District Academic Senate Executive Meeting
August 19, 2010, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
District Office
Minutes
Attendance: David Beaulieu (President), Kathleen Bimber (Vice President),
Angela Echeverri (Secretary, Mission), Adrienne Foster (West), Kindra Kinyon
for Lourdes Brent (Trade), Ken Sherwood (City), Allison Moore (Southwest),
Tom Rosdahl (Pierce)
Guests: Katrella Walker (LACCD)
1. Call to Order and Approval of Agenda: Meeting was called to order by
President Beaulieu at 10:02 am. Agenda was approved (Sherwood/Moore
M/S/P).
2. Approval of Minutes of June 24, 2010 Meeting: DAS Executive minutes
for 6/24/10 were approved with several corrections (Foster/Rosdahl M/S/P).
3. Public Speakers: None
4. EAP Opening Day Request (Katrella Walker): Ms. Walker reported that
the EAP Program will give presentations to faculty on FLEX Day. She
expressed her desire to build an alliance between Academic Senate
Presidents and EAP Coordinators. She added that EAP has great grief and
illness counseling services. They are available before or after a memorial
service to provide individual and/or group counseling through Horizon
Health. Horizon Health can also help employees with childcare, eldercare,
remodeling, home repairs, pet care, and other resources for living. They
have just been bought out by Aetna and have expanded their services. She
added that the services are underutilized.
5. DCC Report:
SB 1440 Update: Elizabeth Atondo reported that pending legislation by
Alex Padilla creates a transfer degree for California Community College
students who plan to transfer to the CSU system. The transfer degree
requires completion of 60 units with 18 units in a major of emphasis and a
minimum grade point average (G.P.A.) of 2.0. The goal of the legislation is
to create a clear pathway for students to transfer to the CSU system. The
current requirements for transfer differ broadly among campuses, which is
confusing to students. The CSUs do not have a common major preparation,
so students commonly focus on one pathway. Unfortunately many students
wind up taking too many courses because they do not get proper guidance.
This legislation aims to clarify and expedite the transfer pathway for
students. Other benefits will include eliminating the ability of districts to have
local requirements for the transfer degree, such as Physical Education,
Health and American Institutions. Physical Education enrollment is expected
to plunge in terms of those students. However, SB 1440 will not change any
of our existing degrees. Beaulieu noted that with this legislation students will
not have to choose between transferring quickly and getting a degree at our
colleges.
Atondo added that priority admission to a local CSU is another positive
feature of the bill. While SB 1440 would guarantee students priority
admission to their local CSU campus, they can also apply to other colleges.
Beaulieu stated that local Cal State admission is very important. If the local
college does not have the program a student wants, they are guaranteed
admission to the next closest CSU. Atondo stated that it is not clear how this
feature of the bill would be implemented. Sherwood noted that some
community colleges have no local CSU. Atondo replied that the Chancellor’s
Office is well aware of this and they plan to address this issue. Kinyon
asked for an estimate of how many people would take advantage of this
transfer degree. Beaulieu replied that an estimated 75% of our transfer
students are bound to CSUs. He added that if students are moved more
quickly through the system, it will free up more space for others. The State
Chancellor’s Office is estimating that 40,000 more students will be able to
transfer.
Atondo stated that the main challenge in the implementation of SB1440 will
be how to decide which 18 units will be required to transfer to CSU. We can
start by looking at the articulated coursework. Atondo added it would have
been better if they had not specified 18 units in the bill. However, ASCCC
leaders Jane Patton and Michelle Pilati argued it was crucial to the integrity
of the AA degree. Bimber added that the local CSUs will have to accept
whatever 18 units the community colleges determine for the major. This
puts a lot of pressure on the CSUs to speak to us. Beaulieu added that the
CSUs were shut out of the discussions over 1440, and they are upset about
it. In the past, the CCCs worked to develop the Lower Division Transfer
Program (LDTP) and IMPAC, but the CSUs did not buy in. Beaulieu stated
we may be able to define areas of emphasis very broadly. For example, if
English 101 is included in the major preparation, it will fulfill two
requirements. Atondo added that you can double count major and general
education requirements. She argued that the CSU Academic Senate and
CCC Transfer Centers and Articulation Officers need to sit down together to
decide what the CSU lower division major preparation will be. Many majors
in arts, humanities and the sciences only have six or nine units of major
preparation. If all nine of our colleges define the degree differently, we will
have done a great disservice to our students. We really need to keep in
mind this is a CCC transfer degree to CSU and we need to focus on
defining it that way. Kinyon inquired whether the 18 units have to be in a
major at a CSU. Atondo replied they should be 18 units in a transferable
program. Most majors don’t require 18 units of lower division preparation,
and there is always room to take transferable electives. We need to think
about this broadly. This is not a technical discussion it is more of a policy
discussion.
Bimber stated that all colleges must have at least one transfer degree by fall
2011. We need to know what we will be doing by this spring; we could start
with a pilot degree. Atondo reported that Pierce will look at the top 20
degrees, pull the major prep from surrounding CSUs and develop a model
with English 101, a 200 level Math course and Oral Communication, which
is an admission requirement at the CSUs. Bimber noted that many people
think that the transfer degree is going to compete with existing AA Degrees.
She added that a common misconception is that Plan A is a transfer degree.
Atondo replied that we should not be calling any of our current Plan A
degrees “transfer degrees”; this is incorrect. This misconception leads
students to think Plan A is a transfer degree, but then they find out they are
not transfer ready. Immerblum asked whether we could create a district
transfer degree. Beaulieu replied that the District Academic Senate should
think carefully about how to proceed. The current trend in education is to
move towards efficiency and uniformity. Bimber stated that our CSU
students will be best served if we have common transfer degrees. She
added that where our local differences come into play will be in the
vocational degrees. Rosdahl said as the largest CCC district in the state we
should lead on this front. Bimber replied that Vice Chancellor Stephanie Low
should provide guidelines. Foster added that we should discuss the impact
on PE and Health faculty in the future. AFT President Joanne Wadell has
contacted Beaulieu out of concern for the effect on PE faculty.
6. Chancellor and Senior Staff Changes/Consultation/Summit:
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Chancellor: Beaulieu reported that Chancellor Daniel La Vista came on
board August 1st. He has been to five of the LACCD colleges so far. He also
attended the Fiscal Policy Review Committee (FPRC) meeting this week.
Beaulieu will meet with him today. He approached LaVista last week to
discuss the summit.
Interim Vice Chancellor of Research: This position will replace George
Prather and Gary Colombo (Prather is retiring). Bimber expressed her
concern that curriculum is being short-thrifted. Additionally, there is no
permanent administrator in Human Resources (Michael Shanahan is
interim)
West President: Rose Marie Joyce has been selected as the interim
president at West. She comes from Rio Hondo and Gavilan Colleges.
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Foster said that an outside agency put together a list of five names and
gave the committee the list to choose from. The committee did not get a
chance to go over the candidates’ files and were asked to select three of the
five for further consideration. Beaulieu noted that there is a history of acting
presidents being appointed without much of a process; we should bring this
up in our administrative hiring policy discussions with Adriana Barrera.
Immerblum said usually all interim positions can convert to permanent
positions. That is not the case here, however.
Consultation Meetings: Beaulieu stated he is aiming for Monday
afternoons around 2 pm for consultations. It was noted that Mondays are
not good for East, City, and Pierce, however. It got a little awkward in
FPRC. Title 5 requires that the Chancellor and the Senate come to mutual
agreement in budget development. Carl will be very helpful in the budget
area, as will Jack Daniels. We should be able to keep Jeanette Gordon from
ignoring faculty input. The Chancellor needs to get this message. Echeverri
expressed concerns about Tyree Wieder leaving with the bond issues. She
ends next Friday, though she was willing to stay. Some Board members
wanted her to leave, it seems. Joanne Waddell is much more interested in
bond issues. There is no news on the plan to get an inspector genera in
place soon. Also, it’s been reported that Mark Rocha overran the bond
budget at West by $120 million without consultation. Apparently, he added
three stories to one building and added food courts to others. Now West
leaders are meeting to see how they can bring the projects back into line.
Adrienne will come to the next Bond Steering September 7th, 8:30 am.
Sherwood said Wieder cleaned up a lot of the consultant abuses.
Immerblum said at East 24 architects descended on the South Gate site to
figure out how to change the plans. This kind of spending is outrageous and
does not go through shared governance. Eisenberg said for $150 million we
could renovate a huge building (500,000 square foot building. Now they say
it can’t be done.
7. Shared Governance Problems (Mission/Trade):
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Mission: Echeverri gave an update on the status of the Dean of Student
Services position at Mission.
Southwest: Moore reported that Senate-Union relations are a bit more
cordial.
Trade: The new Vice President of Academic Affairs at Trade is in the
position. President Chip Chipdelaine and Mary Gallagher were sharply
criticized by the Senate about the process. Technically the hiring process
was not in violation of the current policy, but it was in violation of spirit of the
new policy. Unfortunately, we did not have the technical grounds to make
them start over. Beaulieu had suggested going back to the committee which
had recommended a candidate on an interim basis, to ask them for a
recommendation on a permanent basis. We thought it would be reasonable
to reassemble the committee. Chapdelaine had a rushed meeting with just
24 hours notice; one faculty member was not there and another was present
by phone only. Beaulieu complained about the process at the Board, but
Chapdelaine got the hire through anyway. Deputy Chancellor Barrera said
that after talking to Chancellor Tyree Wieder they did not see any violation
of the policy. If the Trade union leadership had stuck with the Senate, they
could have succeeded, but the union president did not object. Beaulieu
concluded that it was all still worthwhile, and now we have even better
grounds to push for an administrative hiring policy.
8. Role of Senate Presidents vis-à-vis Administration: Jean Stapleton, a
Journalism professor from East asked to put this on the agenda. She is
concerned about the relationship between the Senate and College
presidents at City. Beaulieu stated he does not want to single out a
particular college, but it is a reasonable question to ask how we work with
administrators generally. Immerblum stated that there are so many pressing
issues we have to deal and that we have to prioritize what is critical. Kinyon
said we can’t regulate friendships. Stapleton is a DAS representative and
she will be at the meeting. Beaulieu suggested we could ask her to
summarize her concerns in writing and send them to the Executive
Committee.
9. Personnel Commission Concerns (City): Sherwood reported on a
situation at City in which the Personnel Commission Director Karen Martin
approved someone to work as the Chief Financial Officer. A month later
after the person was selected, she came back and said they had not
interviewed someone they should have and had to start over again. The
person they hired is no longer on the list and now they have to go back and
hire someone else. He expressed concern the college could get sued.
Southwest, City and Mission are all waiting to hire a Vice President of
Administrative Affairs or Chief Financial Officer. There are several people on
the list that are deemed to be incompetent. Southwest decided to hire an
Executive Vice President to oversee Academic Affairs and Student
Services, Karen Martin pulled it and held it up, which jeopardized the hire.
Bimber said one possible strategy is to make it a faculty job. Beaulieu said
we should tell Chancellor LaVista our concerns about the Commission.
There are many incompetent people on the list. There is a second issue at
City regarding a position financed through grant funding that Karen Martin
won’t allow them to go forward.
10. Treasurer Report: Immerblum reported that the DAS overspent its petty
cash budget by $650 last year. There are two possible solutions: we can
increase campus donations from $250 to $300, or we can reduce
expenditures. We currently give each college $2500 and get $250 back for
return dues. By consensus it was decided to raise the dues from $250 to
$300. He distributed a Local Senate Support Distribution Form for Senate
Presidents to fill out. There used to be four expense categories (supplies,
equipment, printing, and student worker); a fifth category has been added
for other expenses. Immerblum also provided a form to be filled out for food
purchases. He asked that Senate presidents please hand in the form with a
check to DAS LACCD for $300. He reported that the use of Autopay has
been put on hold, but Payroll is looking into the possibility of automatic
deductions of $5 a month. It would require that IT set up nine different
accounts. He has not heard back from them.
11. Faculty Guild Contract Negotiations: Lourdes Brent, Alex Immerblum,
Adrienne Foster, and David Beaulieu volunteered to serve on a task force to
review areas of concern to the academic senate in the AFT contract.
12. 2010-11 District Budget Update: Beaulieu reported that the LACCD
balance is larger than expected and money should be a bit looser this fiscal
year. District budget estimates were off by $15 to 20 million; the LACCD
was using a figure of a $52 million balance, but it is actually closer to $66
million (excluding open orders). The district received additional revenue
from lottery and non resident tuition funds. They did not factor in the savings
from the cancellation of Summer 1 classes in 2009. This year’s budget will
probably not be worse than last year’s, which had no growth or COLA funds.
13. Adjourn: Meeting was adjourned at 12:25 p.m.
Minutes submitted respectfully by DAS Secretary Angela Echeverri.