October 1993

Harold Goldwhite, Chair, Academic Senate, California State University

The Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates (ICAS) was established in 1980 as a voluntary organization consisting of representatives of the Academic Senates of the three segments of public higher education in California. Each of the senates appoints five representatives to ICAS. The meetings of ICAS are financed by the segments, and deal with a variety of issues of mutual concern such as the Master Plan for Higher Education, transfer, articulation, general education, and educational quality and standards. The recommendations of ICAS are made to the Academic Senates of each of the segments. ICAS has only advisory powers to the senates; it has no direct way to implement higher education policy.

Since 1980 the leading issues handled by ICAS have included the development of a series of Statements on Competencies Expected of Entering Freshmen, and the development and implementation of the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC). In each of these areas there have been some impressive successes for students and faculties of the segments. There have also been some problem areas.

The process by which a Competency Statement begins is when ICAS learns from a faculty discipline group that a Competency Statement would be useful in a particular area. If ICAS agrees, it establishes a working group of faculty from all segments to draft a Statement. The working group consults widely with faculty at all levels in the discipline, including K-12, and with other interested groups, including representatives of the State Department of Education. The State Framework in the area is an important document in preparing the Statement. When the working group has completed its draft, ICAS reviews it and may suggest modifications. The draft is then distributed to the segmental academic senates for discussion, and there may be several rounds of this process. Following endorsement of a Statement, ICAS submits it to the segmental academic senates for adoption and, if adopted by all of them, it becomes the Intersegmental Statement for the area. It is then distributed widely to teachers in the public schools. Statements have been adopted in mathematics, science, English, and some foreign languages. ICAS has not been able to support draft Statements for humanities and for visual and performing arts. Some members of ICAS have raised questions about the utility of the Statements, but ICAS has decided to proceed with at least some further work in this area. A committee to prepare a second version of the mathematics statement has recently been formed, and is beginning its work.

The development of IGETC is an impressive example of cooperation between the segments. There is a clear need for a general education program that can be offered by community colleges and that any CSU or UC campus will accept as fulfilling all lower division general education requirements when students transfer. The final shape of IGETC reflects compromises made by all the segments, and it would be ingenuous to clann that it satisfies all faculty. The program was endorsed by the senates of each of the segments and has been implemented. ICAS intends to evaluate the current version of IGETC and is beginning to develop an assessment plan which will be used for the evaluation in 1995 - 96, by which time there should be a reasonable number of community college transfer students who have been certified under IGETC provisions.

The relationship between ICAS and the Intersegmental Coordinating Council (ICC) is important yet indirect. ICC was created by the California Education Round Table in 1987 as "the primary body for facilitating, monitoring and evaluating intersegmental cooperation and collaboration." The segments referred to here include all levels and types of education in the state. Private and public institutions, K-12 and higher education, are all represented on ICC. The chairs of the academic senates of the three public higher education systems sit ex officio on ICC. ICAS may initiate discussions of academic policies or programs of intersegmental consequence which, after approval of the academic senates of its segments, are sent to ICC. Conversely ICAS expects to be consulted by ICC or the Round Table when those bodies initiate discussions of academic policies or programs of intersegmental consequence for public higher education.

With the stresses that now face all levels and types of education in California, the continued existence of collaborative bodies like ICAS and ICC is essential to ensure coordinated planning and evaluation for the best possible education for California's students.

(In the preparation of this review of ICAS I used material from Richard Gable's statement on the "Relationships of ICAS to the California Education Round Table and ICC' Novemberl988.)

10/93