March 3, 2025

I. Call to Order

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Welcome

Erik Woodbury welcomed everybody to the March 3 Senate meeting.

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Approval of Agenda and Minutes from Februrary 24th, 2025.

Sherwin Mendoza moved, Cynthia Kaufman seconded to approve both minutes and agenda. No objection. Agenda and minutes approved by unanimous consent.

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Public Comment 

Ishmael Tarikh proposed increasing the Academic Senate dues from $5 to something more and discuss it as a future agendized item. 

Erik Woodbury: The Senate will need to recruit more supporting members. 

Cynthia Kaufman: How to increase recruitment?

Erik Woodbury: From his experience personal outreach and direct appeals worked the best.

Cynthia Kaufman suggested having a quick and easy way to recruit with what to communicate that includes benefits to faculty and the community.

The Senate will discuss and brainstorm on more ideas and thoughts.

Erik Woodbury

March is Women's History Month, underrated and overlooked women.

Lisa Meitner, a German scientist, who helped discover nuclear fission alongside Otto Hahn. He was given the Nobel Prize. She was not. She fundamentally increased the understanding of nuclear chemistry. She was the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. She lost her position in 1935 because of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany. Meitner was praised by Albert Einstein as the "German Marie Curie."

Bob Singh celebrated the legacy of mothers, like his own, who did not have opportunity for higher education but nurtured educators, sons and daughters equally, in their household.

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II. Consent Calendar

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Consent Calendar (attachment)

Jayanti Roy moved to approve the consent calendar, Lisa Mesh seconded. No objection. Hiring Committees for Business, DMT, and Music approved.

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III. Needs and Confirmation

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District and College Needs (Attachment)

Vice President of Instruction Hiring Committee

Need 3 faculty representatives

Volunteers: Erik Woodbury, Veronica Acevedo, Bob Singh, Alicia Mullens. 

The Senate set up rank choice voting to select 3 out of the 4 candidates. However, since there was no prior announcement for the call , this was postponed to allow volunteers outside of the executive committee to request to serve.

Submit Request to Serve Form (on Senate website)with interest statement no later than 12 noon, March 14, 2025; confirmed by Monday, March 17

Ongoing Needs

Patty Guitron highlighted 2 ongoing needs in the next few months. Needs for many volunteers for: 

Tenure Review At-Large Representatives

EO Representatives

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IV. New & Continuing Business

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Quick Notes:

Listening Project

The event date has been moved to Wednesday, 3/19 (Adm 109) and Thursday, 3/20 (Adm 106), 9 am to 1 pm. Looking for volunteers to donate 1-2 hours of time on one or both days. 

FHDA Board Meeting Today & next week.

There was a special board meeting today 3/3 on litigation and personnel issues. The regular board meeting will be next Monday 3/10. Check the board website for the meeting agenda.

Dual Enrollment Update

They will not conduct a general survey. They will reach out to the high schools regarding their needs. Then have conversation with the faculty in those disciplines.

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DASG Update

Victor Pham, Social Media Officer, DASG

DASG Presidential Election. Please encourage students to vote.

DASG Events - Love & Connection Day, Presidential Q&A, Mini Flea Market, Main Flea Market, Upcoming Talent Show

DASG Senate Admin Committee structural changes-public policy school liaison, program liaisons for underrepresented programs

New positions: Budget Analyst and Election Commissioner

Committee Code changes with programs, environmental sustainability, marketing, and the admin committee.

DASG is  working on their budget for the next academic year, Fund 41 for 2025-2026 (not approved yet)

Victor shared the following link to the DASG Senate budget recommendations: 2025-2026-DASG-Budget-Fund-41-General.xlsx

Mary Donahue: This will be an important election. There are more candidates than in previous elections. 7 candidates for the DASG president, 9 candidates for the De Anza student trustee position on the Board of Trustees. The turnout for student body elections has been low. Encourage students' participation. 

Victor estimated the combined in-person and online voting to be less than 10%.  That was definitely something they needed to improve on.

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Update from COOL, De Anza Committee On Online Learning

James Capurso:

COOL members have been getting a lot of faculty feedback from their constituents, departments, divisions regarding the RSI training. COOL has been a really great place to have some of those conversations on how people have been reacting and working around the training, especially their thoughts and concerns. Faculty were encouraged to reach out to the online crew and fill out the feedback survey in the RSI training course. They approved two curriculum guide form updates for online and hybrid courses. These forms are in the curriculum website under eLumen. They are looking at a tool called Harmonize. They will test and demo it in the spring.

Update from AI workgroup

Workgroup members: Diana Alves de Lima, Learning Resources, Mohammed Akhoirshida, CIS, and Amy Leonard, English

The subgroup worked on the academic dishonesty policy for students, faculty guidelines and best practices around AI and also the creation of some student guidelines.

They reviewed the Foothill AI policy approved by their Academic Senate and adopted in fall 2024. They also reviewed policy at the CSUs, the UCs, and some other local community colleges. They attended the AI Academy and sessions on creating an AI policy for community colleges. They learned that most colleges have created an AI policy with the use of AI.

There is currently no official AI policy at De Anza. Faculty have academic freedom, but they can only enforce the AI policy clearly stated in their syllabus. The presentation has 4 proposed guidelines (item 3) that are very broad. They range from a zero tolerance policy to a completely open policy. Faculty may need help or training to craft their policies.

Student Affairs at De Anza would like to have a default AI policy to put on the college website. Amy shared 2 drafts (items 1 & 2) on what they may put on the campus website. The drafts are  modeled after the current Foothill, UC, and CSU policies. They would like faculty input to finalize the language. The institutional policy will apply if an instructor does not have an AI policy in their syllabus.

Amy learned at the AI Institute that technically AI is not plagiarism. However, it is still academic dishonesty when it does not represent their knowledge, skills, or original experience. Academic dishonesty is enforceable.

There were discussions about AI trackers and how to determine improper use of AI. 99% of students report using AI. High school students are told to use AI for all ak in their own voices.

The Ask:

Get feedback to finalize the wording for the institutional policy to be posted on the website for the spring. Student Affairs will develop workshops to help students understand and comply with the policy. Professional development will provide training to help faculty with their AI policy. 

More discussion next week.

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Dear Colleague Letter and Responses

Dear Colleague Letter - Feb 14th

DCL FAQ - March 1st

Erik Woodbury summarized the reaction and district response to the “Dear Colleague Letter” that was sent out by the United States Department of Education on Feb 14th. It was a letter from the current administration detailing how they were going to be interpreting and enforcing current laws and regulations.

In the town hall meeting earlier in the day, they highlighted a new document DCL FAQ (FAQ for the Dear Colleague Letter) released on Saturday, March 1st. This document softens the position that was staked out in the dear colleague letter originally, but still pushes towards reducing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in education.

The college and district response to the letter. This letter does not change the law. It does not change anything. De Anza has been in compliance with the law and will continue to be. De Anza is not going to change or update anything they are already doing.

The letter is basically a scare tactic. It promotes reactionary-ism and confusion. It does not change the law that was passed by Congress and previous presidents. However, the current administration is pushing the interpretation of the law to the limit and beyond the limit. A different interpretation can have significantly different outcomes, such as being targeted for litigation.

The Board/District/President have all stated their support for students against discrimination, focus on student services and protect programs. 

Another point to remember/consider: DEI is embedded in Title V for designing equitable curriculum and part of the accreditation standards. The State of California has set aside funding to support DEI efforts.

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AI Notetakers

Alicia Mullens moved to table, seconded by Veronica Acevedo. No objection.

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Resolution Endorsing proposed Board Resolution Declaring FHDA a Sanctuary District (1st read)

Cynthia Kaufman has been working on this resolution since last spring with EJUS, Educational Justice for Undocumented Students and Staff committee.

This is a resolution to declare FHDA a sanctuary district. This resolution has no legal weight, but it makes a strong statement of support. It will come before the 3/10 board meeting. The Chancellor is opposed to it, some Board members are in favor, some oppose. The Classified Senate has already passed it, Foothill Academic Senate will be discussing this on Monday.

This was a first read with a long discussion.

Many senate members spoke passionately in favor of adopting it. 

“Important to do this. Time to be courageous, time to be strong, time to stand up for our values”

Some students, faculty, and staff are afraid of laws being passed around the country that targeted certain vulnerable communities. They need protection and support.

The state of California just reaffirmed as a sanctuary state, on February 27th. There was a Senate and assembly bill, the Senate Bill 54 that was passed quite a while ago declaring California a sanctuary state 

.There were concerns over being targeted and losing federal funding. The biggest hesitation as they talked with lawyers was that if there were any blow back, they would go after the students. The students will feel the damage;

Motion

Sherwin Mendoza move to approve, Veronica Acevedo seconded

Discussion

Patty emphasized the need to talk to their constituents.

Shagun Kaur wanted more definition about what it means to be a sanctuary. That will make it stronger.

Kaufman inviting faculty to be present at FHDA Community College District Board of Trustees to get support for resolution

Motion

Cynthia Kaufman moved to extend time for 10 minutes, Barbara Dahlke seconded. Motion passed

Motion

Alicia Mullens moved to table, Jayanti Roy seconded. No objection

It was tabled until next week but a decision needs to be made next Monday before the Board meeting that day (3/10)

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Good of the Order

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Adjournment

Mary Pape motioned, Lisa Mesh seconded, to adjourn, no objection.

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Attendance

In person

Erik Woodbury, Patty Guitron, So Kam Lee

Veronica Avila Acevedo, Viviana Alcazar, *Sam Bliss, James Capurso, Umar Douglas, Mark Hamer, Kevin Glapion, Lauren Gordon, Rusty Johnson, Cynthia Kaufman, Sherwin Mendoza, Lisa Mesh, Alicia Mullens, Mary Pape, *Victor Pham, Christian Rodriguez, Jayanti Roy, Lakshmikanta "LK" Sengupta, Leah Smith, Sukhjit Bob Singh, James Tallent, Ishmael Tarikh, Lianna Wong

Online

Mary Donahue, Shagun Kaur, Mark Landefeld, Ravjeet Singh

Absent

*Deborah Armstrong,  James Adams, Julie Hughes

*Non-voting members