September 29, 2020

IPBT of September 29, 2020 

Tri-chairs: Christina G. Espinosa-Pieb, Mary Pape, Heidi King

Administrative reps: Sam Bliss, Randy Bryant, Alicia Cortez, Christina Espinosa-Pieb, Anita Muthyala-Kandula, Lorrie Ranck, Thomas Ray

Classified reps: Thomas Bailey, Lorna Maynard, Heidi King

Faculty reps: Ed Ahrens, Cheryl Balm, Mayra Cruz, Terrence Mullens, Mary Pape, Danny Solomon, Erik Woodbury

Student reps: Grace Lim, Arushi Sharma

Absent: Dana Kennedy

Guests: Amy Leonard, Andrew Phelps, Chesa Carapas, Chris Tsuji, Christine Chai, Daniel Smith, Duc Nguyen, Edmundo Norte, Elvin Ramos, Eric Mendoza, Esha Dadbhawala (DASB), Felisa Vilaubi, Jeff Staudinger, Jen, Judy Cuff-Alverado, Khoa Nguyen, Laureen Balducci, Lisa Markus, Mark Sherby, Mary Donahue, Melinda Hughes, Nick Mattis, Pauline Wethington, Sarah Lisha, Pete Vernazza, Vins Chacko

Introductions - The voting members introduced themselves.

DASB Report - Lim shared that DASB approve the resolution for the “Why Voting Matters” voter registration project and Propositions 15 and 16. Selection process has been finalized for two additional students on IPBT. One student could not attend today. The second student is Esha Dadbhawala who introduced herself but the audio was patchy so we are entering her statement to the notes as follows: Hi, I’m Esha Dadbhawala. I’m a political science and cognitive science major, applying to transfer to a four-year college this year. I’m very passionate about bridging the gap between achievement and equity. In high school, I was president of speech and debate, a highly competitive, 200 member club. I was able to preserve a no-mandated fee policy while raising and maintaining a $60,000 budget on average. I also volunteer for a community college board trustee candidate in the SJECCD district. Helping to write his platform is what got me interested in community college policy and what inspired me to apply for this position. This is my first year at De Anza, but I’m already so appreciative of the resources this school gives us and the way it sets us up for our future education and careers. I’m really excited to contribute to this committee and help make De Anza a better place for all. Thank you everybody for welcoming me to this committee! 

IPBT Membership Composition

The affinity groups introduced their IPBT representatives.

BFSA will be represented by Melinda Hughes and Pauline Wethington.

AAPI will be represented by Khoa Nguyen and Chesa Caparas.

DALA will be represented by Felisa Vilaubi and Eric Mendoza

Espinosa-Pieb opened the discussion on whether to include affinity groups representatives as voting members of IPBT by inviting individuals to share their thoughts. The members overwhelming supported the inclusion of the affinity groups as voting members. Many members and guests spoke to the importance of a substantive structural change being needed as the current structure does not reflect equity goals; the goal of being more inclusive in the discussion and process of determining what the new governance structure will be; importance of empowering groups to make positive changes and transform the future governance structure; affinity group voices are necessary for the sake of representing stakeholders; affinity group voices are helpful as barometers for how our decision-making process will effect classes of people who are excluded; there are important decisions to make soon and we need affinity group voices now; affinity group members should be at the table to address immediate challenges and envision the future; there is no point in adding members if we did not empower them with a vote – otherwise we are defaulting to the current system when anyone can speak but are not able to vote; the point of including the affinity groups now is to guide the new vision and corresponding structure; changes should not just be talked about - they must be acted on. Some logistical/parity thoughts were shared along the lines of: the balance of membership; will the size of the committee allow all voices to be heard; is there an alternative organizing structure/process for large meetings; the group may be more unwieldy and democracy can be slow and difficult but worthwhile; the limited number of seats for faculty does not allow for all divisions to be represented well/equally.

The affinity group members were invited to share their thoughts and Hughes stated that she had previously volunteered to serve on IPBT and that she has a lot to bring to the table, not only as the BFSA president and faculty member but as an employee. She questioned if the addition of 6 voting members would make a big difference and if the group really thought that adding 6 voting members would make the team unmanageable? She further stated that everyone is talking about equity, diversity, inclusion but then when faced with acting on the words there are excuses and it feels “insulting”. She stated she and her colleagues are not “idiots” and restated that herself and the other 5-reps bring a lot to the table and the campus. She thanked Espinosa-Pieb and the others who had spoken up about including affinity groups as voting members. Pape remined the group of the IPBT membership:  7 administrators + 7 faculty + 4 students + 5 classified professionals make a group of 28. Adding 6 members from affinity groups will bring the total to 29 voting members.

Speaking last, Espinosa-Pieb made it very clear that she supports changes to the structure and the addition of the affinity reps as voting members of the IPBT. She also shared that there is a lot of in-depth discussion surrounding the future of the shared governance structure with senior staff and the senates. No decisions have been made but President Holmes is considering a large group meeting to get ideas on how to move forward. Possibilities include consolidating the PBTs and re-thinking the decision-making structure moving away from the name of “planning and budget teams”. Also reducing the amount of smaller individual governance groups in preference of a large more representative group. Espinosa-Pieb stated that the goal for the campus is to have different outcomes and the way to do that is to bring all the voices to the table where decisions such as faculty hiring would be discussed at the same time with all the people in the (virtual) room. She did however note that in order to make well informed and thoughtful decisions about the future of the governance structure it would take about a year and during that time decisions still had to be made. This concluded the discussion.

Cruz made a motion to expand membership of IPBT to include affinity group reps to the organization. Motion passed. IPBT now has 29 voting members.

Effective onboarding of new members is very important. Question on term limits and opportunities for other reps to serve on the IPBT once members have reached the term limit. Faculty and classified have two-year limits but they can volunteer to serve another term. Term limits where people have to leave after a certain number of terms would be great for getting new voices.

Budget update - Reduction target is down to $9M. De Anza’s share would be $4.5M. Many entities are questioning if this figure would lower further. Higher than anticipated international student enrollment, but still down over 2019-20. De Anza enrollment has increased. If enrollment numbers hold by census it would most likely positively impact the budget. Previously cuts were allocated to each PBT area determined by the share of their overall budget. This is not possible as so many cuts have been made over the last years and a more holistic approach is needed.

For the first time, the district it allowing the use of one-time money to cover the budget shortfall to allow more time to make more thoughtful decisions. Possibilities (not decisions) for one-time funding are:

Fund 400 – Capital Projects

Fund 15 – Self Sustaining programs

B Budget - Discretionary funds which are allocated to each department.

Release / Reassigned time

Additional pay

Unfilled positions

Filled positions  (last resort)

An overview of the funding sources would be shared with the team.