CHAPARRAL

Once again the fall plenary of the Academic Senate of California Community Colleges addressed issues that are worth passing on to you. To colleagues in the sciences and counseling, the SciGETC curriculum plan was approved by the ASCCC and will begin to make its way through the final approval process.

       The science faculty from community colleges, the CSUs and UCs, who have been meeting as part of the IMPAC project for the last four years, developed SciGETC. The intent of this plan is to facilitate the transfer of students with majors in the sciences from the community colleges to the four-year schools. I can’t say what it means for each of the non-science disciplines, but if you are interested in figuring it out for your discipline, a copy of the plan is located in the Senate office.

     Also at the top of the agenda were the new accreditation standards, and specifically the call for community college faculty to develop Student Learning Outcomes, aka SLOs (no, not San Luis Obispo). The subject of a healthy and intense debate within the academy, SLOs represent both pedagogical and political change. It is not possible to open up that discussion of specifics here, but I suggest the paper approved by the ASCCC, a revised version of “The 2002 Accreditation Standards: Implementation” is worth reading because it addresses the benefits that other campuses have derived from the discussions of SLOs, and it takes a strong stand in favor of local autonomy, academic freedom, and students’ rights to privacy in this discussion.

     The GCC Senate has established the Student Learning Outcomes Task Force that is now at work on the subject. I have forwarded a copy of this accreditation paper to the chair of the task force, Denise Ezell. Let us know if you would like to see it. The GCC Senate anticipates a presentation about SLOs at its December meeting and to the entire faculty in the spring.

     The topic of changing the graduation requirement for English and math in Title V regulations did not come to closure at the plenary. Although the ASCCC did offer a paper to generate thinking on the subject, the paper did not arrive in time for most local senates to review it. That left some delegates anxious to table the discussion. Others were concerned that changes in the requirement would create still another barrier to the average student. Still others felt strongly that a student should be required to complete college level work to receive a college degree. Hidden beneath the surface some of the time was the issue of what this would mean for community college budgets. Would we find students turning away from college because the stakes were too high if we made college level English and math the requirements for graduation?

     Also on the agenda was student equity. In the early 1990s, state law was passed calling upon each campus to submit a Student Equity Plan. GCC dutifully complied and in the intervening years has dedicated resources designed to improve access, course completion, ESL and basic skills completion, degree and certificate completion, and transfer. Now we need to report what we have done to the System’s (aka the Chancellor’s) Office. So you may be asked by the Senate to contribute information about the subject.

     The increase in student fees in the last few years was also the topic of intense discussion. The paper entitled “What’s Wrong with Student Fees? Renewing the Commitment to No-Fee Open Access Community Colleges in California” reaffirms ASCCC belief that education should be available, without barriers, to all. Of course, how we get there is not agreed upon.

     We also learned that the Chancellor’s office is now called the “System” office. The change in language is supposed to remind us all that we are part of a larger entity beyond our own campus and that the chancellor is appointed to serve all of us. (Just wanted to let you know the new terminology so you can keep up.)&

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