ASCCC President’s Welcome Back Message | Fall 2026

Every year, students arrive at our colleges carrying hopes, ambitions, questions, and challenges. Some are returning to education after many years away. Some are the first in their families to attend college. Some are balancing work, family, and school, while others are still discovering what they are capable of achieving.

Whatever brings our students to us, they place their trust in our colleges and in us. That trust is both a privilege and a responsibility. As faculty, we know that education is about far more than what happens on a syllabus or in a classroom. It is about creating environments where students can ask difficult questions, take intellectual risks, discover their strengths, and see possibilities for their futures. It is about challenging students to think deeply while ensuring they know that they belong. And it is about meeting students where they are while helping them move toward where they want to be.

Preparing Students for a Changing California

This academic year also brings an important opportunity to consider how rapidly our world is changing. Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming workplaces, industries, research, and the ways in which people create and share knowledge. Our students will enter a workforce in which AI will increasingly be a part of their professional lives. Our responsibility is not simply to determine whether AI belongs in our classrooms. Our responsibility is to help students understand it, question it, use it responsibly, and recognize its limitations. There are tremendous opportunities before us. AI can support creativity, accessibility, personalized learning, productivity, research, and innovation. It can help students and faculty explore new ways of teaching and learning. At the same time, these opportunities require us to be thoughtful about academic integrity, privacy, equity, authorship, accuracy, and the fundamental purpose of education. As faculty, we must help shape this conversation. Academic integrity cannot simply mean detecting whether a student has used a new technology. It must continue to be grounded in the development of knowledge, skills, intellectual curiosity, ethical judgment, and authentic learning. Likewise, academic freedom requires that faculty retain the professional ability to determine how emerging technologies can appropriately be incorporated into their disciplines and courses. The questions before us are not only technological. They are educational and professional questions, and therefore they belong squarely within the expertise and purview of faculty.

Our Professional Responsibility

The Academic Senate's role in academic and professional matters has never been more important.

Our responsibility extends to the quality and integrity of curriculum, programs, teaching and learning, and the educational mission of our colleges. It includes our collective responsibility to examine when programs should continue, when new programs should be developed, and when programs may need to be redesigned or discontinued.

These decisions should not be made in isolation. Our colleges must remain responsive to the communities and economies we serve. Industry needs are changing. Workforce demands are evolving. Technology is reshaping occupations. Demographic patterns are shifting. Students' lives and responsibilities are changing. Our academic programs must be informed by meaningful environmental scans, labor market and workforce data, discipline expertise, student needs, transfer opportunities, community priorities, and the professional judgment of faculty.

This is not simply about creating programs for the jobs of today. It is about preparing students for the possibilities of tomorrow. Faculty expertise is essential to determining what students need to learn, how they should learn it, and what constitutes meaningful preparation for further education, employment, civic participation, and lifelong learning. Our work in curriculum and program development is therefore one of the most consequential forms of service we provide. When the evidence tells us that a program should evolve, we should have the courage to change it. When the evidence demonstrates that a program is essential to our students and communities, we should have the courage to advocate for it. And when changing circumstances require difficult decisions about program continuance or discontinuance, those decisions should be grounded in evidence, transparency, educational quality, and the established principles of shared governance and faculty purview over academic and professional matters.

Collective Impact for the Whole Student

At the same time, we must recognize that no single group within our colleges can meet the growing and increasingly complex needs of our students alone. Our students experience college as a whole, not as separate divisions, departments, offices, programs, or services. A student may need a strong classroom experience while also navigating housing insecurity, food insecurity, transportation, childcare, financial pressures, mental and emotional well-being, technology access, language barriers, employment responsibilities, or uncertainty about their educational pathway. Supporting the whole student therefore requires collective impact. Faculty, classified professionals, administrators, student services professionals, researchers, counselors, librarians, technology professionals, and many others each bring essential expertise to the work. So do our system partners across the California Community Colleges and beyond.

Our challenge and our opportunity is to work together without losing sight of the distinct expertise and responsibilities each group brings to the table. Faculty bring disciplinary expertise, andragogical knowledge, and professional judgment. Classified professionals bring essential institutional knowledge and student-facing expertise. Administrators provide leadership, resources, and the ability to align institutional efforts. System partners provide broader coordination, research, policy, and opportunities for collaboration. When we bring these strengths together, we create something greater than any one part. That is collective impact. And it is essential if we are going to respond to the growing and holistic needs of California's students.

A Shared Future

The future of the California Community Colleges will require us to be both grounded and willing to evolve. Grounded in our commitment to academic quality, academic freedom, professional expertise, shared governance, and student learning. Willing to evolve as technology, industries, communities, and student needs change. We should embrace innovation without abandoning integrity. We should welcome new technologies without surrendering our professional judgment. We should respond to workforce needs without losing sight of the broader educational purposes of a community college. And we should pursue efficiency and innovation while remembering that education is ultimately a human endeavor.

Our colleges are among California's greatest engines of opportunity. The work we do matters. Not only to individual students, but to families, employers, communities, and the future of our state.

As we welcome students back to our campuses, I hope you will take time to reconnect with colleagues, celebrate the work you have accomplished, and look ahead with renewed purpose. The beginning of an academic year is an opportunity not only to welcome our students, but also to remind ourselves why we chose this profession.

A conversation after class.
An encouraging email.
A thoughtful question.
A lesson that sparks curiosity.
A connection to a resource.
An opportunity to see a different future.
These moments matter.

On behalf of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, thank you for the expertise, compassion, courage, and commitment you bring to our colleges every day.

Across 116 colleges, we may serve different communities and face different circumstances, but we share a common purpose: to expand opportunity, protect the integrity of our educational mission, and help our students build the futures they envision.

Let us enter Fall 2026 with confidence in our profession, curiosity about what is possible, and a renewed commitment to working together on behalf of the students and communities we serve.

I wish you and your students a successful, meaningful, and inspiring Fall 2026 semester.

Welcome back and thank you for all that you do for California's students.

With appreciation,

LaTonya Parker-Parnell, Ed. D.
President
Academic Senate for California Community Colleges