February

Faculty Hiring and Diversity: An Ongoing Collaborative Effort

Over the last several years, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has published various Rostrum articles on equitizing the hiring process, considerations for faculty diversification, and the impact of diversification on students’ academic outcomes and the student experience. One of the most important activities at a college or district is the hiring of new personnel. At many colleges, while hiring happens year-round, the hiring of full-time faculty tends to be focused in the spring term.

Current Disciplines List Revision Proposals

The ASCCC Standards and Practices Committee works to adhere to the Disciplines List revision process to allow faculty to exercise their authority in establishing minimum qualifications. Two proposed changes to the Disciplines List have been in the process in 2019-20: a proposal to revise the minimum qualifications for film studies and a proposal to create a new discipline, registered behavior technology.

Sex, Gender, Race, and Economic Disadvantage: Courageous Conversations About Intersectionality

Much has been made in the media and in popular culture regarding the term “intersectionality,” but few people seem to know what the word actually means. Some, such as Ben Shapiro, claim that intersectionality is “a form of identity politics in which the value of your opinion depends on how many victim groups you belong to. At the bottom of the totem pole is the person everybody loves to hate: the straight, white male” (Airey, 2018).

Making Accreditation Student Centered with Guided Pathways And Equity

Many people see accreditation as a requirement, an obligation, and a chore. However, these perspectives might change if those people could re-envision accreditation practices to focus less on compliance and more on how they can improve their colleges and make them student-centered. Two movements currently dominating California community colleges are guided pathways and equity, both of which focus on increasing student opportunities and completion and could help to refocus work in accreditation.

Understanding and Improving Student Access and Success

Colleges began experimenting with more equitable placement practices for English, reading, and mathematics or quantitative reasoning courses as early as fall 2015 in response to the Multiple Measures Assessment Project. In October 2017, Governor Brown signed AB 705 (Irwin, 2017) into law. The overarching intent of the law was to close equity gaps in access and success in transfer-level English, mathematics including college-level, and English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. Statewide, faculty opinion was divided regarding the bill.

Instant Runoff Voting

At the Fall 2019 ASCCC Plenary Session, the delegates passed Resolution 1.02, titled “Adopt Instant Runoff Voting,” as an ASCCC Rules and Procedures amendment, changing section I.G to incorporate Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which will now be used at each spring’s plenary session when voting takes place for officers and representatives. The previous system used for these elections involved re-voting during the session for any election in which no candidate received a majority of the eligible votes cast.

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