President’s Update | August 2022

Dear Colleagues, 

Welcome to the start of the 2022-23 academic year. We hope everyone took some time off over the summer to rest and rejuvenate. Many of you took part in professional development opportunities, as was evidenced by the excellent turnout for the ASCCC Faculty Leadership Institute and Curriculum Institute hybrid events in June and July, respectively. It was great to see so many of you in person, as this was the first time these events had in-person attendance since 2019. In addition to these institutes, work at the state level continued over the summer, bringing along some significant changes. This update will provide you with information on a number of items important to faculty as well as the students you serve. 

In June and August, the 2022-23 Executive Committee engaged in orientation to prepare for service on a nonprofit board and to local academic senates. In response to Resolution S22 19.01, the ASCCC Executive Committee also enhanced our orientation to include cultural humility training. The experience was powerful and moving. The Cultural Humility Toolkit is available for faculty and local academic senates to use individually and with their committees as well. The Executive Committee will continue to ground our work with the tenets and principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, anti-racism, and accessibility, or IDEAA, as we address the nuts and bolts of academic and professional matters.

As with all of our communications, we encourage faculty to forward this message to all constituents at their colleges. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact us at info@asccc.org. On behalf of the ASCCC Executive Committee, I wish you a great start to the fall semester.

Ginni May
President, Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

Best Wishes to Eloy Ortiz Oakley

Beginning on August 1, 2022, Eloy Ortiz Oakley transitioned from serving as chancellor of the California Community Colleges to president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation. The ASCCC expresses our thanks and appreciation for Mr. Oakley’s leadership and advocacy for students, especially those from minoritized backgrounds. His leadership during the difficult time of the COVID-19 global pandemic was essential in helping colleges to continue serving students effectively. The ASCCC wishes Mr. Oakley the very best in his new role at the College Futures Foundation.

Congratulations to Interim Chancellor Daisy Gonzales

On August 4, 2022, Dr. Daisy Gonzales was selected to serve as interim chancellor of the California Community Colleges system. Dr. Gonzales has served as deputy chancellor since 2018 and served as acting chancellor in fall 2021. The ASCCC welcomes Dr. Gonzales in this role and is excited to work with her in service to the approximately 1.8 million students in the California Community Colleges system.

Chancellor Search Committee

The California Community Colleges Board of Governors has appointed ASCCC President Ginni May and Student Senate for California Community Colleges President Clemaus Tervalon to the committee tasked with leading a national search for candidates to fill the position of chancellor. President May and President Tervalon will join Board of Governors committee members President Pamela Haynes, Vice President Amy M. Costa, Joshua N. Elizondo, Tom Epstein, Jolena Grande, Bill Rawlings, and Hildegarde B. Aguinaldo. The committee will embark on a nationwide search for a permanent chancellor and produce a slate of candidates to the full Board of Governors, a process that may take as much as 12-16 months.

The 2022-23 Compendium

To support district and college leaders in the implementation and effective use of 2022-23 fiscal resources, the linked resource known as the Compendium provides fiscal and program guidance for districts in one central location, facilitating more transparent access to fiscal information. One can find the 22-23 Compendium and additional budget information on the Budget News page.

Commitment to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Antiracism, and Accessibility

The ASCCC followed through on its commitment to inclusion, diversity, equity, anti-racism, and accessibility (IDEAA) in many ways during 2021-2022, one of which was through continued participation with a diverse group of system stakeholders on the Chancellor’s Office Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Workgroup. Formally, the workgroup finished its work in March 2022 with the completion of recommended DEIA Competencies and Criteria, draft Title 5 regulations calling for inclusion of DEIA elements in all employee evaluations and tenure review processes, and completion of collaboration with the Student Senate of California Community Colleges (SSCCC) on recommended student grievance policy updates.

The DEIA Competencies and Criteria were developed as a model for colleges to refer to during local dialogue about what it means to be DEIA practitioners as employees in the California community colleges and, hopefully, through development of local DEIA competencies and criteria. They are not meant to be the only set of competencies and criteria in this area. The sample DEIA Competencies and Criteria can be found in the November 2021 board agenda.

The draft Title 5 regulations were approved by the Board of Governors at its May 2022 meeting following revisions as a result of the public comment period and board first read. The information digest and approved regulations can be found within the May 2022 board agenda.

As part of the Student Senate's Anti-Racism Plan of Action, SSCCC leadership invited system stakeholders, including ASCCC faculty representatives, to collaborate on recommendations for a model student grievance policy that could be used by colleges to update their own policies. Given that most student grievance policies include legal language and complicated processes to follow, both of which are deterrents to students finding and using the policy, the intent of the SSCCC was to develop a model that was more student-centered and student-friendly. Additional information about the recommended model for student grievance policies will be provided by the SSCCC.

Standing Committees and Other Advisory Groups

This summer, the ASCCC put together its 2022-23 standing committees and assigned members to many system advisory groups. If you have submitted an application to serve but have not been contacted yet, please be patient. Needs arise throughout the academic year for additional faculty representation in the statewide participatory governance system. If you have not done so already, please be sure to complete the application to volunteer for state-wide service. Thank you to all for the efforts to recruit a more diverse applicant pool. The diversity of the ASCCC’s standing committee composition continues to increase, as is shown in the ASCCC Committee Composition Report from August 2022.

Transfer Alignment Project and 2023-24 CCC System Budget and Legislative Request

In fall 2019, the ASCCC started the first phase of addressing Resolution F17 15.01 Aligning Transfer Pathways for the CSU and UC Systems.

The overall goals of Transfer Alignment Project effort are as follows:

1.     Align Transfer Model Curriculum (TMC) with University of California Transfer Pathways (UCTP), where feasible, i.e. when only non-substantive changes to the TMCs would be needed.

 2.     For those TMCs that need more changes, convene discipline faculty from all three systems. Every attempt is made to align the pathways, with two possible outcomes:

• a.     Pathways are aligned with substantive changes to the TMC or the UCTP. Currently, only TMCs have been considered for changes.

• b.     If the pathways cannot be aligned, then clear documentation on the rationale and benefits of separate pathways to students and public is communicated broadly.

Transfer Alignment Project outcomes to date are as follows:

1.     One TMC has been aligned with the UCTP: sociology.

2.     Four TMCs are in process of alignment with the UCTPs: anthropology, history, English, and political science.

3.     Five TMCs cannot be aligned without substantive changes to the TMC or the UCTP: business administration, economics, mathematics, philosophy, and biology.

As part of the 2023-24 California Community Colleges system budget and legislative request process, the ASCCC has requested funding of $2.7 million over two or three years to support the creation of an intersegmental Academic Senate task force on transfer. This task force would bring discipline faculty together to continue and amplify the work being done through the Transfer Alignment Project.

AB 928 – Singular Lower Division General Education Pathway

On October 6, 2021, Governor Newsom signed AB 928 (Berman, 2021) into law. One of the requirements of the bill was for the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates (ICAS) to create a singular lower division general education pathway to both CSU and UC by May 31, 2023. If such a pathway is not created by that time, the administrations of the three higher education public systems shall create the pathway by December 31, 2023. In 2021-22, ICAS formed a special committee on AB 928. The special committee met three times to discuss the singular general education transfer pathway. After considering several options and patterns, the group came to a consensus on a pattern that it believes satisfies the legislation's requirements for a clear and transparent singular pathway requiring no more than 34 total units for completion. The pattern was recommended to ICAS by the subcommittee, and ICAS voted unanimously to approve the proposed framework for vetting at its April 25, 2022 meeting.

In consultation with the student government bodies of all three systems, the proposed pathway has been titled CalGETC, for California General Education Transfer Curriculum. Feedback on the proposed CalGETC framework can be provided through the AB 928 Singular GE Pattern Survey and is due by October 1, 2022. Faculty feedback will shape ICAS’s continued dialog about the singular general education pathway as well as the guidance that will need to be developed for implementation. This opportunity for feedback is part of the vetting process by faculty among all three systems to inform ICAS regarding approval of a final CalGETC pathway. The ASCCC will be holding general education-focused webinars in September, and the proposed pathway will be voted on by delegates at the Fall Plenary Session.

Proposing a General Education Pattern for the Associate Degree

With the passage of AB 928 requiring a singular lower division general education pathway for transfer to both CSU and UC, as well as the Chancellor's Office and 5C efforts to update language in Title 5 55060-55064, which includes general education, the ASCCC is proposing revisions to the framework of the general education pattern for the associate degree. These framework revisions could align the associate degree general education pattern with the singular lower division general education pathway required by AB 928. Please read the history and rationale included in the survey and then provide comments and feedback via the Proposing a General Education Pattern for the Associate Degree Survey. Your feedback will help to inform pursuit and development of an updated associate degree general education pattern. All feedback is requested by September 30, 2022. A series of webinars will be held for discussion and to answer questions beginning September 12, 2022.

AB 927 – Baccalaureate Degrees

On October 6, 2021, Governor Newsom signed AB 927 (Medina, 2021) into law, expanding the opportunity to offer baccalaureate degrees in the California community colleges. Ten colleges submitted applications for new baccalaureate degrees in January 2022, the first submission date required by the legislation. The Chancellor’s Office has been working to put into place its internal processes and support systems for expanded baccalaureate degree offerings, so the approval process for January 2022 has been delayed. One challenge of the process is the requirement that CSU and UC provide input regarding duplication of proposed baccalaureate programs with existing CSU and UC programs; further discussion to determine the criteria for duplication is occurring. Final approvals will lead to the first community college baccalaureate degrees to be offered in California since SB 850 (Block, 2014) authorized a pilot baccalaureate degree program at no more than fifteen colleges.

As baccalaureate opportunities in California community colleges expand and as lower division general education for transfer and associate degrees is updated, the ASCCC has heard the interest in reviewing and updating the lower division general education required for community college baccalaureate degrees (see ASCCC Resolution 9.03, Spring 2022). The ASCCC has worked with articulation officers and program leaders at current baccalaureate-granting community colleges to develop a framework consistent with the two other lower division general education pathways being proposed. Additional information will be available during the September webinars on general education.

AB 1111 – Common Course Numbering

On October 6, 2021, Governor Newsom signed into law AB 1111 (Berman, 2021), which requires the California Community Colleges system to implement a common course numbering system for all general education and transfer pathway courses by July 1, 2024. Three prior bills on common course numbering date back to 1983. The most recent bill, in 2004, led to the creation of the C-ID Course Identification System, which the ASCCC began in 2007. Currently, the Chancellor’s Office is forming a task force to make recommendations on how to implement AB 1111. During the ASCCC 2022 Curriculum Institute, attendees and participants had many recommendations, cautions, and questions about the massive undertaking of the California Community Colleges common course numbering system as required by AB 1111 (Berman 2021). Please use this feedback form to share your recommendations, cautions, and questions. More information on common course numbering as presented at the 2022 Curriculum Institute is available in the Get the 411: Course Identification Numbering System (C-ID) and AB 1111 (Berman, 2021) Common Course Numbering powerpoint. As more information becomes available, it will be communicated through the ASCCC Curriculum listserv, which one can join through the newsletter signup page.

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Zero Textbook Costs (ZTC)

As colleges await the details of the ZTC Program that was allocated $115 million dollars (EDC §§78050-78052) in the summer of 2021, the Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI) continues its efforts to identify available OER and create new OER for faculty consideration. All products funded by the ASCCC OERI can be found on the ASCCC OERI Supported Resources page. The OERI is also currently recruiting faculty to participate in its work.

The most up to date information with respect to the ZTC Program can be found on the OERI’s OER and ZTC page. On July 29, 2022, “Zero Textbook Cost Program – Overview and Guidance” was distributed. This memo provides a brief background of ZTC in the colleges, recognizes the ASCCC-proposed section-level data element as a critical component of tracking instructional materials costs, states the Chancellor’s Office’s intent to convene a ZTC Taskforce, and announces that a “Phase 1” of grants will provide $20,000 to colleges to “begin the development of a ZTC program.” A “Phase 2” will also be made available in the upcoming term. The purpose for the ZTC Taskforce is delineated in the memo. While the composition of this group has not yet been publicized, OERI Faculty Coordinator Michelle Pilati has been appointed to be the faculty co-chair.

The ASCCC’s “OERI Friday Forums” is changing the webinar series to take place two times per month, every other Friday. Additional webinars will be offered, but those webinars are intended for a general audience.

AB 1705 – Equitable Placement and Enrollment

In an effort to strengthen the language in AB 705 (Irwin, 2017), AB 1705 (Irwin, 2022) requires, among other things, that colleges place and enroll most students into the transfer level English and mathematics courses. At the time of this writing, the bill was passed by the senate and is back in the assembly pending concurrence of senate amendments. It is likely to pass out of the assembly and be sent on the to the governor who is expected to sign the bill into law. More information will be provided when it becomes available.

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