"Putting out fires, that's all I ever do." This observation came, alas, not from a Fire Technology student but from an academic senate president who felt she never had time to tackle the real and pressing issues that impede educational excellence at her college. The need to be proactive as well as reactive confronts not only local senate presidents but the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges as well.
With all the activities occurring at our colleges, the ones with due dates and compliance requirements often rise and stay at the top of the to-do list. That means that issues like hiring diverse faculty, developing culturally-competent curriculum, or increasing student equity find a home on the back burners until there is motivation to move these issues to the front. The next academic year, 2009-2010, will be the right time to bring to the forefront all of those simmering, yet important discussions of equity and diversity. The reasons why next year is so opportune follow.
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges strongly support discussions among community college faculty and with colleagues from the University of California and California State University about the development of sustainability curriculum; and
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges offer breakouts on the development of sustainability curriculum in career technical education, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and liberal arts areas at the Spring 2009 Plenary Session. (Resolution 9.04 F08)
For a friend, it was the best of times, yet it was the worst of times. He had bought a beautiful new carpet for the living room, but rather than enjoy his new floor covering, the result was that he became uncomfortably aware of the dinginess of the paint on the walls and the shoddy condition of the baseboards.
In a similar way, when we in the community colleges work to address one issue, we often end up becoming uncomfortably aware of others. Such is the case with our work on the proper coding of our courses for MIS reporting.
With the introduction of the 2002 Accreditation Standards, California community college faculty tentatively waded into the waters of Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) and assessment. At a Spring 2009 plenary breakout session, some preliminary results were presented from a recent survey of SLO coordinators conducted by the Academic Senate's Accreditation and SLO Committee. In the survey, which will be more fully reported in a forthcoming Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) paper, most of the respondents stated that their colleges had waded into the SLO waters by 2008.
As the Academic Senate celebrates its 40th anniversary, the Senate enters into a new era. The 40 years of the Senate's existence has marked an incredible journey. When you think about the Academic Senate, many of you might think about the role the Senate plays in academic and professional matters. Some of you might also consider us an organization that provides professional development such as in our many initiatives, institutes, and other events. You might even think about the work we do for the disciplines including directing the disciplines list revision process.
Have you ever read "McElligot's Pool" by Dr. Seuss? A young boy named Marco is chided by an old farmer for choosing to fish in a particular pond. The farmer says:
"You're sort of a fool! You'll never catch a fish In McElligot's Pool! You might catch a boot Or you might catch a can. You might catch a bottle, But listen, young man..If you sat fifty years With your worms and your wishes, You'd grow a long beard Long before you caught fishes!" (Geisel, p. 27)
Curriculum is the hub of our academic activities, the learning center from which the many important spokes emanate creating the learning environment for our students. For the last decade we have been catching up to the massive changes affecting the world of curriculum-changes in Instructional Technology, Distance Education, Title 5, as well as green and global curriculum issues and many others.
For over fifteen years, since the popular explosion of the Internet in the early 1990's, computers and online information resources have been evolving from cutting-edge instructional enhancements into an essential aspect of lifelong learning and daily life. It is no longer enough for students to know how to find resources for assignments by using a library catalog to locate five or six books on a topic for their paper.
Resolutions 1.03 F05 and 1.02 F07 (available on the Academic Senate website at http://www.asccc.org/resources/resolutions) seek to examine and research reassigned time issues. In the former resolution the Senate was asked to survey the field, which has been done annually for several years, and report; in the latter it was asked to do further research and expand upon this; and both resolutions emphasized the need to determine best practices.