President's Update | November 2021
November 22, 2021
Hello Friends and Colleagues:
It is hard to believe that California’s community colleges are already nearing the end of the fall term. These last few months have flown by, and the Executive Committee has been busy working on behalf of all of the faculty within the California Community Colleges system.
First, thank you to all who participated at the hybrid fall plenary session. The attendees, both virtually and in person, commented on how much they enjoyed the overall experience. It was a great learning experience for all of us, and I expect that the spring session will draw on lessons learned and provide an even more seamless experience for all attendees. Presentation materials for the plenary are now posted on the ASCCC website, as are the finalized resolutions.
Speaking of resolutions, the first hybrid voting session, despite a few technical glitches, went very well. Thanks go to the ASCCC’s amazing staff and executive director, as well as the resolutions committee, for their hard work on the resolutions themselves as well as the process. The debate on resolutions was engaging and informative, and attendees even had a chance to ask, “Who are you!?” to multiple participants. Again, thank you to everyone who participated, and a special thank you to the Executive Committee, the staff, and all of the presenters.
As president, I have had the privilege of attending the Chancellor’s Student Centered Listening Tour over the past several months. These tours, led by Acting Chancellor Gonzales and including the Student Senate for California Community Colleges President Gerardo Chavez as well as members of the CCCCO, have visited colleges that have been challenged during the past several years. We have visited Sierra College, Los Angeles Valley College, Napa Valley College, and Lassen College thus far and will be visiting Madera College, Lake Tahoe Community College, and San Diego City College in the next few weeks. These visits have provided students with the opportunity to speak with the Chancellor’s Office, the ASCCC, and the SSCCC to talk about what they need to succeed moving forward and how the experiences of the last few years have impacted them. The meetings have been inspiring, moving, and deeply saddening, but the resilience of the students is amazing and continues to inspire all of us in the work we do.
The ASCCC has also been working with the Chancellor’s Office and other practitioner groups around some of the legislation that was signed into law this year. One of the most significant of these bills, AB 928 (Berman, 2021), was signed into law by the governor on October 6, 2021. Although the ASCCC and most of our system partners opposed the bill, we are now working with all groups to ensure that the implementation of this law best serves the educational goals of all students. As provided for in AB 928 (Berman, 2021), the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates is tasked with determining a single general education pathway for transfer to the CSU and UC systems that requires no more units than the current IGETC pattern requires. In the end, this bill may impact disciplines within the community college system as well as those in the UC and CSU systems. The ASCCC is considering such impacts and will continue to work on behalf of faculty in the discussions about what a single GE pattern will look like as well as the other elements within AB 928.
Another recent legislative decision that will impact colleges is the allocation of monies to zero textbook cost programs, which totals $115 million. Since these monies are dedicated to furthering the availability of zero textbook cost (ZTC) degrees in the California community colleges, faculty at the colleges may be wondering what they should do to prepare their colleges to access these funds. While the details of the initial disbursement have yet to be announced, the ASCCC has reason to anticipate that formal support for ZTC will be needed and local senate sign-off will be required. Local academic senates with an interest in getting ahead might want to move forward with a resolution in support of ZTC degrees and begin discussions regarding how to increase the availability of ZTC options at their college. Locally developed resolutions related to open educational resources (OER) are available for your consideration, and you can read more about OER and ZTC on the ASCCC OERI website.
We are heading into the holiday season, a time that can be joyous but also can be difficult for many people. If you have the opportunity to spread some joy, please do so; you never know who it will impact. The ASCCC office will be closed for a well-deserved break—exact dates to be announced—and the Executive Committee will be taking some time off between our December meeting and our first meeting of the new year in January. We wish you a peaceful holiday season and will see you when the next term begins.
With gratitude,
Dolores
Dolores M. Davison
President, Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
DEI Work
The ASCCC continues its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work. The Chancellor’s Office DEI Workgroup continues its work addressing the 68 strategy recommendations through May 2022, with an intention of recommending practices and providing support to further local college DEI efforts. One current focus is on identifying DEI competencies and criteria for all employees and employee groups. These competencies and criteria are intended as models, and colleges are encouraged to use them as a starting point in discussions on including DEI expectations in
evaluations and employee performance. The competencies and criteria were included in the November 15, 2021 Board of Governors agenda. A second focus of associations within the DEI workgroup is equitable hiring practices. Early efforts to support equitable hiring can be found in the Model Hiring Principles and Procedures resource. In addition, the ASCCC and the Association of Chief Human Resource Officers (ACHRO) recently partnered for two webinars to share recommended practices for equitable hiring and to advance faculty diversity efforts. Current efforts of the DEI workgroup are further interrogation of current hiring practices and development of new ways to approach
hiring. ACHRO is leading this effort in coordination with trustees and all system associations, including the ASCCC. More information will be available in early spring, including an opportunity for colleges to participate in an implementation pilot.
C-ID and Transfer Alignment Project
The Transfer Alignment Project Workgroup has been working with the leadership of C-ID to determine whether a discipline’s current TMC and corresponding UC Transfer Pathway (UCTP) can align. The workgroup has determined three distinct phases in the implementation: Phase I will follow up on disciplines previously convened in 2019 to determine whether alignment is feasible and, if so, convene discipline faculty to conduct the work. Phase II will begin the work on three new disciplines—biology, English, and political science—that will review alignment of the TMC and UCTP. Phase III will review those disciplines that could not find alignment and make recommendations as to how multiple pathways can be implemented. Currently, faculty discipline review groups of disciplines identified in Phase I and II are scheduling meetings to review documents and begin work on aligning, as appropriate, the TMCs and UCTPs.
Open Educational Resources Initiative
The ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative is wrapping up its review of created OER from RFP III and will soon be publishing information on how to submit for RFP IV. Information on the RFP, including submission guidelines, timeline, and informational webinars can be accessed via the ASCCC OERI Request for Proposals IV – Timeline and Events webpage.
Rising Scholars
In partnership with Rising Scholars and through funding from a Mellon grant, a dedicated team of faculty have been hard at work creating professional development modules to support faculty teaching in prison environments. Modules have a focus on social justice and equity and include the following:
examining motivations for teaching in prison environments
understanding trauma
race, gender, and cultural identity in a prison classroom
creating an effective learning experience
building a course with equitable practices
promoting and reinforcing authenticity
college counseling and faculty advising
taking care of yourself
embracing the entirety of the faculty role
These professional development resources should be released in early spring, and the ASCCC looks forward to using them to build a community of practice.
List of Upcoming Events
December 3-4, 2021
Executive Committee Meeting - SacramentoJanuary 7-8, 2022
Executive Committee Meeting – Long BeachFebruary 10-11, 2022
Part-Time Faculty Institute - VirtualFebruary 24-26, 2022
Accreditation Institute - TBD
Upcoming Webinars
December 2, 10:00 - 11:00 am
Communication Studies Community
Register for Communication Studies CommunityDecember 2, 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Using Virtual Environments to Teach Computer Science
Register for Using Virtual Environments to Teach Computer ScienceDecember 3, 10:30 - 11:30 am
Register for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) - A Process for Reviewing and Improving Courses and Course ResourcesDecember 3, 12:00 - 1:00 pm
OER and Math — Sharing and Learning Session
Register for OER and Math — Sharing and Learning SessionDecember 3, 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Ethnic Studies and OER
Register for Ethnic Studies and OERDecember 7, 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Creating ZTC Transfer Degrees in Chemistry
Register for Creating ZTC Transfer Degrees in ChemistryDecember 10, 10:30 - 11:30 am
Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program Informational Webinar
Register for Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program Informational WebinarDecember 10, 1:00 - 2:00 pm
How to integrate OER Physics homework sets in Canvas
Register for How to integrate OER Physics homework sets in Canvas
