President's Update | October 2019

October 10, 2019

Dear Colleagues,

As the fall term nears its half-way mark and colleges are busy implementing new programs and services through statewide initiatives, campus goals, and departmental processes, we of the ASCCC Executive Committee are feeling exhaustion at the state-level as well.  Sometimes we all need to take a step back and breathe before diving further into our work.  We can often re-center ourselves by reminding ourselves that what we do is driven by our collective desire to serve our students and communities to the best of our abilities. Please take that pause and also encourage your colleagues to do the same so that we can bring our best selves to our collective work.

The Executive Committee has adopted three goals on which to focus our collective efforts this year:  faculty diversification, implementation of guided pathways, and the role of faculty in governance processes. The first two goals were also part of last year’s priorities, and the judgment of the Executive Committee is that they will continue to be significant goals for at least the next four years and three years respectively. I have addressed each goal separately in this message. In addition, important information regarding the online college and our transfer goals is included. 

Please forward this message to all constituents at your college. All stakeholder work is interconnected, and the system is strongest when we work together and keep each other informed. As always, academic senate presidents should feel free to contact the ASCCC at info@asccc.org should they require any assistance or have questions. We are here to serve the 62,000 faculty and 2.4 million students in all academic and professional matters. 

On behalf of the Executive Committee, I hope each of you prioritize a little time for peace and reflection. We are honored to represent you at the state level this year.

Respectfully,

        John Stanskas, President

Faculty Diversification

The Board of Governors Vision for Success Faculty and Staff Diversity Task Force, co-chaired by the Chancellor’s Office and the ASCCC, issued its report and recommendations to the Board of Governors at the Board’s September meeting. All three recommendations were unanimously adopted by the Board of Governors, and much appreciation for the leadership of Deputy Chancellor Gonzales and the Academic Senate was acknowledged.  The three recommendations are as follows:

1.      Incorporate the strategies identified in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Integration Plan to integrate DEI into the Vision for Success,

2.     Adopt the DEI Statement endorsed by the ASCCC Executive Committee and the Task Force as a systemwide directive by which to evaluate all aspects of the system, and

3.     Support the budget proposal submitted by the task force for $60M in ongoing funding to support professional development, EEO expansion, and hiring full-time faculty as well as $16M in one-time funding to, among other things, create a student to community college faculty pipeline. 

The ASCCC has also reached out to system partner colleagues like the Chief Executive Officers, Chief Instructional Officers, Chief Student Services Officers, and the Association for Chief Human Resources Officers, asking for liaisons to assist in the work we have undertaken. Our goals are to address the following in this academic year:

1.     Evaluate and emphasize the second minimum qualification—sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disability, and ethnic backgrounds of community college students—such that its value is equal to discipline-specific qualifications.

2.     Create model hiring and appointment processes.

3.     Develop tools to engage colleges in systemic change dialogue.

4.     Evaluate and revise the EEO Standards.

While we may not finish all of these tasks in the current academic year, we hope to make significant progress in each area. This work can only be strengthened with the assistance of our system partners.

We also continue to reach out to all faculty to encourage the diversity of voices that make up our ranks in order to lend those voices to our statewide governance role. This year, we increased the number of volunteers for statewide service by 63% as we continue to improve our outreach. The following table shows the appointment results for this year’s standing committees by comparing the applicant pool by self-identified ethnicity/race, the % of the pool comprised of that designation, and the % of appointed members to the ASCCC standing committees:

While this outcome is not perfect, the Executive Committee continues to improve our internal processes each year and to evaluate relevant data.  We are heartened that more individual faculty are willing to volunteer for statewide appointments, hopefully as a result of the conscious effort of the Academic Senate to ensure that those voices are valued as an integral part of our structure. 

Governance Processes and the Faculty Role

Another goal identified by the ASCCC Executive Committee is an emphasis on the role of faculty in governance processes. We will continue to provide professional development and technical assistance while evaluating processes and practices. This evaluation includes the roles and responsibilities of academic senates and curriculum committees, the only two bodies specifically called out in regulation outside of bargaining units.

This goal also includes an introspective look at the internal work of the ASCCC, such as election processes, the role of caucuses, and the statewide faculty appointment processes noted earlier in this report. Several resolutions relevant to our election processes will be presented by the Executive Committee for consideration at the Fall Plenary Session. During this examination of internal rules and bylaws, questions are best discussed and decided by the faculty of the colleges and the delegates they send to the plenary session, not by the Executive Committee, and as such several options are present and purposefully in conflict with each other in the resolutions packet in order to make unmistakably clear that the Executive Committee does not take any position to endorse or not endorse any of these options. Governance processes at the state level must involve the active engagement by the delegates and vigorous debate for healthy decision-making processes.

In order to continue to improve collegiality and communication, I invited Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley to attend our Fall Plenary Session. Unfortunately, the plenary is scheduled at the same time as Governor Newsom’s Economic Summit, at which the chancellor’s attendance is required. As an alternative, I invited the chancellor to attend the area meetings with me to hear directly from senate leaders across the state and foster collegial dialogue. He has accepted this invitation and will be attending Area A and Area D meetings on October 11 and 12 this fall. In the spring, he will attend Area B and Area C meetings with the same goal in mind. 

Guided Pathways

The ASCCC Guided Pathways effort provides massive support to faculty and academic senates as they implement frameworks appropriate to their colleges and communities. The ASCCC Guided Pathways Task Force maintains accessible CANVAS resources for all things guided pathways. In addition, we continue to send GPTF Resource Teams at no cost to support colleges as they navigate their local efforts. The dialogue at colleges has been rich and fiercely student-centered. No matter where a college might be in the implementation phase, we should all be proud of our commitment to serving students well. 

Part of the guided pathways onboarding process focuses on campus implementation of assessment for placement changes. Currently in the implementation of AB705, nearly two-thirds of colleges have stated they are implementing the default placement rules published by the Chancellor’s Office, and conversations with college faculty and administrators have revealed that the focus of Fall 2019 preparation has been compliance driven. To best serve students, colleges must move from a compliance-driven perspective back to evaluating how to shape placement that serves our communities best and becomes more nuanced. This nuance should reflect evaluation of student capacity for success as well as providing students enough information to have real agency in their educational journeys. Crafting an onboarding process that facilitates that crucial exchange of information between the student and the college is essential.   

This year, the ASCCC plans to continue to support colleges and focus our efforts more directly on program review processes and the linkage to institutional planning, guided onboarding processes, technical assistance, support for college evaluation of AB705 implementation, and equity minded frameworks. Many of these frameworks could benefit from re-examination in light of the tremendous work we continue to do within locally defined guided pathways frameworks. The ASCCC also continues to offer professional development through both regional meetings and a webinar series for this academic year. Webinars will be held twice per month on Wednesdays at noon. They will be announced on our website, here, along with archived webinars from last year. 

Calbright, the Fully Online Community College

Calbright began enrolling students through its website this month. The ASCCC’s understanding was that this cohort of students would receive noncredit contract education through employers utilizing a closed enrollment process. It appears, as evidenced by the Calbright District’s request for the legally required “Certification of Non-Duplication” from the Chancellor’s Office and comments at the September Calbright Board of Trustees meeting, that very little lag time may take place between the first and second cohorts. The second cohort seems to be intended to offer open enrollment to the public. The move from contract education to open enrollment clearly demands consideration of duplication of efforts in CTE programs applicable to all districts. In addition, our repeated requests for an explanation regarding this concern have not resulted in any meaningful response. Thus, we were reluctantly compelled to write to the legislature once more regarding the more urgent need for clarity about the entire endeavor. The following is an excerpt from the message that the ASCCC sent to the legislature and other offices:  

If Calbright is to exist as an option for students in California and serve as an entry point into higher education, it must be the unique opportunity it was proposed to be, offering something not currently available at the community colleges and aligning with the colleges as appropriate. Thus far, Calbright has functioned in a manner more aligned with for-profit entities that benefit from extensive resources dedicated to marketing and without consideration of the cost implications of their choices.

The entire letter can be viewed on the ASCCC website here. All ASCCC legislative positions are available at https://asccc.org/legislative-positions. 

Transfer

Per the direction of the delegates to the Fall 2017 ASCCC Plenary Session in Resolution 15.01 F17, the ASCCC delegation to the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates (ICAS) has requested a standing agenda item on transfer as we meet with our counterparts in the UC and CSU systems. Seven Transfer Model Curricula (TMCs) directly align with the UC Transfer Pathways (UCTP) and would benefit from a single model of transfer to either of our students’ public transfer options in the disciplines of anthropology, business administration, economics, history, mathematics, philosophy, and sociology. The UCTP degrees in chemistry and physics reflect the model preparation required by four-year education plans for students. The model curriculum designed for engineering has already been endorsed by the CSU Academic Senate and can be crafted into associates degrees that reflects common engineering preparation. The ASCCC leadership has challenged ICAS to complete single transfer pathways for those ten disciplines by the end of the calendar year, with plans to address future disciplines beginning in the spring. In the meantime, we are collaborating with the system offices of each of the segments to address potential concerns from the administration and application perspective.

Upcoming Events

Please note that additional professional development is in the planning stages and will be available on our website at www.asccc.org. As academic senates plan the allocation of their human resources through the end of the year, this list is intended to provide a calendar of events that local academic senates and their designees might want to attend in order to bring information back to the college.  

Executive Committee Meetings
Sept. 6-7, ASCCC Executive Committee Meeting, Cerro Coso College
Sept. 27-28, ASCCC Executive Committee Meeting, Riverside
Nov. 6, ASCCC Executive Committee Meeting, Newport Beach
Dec. 6-7, ASCCC Executive Committee Meeting, Emeryville

Area Meetings
Oct. 11, Area A Meeting, Woodland Community College
Oct. 11, Area B Meeting, The Daily Desk, Fairfield
Oct. 12, Area C Meeting, Rio Hondo College
Oct. 12 Area D Meeting, San Diego Mesa College

ASCCC Events
Nov. 7-9, Fall Plenary Session, Newport Beach
Jan 24-25, Part-Time Faculty Institute, Napa Valley
Feb 21-22, Accreditation Institute, La Jolla
Mar 19, Faculty and Staff Diversity Summit, Sacramento

AB 705 Reading Circles
Oct. 14, AB705 Regional Reading Circles, Sacramento
Oct. 18, AB705 Regional Reading Circles, Goleta
Oct. 21, AB705 Regional Reading Circles, Los Angeles
Oct. 28, AB705 Regional Reading Circles, San Diego
Nov. 4, AB705 Regional Reading Circles, San Francisco
Nov. 15, AB705 Regional Reading Circles, Fresno

Curriculum Regional Meetings
Nov. 1, Curriculum Regional Meeting, Northern California
Nov. 2, Curriculum Regional Meeting, Southern California

Guided Pathways Webinars (12:00PM start)
Oct. 9, Sustaining GP Through Governance Processes that Work
Oct. 23, Bridging the Gap Between Instruction and Student Services
Nov. 6, Keep it Moving
Nov. 20, Program Review 
Dec. 4, Ensuring Learning 

Guided Pathways Regional Meetings
Oct. 24, Lake Tahoe Community College 
Oct. 25, Allan Hancock College
Nov. 1, Folsom Lake College
Nov. 1, Victor Valley College 
Nov. 22, Shasta College
Nov. 22, Imperial Valley College 

OER In-Person Meetings
Oct. 25-26, OERI Discipline Convenings, North and South
Dec. 13-14, OERI Early Childhood Education Summit