De Anza College

De Anza College
Latin: De Aja
Type Community college
Established 1967
President Brian Murphy
Academic staff
 300 full-time, 635 part-time[1]
Students 21,526[2]
Location Cupertino, California, United States
Campus 112 acres (45 ha)
Nickname Dons
Affiliations Foothill College
Website http://www.deanza.edu/
A. Robert De Hart Learning Center
Flint Center, the main auditorium

De Anza College is a 112-acre (45 ha) community college located in Cupertino, California. It was founded in 1967 on the site of the Beaulieu Winery and is named after the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza. Along with the arrival and growth of Apple Computer, the presence of De Anza College contributed significantly to the growth of Cupertino from a small town to an industrial city and an integral part of Silicon Valley. It consistently ranks #1 or #2 in the state for the total number of students who annually transfer to University of California and California State University campuses.[3][4] The college is also the home of the California History Center, housed in a mansion called "Le Petit Trianon". The current president of De Anza college is Brian Murphy, replacing Martha Kanter who later became the Under Secretary of Education for the Obama Administration.[1] The average class size at De Anza is 35, and approximately 2,800 students transfer per year. It also attracts a heavy international student population.

De Anza College is part of Silicon Valley's Foothill-De Anza Community College District, which also administers Foothill College in nearby Los Altos Hills, California. The district serves the cities of Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and San Jose. The district headquarters is on the Foothill campus.

Each year, De Anza invites several celebrities and dignitaries for public speaking engagements at its main theater, the Flint Center. De Anza once held the second largest pow-wow in the Bay Area, but the pow-wow organizers moved the event in 2005.

De Anza holds a monthly flea market in its parking lot, which has become a community tradition as well as major source of income for the De Anza Associated Student Body (DASB). With a budget of over 1 million dollars, the DASB has one of the biggest student budgets of any community college in California.

De Anza formerly had their own campus police. They used to wear slacks and polo shirts, and officers were unarmed. The department was not a POST participating agency and in 2001, the campus police departments at De Anza and Foothill College were merged to become the Foothill-De Anza College District Police.

Notable buildings on campus

Euphrat Museum of Art

The mission of the Euphrat Museum of Art at De Anza College is to stimulate creativity and an interest in art among audiences of all ages.[5] The museum hosts changing art exhibits and accompanying educational programs for local and distant emerging and established artists. School programs are offered, primarily in Cupertino and Sunnyvale, and each year the museum creates public art projects with young area students, De Anza student interns and Euphrat artist/teachers.

The museum is open from Monday to Thursday and is located in the Visual and Performing Arts Center.

Visual and Performing Arts Center

The Visual and Performing Arts Center, also known as the VPAC, opened on March 6, 2009[6] and is now open to the students of De Anza College. The VPAC is built with an art exhibit and also provides a 400-seat performance and lecture hall that can be rented by De Anza College organizations and outside community groups.[7]

Kirsch Center

The Kirsch Center opened in 2005 and is the lead demonstration building for innovative ways to be more sustainable. It was the first community college building in the US to receive a LEED platinum rating. As leader of sustainability on campus, the Kirsch Center not only offers a new way to embrace sustainability in the future, it also challenges the rest of the nation to follow by example.

A 17-year effort, the Kirsch Center was conceived and is operated by De Anza faculty, staff and students, with the philosophy that this facility is "a building that teaches about energy, resources and stewardship." [8]

Over 100 environmental classes are taught in the Kirsch Center. In addition to high quality classrooms and labs, students can work in self-paced programs at special open study stations throughout the building.

A few examples of what makes this building unique include:

The beautiful, spacious, and carbon easy building is a favorite location for policy makers, school officials, student groups, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to visit and utilize for conferences and for tours.[10]

The building was a 10 million dollar project that was funded by various groups including the DASB student senate, Morgan Family Foundation, and Steve and Michele Kirsch Foundation.

Outdoor artwork on campus

Cheeseman ESA

The Cheeseman Environmental Study Area (ESA) is a 1.5-acre (0.61 ha) natural garden containing some 400 species of plants representing 12 California natural communities. It is located next to the Kirsch Center on the southeast corner of campus, and it was built by a group of De Anza students and faculty in 1971, after having received a US$12,000 grant.[11]

The 12 plant communities represented in the ESA are:

Students and visitors can come here and learn about California's natural heritage, and see plants and animals that they may have never seen in person before. Students can also conduct environmental research here and deepen their appreciation for California's biological richness.[12]

De Anza Associated Student Body

The De Anza Associated Student Body (DASB) Senate handles an annual budget of about $1 million. The budget is generally allocated to funding campus programs intended to help students succeed academically, as well as inviting guest speakers from various universities to advise students on strategies they can use to get an edge in their transfer application. The DASB Senate has six different internal committees plus several ad-hoc committees.

The DASB Senate is composed of 30 senators. The goal of the DASB Senate is to bring the students together, improve student life, involve students on campus, and represent the De Anza population. Its meetings take place on the lower level of the Hinson Campus Center in Student Council Chambers.

Internal committees

Finance Committee: The goal of the Finance Committee is to establish policies and procedures for budget development, budget approval and expending of all money under the control of the DASB. The committee processes budget requests, ensure programs are following budget stipulations, keep track of DASB funds and accounts, and allocated funds for the upcoming year.

Student Rights and Services Committee: The DASB Student Rights and Services Committee promotes the rights of all De Anza Students. Works with faculty, staff and administration toward a common goal of meeting the needs of the students. Ensures that the college and all its staff and faculty members provide all services entitled to students. In the 2011-2012 school year, the Student Rights and Services Committee helped organize, provide transportation and food, and educate students about the March in March. Marching from Southside Park to the State Capitol in Sacramento, students from De Anza and many other California colleges gathered to remind the government of its "commitment to accessible, low-cost higher education drives innovation and allows Californians of any socioeconomic background to pursue higher learning."

Administration Committee: Reviews the DASB Senate Bylaws and DASB Codes, drafts and reviews proposed amendments, and presents recommendations to the DASB Senate for approval. It reviews proposed amendments to the DASB Constitution, DASB Senate Bylaws, or other DASB Codes. It hires a DASB Senate Parliamentarian at its own discretion with the approval of a majority vote of the DASB Senate.

Marketing Committee: Manages and oversees the DASB Marketing Committee Account and DASB Newsletter Account expenditure, in the best interest of the DASB membership. It serves as a liaison between the De Anza College students, DASB Senate, and the De Anza College community. It publicizes DASB Senate events and services.

Diversity and Events Committee: To create and promote and understanding and awareness of diversity on the De Anza Campus. It expands multiculturalism and education through events and activities, create new multicultural programs, and advocate for as many populations that make up the diversity of De Anza College.

Environmental Sustainability Committee: The DASB Environmental Sustainability Committee promotes awareness of the environmental sustainability to the students and the community; oversees events that promote or support environmental sustainability; plans, coordinates, schedules, and provides DASB programs and events that promote or support environmental sustainability.

Every spring quarter De Anza holds elections where candidates can run for senate positions for the upcoming year. This election takes place during the month of May where students at De Anza can apply for a position in DASB Senate. During this time the candidates are challenged to compete with other candidates while trying to get the most votes to get elected for office. This includes marketing yourself with slogans, posters, flyers, classroom presentation, etc. In other words, this is to demonstrate each candidates their abilities to prove that they can handle the responsibilities of not just only as a DASB Senate member, but to the entire De Anza students population.

De Anza Flea Market

DASB also operates The De Anza Flea Market held on every first Saturday of a month. The De Anza Flea Market began as a small effort by the students of De Anza College to raise money for the student body over 30 years ago and has grown into an established community event attracting vendors and patrons from throughout the state. The De Anza Flea Market is still a student enterprise with the De Anza Associated Student Body paying for all of the expenses and gaining approximately $300,000 annually for a variety of programs, services and events at De Anza College. The De Anza Flea Market contains about 825 vendor stalls and usually sells out very quickly. If the weather is good the Flea Market will typically draw approximately 15,000 to 20,000 shoppers.

Programs

Puente Project

The Puente Project is a program offered at De Anza that helps underserved students transfer to 4-year institutions. "Puente" means "bridge" in Spanish, which symbolizes the bridge the program builds for the students to reach higher education. Puente is made up of three key components: English, individualized counseling, and individual mentoring. Puente students transfer from De Anza at a much higher rate than non-Puente Latino students—61% of De Anza’s Puente students transfer within six years.[13] The program co-coordinators are Alicia Cortez, along with Becky Roberts as the English instructor.

CompTechS

CompTechS which stands for Computer Technical Support is an internship program offered at De Anza college which gives students an opportunity to gain hands on experience working with computers. Qualified students in this program may get a chance to work in paid industry-based internships like in the IT departments at Roche Pharmaceuticals, Synopsys Inc., Fujitsu Computer Systems, Fujitsu America, Flextronics, Photon Dynamics and VMWare. Students who are receiving financial aid are eligible to apply to receive a free refurbished computer. All donated computers are refurbished by the interns of CompTechS. [14]

Crime

Averted shooting

On January 29, 2001, San Jose police arrested De Anza College student Al DeGuzman, who was planning a Columbine style school shooting at the school.[15] At his home, police found bags filled with homemade explosives including Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs, as well as numerous guns, including a semi-automatic rifle and a cut-down 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. Plans were discovered for a noon attack at De Anza College.

Kelly Bennett, an employee at a Longs Drugs store in San Jose, developed pictures of DeGuzman posing with his guns and homemade bombs. She and a coworker called police, who arrived at the drugstore and waited for DeGuzman. He was arrested when he returned for his photos.

De Anza evacuated over 10,000 students the next day in fear that DeGuzman may have planted bombs at the college, although no bombs were ever found. In the following weeks, Kelly Bennett was praised and credited with averting a tragedy. She appeared on local news, Good Morning America, and The Today Show.

DeGuzman was sentenced to serve 80 years in prison, but shortly thereafter took his own life by hanging himself in his cell.[16][15]

Rape investigation

In 2007 the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department investigated an inquiry into allegations of sexual assault of a 17-year-old female student arising from an off-campus party on March 4, 2007 by eight members of the De Anza College baseball team. On June 4, 2007, Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr stated that no charges would be filed. This decision was questioned by some, and the Office of the Attorney General was invited by the prosecutor to perform an independent investigation of the available evidence. May 2, 2008, the Attorney General's office determined that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone present with a crime.

Notable alumni

References

  1. 1 2 "De Anza College :: About De Anza :: De Anza Fast Facts". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  2. ↑ "California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office - Data Mart". cccco.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  3. ↑
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ http://www.deanza.edu/euphrat/abouttheeuphrat.html About Euphrat
  6. ↑ "De Anza College :: Campus Virtual Tour :: Visual and Performing Arts Center Photo Gallery". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  7. ↑ "De Anza College :: Rent the Visual & Performing Arts Center :: Home". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  8. ↑ "De Anza College :: Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies :: A Building That Teaches". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  9. ↑ "De Anza College :: Kirsch Center :: Energy Goals and Building Features". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  10. ↑ "De Anza College :: Kirsch Center :: Programs". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  11. ↑ Author unknown (2009-03-27). Story of Cheeseman ESA. Page last updated 27 March 2009. Retrieved from http://www.deanza.edu/es/esa/story.html.
  12. ↑ Author unknown (2010-04-23). Cheeseman ESA Home. Page last updated 23 April 2010. Retrieved from http://www.deanza.edu/es/esa/index.html.
  13. ↑ "De Anza College :: Puente Project :: Home". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  14. ↑ "De Anza College :: Occupational Training Institute  :: CompTechS". deanza.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  15. 1 2 "http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Man-who-planned-massacre-at-De-Anza-College-2702611.php". Retrieved July 23, 2014. External link in |title= (help)
  16. ↑ Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20050307100240/http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/080904_nw_deguzman.html[].

    External links

    Coordinates: 37°19′9″N 122°2′43″W / 37.31917°N 122.04528°W / 37.31917; -122.04528

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