Academic Senate News

Dear Faculty Colleagues,

The end of the semester is upon us, yet it feels like we are just getting started. Indeed, this is the season for celebrating graduations, promotions, retirements, student success, and all our hard work. While my term as academic senate president is ending, I leave feeling fulfilled and accomplished. I am grateful to all the faculty that are elected and participate on the many academic senate and governance committees for ensuring faculty are driving conversations on academic and professional matters. As the academic senate president, it has been my honor and pleasure to represent faculty, mentor faculty leaders, and work collaboratively with students, classified professionals, and administrators. There have been so many challenges these past two years, yet we pushed forward, focused on equity and student success. The academic senate will continue to be a partner and leader the next several years in our institution’s efforts to live into our mission, vision, values, and commitment statements, including:

1. Redesigning the Student Experience (implementation of Guided Pathways framework)
2. Futures Thinking (application to planning processes)
3. Professional Learning (campus-wide strategic visioning)
4. Meeting Accreditation Standards

In March, I was inspired by the amazing artwork on display at the Blue Gate Gallery by student Summer Paa’ila-Herrera Jones, an American Indian, Payómkawichum (Luiseño) ‘atáatum student. The academic senate purchased one of her pieces titled, “Traditions We Carry: Medicine.” To me, this artwork honors the living traditions of our local American Indian communities. It is displayed in the Academic Senate offices building 4600. All are welcome to stop by and view it. Her artwork and sister paintings are displayed in other locations on campus as well.

Lastly, it has been a pleasure serving you these past two years and although we have been meeting completely remotely for 99% of my term, we will host an in-person meeting and reception for our meeting on May 20th, 2022. The meeting will be held in the temporary new board room (T-200). We will be celebrating the end of the year, our faculty retirees, and our Leon P. Baradat Service Award winner. Fill out this survey by May 10 if you will be attending: tinyURL.com/AcademicSenateHonors.

In unity,

Luke

Luke Lara, Ed.D.

my pronouns: he, him, his, él

Email: llara@miracosta.edu
Website: miracosta.edu/governance/academic-senate

ASG hosted the following events:

-Paint&Snack at the CLC

-Grad fest at San Elijo and Oceanside

-Autism acceptance event at San Elijo

-Stolebration at the Oceanside campus

ASG is reviewing nominations for faculty & staff awards

Finals week(s) de-stress events at the San Elijo and Oceanside Campus

A message from ASG Advisors: We are VERY proud of many ASG leaders who are committing to transfer institutions including UCLA, UC Berkeley, Cal State San Marcos, SDSU, UC Irvine and more! We know that this success paralleled by their many accomplishments at MiraCosta! While our excitement for them is bursting, we also acknowledge that it is their character, integrity, and hard work that we are most proud of. Congrats, ASG! You earned all your success!

You may know Dr. Denise Stephenson as the current Professional Development Coordinator, or as the Director of the Writing Center here at MiraCosta. Denise has been in academia for most of per career, and MiraCosta has been blessed with per talents and passion for student success and racial justice. I asked Denise some questions in this parting interview below.

Denise will retire at the semester's end. Please leave a message, post a pic, share a memory for Denise on this PADLET.

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Q&A with Dr. Denise Stephenson

Please share your career journey, highlighting one or more dramatic turn(s), from high school to retirement?

Denise shared that per experience in careers is more typical of what the current generation will experience, who can expect to have nine different careers in three different industries in their lifetime. "When I was growing up, the expectation was that there was one job that you would hold forever, and that was the job that white males got. Women still weren't getting jobs, we couldn't even wear pant suits."

A first generation college graduate, Denise started per career with an undergraduate degree in communications in the non-profit sector. Per work spanned from working with organizations that served the poor, the unsheltered, and the elderly to work in anti-nuclear activism. During per PhD in American Studies at University of New Mexico, Denise's career shifted toward writing center work. Denise served as writing center director at both Grand Valley State University and Cal State Los Angeles before coming to MiraCosta.

What are you most proud of in your career overall and what you have accomplished at MiraCosta?

Denise shared that "building the Writing Center from scratch is by far the best achievement." Per is also proud of creating GIFTS, a newsletter of best teaching practices.

Per also shared this pearl, "The hard part about writing is that we don't think linearly, but we have to write linearly."

What are your plans for retirement?

Two fun things: spontaneous travel and book arts.

(See samples of Denise's book art below)

What will you miss the most about MiraCosta?

The most missed will be the social aspect of working at MiraCosta, the least-missed will be email!

What advice would you give to a newly tenured faculty member?

"In order to both continue learning and to maintain energy, ask yourself every few years, what now and what next? Tenure is a very hard process. If you don't keep asking yourself, what now and what next, it can be easy to stagnate." Denise recommended considering different committee work, being a mentor, getting involved in regional work to keep motivated.

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Note: Denise's Retirement Party will be on Tuesday May 10th 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. at the OC 4800 Courtyard. Light refreshments will be served.

For the Salary Advancement Committee, we approved the Spring SAC submissions and submitted them to AS for approval. The Fall and Spring submissions will next go to the Board for approval. Deadlines to get the Letter of Intent for advancement are due to HR by May 15th, with official transcripts due to HR by Sept 5th.

The SAC handbook was updated with more clarifying information, including samples of the Letter of Intent for FT and Associate faculty, information on how to submit official transcripts, and clearer information on the submissions process, including by when classes need to be completed for advancement for the following year.

The committee plans to continue to offer a FLEX workshop in Fall 2022 and again in Spring 2023, to continue to help all Faculty be aware of their advancement options.

Committee chair, Donny Munshower shares, "I am always open to an email or phone call for anyone who has questions about Salary Advancement. There are no dumb questions! Ask away!"

We'd like the MiraCosta community to save the date for August 18, 2022 for DEqCC's Cultural Competency Conference! There will NOT be a call for proposals, but instead we ask that folks be ready for some special guests to guide and care for us in our equity work.

We also invite the readers of the newsletter to a reflection and discussion on the book From Equity Talk to Equity Walk on Wednesday May 11 @ 2 PM facilitated by Kristina Londy, Violeta Sánchez, and Wendy Stewart. The Zoom info is:
https://miracosta-edu.zoom.us/j/95662563458 -- Meeting ID: 956 6256 3458

• The big PDP news, that even the committee may not have yet noticed, is that Aaron Roberts and Chad Tsuyuki will be co-coordinators next year.

• The first meeting toward institutionalizing data coaching which was requested by the Academic Senate is being coordinated for mid-May with representatives from PDP, IPRC, C3C3, SWP meeting with VPI Denée Pescarmona and AS President Elect Leila Safaralian.

• PDP reported our findings regarding the cultural competence modules recommended by Charlie Ng for onboarding all MiraCostans to AS President Luke Lara.

The Awards Committee is delighted to have a new full-time faculty member from the math department joining our committee in the Fall. Welcome Janeen Apalatea!

We would ideally have one more associate join us, so if you are, or know, an associate faculty colleague that would be a good fit for the Awards Committee, please get in touch with Robin Allyn or Luke Lara by May 13th.

Please be on the look-out for a special fall flex workshop hosted by your award's committee colleagues highlighting all the awards that the committee sponsors, and how to cultivate a killer application!

• In April, MOE made it a priority to revise its committee charter and practices to reflect and exemplify the equitable and anti-racist priorities and practices we want in our online education environments.
• MOE meets 2nd and 4th Fridays, 9:30-11 am in Zoom. Please feel free to join us!

THIS FRIDAY! May 6 |Time Management for the Overwhelmed
9:00am – 12:00pm

REGISTER HERE

This condensed 3-hour session will cover learning how to apply practices to work smarter not harder and how to stay on track to meet goals and deadlines. Please refer to the attached course flyer. As this is a shortened session, not all topics and modules will be fully covered in the allotted session time. This workshop will be held live via zoom and is limited to 50 participants – all MiraCostan’s may attend provided there is space available. Due to copyright restrictions, this workshop will not be recorded. The session Zoom link will be provided to all registered participants prior to the workshop.