President's Update | June 2022

Colleagues and Friends:

Con ti partiro (Time to Say Goodbye)

It seems difficult to believe that nearly two years have passed since I composed my first message to you as president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. Now, after a remarkable and in many ways unprecedented twenty-four months, the time has arrived for me to say goodbye to all of you and to welcome in the new ASCCC Executive Committee for 2022-2023. Before that, however, I want to recap some of the extraordinary work that was done by this year’s Executive Committee.

First, the community college system was able to gain traction in the creation of a single general education pathway for transfer to UC and CSU system partners. The ASCCC is still seeking input from practitioners for the pattern—the survey is available  here—and hopes to have a finalized version to bring to the fall plenary session, well before the legislatively required deadline of May 31, 2023.  The Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates, working with administrative and student colleagues from all three systems, created a pattern that, while being capped at 34 units, still contains virtually all the elements of the previous GE patterns.  While the pattern may not be perfect, it represents a true coordinated effort from the Academic Senates from all three segments of public higher education in California and will ideally make transfer more seamless.  Additionally, work on the Transfer Alignment Project, first begun in 2019, continues to move forward as the system seeks ways to ensure greater viability for student transfer to both public and private nonprofit institutions in California and across the country.

One of the elements of the pathway and transfer that bears noting is the inclusion of ethnic studies. When AB1440 (Weber, 2020) was signed into law, it mandated that the CSU system have a graduation requirement of at least one ethnic studies class. The ASCCC, working through the California Community Colleges Curriculum Committee and with the Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, created Title 5 language that was approved by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors last year, regulating an ethnic studies graduation requirement for all California community college associate’s degrees. Establishing this requirement as a regulation rather than a piece of legislation was a significant achievement, as it prevented legislative interference in what is an area of faculty primacy: curriculum. The ASCCC will continue to work with legislators to prevent or minimize legislative interference in curriculum and, barring that, ensure that the official voice of the faculty in academic and professional matters, the ASCCC, is involved in the creation of such bills. 

Another significant achievement this year was the work regarding inclusion, diversity, equity, anti-Racism, and accessibility (IDEAA). At its March meeting, the ASCCC Executive Committee adopted IDEAA as the framework for all of its events, publications, and professional development activities going forward. To this end, the ASCCC has been deeply involved in the creation of the new regulations regarding tenure and evaluations, the updated Equal Employment Opportunity Handbook for hiring, the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility tools for curriculum, and many other topics. This work will continue in partnership with the Chancellor’s Office, the Chief Instructional Officers Board, the Community College League of California, the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, the Student Senate for California Community Colleges, and many other practitioner groups who are at the heart of everything faculty and colleges do within the system. 

I am grateful for all of the work done by this year’s ASCCC Executive Committee and excited to see the work under next year’s board. The 2022-2023 Executive Committee is as follows:

Ginni May, President
Cheryl Aschenbach, Vice President
LaTonya Parker, Secretary
Michelle Bean, Treasurer
Stephanie Curry, Area A Representative
Karen Chow, Area B Representative
Erik Reese, Area C Representative
Manuel Velez, Area D Representative
Christopher Howerton, North Representative
Eric Wada, North Representative
Amber Gillis, South Representative
Robert Stewart, South Representative
Carrie Roberson, At-Large Representative
Juan Arzola, At-Large Representative

While leaving the Executive Committee after twelve years is somewhat bittersweet, I am excited for the new challenges that lie ahead. I will be transitioning into the position of C-ID Curriculum Director, stepping into the extremely capable shoes of Eric Wada, who has held the position for the past three years. I am looking forward to the many challenges this position holds, not the least of which is being engaged in conversations about a number of issues including common course numbering, the potential expansion of transfer model curricula and model curricula, the development of new ethnic studies and women/gender studies TMCs, and the addition of more C-ID courses, to name a few. 

The two years of my presidency have been bookended by two tragedies: the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and the massacre of 21 innocent lives in Uvalde, Texas last week. The murder of George Floyd has led to a reckoning with the systemic racism found throughout education, and in solidarity with that effort the ASCCC has published two special Rostrums, one in July 2020 and the second last week on the second anniversary of Mr. Floyd’s murder. While one does not yet know what the murders of nineteen fourth graders and two of their teachers will result in, one can only hope that it is the opening of a dialogue about what this country needs to do to prevent it from happening again. I never imagined that part of my responsibilities as a faculty member would include active shooter training and preparing my students in case we were confronted with that situation, and yet that is a necessary part of the lives of educators in the current world.  Quite frankly, I wish that this were not the case, and I hope that enough of us feel that way to work towards change. Last week’s tragedy is a reminder of how quickly something we love can be taken away from us and how important it is that we fight for those things and people who bring meaning to our lives. I am extremely grateful for my time with the ASCCC and for all of you, my colleagues and friends, who have made this work so gratifying.  Thank you for all you have done, all you are doing, and all you continue to do.

With gratitude and appreciation,
Dolores

Dolores M. Davison
President, Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

List of Upcoming Events

• June 3, 2022
  Executive Committee Meeting - TBD
• June 16-18, 2022
  Faculty Leadership Institute - Hybrid Event/Sacramento
• July 6-9, 2022
  Curriculum Institute - Hybrid Event/Riverside
• August 3-5, 2022
  CAL OER Conference - Virtual Event

Upcoming Webinars

• June 7, 2022
  11:00am - 12:00pm
  ASCCC OERI Webinar: Introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER) Licenses
• June 8, 2022
  8:30am - 9:30am
  ASCCC OERI Webinar: Remixing Licenses
• June 13, 2022
  11:30am - 12:30pm
  ASCCC OERI Webinar: Accessibility I
• June 15, 2022
  3:00pm - 4:00pm
  ASCCC OERI Webinar: Accessibility II
• June 16, 2022
  2:00pm - 3:00pm
  ASCCC OERI Webinar: Accessibility and the Student Experience