May

According to the Honors Transfer Council of California (HTCC) website (http://www.honorstcc.org), over 50 of the California community colleges belong to the council, represented by an honors or scholars' program director (a faculty member) and a designated honors or scholars' counselor. The Equity and Diversity Action Committee's survey of honor programs administered earlier this year elicited 58 college responses, though only 36 from colleges with an honors or scholars' program.

At last year's spring plenary, the Equity and Diversity Action Committee invited Dr. Arturo Ocampo, Diversity Director at San Jose/Evergreen Community College District and Project Director of the Model Equal Employment Opportunity Plan, to present an overview of the different components to the plan. At the breakout, he highlighted elements of the plan and recommended annual training in several key areas, particularly in diversity and cultural proficiency.

Information competency is a topic that has been discussed by the Academic Senate, especially through breakouts facilitated by the Senate's Curriculum Committee and the Counseling and Library Faculty Issues Committee. This is not just a library issue, but is of importance to all faculty. And it is becoming even more relevant as many groups, including the Senate, the System Office, CIOs, CSSOs and CEOs, discuss and implement the Basic Skills Initiative.

The Academic Senate has been designated in Education Code (87357) as being responsible for developing the lists of minimum qualifications for service as a faculty member, commonly known as the Disciplines List. The List currently consists of two categories of minimum qualifications, the one category being for those disciplines in which a Master's is available and the other category for those disciplines that do not generally offer a Master's degree (commonly known as the "non-Master's list").

I had the opportunity to participate in three breakouts for the Spring 2007 Plenary Session on three different and divergent topics. I will relate my three breakouts in three of my different personas-as the chair of the Legislative and Governmental Relations Committee, as a member of the Standards and Practices committee, and as a library faculty member.

Legislation-What's Happening in Sacramento and DC?
by Dan Crump, Chair of the Legislative and Governmental Relations Committee

"Every happy family is alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way."

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

In Spring 2006, the Senate passed Resolution 13.05, "Research the Effectiveness of Multi-College Districts," which includes the following resolves:

In Sept 2005 I wrote a Rostrum article called How Much Do You Know About Your Academic Senate? (available at asccc.org) which recommended that senate leaders take the time to educate others about the senate's roles-something we learn quite well at Faculty Leadership Institute each June! A companion to the article was a PowerPoint presentation, based on the one presented at Leadership Institutes, that explains the authority and responsibilities of faculty as laid out in Education Code and Title 5 (the 10+1).

After a long first day at Spring Plenary of basically nothing but Title 5 (T5) discussions, Friday's breakouts were, for me, a change of pace. Instead of the complexities of dealing with T5 (we are now on the most intimate of terms), I got to change gears and focus on things which were far simpler (ha!).

"Money, money, money makes the world go around, world go around!" But first we need a plan! The System Office and the Department of Education are working together to develop a fiveyear plan for Career and Technical Education (CTE) for the State of California. In January they began the inclusive process with a series of three two-day meetings. There are 45 participants from a wide variety of groups of representatives who are critical to the functioning of the CTE system including industry, high school faculty, and Economic and Workforce Development Program representatives, to name a few.

By the time this article reaches the press the furor over the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, AKA Nancy Shulock's The Rules of the Game¹ will have died down some. However, the need to address some of the problems within our system will remain-and should be addressed with an approach that respects the role community colleges are supposed to play as they maintain their commitment to access.