Fall 2004 Session Welcome

Download Printable Session Booklet (PDF)

Greetings to all of you from all of us on the Executive Committee of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges.

The Fall 2004 Plenary Session promises to be exceptionally rich with the debate, inquiry, research, and findings that characterize our exchanges of views and information. Our theme, adapted from the title of a twentieth century poem, captures a sense of urgency we all feel. And thus, our session will offer opportunities to explore what we may do—what is permissible and desirable; what we might do in response to a shifting landscape, a fen of conflicting demands and economic pressures; what we must do collectively and individually to retain what is essential and productive and healthy in what we do.

Our plenary speakers, our guest presenters, and our breakout offerings will affirm the principles we examined last year, and underscore our need to act, to shape and control what we offer at our colleges to a diverse range of students.

We have also produced a number of papers to further discussions at both at the local and state levels: for example, we have offered a document to promote local discussion on the graduation requirements for English and mathematics for the AA/AS degrees; and we present papers on accreditation as well as a long-awaited treatise on student fees that should shape discussion among faculty, trustees, administrators, and state-level policy makers.

Plenary sessions afford new senators and local senate officers a chance to learn through doing—reading, studying, asking, debating. The sessions offer veteran faculty the opportunity to see familiar problems in a new light. For all attendees, sessions offer renewal and reward for your local efforts. We hope to see you all.
Cordially,

Kate Clark
President, Academic Senate for California Community Colleges