October 22, 2024

Attendance, Voting Members:

Sushini Chand, Adam Contreras, Nazy Galoyan, Lydia Hearn, Zachary Ho, Simon Kang’a, Eric Mendoza, Rob Mieso, Mallory Newell, Van Nguyen, Aditya Sharma,  Tim Shively, Daniel Solomon, Martin Varela, Chia Wen, Erik Woodbury

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Welcome

Erik Woodbury welcomed everyone back and hoped the committee enjoyed the day off. RAPP did not meet last week 10/15/24. 

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Approval of 10/8/2024 Minutes.

Minutes approved with correction to the attendance.

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Follow up: Questions on Enrollment and Budget Discussion

Lydia Hearn shared a question she received on her Enrollment and Budget Presentation from the 10/8/24 meeting

“What do we lose if the district misses the mark to try to get back to the 2017-18 enrollment level?”

There is a risk that if the district misses that target, they will have less money to spend per student. If funds are stretched thin, the quality of services may go down.

However, since enrollment has been on an upward trend they felt that it will be worth the risk as they get closer to the threshold to be eligible for more funding in the future.

Tim Shively pointed out the potential for more students to enroll in the college if there were more variety in class offerings instead of the basic courses. 

Lydia Hearn mentioned the fiscal challenge to maintain a more diverse, well-rounded program. There were a lot fewer cancellations in the fall quarter than in the past, because enrollment was up. They didn't have to reduce offerings.

They had not decided at the district level whether they were going to restore or not. Once they do, they will be looking at the special categories of students mentioned in the presentation. According to Vice Chancellor Christopher Dela Rosa they will need to plan a year in advance to try to grow those areas.

In the meanwhile they are trying to grow wherever they can. They have added late start classes for the fall. She has been working with the deans and divisions campus-wide to add sections to increase winter enrollment.

There was a suggestion about revisiting the late cancellation policy. There were complaints about the policy in the past. However, she has not heard as many complaints.

Erik Woodbury reported that the presentation was well received at the Academic Senate meeting.

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Program Review

Mallory Newell explained how they reflected, gathered feedback, changed, updated, and documented all their processes. In the spring she put together a survey to gather feedback on the comprehensive program review process. The survey went to all department chairs, the managers and deans in the areas of instruction, student services and academic services. They tried to get everyone engaged with the Comprehensive Program Review the opportunity to provide input.

Mallory went over the results from Comprehensive Program Review Survey, Spring 2024 as a guide for the committee to move forward.

The updated program review process included five main goals: 

(1) improve goal setting and alignment with program mission.

This was the first time that goals have been included in program review. Throughout the form, they made sure that people were aligning all of their work to their mission and the mission of the college.

(2) align program review with resource and personnel requests

(3) streamline processes with forms specifically tailored to each area,

One of the complaints in the past was that people had to use the same  form that didn't fit them. Now, student services has a form designed for them, called the CAS form. She worked with instructional to design a form with embedded data around their instructional areas. Academic services and administrative services each have their own specific forms

(4) publish all forms in advance to increase transparency and availability

Since last spring they have published all the forms so that people can see them ahead of time.

(5) close the feedback loop by providing comments to each area for reflection and improvement. 

RAPP provided feedback for the first time in a consistent manner with overall comments, commendations for the good work that was done, and then ideas for improvement.

The process is a four-year cycle with a comprehensive program review in year one, annual program review update in years two and three, then a comprehensive review in year four. Since the accreditation cycle is eight years, they can have the comprehensive review done twice within the eight year cycle.

Survey Results

The overall highlights across all areas were relatively positive. They felt the process improved through the specific forms for each area. 

Overall, student service areas had lower rates of satisfaction with the CAS form and their new process. Student services thought that there was an overall lack of connection between their outcomes and how those outcomes could be aligned with their mission to achieve their goals. 

The lowest rated responses from instruction was that they felt that the process didn’t help them stay on track with their learning outcomes as much as it could have or helped guide their mission.

Mallory concluded that there needed to be more training, assistance, support for areas in developing their mission and their goals.

Mallory has worked with the Office of Professional Development on a series of workshops for classified staff to develop program missions and goals. There will be a workshop for all areas on mission and vision alignment.

Mallory, Erik and Lydia will hold program review workshops throughout the quarter. These workshops can be working meetings. They had a workshop on the personnel request form that is due 11/8.

There was a concern over the timing for the submission and review of the forms from the different areas. They made a change to separate and stagger them. Student services will submit in the spring with review in the fall. All other areas submit in the fall. That will allow RAPP more time to review and give feedback.

The majority of respondents felt that the feedback was clear and concise that it was informative for planning for the future and an essential element of the program review process.

Making timelines and exceptions crystal clear as they move forward. The due date for the annual program review to RAPP is January 30th. Managers should plan to receive it earlier from their areas to review and add comments. Most people agreed that two weeks ahead would be reasonable.

Follow up: Review Criteria for referring a program back to RAPP based on the program review

On the bottom of the comprehensive program review form, there is the question “Should this program review be referred back to the full RAP committee?” 

RAPP worked in small groups of fives to review the programs. If a group felt that for some reason that program review warranted the whole group to look at it, they may bring it back to the whole group. However, they didn't have any criteria for why it might be referred back to the whole group. The tri-chairs put together some criteria for people to review and finalize next week

There was some discussion over the interpretation of the criteria “Staffing levels continue to be too low for the department to meet its mission and goals.”

Does that mean the program doesn't need more staffing?

The program just doesn't have enough enrollment to support additional staff.

Does that include the ratio of full to part-time instructors?

Or, there's an over-reliance on part-time faculty and they need

more full-time faculty.

Someone suggested that instead of focusing only on the deficit, they should also highlight something that is really positive about a program like a teaching and learning strategy that worked well. 

Have a balanced approach that recognizes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

Simon Kang'a in chat: I think the FT/Part-time staffing comment is useful. If a course/program has great enrollment, but fully staffed by PT faculty, then it's time to hire more FT in the program.

There was discussion on the subject of the compliance with the state 50% mandate as the guideline in assigning positions. 

Review outstanding Comprehensive Program Review Forms: Music (resubmitted) & Photography (new) new faculty

Two comprehensive program review forms came in. Music had been asked to resubmit. Photography is new. 

Home work for the committee. 

Review both the photography and the music program review as well as the feedback form.  Next meeting, the committee will complete the feedback form as practice and training for the annual program review 

Review Annual Program Review Form & RAPP Feedback Form

All of the forms are on the RAPP homepage under program review submissions.

Finally, Mallory gave a detailed runthrough on how to complete and submit the annual program review form. That and the feedback form are both posted on the webpage

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Follow up: RAPP process for reviewing only positions with available funding

Erik Woodbury and Lydia Hearn addressed some concerns over the timeline for the hiring process, particularly with regard to faculty.

In the current process, the request for the replacement faculty cannot be submitted until the separation is formalized. This timeline would have a devastating impact on small departments and some programs.

They discussed some options but with no satisfactory solution.

One option was to “flag” departments that are at “high risk” for instability from a staffing perspective, if someone were to leave?.

Committee was asked to bring back ideas or more discussion later.

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Follow up: Learning Communities presentation

Lydia Hearn gave an overview on the learning communities programs at De Anza. She started with defining and explaining the key features of learning communities. A learning community is a group of students actively engaged in shared learning experiences. They foster collaboration, support, and collective knowledge pursuit.

The support for the learning communities could include proactive support from a counselor and/or a program coordinator, elements of wrap-around services like financial aid, resources like food pantry, consistent contact with dedicated staff, extracurricular events like campus visits, mentorship, tutoring, transfer application assistance, etc. 

Some learning communities that are specifically geared towards academics. Students of similar backgrounds or interests are taking classes together. The duration varies from one quarter to a year with students from the same learning community. Students have multiple classes together throughout the year and that helps students form cohorts and bonds with each other in community.

The De Anza Learning Communities are listed on the De Anza website under Academics. There are links to each for more information. They fall under the categories of Multi-quarter programs, Quarter-long programs, Extended Learning Opportunities, and Ongoing Services for special populations (slide 4) 

Proven Success of Learning Communities

The learning communities have proven successful in closing the equity gap. Students in learning communities are doing better than the success rates of their counterparts and other students not in learning communities. The level of vigor and attention students get in learning communities contribute to their success. (slides 5-7)

Lydia continued her presentation with an explanation on the  Title III SIP Grant impact. (slide 8) She concluded with the Vision/Strategy for De Anza’s Learning Communities. (slidee 9(