President's Update | August 2019

August 22, 2019

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the start of another academic year. I hope each of you found at least a little down time to rest and rejuvenate over the summer and is ready to further our work to help students find and achieve their dreams and goals. The Executive Committee has been working diligently over the summer to provide professional development and to ensure the faculty voice in academic and professional matters regardless of the season. This message is intended to update you on the activities of the ASCCC over the summer and how we have prepared to engage the new academic year. 

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.   

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 us 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. 

This update is long mostly because a great deal is happening in our system as we continuously improve our service to students and our diverse communities.  On behalf of the Executive Committee, I hope each of you found a little time for peace and reflection this summer so that you are ready to begin again. We are honored to represent you at the state level this year.

Respectfully,

        John Stanskas, President

2019 Academic Academy

The ASCCC 2019 Academic Academy, focused on Designing Our Colleges with the Student Experience in Mind, is scheduled September 12-14 in Long Beach. We have been working this summer to ensure a collaborative and positive experience for all attendees and will address guided pathways, faculty diversity, and open educational resources. We have invited the Student Senate for the California Community Colleges to co-present with us to ensure that attendees hear a student voice and perspective.  We are also partnering with the California Virtual College-Online Education Initiative, the Research and Planning Group, and the Chancellor’s Office in programming.  A registration link for the remaining space and tentative program can be found here.  

UC Transfer Pathways – A Beginning

The University of California Academic Senate and the ASCCC have been working together on a proposal to pilot a guarantee of admission from our colleges to the UC system beginning with the disciplines of physics and chemistry. Guidance for these disciplines was released this summer and is available on the C-ID website here. These UC Transfer Pathway Degrees in chemistry and physics follow the standard major preparation identified by the UC faculty in these disciplines and meet the minimum general education necessary to earn an associate degree. The faculty at the 86 community colleges that offer the complete curriculum of major preparation for these programs are urged to engage their curricular processes to create these degrees to offer starting in fall 2020. The UC and community college systems continue to collaborate on additional majors.

Summer Professional Development

In June the ASCCC hosted 100 attendees at the Faculty Leadership Institute in Sacramento to provide professional development for current and future faculty leaders. We had the opportunity to offer a pre-session to attendees to discuss legislative advocacy and toured both the state capitol and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.  

In July the ASCCC hosted 635 attendees at the Curriculum Institute.  We actively partnered with the California Community Colleges Chief Instructional Officers in the planning and implementation of much of the programming.  

While many faculty are not officially working over the summer, the at-capacity attendance of these events is just another demonstration of the commitment of our system’s faculty to serving students and our communities to the best of our ability and our willingness to explore new ways of implementing programs on our campuses. I would like to personally acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the Executive Committee and the ASCCC office staff for planning, coordinating, and ensuring quality professional development both over the summer and throughout the year. When you have the opportunity to interact with members of the Executive Committee and our staff, please join me in thanking them for their dedication and service.  

Prior Year Goals

The two Executive Committee goals not continuing from last year are the last of the Strong Workforce Recommendations and the Implementation of AB705.  In partnership with the Chancellor’s Office, we created the CTE Minimum Qualifications Toolkit as advice to colleges, and we continue to partner on methods to certify credit for prior learning, or CPL. The final version of the Toolkit was completed this summer, and we urge academic senates, vice presidents responsible for hiring, and human resources offices to review it and make use of it as appropriate.  This academic year we will pilot a CPL program across the state to evaluate systemic ways to meaningfully award military credit and evaluate industry recognized credentials.  This work has been folded into the CTE Leadership Committee, a standing committee of the ASCCC. 

The Implementation of AB705 is continuing across the state for English and mathematics this term. Through the regular curriculum processes at the state level, we continue to craft the English as a Second Language Title 5 regulations to recommend to the Board of Governors for adoption. We are also participating in a series of regional meetings sponsored by the ASCCC, Chancellor’s Office, and 3CSN to evaluate how AB705 implementation has happened, what we can learn from Fall 2019 data in real time, and how to improve our service to students for Spring 2020 and Fall 2020. We continue to maintain that this implementation should be viewed as an iterative process that is consistently evaluated and improved. The tentative dates for the regional meetings are listed at the end of this message. All members of our colleges are welcome to attend. The rest of this work is folded into the Basic Skills/Noncredit standing committee and the Guided Pathways Taskforce of the ASCCC.

Faculty Diversification

The Executive Committee adopted this goal both last year and this year and foresees it being a focus of the ASCCC for at least the next four years. While we cannot erase centuries of systemic racism and bias built into our society and culture, we can engage in the work of perfecting our system and colleges. Every systemic structure holds the inherent bias of its time of construction, and our colleges and system are no different. Our work is to facilitate a deep examination of our own structures and individual biases and address them so that we can serve our students and communities to the best of our abilities.  

Part of that examination includes the hiring processes of our colleges. Two minimum qualifications are required to work as faculty in the California Community Colleges:  the requisite degree and industry experience and a sensitivity to the diverse needs of our students. We have many resources to help with the first qualification; the second qualification is of equal importance in regulation, but we have few vetted resources to assist colleges. One of our tasks this year is to amplify the importance of the second minimum qualification until it is equal to that of the first and create resources to assist colleges in this effort. We also intend to develop model hiring and appointment processes, to create tools to assist academic senates in beginning or furthering dialogue on systemic change, and to revise the EEO requirements through the Chancellor’s Office. If we can be of service to facilitating this difficult and meaningful work at your college, please request a technical visit through your academic senate president here.  In addition, the ASCCC is co-chairing the Board of Governors Task Force on Diversity and intends to report future actions at the September Board of Governors meeting.    

Guided Pathways

The ASCCC Guided Pathways effort provided massive support to faculty and academic senates as they implemented frameworks appropriate to their colleges and communities last year. The ASCCC Guided Pathways Task Force maintains accessible CANVAS resources for all things guided pathways. In addition, we have sent GPTF Resource Teams at no cost to support colleges as they navigated their local efforts. The dialogue at colleges has been rich and fiercely student-centered. No matter where we might be in the implementation phase, we should be proud of our commitment to serving students well.  As with the previous goal, the Executive Committee believes this goal will be a highlighted priority for at least three more years.  

This year, we plan 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 a locally defined guided pathways framework. We also continue 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.  

Governance Processes and the Faculty Role

The third 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 those 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 statewide faculty appointment processes. Lastly, this goal is expansive enough to include an examination of governance at the state level and to engage in our own and system-wide professional development.  

To begin, we have already successfully completed Spring 2019 resolution 07.03, Request the Board of Governors Undergo Collegiality in Action Training. At the conclusion of the July 2019 BoG meeting, the Community College League of California (CCLC) and the ASCCC engaged the board for more than two hours of professional development about the role of the senate, administrators, and local boards of trustees and the role of the ASCCC, CCLC, and the Board of Governors.  

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 dialog. 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.  

Calbright, the Fully Online Community College

This summer, the ASCCC leadership felt compelled to send a message to request clarification and direction from the legislature regarding the legislative intent for the fully-online community college created in the 2018 budget act. Two specific and conflicting issues, accreditation requirements and duplication of programs, have led to confusion and thus have inhibited the ability of the ASCCC to assist with the development and advancement of the online college.  The following excerpt is taken from the introductory section of the letter to the legislature:

“In 2018, the legislature approved the creation of a fully-online community college, subsequently named Calbright, and a 73rd community college district. While the ASCCC expressed serious reservations regarding this endeavor as it was proposed and debated, our duty changed once the legislation was signed into law. As the voice of faculty in curricular and governance matters, as is established in statute and regulation, we have endeavored to support the online college and have asserted that, until such a time as a sufficient group of tenured faculty at Calbright College may organize themselves into a local academic senate, we will serve as the faculty voice required for consultation regarding academic and professional matters. To fulfill this role, we have appointed faculty to assist in the creation of policies related to academic matters for the district, guide the establishment of curricular review processes and curricular activities, and serve as a voice in hiring committees for management positions. However, although we have endeavored in all good conscience to provide a positive and beneficial faculty voice in the development of the online college, we have reached a point at which we have difficulty contributing appropriate advice to the new district because two parts of relevant regulation and statute seem to conflict.”

The entire letter can be viewed on the ASCCC website here.  

Funding Formula Adjustments 

Colleges have struggled to adjust to the changes to community college funding mechanisms.  The Student Centered Funding Formula has three parts: 
A.    A Base Allocation (seat count) intended to promote broad access;
B.    A Supplemental Allocation (student need) intended to address barriers to access; and
C.    A Student Success Allocation (performance allocation).  

The implementation of this formula has caused a significant destabilization of the budget processes of colleges. Legislative staff requested that we offer our recommendations regarding the performance allocation of the formula in writing, keeping in mind the assumption that the performance-based mechanism is not going to be removed. We did so and argued that while we remain opposed in principle to performance-based funding, if the state wishes to retain the performance aspect of the formula, the ASCCC has three suggestions for improvement: 
1. Level the point system for associate degree awards so that all educational goals and achievements of comparable unit values are counted equally. 
2. Award colleges only once per year per student for the highest award achieved as a means of prioritizing per-student success, as opposed to incentivizing the maximizing of awards more generally. 
3. Keep the performance metric portion set at 10% of the total allocation to ensure funding stability and to support college exploration of how best to serve students. 

This summer in the Budget Act, the legislature agreed to implement the last two suggestions we provided and ensured an additional year of hold-harmless stabilization.  

By January 1, 2020, the Funding Formula Oversight Committee established in law is to provide recommendations regarding the inclusion of other measures of student need in the supplemental allocation part of the funding formula in order to take into account first-generation status, financial need in the local context, and the level of student preparedness.  We can expect that in Spring 2020, additional dialog and possible adjustments will take place in funding related to the supplemental allocation.  

ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)

The ASCCC OERI and the faculty that are working on funded OER projects in the spring were busy throughout the summer. We look forward to sharing new OER with the field in the months ahead. This fall the ASCCC OERI Weekly Webinars will be on Thursdays at 1:00pm starting on September 5. We will continue to archive them but hope you will join the webinars when you can. Archived webinars from last year are available on the ASCCC website here. 

Each month we will reserve one webinar to be an “open forum.” We will be prepared to discuss the latest hot topics from our vantage point and ready and willing to hear—and discuss—whatever is on your mind.  If you are interested in having an OER presentation at your college, please request it at info@asccc.org.  

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, Solano College
Oct. 12, Area C Meeting, Rio Hondo College
Oct. 12 Area D Meeting, San Diego Mesa College

ASCCC Events
Sept. 12-14, Academic Academy: Designing Our Colleges with the Student Experience in Mind, Long Beach    
Nov. 7-9, Fall Plenary Session, Newport Beach

ESL Recoding Project Regional Meetings
Sept. 5, ESL CB21 Recoding Project Regional Meeting, Clovis College Herndon Center
Sept. 11, ESL CB21 Recoding Project Regional Meeting, Cypress College 
Sept. 23, ESL CB21 Recoding Project Regional Meeting, Skyline College

AB 705 Reading Circles
Oct. 7, AB705 Regional Reading Circles, Riverside 
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

OER Webinars
Sept. 5, OERI Webinar at noon, ZTC Vs OER Vs No-Cost
Sept. 12, OERI Webinar at noon, OER/ZTC, Equity, and Beyond
Sept. 19, OERI Webinar at noon, Introduction to OER Advocacy: How to Stop Talking to Yourself 
Sept. 26, OERI Webinar at noon, Open Forum

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