The De Anza College Administration is developing plans to reorganize itself to align with future educational goals the state has put forward, which may include merging and renaming some divisions.
The original proposal for the realignment, which is currently on hold, was discussed during a virtual town hall with faculty on Oct. 3. The proposal would merge the Intercultural and Social Science divisions together and the World Languages would now exist under the Language Arts division, among other changes.
“This is all in response to our local needs and our community, and what we have learned from our own Chancellor’s Office and the state Chancellor’s office as the vision for the California Community Colleges as a whole,” Vice President of Instruction Ram Subramaniam said.
Although the realignment had been discussed previously at a division meeting prior by Subramaniam, some staff were later of the impression that the proposal was actually the finished plan.
Some, like Spanish instructor Viviana Alcazar, expressed concern with the process of discussing the realignment, including feeling less represented than more senior faculty members and those in larger divisions.
“When you are in an institution or in a community for a long time, you have a lot of clout,” Alcazar said. “Some of the loudest voices that seem to be having more input into where things are going are people that have clout.”
President Omar Torres, also in attendance at the virtual meeting, said that community input has always been a focus.
“We always intended to involve everyone in the conversation to offer input,” Torres said. “The initial proposal was simply designed to be a starting point.”
Others, like political science instructor Nicky Gonzalez Yuen, questioned whether the values presented in the proposal, such as providing stronger homes for academic disciplines and building synergies across related fields to improve student pathways, are achievable under the proposed realignment.
“I don’t know that the proposed restructuring gets us anywhere near that,” Yuen said.
More town halls are scheduled for Oct. 14, 15 and 17.
“That (original) proposal is currently in the ‘parking lot’, if you will, and what we’re doing is we’re trying to get some new ideas on how else we might achieve the goals that I had shared in the (original) presentation,” Subramaniam said.
(Editor’s note: an earlier version of this story contained language that may have misled the reader into thinking that Spanish instructor Viviana Alcazar disagrees with the proposal. Upon further clarification Viviana Alcazar supports the proposed realignment.)
