Welcome
to a new academic year especially
to those of you who joined us as new senate
presidents
at the summer leadership institute in June.
We hope that you are enjoying a successful
start
to your term and that you will rejoin your
ever growing support network at our 2006
Fall Plenary
Session. Mark your calendars to be in Orange
County on October 26 thru 28 at the
Fairmont Newport Beach.
We will feature our usual rich mixture of
activities and topics: keynote speakers and
breakout sessions for beginner and expert.
You can talk with colleagues from around the
state as you craft resolutions for Saturday s
voting session where we debate and adopt policy.
We will also hold elections for two vacant
positions on Executive Committee.
Our session theme is based on the observation
that there s an interesting category
of issues in our system and at our colleges call
them challenges, call them problems, call them
opportunities. But they never quite go away.
You may think you ve tinkered with them
enough that they ve been solved but
then suddenly they re back. Sometimes
you ll be having a conversation when
a radical new viewpoint will appear and you
wonder if a completely different type of solution
is possible. And then you wonder if you could
possibly convince all your colleagues to give
it a try or you fantasize about creating
the political environment to get approval for
a statewide regulation change that all the
constituency groups support.
In New Possibilities: Radical Solutions
to Perennial Challenges we ll
explore some of these issues, some of the potential
solutions, and what it would take to make them
happen. We ll try to avoid the out-of-
the-box cliché and the management
marketing mantra that all change is always
good, just for its own sake. But we ll
try to ignite a conversation that will resonate
throughout the year in the same way that Principles
and Pragmatism focused our attention
a year ago. As usual the theme will be reflected
in our choice of keynote speakers as well as
in our breakout sessions.
I m sure you can identify many local
issues that behave in this way. Let s
add them to the list of statewide examples
such as 50% law or 60% law and explore them
together.
I encourage you to participate personally
in this exploration and to recruit several
colleagues from your campus. Share the pre-session
materials that will be sent out to you and
are also available electronically on the Academic
Senate s comprehensive website (www.asccc.org).
Discuss issues at your local senate meetings.
Meet with regional friends and colleagues at
the Area Meetings scheduled for October 13
or 14. Attend the Fall Session itself preferably
in the company of others from your campus.
Remember that scholarships are available to
ensure that every local senate is represented
by a voting delegate (contact the Senate Office
for details).
On behalf of the Executive Committee I can
say that we are all eagerly looking forward
to joining you in Newport Beach.
Cordially,
Ian Walton
President,
Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
