Minutes of the Academic Senate Meeting
December 4, 2008
Voting Members Present: (Senators Ed Casson, Terri English, John Klitsner, Myriam
Mekelburg, Said Pazirandeh, Janice Silver, Michong Park, Robert Smazenka,
Voting Members Absent:
Charles Dirks, Parthenia Grant, Yolanda Ramil, Rick Scuderi, Joyce Woodmanse
Exec, Members: Eloise Cantrell, Pat Flood, Angela Echeverri, Leslie Milke,
Gary Prostak, Mark Pursley, Louis Zandalasini
Executive Members Absent: Gwen Walker, Lorraine Manoogian,
Faculty Present: Michele Baldanza, Steve Brown, Jeanne Cassara, Michael Climo, Cindy
Cooper, Lilamani de Silva, Adolfo Espinosa, Maria Gonzalez, Margie Long, Ife Keller, Gina
Ladinsky, Monica Moreno, Trevina Jefferson, F. Christopher Williams, D’Art Phares , Steve
Brown, Veronica Cox, Armond Bakijanian, Geri Shapiro, Vilma Bernal, David Jordan,
Madelline Hernandez, Ed Raskin, Phoebe Rivera, Debby Wong, Yoon Yu
Visitors/Guests:
President Judith Valles, Dean Maury Pearl, Dean Edgardo Zayas, Vice President
Administrative Services Karen Hoeful
Beth Smith –California State Academic Senate;
I. Parliamentarian- President Echeverri called the meeting to order at 1:43 p.m.
Request and motion by President Echeverri to move the agenda to allow Dean Edgardo
Zayas to present the CTE Innovation Results. Motion accepted to move agenda.
Dean Zayas reported that $108,000 of Career and Technical Education Innovation Funds
have been awarded through a proposal process. Next year the college will receive
additional CTE funds to develop new vocational programs for the college.
Here are the TOP Codes, program names, faculty, and fund amounts allocated :

M1201 – Health Claim Billing Specialist, Pat Flood = $5,000

M1208 – Medical Office Technology, Pat Flood = $2,500

M1230 – Pre Nursing LVN, Angela Echeverri and Michael Reynolds = $12,000

M1507 – Forensic Crimes, Kelly Enos = $3,500

M1701 – Practical Mathematics, Debby Wong = $10,000

M2104 – Human Services, Eloise Cantrell = $12,000
II. Approval of Minutes: (Pazirandeh/Mekelburg) (Flood/Klitsner)
The minutes from the October 2, 2008 and November 6, 2008 meetings were
approved. Motions passed
III. Officers’ Reports
A. PRESIDENT (ANGELA ECHEVERRI)
I. Introduction of New Probationary Faculty
Armond Bakijanian (Mathematics): Attended Los Angeles City College as an undergraduate.
He later attended Long Beach State University and obtained his Master’s degree in Mathematics
with an option in Statistics. His family owns an Armenian restaurant in Glendale (Raffi’s Place),
where he has worked for 15 years. After obtaining his master’s degree, he taught as an adjunct for
two years at several community colleges (LAMC, Glendale, Rio Hondo, and Pasadena). He is the
proud father of a three month old baby boy.
Diana Bonilla (Counseling): Diana obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the
University of California, San Diego and has a Master’s in Education with an emphasis in
Counseling from San Diego Sate University. She taught English in Prague for one year. She has
been at Mission since February 2008, working as a counselor in the Title V Math Center. She
enjoys dancing (modern, salsa, samba, and swing).
Stephen Brown (Biology): Stephen was born in raised in the Los Angeles area. He obtained his
bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at CSUN. He worked as a lab
technician at Caltech for several years. He later attended UCLA, where he obtained his Ph.D. in
Cell and Molecular Biology. Stephen has taught as an adjunct at several colleges (West, Valley,
Pierce, SMC, and UCLA). He is a music lover who studies and plays the piano.
Renee Butler (Mathematics): Started teaching math courses as an adjunct at Mission six years
ago. She has also taught at College of the Canyons, Ventura College, and Azusa Pacific
University. Renee is an Independent Studies Teacher at Simi Valley Adult School, in which she
tutors adult students in all subjects to help them pass the GED and/or earn their High School
diploma. Before teaching college, she taught math to 7th and 8th graders for ten years at a Middle
School in Burbank. She lives in Simi Valley with her husband of 19 years, and her three children
ages 13, 11, and 8. She enjoys camping and sailing with her family.
Joe Cascione (Athletics and Physical Education): Joe has a Bachelor’s degree in Physical
Education and a Master’s degree in Sports Management. He worked at Cleveland High School as
the Head Baseball Coach for several years, where he won a City Championship. He has been at
Los Angeles Mission College as an adjunct coach since 2007-08. He is the proud father of a young
daughter and a baby boy.
Veronica Cox (English): Has taught part time since 1997. She received her B.A. in English with
an emphasis in Literature and her M.A. in Composition at Cal-State University at San Bernardino.
She has an apartment in Lake Arrowhead, but stays with her folks during the week since she
started teaching at Mission. Her favorite hobby is belly dancing, but golf is a close second (when
time permits).
Gina Ladinsky (English): Gina majored in Zoology as an undergraduate at Long Beach State
University. She obtained her Master’s degree in Medical Technology and worked in a laboratory
for seven years. In the 1990s she went back to school and studied Spanish at Santa Monica
College. She later obtained her Master’s degree in Professional Writing from the University of
Southern California. Gina taught at Crossroads Middle School and High School for several years.
During this time, she also taught as an adjunct at West and East Los Angeles College.
D’Art Phares (History): Born in Los Angeles. He attended Glendale College & Pepperdine
University (Communications). Years later realized he wanted to teach history, and went back to
school (CSUN, CSULA, and finally UCLA). Started teaching as an adjunct in 2002 at East. He
enjoys playing volleyball, poker, and Guitar Hero. D’Art is married with 2 grown kids, both of
whom attended community colleges.
Christopher Williams (Psychology): Christopher graduated from Penn State with a B.S. in
Psychology and a Ph.D. in Counselor Education. He moved from Pennsylvania to California in
2001. Since then he has established a private psychotherapy practice and has tried his hand at
acting. He writes music, poetry, and has made two films. He has taught on and off for the past ten
years.
Child Development Center Faculty
Maria Gonzalez (Preschool teacher): Maria comes to us from the Child Care Resource Center,
where she taught in their Head Start program. She is an alumnus of Los Angeles Mission College.
Trevina Jefferson (School age teacher): Comes to us from the Chungdahm Institute, where she
taught English to school age children overseas in Seoul, Korea for a year. She has her Bachelor’s
degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Child Development and Business.
Rehana Ali (Evening preschool teacher): Rehana comes to us from LAUSD where she taught
preschool. She is also a graduate of Los Angeles Mission College and was once a student worker
at the center. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Language.
Rita Grigoryan (Evening preschool teacher): Rita comes to us from AS/CSUN Children’s
Center. She attended Los Angeles Mission College and has her Master’s Degree in education with
an emphasis on early childhood education. She is a mentor teacher for Los Angeles Mission
College and adjunct faculty for the Child Development discipline.
Michelle Baldanza (Toddler Teacher): Michelle comes to us from the UCLA Infant
Development Program, which specializes in early childhood care and education. She holds a
Master’s degree in Child Development from Cal State Los Angeles University.
Joanne Grey (Infant teacher): Joanne comes to us from LACC from the Child Development
Department, where she oversaw the Child Development curriculum lab. She has a Bachelor’s
degree in Human Development with a focus on early years.
II. Academic Senate of California Community Colleges- Beth Smith
Beth gave a brief report on the resolutions adopted at the Academic Senate fall
plenary session. Some of the key topics for resolutions this fall included
accreditation and academic integrity, as well as a resolution to update the
mission statement for the state Academic Senate to include a commitment to
diversity. She went on to highlight resources offered by the state senate
including its many publications, and she showed copies of some of the recent
papers and topics, as well as where to find them online. The state Academic
Senate website, www.asccc.org, lists the events for the year, which includes
professional development institutes dedicated to leadership development,
vocational faculty, curriculum and others. Beth reviewed the process for adding
or modifying the Disciplines List, and she shared the disciplines included in the
current cycle: there are proposals for three new disciplines (statistics, speech
language pathology, and biotechnology), and proposals for updating five other
disciplines (agriculture, mathematics, humanities, political science, and
instructional design).
III.- Proposition J- President Valles
Proposition J will bring opportunities to Mission., We have a Master Plan for our
future growth. What really matters is the perception that faculty did not have
input into the plans for building and programs planned with Proposition J funds,
We need to have a campus –wide discussion and several forums to discuss the
issues.
 What is the BIG PLAN?
 Which programs will need to be developed in the areas of Tech Prep,
CTE, workforce development, and vocational programs and academic
areas that provide the needs of the communities we serve.
 We need to make sure we know how to use the buildings – with programs
for the future, this is a serious discussion.
 What will be the needed curriculum, what certificates need to be
developed.
 What role does business and industry play?
 We will have an open forum in January 2009 – date to be announced to
begin this dialog and planning. We need to have a collective discussion.
 We want all of the new faculty to participate as well as the tenured faculty.
 We have a chance to build our future of Los Angeles Mission College.
 Bring your ideas for discussion about our future and all of the exciting
possibilities.
 We are facing tough times and budget cuts with close to an additional
million dollars to be cut.
 We will avoid all lay offs. However, other areas will be considered.
Mike Climo suggested that we also have evening sessions for these forums
as well as the day time ones.
Angela Echeverri reported that on the East Campus their will be a Health
Science, Math and other structures to be determined. There will be
renovation dates and timelines needed. She asked us to consider what kind
of space do we need in other areas of the campus during this process?.
There will be modernization money to accomplish these projects.
B. Treasurer (Louis Zandalasini)
1. Report on account at the Pacific Western Bank:
 Faculty Senate Checking Account
 Carla Bowman Scholarship
 David Lee Moss Scholarship
$ 966.79
$3,959.10
$ 457.89
2. Faculty Dues of $25 are due now, these dues help to provide Scholarships for our
LAMC students. Please pay Louie as soon as possible.
3. Conference Requests: There is $300.00 available Full-time, $250.00 Adjunct for
conference requests. Please be reminded of the 2 weeks prior authorization for
any conference request or attendance in any activity that requires a conference
request form. Even if it is a meeting at the LACCD, you should do a form for
insurance purposes if you will be away from your teaching responsibilities.
4. The Conference Request form is on the college website (as well as laccd.edu)
under faculty, and then campus forms, please attach a flyer of the conference
activity. Remember, you must fill out the Travel Expense Claim Form
document no later than 10 days after your attendance in order for your
conference request for money to be processed. This document must also be
accompanied by all of your original receipts for your expenses.
5. In addition, a Report on Conference Activity must be filled out with a detailed
report of the value you gained by your attendance. Within a 10 day period after
the conference or activity.
6. Chair for Scholarship Committee 2008-2009: If you are interested to be the Scholarship
Chair, or would like to serve on this committee please e-mail me, zandallj@lamission.edu
or phone campus ext. #7849.
IV. Public Address: (comments on matters on the agenda for the current meeting (Echeverri)
Margie Long addressed to Senate with her concern about the Holiday Affair
being held on Mondays instead of the designated Tuesday college free hours. Mondays
for the past two years have prevented faculty from attending the event due to classes
being held at the same time. Vilma Bernal responded, invited all to attend the event this
year 2008, and stated that the Staff Development committee will address the issue, dates,
and times for next y ear to coincide with the college free hour on Tuesday and Thursdays.
V. Reports of Senate Committee Meetings
A.
Curriculum (Pazirandeh)
Curriculum Report
Academic Senate 12/4/08
Said presented a demonstration on the curriculum committee web-page. He
introduced the electronic discipline project and gave a presentation on its usage.
 The last meeting of the semester was held on December 2, 2008. During the winter
session, the committee will attempt and clear some of the backlog of work that has
been submitted but not processed.

The revised approval process for the Course Outline of Records (COR’s) will be
enforced beginning Spring 2009 semester. The revised process includes the
following steps:
1. Completion of COR (including Library and SLO sections)
2. Obtaining signatures of Dept. Chair, Librarian and SLO Coordinator
3. Submission of forms to Academic Affairs for Tech Review

The new curriculum calendar for Spring 2009 semester will be available in the next
few days.
B. District Academic Senate ( Echeverri,)
No report
C. Education Planning Committee Report and Unit Assessment( Silver)
Educational Planning Committee
EPC Meetings held Nov. 3rd and November 17th , 2008
Summary of Agenda Items Discussed:
November 3rd
 Program Review Presentations from English Department and Business
and Law Department
November 17th
 EPC will provide written response forms to each department chair following
monthly department presentations. Program review response reports to Life
Sciences, Physical Sciences, English and Business and Law were reviewed
and approved. These response forms will be posted on the EPC webpage.




Basic Skills Task Force will now become an ongoing sub-committee of the
EPC, and will be referred to as the Essential Skills Committee.
EPC reviewed the draft document from Budget and Planning “Assessment,
Budget and Planning” and made recommendations for some revisions to
tables and charts to provide consistency in the role of EPC.
Distance Education revisions in procedure were shared and discussed.
Enrollment Management sub-committee reported on the meeting held
November 12th. A draft of a charter is being written and will be presented to
EPC when completed.
D. Budget and Planning Committee( Milke)
Meetings are held the first Thursday of the month from 12 to 1:30 PM.
There is a 1.5 M deficit projected for this year. The committee has been working on
developing the process for budget allocation with a time-line attached. Items the B&P
committee have been working on are:
 A budget and operational plan draft
 Forms have been approved
Leslie introduced President Valles to address the budget crisis. President Valles
reported the following:
 As of 12/4/09 we have an additional $912,000 deficit allocated to us by the
district
Recommendations for budget cuts may come from
1. Contracts i.e. “memberships”
2. Freeze expenditures of supplies
3. One summer session only which is a 5 or 8 week pattern, which starts June
22, 2009? We will need to offer classes that are healthy and robust with
large enrollments and good retention.
4. Winter session 2009 cuts will be made early in January
5. Hiring freeze – across the board
6. Conference attendance will be monitored
7. Last resort will to be cut classes
President Valles ended by indicating that we will be fine if we all pull together to
solve our budget crisis. The President was encouraging and supportive to us all.
Leslie introduced VP of Administrative Services, Karen Hoeful. Dr. Hoeful stated
that the Operational Plan will be distributed to department chairs by December
15, 2009 and will be due back to her by February 5, 2009.
We are to justify our line items in the plan.
B&P still have not presented the Budget Plan for approval to the College Council
and there is still tie for your feedback – please give it to the B&P committee
ASAP. December 18 the B&P document will be presented to the College Council
for approval.
E.
College Council- ( Milke/ Echeverri)
Some of the shared governance committees have not been meeting. There needs
to be a change in how this works and all chairs and co-chairs need to make sure they
are function and with a charter approved by the College Council. College Council
will meet on December 18 to approve the college budget plans. The College Council
is preparing for the Accreditation visit and will go over the report in January.
F. Student Learning Outcomes and Assessment (SLOA) Committee (Flood)
Pat indicated that 20% of courses every semester need to be assessed.
Forms for reposting your SLO progress has been emailed to all department chairs and are
due back to Pat Flood by January 15, 2009. Accurate reporting on SLO’s and their
assessments are required for college accreditation. The new AFT contact for faculty has
a provision that states that each course syllabus must contain SLO’s and their assessment
tool.
G. Academic Rank Committee: (Long)
The Academic Rank Committee has been looking into finding out if the submitted
approved candidates had received their letters of congratulations and certificates from our
former President or not. We have asked that those who had submitted their requests and
had not received their certificates, please check with Margie Long.. The
committee could not find any letters sent from the former President. It is the assumption
that the requests may have been misplaced in the move when the former President moved
back to East and the office was newly filled by our current permanent President.
H. Distance Education Committee (Jordan/Pazirandeh)
No Report
VI. Old Business
A. CTE Funds (Zayas) See above report – moved agenda
.
B. Accreditation Visit Report (Flood/Echeverri)
C. Basic Skills/Student Success Committee (Prostak)
The term that is now used is”Essential Skill Committee”
The “Essential Skills Committee” is in the process of developing its own charter and will
meet every two weeks. The job description for the “Essential Skills -coordinator through
the Basic Skills Initiative Funds form is due December 12, 2008.
D. Faculty Hiring Prioritization – (Klitsner)
We will go forward with the process. Faculty requests for new faculty hires are
due to John by December 15, 2008. John went over the forms and the process. The
committee will meet in February to evaluate the faculty hiring requests.
Even though we have a hiring freeze we are below the 75% rule.
VII. New Business
A. Adjunct Representation on Academic Senate – (Cassara)
Jeanne Cassara submitted this report:
Mission has over 400 adjuncts and 85 full-timers. Adjuncts teach 70% of the
courses. Obviously, adjuncts are a vital part of the function of the campus but
have nothing to say about any academic issues. The majority of adjuncts have
been teaching more than 10 years -- a few over 20 years. They are committed to
their students as well as believing that they contribute to the overall success of
our college.
Adjuncts possess the same academic expertise but we know that there is a
difference between permanent versus temporary. Since the Senate decision to
award an academic rank title for Adjuncts in 2006, 56 adjuncts have applied and
been granted the rank of Adjunct Assistant Professor. The Assistant Professor
rank is available for all full-time faculty but they, too, must apply for it.
Having representation on the Senate will allow those committed adjuncts to
participate with our full-time colleagues on professional and academic matters
that affect the way we provide services to our students. Since the adjuncts
represent such a high percentage of the teaching faculty at Mission it seems only
just that we have representation in the Academic Senate as well as voting rights.
In the area of hiring I indicated that only one of the eight new hires was a former
adjunct on our campus. I was corrected being told that actually 4 of the new
hires were former adjuncts on our campus. However, two of those were in child
development, not an academic discipline. It is disheartening to those dedicated
adjuncts to be passed over by an instructor who has had no experience at
Mission - an unknown quantity when those current adjuncts are a know quantity.
Doesn't Mission have a responsibility to assist our own adjuncts to be competitive
for the full-time positions on this campus?
Please give us our just representation. Six(6) of the nine(9) community colleges
have acknowledged the contribution of their adjuncts to the success of the
college by giving them representation on the Academic Senate.
Thank you for your consideration.
Your Adjunct Representatives: Jeanne Cassara, Mehri Hagar and Dolores Taylor
B. FLEX Report Update Climo
Flex credit is a serious contractual issue. The Academic Senate needs
to decide what activities constitute flex credit. The topic of FLEX CREDIT need to
be a the top of the agenda for the next senate meeting. Mike indicated that he was
not given the prior documentation necessary to be flex coordinator. He was not
given the information until July, 2008, after it already was due. On Monday,
December 8, Mike and Nick the web-master will meet so faculty can see what is
their obligation through the faculty portal.
Margie thanked Mike for his outstanding job. Pat encouraged him to continue in his
capacity as Flex coordinator. It was suggested that Mike meet with VP JohnsonHawkins to facilitate the Flex Credit process.
Announcements: None
The meeting adjourned at 3:50 P.M.
Respectfully submitted by Eloise Cantrell - Secretary