| Speaking of the
Senate by Peggy Renner |
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Peggy Renner, |
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Once again the spring meeting
of the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges (ASCCC), held
from May 1- 3, was intense. I have several items to share—the budget,
graduation requirements, teaching basic skills, the student equity plan,
and several task force reports. Budget
The budget
was clearly the hottest, but certainly not the only item on which I want
to report. On that front, we reviewed the several projected budget
scenarios on the table at the beginning of May—one from the governor’s
office, another from the Consultation Council, still another from FACCC,
and another, and another. I won’t dare repeat the numbers—we all know
that these budgets are tentative at this point. Everyone was offering
thoughts on the budget while waiting for the May revise of the
governor’s budget. In the interim, several have developed projections on
what we face, depending on the real income the state will have, depending
on the winners in the debates over how to allocate those funds, depending
on how we attend to the budget short-fall—whether we try to revise the
way the state budget is done or delay that for “better years” (which
never seem to come) and pretend we can shove today’s problems off into
the future. If I repeated “depending” several times—it isn’t
because I haven’t learned to write. And I won’t share those
discussions because everyone agreed that they were speculating. One fact I
can pass on—one that really hit hard—was to find that Glendale
Community College ranks 69th on the table of Funding Per
Full-time Credit Student by District. We out-rank Southwestern, Riverside,
and Santa Monica—if that is anything to brag about. What it means is
that our FTE ($3,556) puts us more than $400 below the state average.
Think what equalization would mean for us. Considerable
attention was given to that issue. Clearly some districts do not want to
see any change. The Los Angeles District (FTE $3,962 and 19th on the list) would be
adversely effected by changes in the funding. Imagine what Kern
(FTE $8209 and 1st
on the list) would say. Then we also have to think about the funding
formula for K-12 and the community colleges and how those compare with the
California State Universities and the Universities of California. These
are tasks that have a long history, and it is easy to become cynical about
them. But just ignoring it will not solve the problem. The ASCCC plans to
join forces with the other groups that speak for the community colleges,
the unions and FACCC. Graduation Requirements Another
important item on the ASCCC agenda was the issue of changing the
graduation requirement. Clearly the issue is complex and the ASCCC agreed
that difficult questions demand careful review. So the subject is being
sent back to us. The resolution reads “That the ASCCC urge(s) local
senates to engage their campuses in a full discussion of possible options
and approaches for addressing the level of English and mathematics courses
required for graduation, as well as discussion of advantages,
disadvantages and consequences of any such changes.” What we report will
be the focus of a paper that will share the many perspectives on the
issue. I want to
thank the many of you who e-mailed me your thoughts on the “Issues”
list serve. I was able to relay your ideas and concerns. Others were
impressed with the way we communicated, using the list serve, and with the
points you made. I do think we need to continue our discussion next year,
both in terms of what it would mean for our students and what it says
about our expectations for a college degree. Many are concerned about the
budget implications of such a change. Can we afford to do this now? And in
similar fashion many have raised questions about the standards we should
set for a college degree. Just so you know, I voted to continue this
discussion next year. I hope we can ask the Chaparral for space so that many can see the
points to consider on our campus. Teaching Basic Skills Still
another point of concern relates to basic skills—what we are doing to
address the pressing needs to develop the basic skills of our students. We
already know that we have students who have come to us without the
preparation needed to succeed. We are also seeing students sent back to us
from the CSUs who have not developed these skills. The ASCCC would like to
open up a discussion of options and approaches for integrating basic
skills into our programs college-wide. Student Equity Plan Next year
GCC will be asked to submit our Student Equity Plan to the Chancellor’s
office. Some of you may remember that we completed one of these in the
early 1990s. Scot Spicer and I recall that we thought we had attended to
this report last fall. But it seems that the Chancellor’s office has a
model in mind for a “good” student equity plan, but that office has
not passed that on to us. Many colleges were frustrated by the ambiguity
on what constitutes a “good” student equity plan. So the ASCCC has
agreed to devote time in the coming months to working with the
Chancellor’s office to gain better direction. This information will be
forthcoming in the fall. All this becomes important because we need to
have a plan ready to send in by the spring of next year. Task Force Reports Finally,
several reports were approved that might be of interest to you. In the
interest of saving money, we do not want to make copies of these, but we
are happy to lend them to you. These include: “The Consultation Council
Task Force on Counseling,” which explores the roles of counselors and
proposes an effective counselor/student ratio;
“A Survey of Effective Practices in Basic Skills,” which offers
a survey of the literature on practices that prove effective and
recommends ways of achieving those goals; and “The Impact of Computer
Technology on Student Access and Success in the California Community
Colleges,” which addresses a host of questions related to student access
to and success in using computer technology. & |
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