June 18, 2024

Attendance, Voting Members:

Robert Alexander, Alicia De Toro, Lydia Hearn, Michelle Hernandez, Melinda Hughes, Michele LeBleu-Burns, Debbie Lee, Andre Meggerson, Eric Mendoza, Rob Mieso, Mallory Newell, Izat Rasyad, Daniel Solomon, Aditya Sharma, Tim Shively, Bidya Subedi, Kate Wang, Chia Wen, Erik Woodbury

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Welcome 

Comments on the agenda and 6/11 minutes.

No corrections. Agenda and 6/11 Minutes approved.

Membership Reminder

Erik Woodbury reminded members who will not return next year to let them know about their replacement. 

Tina Lockwood will be stepping down. Her work has been invaluable to this committee.

There will be a new tri-chair next year. Rob Mieso will step down, and  Lydia Hearn will step in as the administrative tri-chair. Rob will continue as a committee member.

The faculty members have confirmed that they will continue to serve on the committee. For the administrative representation, Christina will appoint the new members.

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Large Group Discussion - Round 1 Prioritizations

The small groups have completed their work to prioritize the position requests into high, moderate, and low across three categories-Instructional Faculty, Non-instructional Faculty, and Classified/Administration.

In this meeting, the entire committee met as a large group to review, question, understand, confirm, re-shuffle and reach consensus on the prioritization from the small groups. The determination will not be the final, reconciled list for submission to the College Council. The committee will repeat this process in the fall with replacement position requests for vacancies that occur over the summer. The final reconciled list will also include previously ranked positions. There will be no resubmissions for current requests.

“Instructional Faculty” Category

The committee went through the small group rankings from high to low, starting with “Instructional Faculty.” There were 7 instructional faculty positions. Positions ranked “high" were deemed necessary to maintain programs and in alignment with the college’s equity, student success and educational master plan. Growth positions were ranked lower. Erik Woodury highlighted the two DMT positions. The first was ranked “high,” while the second, a growth position for expansion, was ranked “moderate.” 

Lydia Hearn asked why the Physics position was ranked “low. “

Small group summaries and comments explained their ranking and determination for the position.

Mehrdad Khosravi had a question regarding the process for the determination and the comments from the group summaries. He stated that there were no clarification on alignment requested from the reviewing groups for the Physics position.

“Non-Instructional Faculty” Category

There were 7 counselors positions. On the three positions that were ranked “high,” there were no comments or discussion on the Transfer Center Counselor. There were questions and discussions on the ranking for the MPS Counselor and the Dual Enrollment Counselor positions. 

The Math program and their students were facing many challenges, especially with 705, 1705 and the shuffling of classes in precalculus and calculus. The MPS Counselor position will help with student success and address equity. 

As for Dual Enrollment Counselor, Robert Alexander stated that general counselors have been serving dual enrolled students and the numbers have been relatively low. Erik Woodbury highlighted this topic for more discussion later in the meeting since there are many questions and opinions.

SSRS (students success and retention services) counselor position has 2 more years of funding therefore was ranked “moderate.” 

The VIDA/HEFAS Counselor, the Honors Faculty Coordinator, and the EPS Counselor positions were ranked “low.” The current Honors Faculty Coordinator was someone working on overload for additional pay.

Melinda Hughes explained that their group ranked the EPS Counselor “low” because there was no data on how many students were being served in that program.

“Classified/Administration” Category

The Associate Dean of Learning Communities was ranked “high,” since it was a grant funded position with immediate needs. The position will be part of a larger conversation on the learning communities in the fall.

Ranked “moderate” were the Accounting Assistant II, Accounting II, and the Health Promotion Specialist positions. The Accounting positions were currently funded by DASG. The goal was to move these positions from DASG funding to general funds. Accounting Assistant II requested full funding. Accounting II requested 40%.

Ranked “low” were the VIDA/HEFAS Program Coordinator/Dreamer Resource Liaison, Athletic Trainer, PE/KNES Administrative Assistant, and Student Success Center, Instructional Support Coordinator. They are either growth or new positions, not replacement positions.

Continuation of the Discussion on the Dual Enrollment Counselor position. 

There were strong opinions and questions on its being ranked “high.”

Rob Mieso explained that while general counselors have worked with dual enrolled students in the past, the dual enrollment program has not been an emphasis for the college. Moving forward, De Anza has identified dual enrollment as a focus area with a designated counselor for enrollment growth. The Chancellor’s Office has emphasized dual enrollment as part of their vision for 2030. In General Counseling, the ratio was 1 counselor to 1300 students. There was no capacity to manage this growth. That was the main reason for this position to be high priority.

There were questions about the shift from the current enrollment areas to dual enrollment as the primary source. Also, how the role of the Dual Enrollment Counselor may fit in with the high school counselors and the current Outreach Counselor who were already helping students transition from high school to college.

Rob Mieso: The issue was capacity with limited counselors in all the areas and no one dedicated to support this particular focused area.

Robert Alexander explained the process in place for a high school student to enroll at De Anza. He did not think the anticipated increased enrollment would warrant a whole new position. 

Andre Meggerson commented in chat that Foothill improved about 300% in dual enrollment with an outreach coordinator and a counselor purely for dual enrollment.

Nazy Galoyan: De Anza currently has 1,500 dual enrolled students.

Robert Alexander raised concerns over having niche counselors in different areas that were ineffective for serving students. They need a central hub to share in a timely manner the ever-evolving information for application and transfer to various college systems. Hiring additional counselors outside of general counseling and the transfer center exacerbates the problem that's already in existence. General counseling and outreach have been working with duo enrolled students and he thought that process worked and should continue.

Lydia Hearn stated that this should be part of a larger discussion on structure that included general counseling and counselors in embedded areas. This discussion should be separate from the merit of a particular position.

Secondly, the college will need to grow or at least maintain enrollment to go beyond being “hold harmless.” It will be hard to get there without additional funding to add classes. The reason for focusing on dual enrollment was that the state gives more funding for students from that population. 

Also, the earlier high school students start taking and getting credit for classes at De Anza, there was a better chance for them to enroll and transition to De Anza.

Vins Chacko in chat mentioned increased the enrollment as part of CCAP (College and Career Access Pathway) with local high schools.  

Those students will transition and pursue a degree or certificate at De Anza. The Middle College Program was another channel for high school students to transition into full time students to De Anza.

Robert Alexander would like to see data on the 1,500 dual enrolled students.

Debbie Lee pointed out that they are not in growth mode right now. And, the state has not budgeted anything for growth.

The committee wrapped up the discussion and reached a general consensus on keeping the current ranking until further discussion in the fall. It was noted that there was disagreement with the “high” ranking for the Dual Enrollment Counselor position. 

Mallory Newell rolled over positions from the previous round of ranking into the list. 

There were questions regarding the number of positions. The number will change depending on retirement or vacancies over the summer. HR will provide the report in the fall.

Debbie Lee reminded the committee in the fall to update instructional and non instructional positions with regards to the 50% law.

Lydia Hearn: As the district finalized the budget for next year, she will be working closely with the district and the office of Instruction on the allocation of the positions in alignment with the 50% law. 

Annual Governance Feedback Survey

Mallory Newell went over the survey and invited the committee to comment and add to it.

Question: How did this work help us to fill our vision, mission and values, our strategic initiatives and our commitment to equity?

The work of the committee included program review, resource allocation, and personnel requests. The committee implemented a brand new program review process to align with college mission, strategic initiatives, and equity plans. For the first time they included goals in the program review, also how the program mission aligned with college mission. 

In the new process for ​​resource allocation and personnel request they asked the submitters to indicate how their request aligned with their program mission. The committee reviewed each position request on how it may align with the college strategic initiatives, educational master plan and equity plan. The committee also provided feedback with comments and recommendations.

Question: What has been working and what changes do we plan to implement?

They implemented a feedback loop to collect comments throughout the process and scheduled time for discussion. They continuously update, revise and improve their processes. Based on feedback, they began to split up the review of the positions into instructional, non instructional, and classified/administrators categories. Also, they developed a process for emergency requests. 

They effectively communicated and represented the constituency groups by scheduling a first read to disseminate information and gathering input from stakeholders for the second read. In the fall they did buckets around the room by constituency groups to make sure that every group had an opportunity to speak.

This year they did the comprehensive program review. Next year’s annual update will be a much shorter form for each area to reflect upon their goals and learning outcomes. The form was available online and will be due late fall/early winter. 

Feedback for Survey

Mallory Newell asked the group for feedback on how they should move forward.

Tim Shively suggested that when they have experts from the district to speak on items like the 50% laws, the full time/part time ratio that there should be a channel for follow up. In the past they received information and had no further dialogue and update on the issues.

Martin Varela: The district managers did not have any methods to evaluate the 50% law during the year. As they close the fiscal year to review and reconcile the numbers in the summer, during July and August, they will determine where they were with the 50% law. Their goal was to have someone come to the committee to report and explain how to manage the 50% law.

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Feedback and Discussion on 2023-24

Mallory Newell asked Afor feedback on the change in the discussion format. They changed to having fewer groups with more positions for review in each group.

Tim Shively: The small groups went well with good discussion. Even with disagreements, the discourse was very civil and contributed to the resolutions. He observed that the large group was more contentious.

Erik Woodbury: The small groups were engineered without people connected to the positions. In the large group, people have more personal and passionate connections to the positions. The conversation became more difficult and complex.

Submitters should link program review more directly with requests and justification.  For some cases they were incomplete and vague. Or, they lack up to date data. There may be a lapse between the program review and the position request. Some lack connection to current college focus like the educational master plan, or the equity plan. 

Someone suggested training on goal setting and help with filling out the forms.

Examine the process for reviewing, giving feedback on program reviews. A more effective way to set up groups.

Prepare for discussions on possible budget cuts to handle it in a more thoughtful manner.

Questions for the dean and managers. Instead of having them come in person to speak to the committee, the answers should be in written format. Shorten the feedback process. 

Feedback and comments on committee workload and meeting times.

There is a lot of work and commitment. Most felt that it was appropriate for this type of committee. The committee has a lot of responsibilities that could be delegated to subcommittees, then pass onto to other departments.

Adjournment

A general round of thanks and appreciation to all the committee members for their participation and the trichairs for their leadership as the committee wrapped up its last meeting for its first year.