"An education for transformation would raise up professionals in every field who have ethical autonomy and the courage to act on it, who possess knowledge and skill and embody the highest values of their vocations. Can such an education become a reality?"
- Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach
Advocacy for Change
This page outlines advocacy work at De Anza College that I support. This page is meant to provide information about actions being taken on campus to hold ourselves accountable to our stated values of integrity, innovation, and equity.
Accountability and College Transformation
A number of self-organized faculty, classified professionals, and students are working to spark campus conversation and to push for institutional change at the college. These advocacy efforts are collectively being referred to as Action for Accountability and College Transformation (AACT).
The first effort of AACT was the writing of an Open Letter to De Anza College Senior Staff. The specific context of what prompted the Letter is summarized here.
Since then, AACT has included the following efforts:
- June 15, 2020: Shared Open Letter at Academic Senate meeting
- June 16, 2020: Shared Open Letter and talking points from the Proposal for Transforming IBPT - Working Document at Instructional Planning and Budget Team meetin
- June 17, 2020: Emailed Open Letter to president of Classified Senate, and representatives of Black Faculty, Staff, and Administrators Network (BFSA), De Anza Latinx Association (DALA), and the Asian Pacific American Staff Association (APASA)
- June 18, 2020: Shared Open Letter at Student Services Planning and Budget Team meeting
- June 18, 2020: Shared Open Letter at College Council (CC) meeting; requested CC to vote on establishing a representative campus-wide task force to assess and reform college governance structures --> vote resulted in CC approval
- June 19, 2020: Named campus advocacy efforts sparked by the Open Letter: Action for Accountability and College Transformation (AACT)
- June 22 and 24 and 30, 2020: Request to have drafted minutes of College Council meeting (June 18) include record of the vote that approved creation of a task force
- July 11, 2020: Requested to meet with President Holmes
- July 11, 2020: Requested to meet with President Holmes and Academic Senate president to follow-up on College Council meeting (of June 18)
- July 16, 2020: Shared Open Letter at an Asian American and Pacific Islander campus community meeting
- July 23, 2020: Met with Dr. Holmes to begin dialogue about issues raised in the Open Letter
Meeting Our Needs...According to Us
De Anza--in preparation for the presidential search in 2019--conducted a campus-wide survey and focus groups to identify the most pressing issues for faculty, classified professionals, and students.
As a campus community, we collectively expressed the following top needs, according to the survey results:
- We need essential resources to do our work
- We, employees, need to be treated as valuable assets
- We need better delegation of authority in our work areas
- We need to know that quality of performance in our work areas counts for something, and that poor performance has consequences
- We need better morale in our work area
- We need to anticipate and handle avoidable frustrations in our work areas
- We need to feel free of frustrating bureaucratic controls
- We need high trust levels with the powerful people
- We need better cooperation among different areas
The focus groups identified the following pressing needs, in ranked order:
Faculty
- #1: We need administrative transparency and engagement with needs of diverse campus groups
- #2: We need innovation and imagination in teaching initiatives
- #2: We need clear qualifications of future President
- #3: We need accountability up and down management chains
- #3: We need better communication and more community building
Classified Professionals
- #1: We need better communications both from the top down and bottom up
- #2: We need openness to new ideas from different groups - new ideas outside of "what we have always done in the past"
- #3: We need more collaboration among various groups (students, staff, faculty, administrators) across campus both internal and external to departments/divisions/programs
- #3: We need accountability for all levels on performance bottom-to-top evaluations
- #3: We need transparency
Students
- #1: We need to know about all student services and programs (through better marketing and student information)
- #2: We need the library open hours to be extended, both earlier and later
- #3: We need affordable student housing
De Anza has the opportunity in this historical moment to make radical change--to meet the stated needs of our students and staff--to create a thriving ecosystem for ALL members of our community.
"Radical simply means "grasping things at the root."
- Angela Davis