General Concerns

Whereas, The general public is bombarded with news articles and commentary about the failure of the California community colleges;

Whereas, Many individuals and organizations, based on their perspectives, have determined reasons for the failures of our colleges;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges president and committees are vigilant in presenting the perspectives of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, which are based on sound educational principles; and

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges is committed to professionalism for all faculty as an essential element in providing students with excellent educational opportunities, services, and instruction as recommended in Part-Time Faculty: A Principled Perspective (adopted Spring 2002); and

Whereas, The Academic Senate is committed to integrating part-time faculty into senate activities at the local and state level as stated in Part-Time Faculty: A Principled Perspective (2002); and

Whereas, Deep state budget cuts in education have necessitated many community colleges to cut their budgets in waves of 2%, 4%, and even 6%, which has often resulted in a comparable reduction in course sections offered;

Whereas, Both the University of California and the California State University systems have also had reductions in their budgets, causing them to raise entrance requirements and reduce enrollment, which has displaced many of their traditional students, who have since sought enrollment in the community colleges; and

Whereas, Faculty play an essential role in describing the appropriate contexts for interpreting student success data;

Whereas, According to AB 1725, student success, along with curriculum, program review, and assessment, comes under the purview of faculty; and

Whereas, The Senate has worked with the Research and Planning Group to develop the Student Success Conference and other activities assisting faculty with assessment, research, student learning outcomes, and understanding data;

Whereas, The document “The Accelerated Learning College: A Proposal for California Community Colleges,” dated April 16, 2009, is a proposal by several California community college presidents that seeks “relief from legislative and regulatory requirements” and outlines changes that are inconsistent with established Academic Senate positions in the functioning of a select group of pilot colleges;

Whereas, Students graduating high school need to be prepared to either attend college, go to work or join the military, or make other life choices that require knowledge or skills learned in high school;

Whereas, In this context “college ready” means a graduate is likely to be successful entering into college and “career ready” means a graduate is likely to be successful moving into a pathway that will prepare him/her for a specific job, such as entering into an apprenticeship program or entry level job; and

Whereas, The Legislative Analyst’s Office December 2012 report, “Restructuring California’s Adult Education System” and the January 2013 Governor’s Omnibus Education trailer bill and SB 173 (Liu, as of April 8, 2013) have all proposed cutting noncredit instruction, thereby eliminating older adults, parenting, home economics, and health and safety;

Whereas, Some California community colleges have suggested that colleges should award degrees or certificates to all students who complete all requirements for a degree or certificate, whether the student has applied for the degree or certificate or not;

Whereas, The practice of automatically awarding degrees or certificates would not compromise academic standards since students would still be required to meet the same requirements as those who have applied for degrees or certificates; and

Whereas, In Spring 2011, 68% of the California community college students were non-white students, and the fastest growing student population in California is Latino students, which make-up 34% of the California community colleges or over 603,000 students (according to the CCC Chancellor’s Office DataMart) and are projected to be the majority of the students by 2019;

Whereas, A major hurdle in applying for full-time teaching positions lies in filling out each district's unique job application form; and

Whereas, The information collected in such documents is virtually identical;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges explore which parts of the California Community College application process might be standardized to facilitate employment opportunities for college teaching.