April

A hot topic in California higher education today revolves around community colleges awarding associate degrees that are meaningful yet unit efficient and that meet the needs of all of our students who invariably are pursuing different educational goals. These issues have been a predominant concern to transfer and articulation faculty over the last several years and are even more pressing today in the context of tighter budgets, an increase in students and in the projected need for workers in our state that have, at minimum, obtained an associate degree.

Resolution 9.10, passed in Fall 2006, asked the Academic Senate to “investigate the issue of coursework recency” and multiple curriculum committees have looked into the issue and found no neat solution.

Recency: the Problem

At the Spring 2009 Plenary Session, the Academic Senate endorsed the Assessment APG’s end-of-year report for 2008-2009. Since that time, there has been significant movement on some of the recommendations from the report.

Recommendation: Support statewide project to develop statewide prerequisites for a limited set of general education courses using content review per the Model District Policy on Pre-Requisites, including an evaluation of the impacts.

This article explores the philosophy of the Bridging Research, Information and Culture project (BRIC). BRIC grew out of the previous Basic Skills Outcomes and Fostering a Culture of Evidence and Inquiry project (BSOC) that 2009 Fall Plenary Session delegates heard described in Rob Johnstone’s general session speech, and in the breakout that featured Rob, Janet Fulks, Bob Pacheco and Ian Walton. This article is Ian’s interpretation and exposition of an extended interview/conversation between Rob and Ian.

Ian: Where did BRIC come from and where’s it going?

While there are many policies and procedures that we take for granted and others that we don’t really care about, knowing the who, how, what, and why of the selection of faculty for various tasks is an academic and professional matter. And a matter that local senates should play a significant role in determining.

During this tumultuous economy, districts find themselves entertaining a variety of solutions as a means of tackling severe budget reductions, and colleges are faced with the impossible task of providing quality student services without adequate resources. As a result, paraprofessionals may have absorbed additional duties previously performed by a robust counseling department.

Is it really possible to effectively teach a three-unit writing course in four weeks? A business law course in a weekend? Reading in a six-week summer session?

With community colleges under pressure to be more efficient, more innovative, and more responsive to the needs of diverse student populations, semesters have been shortened from 18 to 16 weeks, summer sessions are offered in eight, six and four-week formats, and four-week winter intersessions are becoming common.

At the Fall 2009 Plenary Session, the body adopted the following resolution concerning institutional review boards (IRB):

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges strongly encourage local senates to consider the development of local college and district Institutional Review Board (IRB) Committees as a preventive measure to litigation and for the protection of the students and community that they serve; and

The Academic Senate’s Diversity Institute was a tremendous success. With more than 100 participants and breakouts on cultural competence, hiring, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) student issues, and many other topics, the message is clear that this Institute filled an important need. Attendees engaged in wonderful conversations and were determined to leave with practical ideas to implement at their colleges. One of the goals of the Institute was to specifically develop strategies for increasing the diversity of faculty leaders at our colleges and at the state level.

“All the elements of academic literacy—reading, writing, listening, speaking, critical thinking, use of technology, and habits of mind that foster academic success—are expected of entering freshmen across all college disciplines (ICAS).”