Have you checked out the new Senate website? On September 1, 2010, the Senate launched its new website. The Senate site now has a number of new features to enhance the work of the Senate as well as provide local senates and the California college community with important and current information. Some of the new features are:
Established in 1998 by the Academic Senate, the Stanback Stroud Diversity Award recognizes one California community college faculty member each year who has shown outstanding commitment to diversity. “It publicly acknowledges the individual who performs in an exceptional manner to advance intercultural harmony, equity, and campus diversity by making exceptional contributions to the college beyond usual obligations.”
(Presented to the Board of Governors at their July 2010 meeting and reprinted with the author’s permission)
Let’s start with some big picture facts:
I now really understand why folks say that legislation is like making sausage. You don’t want to know what goes into it or why.
One legitimate concern many California community college (CCC) faculty have is the fear that adoption of OER materials will jeopardize the ability of their course or their students to receive credit at four-year colleges and universities. At least among California's public four-year institutions, this fear is largely unfounded, though there are some precautions faculty should observe.
What's a Textbook?
Dear Julie,
Our district CEO and governing board president have asked the counseling faculty to provide evidence of "what they do." The counselors have to account for every hour that they are on campus during the week, list committee assignments, and other duties. The counselors feel insulted by this request, and other discipline faculty are concerned that they could be required to do the same. What can we do?
-Feeling Depressed in Southern California
Dear F.D.I.S.C.,
I would like to take this opportunity to refresh some of the ideals I learned about curriculum and what it is supposed to be, while also reviewing why what ought be an evolving and continually improving process ends up being a product that can be packaged, stamped and shipped as needed.
That all of our students are basic skills students has been a consistent assertion and reminder at breakouts and discussions throughout the California Community College System for the past couple of years. Yet, in my day-to-day teaching, I had not often thought about basic skills students in my classes, largely because courses in my discipline, History, have an advisory that students be eligible for college-level English.
Marcel Proust stated "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." As our local senates start to plan for the year and set their goals, this is the perfect time to view our landscape with new eyes.
We tend to get so wrapped up in our old issues, problems and relationships that we lose our "vision."
So how can we refocus with a new lens and sharpen and renew our vision for our students, faculty and college community?
"Now, I must warn you that the most stringent Anti-Cheating Charms have been applied to your examination papers. Auto-Answer Quills are banned from the examination hall, as are Remembralls, Detachable Cribbing Cuffs, and Self-Correcting Ink. Every year, I am afraid to say, seems to harbor at least one student who thinks that he or she can get around the Wizarding Examinations Authority's rules. I can only hope that it is nobody in Gryffindor."
-Professor McGonagall, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.