For many years, the diversity of the faculty has been a topic of discussion and concern in the California community colleges. Many researchers and others have noted the benefits of a more diverse faculty in terms of both the cultures of our institutions and, more importantly, student success[1].
At its Spring Plenary Session of 2014, the Academic Senate passed resolution 01.05 Evaluate Representative Positions of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Executive Committee:
Whereas, The number and possibly the geographical distribution of local member senates is different today than when the representative positions (Area A, B, C, D, North, South, and At-large) of the Executive Committee were established;
In January of 2012, the Student Success Task Force published its final report with recommendations that would impact in multiple ways the California Community College System. In September 2014, Chancellor Brice Harris announced that by Fall 2015 the system would have addressed all 22 of these recommendations and was thus in a position to embark on another state level policy initiative. Therefore, at its November 2014 meeting the Board of Governors commissioned a new Task Force on Workforce, Job Creation, and a Strong Economy to examine workforce preparation education in California.
Assembly Bill 86 (2013) requires regional consortia of adult education systems to confer and address the following areas:
Interest has increased in recent years regarding the expansion of access to courses through the growth of online[1] education offerings. During the Great Recession and with subsequent reductions in course offerings, policy makers and politicians viewed the expansion of student access to higher education through increased online education offerings as a cost-efficient panacea for the access problems that California college students in all segments faced. In the 2013-14 state budget, the California legislature authorized funding for the Online E
At its Spring 2013 Plenary Session, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) passed resolution 19.07, which stated,
Faculty members are interested in developing innovative, vibrant, engaging curriculum. They can generate creative ideas and topics for courses that may appeal to students and be interesting to teach. However, simple creativity and appeal are not the only factors to consider when determining whether a course should be developed.
With the current state and national focus on student completion, colleges are exploring ways to increase the number of degrees and certificates awarded annually to students in order to demonstrate that their students are completing their educational goals. While our students may have other goals besides earning a degree or certificate, the reality is that policy makers and legislators have emphasized the importance of students earning degrees and certificates. Since policy makers influence legislators, and because legislators hold the purse strings, colleges need to demonstrate to the pub
One of the core pieces of the Academic Senate’s mission statement is that ASCCC “fosters the effective participation by community college faculty in all statewide and local academic and professional matters; develops, promotes, and acts upon policies responding to statewide concerns.” While the members of the Executive Committee act as representatives in statewide discussions, the executive committee cannot fulfill this mission alone.
Those of us who have been in the California Community College system for several years are familiar with the fluctuations that happen in our budgets. While the great recession of the past five years has been unusually difficult, faculty are well aware that one of the first things to be cut from college budgets is almost always professional development. Recent events, however, seem to indicate an increasing recognition that professional development for faculty, as well as the rest of the college community, is an essential element of ensuring that students receive the best educational oppor