots of virtual tools are available. He sees his colleagues falling for
computer programs that simulate live circuits, but enough value is added in the classroom he feels it’s not
appropriate to use virtual methods. A hybrid approach is possible, but we must be smart about it and make good
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decisions about what parts of traditional courses are equally effective online. Eileen said online degrees are
feasible in such areas as psychology and geography.
Jeremy said ITS sees itself as having a mandate to increase FTES through online programs. He said the focus
should be on technology-assisted learning, not distance learning. CTL has done a great job of teaching us how to
use specific tools, but we don’t know much about using those tools to create better pedagogies. We have limited
resources. How do we want to integrate unfolding technologies? Jim criticized TV courses: for students, there is
no chance for interaction, and for instructors, the pay is too low. Eileen wished for a more user-friendly
PowerPoint. Several members pointed out the lack of released time for faculty development in instructional
technologies, and the resulting underutilization of our new facilities and our hodgepodge of online courses.
Jeremy said we need to recognize two realities: 1) Lots of technology out there would benefit students if we used
it well. 2) Our students are technologically minded. Alain Cousin said he hasn’t experienced teachers using new
technology. Many don’t know how, or don’t want to change. They have to. Jeremy said there is money to
upgrade rooms, but how much is there to upgrade faculty? We can learn, but only on our own time. The only
program that compensated faculty was boot-up camp. It was a great program, but was available only to new
faculty. Tom drew a contrast with private sector schools, which have full teams of people doing nothing but
writing curricula. The instructor’s job is to use that curriculum and interface with students. Instructors are not
responsible for creating curricula. At least they value the time required to do a good job of writing curriculum.
Eileen said corporate training departments have stand-up trainers, as well as people who prepare training material.
At CSM, she was given a class to teach but no course outline beyond what is in the schedule of classes. There
was no support at all. Jeremy said the synergies are big. It would be a waste to use our computers only as
expensive typewriters, and our smart classroom projection systems only as fancy overhead projectors. Lots of
people do innovative things. Distance learning is only one small part of what we can do with technology. Mike
Claire has a group looking at these issues. We should look at standards and at future directions of the college. Do
we see online associate degree programs as valuable?
Jeremy said we don’t want our online courses to be a fourth college. Alain Cousin called for uniformity across
the district, so a given course has the same value at each of the three colleges. Eileen said we could survey local
corporations to see if their employees would be attracted to online courses. At a recent District Academic Senate
(DAS) meeting attended by Ron and Jing, DAS asked for data showing a need for online courses, lest they just
pull people from current classes. Eileen said St. Mary’s, Golden Gate University, and NDNU offer online
programs. She mentioned that a friend of hers got a master’s degree on line in two years from St. Mary’s, and
that President Kelly took an online piano course from Skyline.
Jim said he hasn’t seen CSM support faculty research. Our focus has been on delivery, but we are also supposed
to be scholars. How do we keep up with journals or new books? There is no recognition for scholarship, though
there used to be a little money for sabbaticals. If we are to hold ourselves to standards comparable to those
applied to UC faculty, we don’t have the time to meet them. We have to teach at that level, but can’t do it on
what we learned 30 years ago. Rosemary said the administration would say do it on your own time. Jim said we
have only so much spare time. Tom said he was scheduled to do a presentation at a conference in southern
California, but he backed out because to do it effectively he would have to bring equipment too large to take on an
airplane. The college has a relatively new 250 mile limit on reimbursed mileage in one’s personal car. This brick
wall regulation, and the cost, meant he couldn’t go. Jeremy said looking at professional development and
scholarship is a future agenda item. We should get a sense of institutional commitments and expectations.
NEW BUSINESS – CONCURRENT ENROLLMENT Chancellor Galatolo addressed this on opening day.
There have been lots of suggestions, but no actual proposal. Governing Council will discuss concerns we want
district administration to be aware of.
Jeremy spoke about concurrent enrollment opportunities. There is talk about our offering college courses at the
high schools. Who would teach them remains vague, and there are unresolved questions about textbooks,
personal conduct, and union contracts. What does the district hope to gain by moving into high schools? Ron
wanted to get high school students informed about what we do here so they might come here. Jeremy said if
students can get our courses at their high schools, they might have less reason to come to our campuses. A first
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step might be to do co-enrollment activities around AP courses. Currently students have to pass the AP test to
get credit from us. We could use AP courses as a bridge to offer more, as part of a multi-stage process.
Alain Cousin said if he went to Peralta he could concurrently enroll at CSU East Bay or UC Berkeley. CCSF
allows concurrent enrollment at SFSU. CSM has no such arrangement. What about reaching up? Alain said one
CIS course in the district doesn’t articulate with Berkeley, so it is taught at a lower level. Tom said students can
mix and match our courses with courses at their transfer schools. The electronics technology program is totally
articulated with five or six CSU schools. Our engineering program articulates with UC Berkeley. Alain said
CSM is a small fish in a big pond of research institutions. We could reach out to a number of schools.
Tom said about 15 years ago he was involved in a 2+2 program at Mills High School teaching electronics classes,
a program with unanticipated benefits. He saw a lot of those students here a few years later, as well as Mills
students he hadn’t taught. The biggest problem is the local high school district has historically had a problem
with community colleges. Their attitude is they are places for kids with no other place to go. One problem is the
counseling staff talk only to high school students with GPAs at least 3.0. As a parent, he went to a meeting on his
daughter’s behalf about college counseling. Tom asked why not talk about community colleges as an option? He
was told students can do better, that they can go straight to four year schools. Jeremy said UC Berkeley has said
our third year students do better than their own third year students. UCB wants nothing formal now. Jim said
there is a statewide program, IMPAC (Intersegmental Major Preparation and Curriculum) that is supposed to
build articulation, subject by subject, of community college, CSU, and UC programs, but most attendees are from
community colleges. UC people rarely attend. Faculty who do attend are reimbursed.
Jeremy said concurrent enrollment will be on our Nov. 14 agenda. He continues to be active in a CSU consortium
to look at eportfolios and build cross-system assessment tools. What should we be doing? We must have student
work to look at. Eileen said eportfolios are a great idea. Jeremy said Jean Mach is working on portfolios in
general. We hope to have eportfolio templates online, for cut and paste use.
The meeting ended at 4:15 p.m. The next meeting will be Nov. 14 in 18-206.