President's Update | May 2020

** Please Note: This update contains a correction to the dates of the Faculty Leadership Institute. The Faculty Leadership Institute is on June 17-19, 2020. 

May 06, 2020

Dear Colleagues,

Six weeks ago, the systems of higher education in this state made a monumental shift to virtual instruction against the backdrop of a global health crisis.  The faculty of the California community colleges has done an amazing job figuring out how to serve students and communities to reach the end of the term.  The structural inequities of education and society have been magnified during this crisis, and I am proud of the ways our community colleges have worked to address those issues when we can and communicate ideas and creative solutions when possible. 

The ASCCC’s work on guided pathways, faculty diversification, and improving transfer pathways is important, and we are turning our attention toward these goals in the context of our current reality. 

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 all of you are well, finding time to breathe and disconnect when needed, and filled with strength and grace as we engage in our collective work of serving students during this crisis. I have confidence in each of you, and your Executive Committee is here to support you. 

Respectfully,

        John Stanskas, President

Scheduled Events

In the month of April, the ASCCC engaged every professional development strategy we could find to support our colleagues as they support their students.  With the cancellation of our scheduled conferences, we did our best to create spaces to serve long-standing and emerging needs.  Our webinar series included discipline group dialogue, governance issues in the virtual space, supporting diverse hiring in the virtual environment, implementing guided pathways, and expanding open educational resources.  The first two series included a total of 7,048 registrants, 2,295 registered participants for Large Audience Webinars and 4,753 registered participants in Small Audience Dialogues. 

We would like to thank our system partners for pairing with us to provide relevant information, including CVC-OEI, the Chancellor’s Office staff, the Chief Instructional Officers organization, the Chief Student Services Officers organization, and the Chief Human Resources organization. 

We continue to schedule events through the month of May.  Please feel free to register from our website here. 

Legislative Messaging and State Budget Update

The state budget remains highly fluid right now as the economy reacts to the COVID-19 crisis.  Most indicators point to a sharp recession without clarifying how the later economic recovery will occur.  The legislature intends to pass a baseline budget by the constitutional deadline in June.  However, revenue will remain uncertain until the new tax filing deadline of July 15.  The legislature is expected to revisit the current year budget in August and make adjustments based on revenue.  This uncertainty in the budget is difficult for college planning, but remaining nimble at this time and providing the faculty perspective on how to address budget concerns through the governance process will be important. 

This week, the ASCCC sent a budget request to the legislature regarding our transfer initiative and desire to facilitate transfer pathways for more students and align or clarify pathways to the University of California and the California State University systems.  While the budget is uncertain, the request for $2.1M in one-time funding is crucial to our mission, as it would be spent over five years to convene intersegmental discipline groups about expected outcomes from lower division and alignment of expected preparation.  In addition, further dialogue needs to take place in the same convening structure, in light of the global pandemic and the need to minimize face-to-face interactions, for reaching an understanding about what outcomes can be met through online instruction.  A copy of our message can be found here. 

We have also communicated our concern that in light of an economic downturn and the fact that 114 accredited California community colleges have transformed into online colleges for most offerings, continuing to allocate resources to Calbright is untenable.  The intention of a separate online college was to expand online educational offerings in programs non-duplicative of the other colleges in the system that could integrate with the other colleges for continued educational opportunity.  In the current situation, all of the colleges have expanded their online reach, the programs considered by Calbright remain a duplication of current efforts in the other colleges, and the selection of a different learning management system than the one used by every other colleges further hampers potential student transitions to further their education.  A copy of our message is here. 

ASCCC Elections for the Executive Committee and Applications to Serve

We are in the midst of our virtual elections process.  I am pleased to announce that the following candidates have been elected for the 2020-2021 academic year, beginning June 6:

President:                      Dolores Davison, Foothill College
Vice President:             Ginni May, Sacramento City College
Secretary:                      Cheryl Aschenbach, Lassen College
Treasurer:                      Mayra Cruz, De Anza College
At-Large Representative: Michelle Velasquez Bean, Rio Hondo College. 

Elections are still in progress for North, South, Area A, Area B, and Area C.  I want to sincerely thank everyone who chose to run for a position. Deciding to participate as a candidate in an election process is not easy, and the commitment on the part of all who ran to the ASCCC, to faculty colleagues, and most importantly to students is admirable. 

We are also recruiting faculty for state-wide service for the 2020-2021 academic year.  Every faculty voice is important, and we encourage all interested individuals to consider filling out an application here. We appoint nearly 1,000 faculty to a variety of committees across the state to ensure the faculty voice and have made a concerted effort to diversify those voices across the categories of race or ethnicity, gender, life experiences shaped by military service, full-time or part-time status, and rural or urban colleges.  Some appointments are for a total of two meetings per year, while others are to committees that meet twice per month. Whatever availability one may have, we are happy to utilize. 

Upcoming Events

May 08, ASCCC Executive Committee Meeting, Zoom
Jun. 05-07, ASCCC Executive Committee Meeting, South Lake Tahoe

Jun. 17-19, Faculty Leadership Institute, Virtual
July 08-11, Curriculum Institute, Riverside
Oct. 8-10, Academic Academy, Burlingame

The Academic Academy this year will focus on online education and open educational resources as a partnership between the ASCCC’s OER Initiative and the CVC-OEI.  Mark your calendars for this important and timely event. 

Useful Resource Link

We are continuously adding resources to a central location on the ASCCC website for maximizing our service to our communities during this pandemic.