CHAPARRAL

Now and again, I intend to write a column that is not meant to be the opinion of the Senate as much as it is the result of my thinking about community colleges, given my Senate experience over the years.  This is one of those columns.

     In 1992, my family and I went to Changsha in Hunan province in China to adopt our second daughter.  Eleven years later we returned to Changsha to show our daughter her motherland.  The city, however, was virtually impossible to recognize:  so much economic change had been wrought, that we couldn’t even recognize the same hotel where we had spent three weeks in 1992.

     This is my second term as president of the Senate.  My last term ended in 2000 and I am experiencing something of the “Changsha” effect as I settle into the job.  The most immediately noticeable difference is that the players have changed.  Only five of the present twenty-four senators were there in 2000.  On Institute day, we saw a very large class of new faculty come aboard.  More obviously, three of the top four administrators are new, including the superintendent/president.  Also notable is that four of the five trustees are new.  This kind of change, at least at the level of the administration, is not new at California community colleges—many colleges are experiencing a kind of musical chairs.  But against the backdrop of John Davitt’s twenty- plus years leading the college, it is a degree of change that we were distinctly unused to.  On top of that, the new administration and the Board have taken a more hands-on and less laissez-faire attitude to the workings of the college.  And it is this latter attitude which has caused something of a bumpy ride in relations between the faculty on the one hand and the Board and administration on the other.

     Not only have the players changed, but also the issues.  When I review the agendas of 1999-2000, I see some continuity between then and now:  the need to assess students upon entry to the college, reform of the flex policy, and faculty web pages. But the most noticeable difference is the greatly increased emphasis on planning and outcomes.  While there were master planning and program review in the past, the number and breadth of plans (strategic, educational, facilities, technology—have I left a plan out?) is now greater, and program review is rapidly turning into something other than a “shelf document.”  Add to this the mandate to elaborate our student learning outcome assessment cycle with its multiple measures and you have explained much that occupies the attention of the Senate these days.  The grand plan is to link all of these plans to each other as well as to the budget. This intensified emphasis on planning is a direct result of the increasing irresistible pressure being exerted on us by the accreditation process.

     And, of course, we are not alone in these changes.  I have just come back from the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges fall conference where accreditation and SLOs still are at the center of discussion and controversy.  Why the controversy?  I think the concern was best expressed at the conference in a resolution that called for “A Document of an Academic Culture,” authored by Greg Gilbert of Copper Mountain College.  In that resolution one “whereas” in particular cut to the chase:

 Whereas, It is of vital importance that all community college employees are reminded that just because an institution has a budget, it doesn’t mean that it is a business; that just because our students pay fees, they are not customers; and just because managers have adopted such titles as CIO, CEO, and CBO, they are not corporate officers but managers whose jobs are to provide the necessary resources for all faculty to serve our students and missions…

    For many of us, both at the state level and here at the college, this is the central question:  are colleges going to rely primarily upon the faculty for articulating appropriate policies for academic and professional matters, or is authority going to be transferred upward and outward, away from faculty, departments, and divisions? I think the fact that the question has to be asked indicates that there is anxiety among some of us, myself included, that such faculty authority may be eroded.

     And this concern also suggests what the primary focus of the Senate will no doubt be in this academic year:  to clarify and adjust the roles of faculty, administration, and trustees to maintain our tradition of vigorous and productive shared governance.  The Senate and I would appreciate your input on these questions, so buttonhole us when you spot us on campus. &

back to top