April

The ASCCC Equity and Diversity Action Committee hopes that “closing the gap” does not become cliché, yet the phrase is seen and heard much more often in recent years. While many people have been pointing at equity gaps for some time, common language did not always exist around what it meant to close equity gaps. In a short two years, local community colleges’ guided pathways initiatives and implementation plans to bring their redesigns to scale, will be integrated into the Student Equity and Achievement (SEA) Program.

With the implementation of the California Community Colleges Guided Pathways Grant Program and AB 705 (Irwin, 2017), faculty requests increased statewide, asking for direction on how to effectively incorporate noncredit instruction to meet the educational needs of diverse student populations. In response, the delegates to the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) Spring 2018 Plenary Session passed Resolution S18 17.01, Noncredit Instruction in Guided Pathways Efforts.

The California Community Colleges system is in its third year of implementing guided pathways, and the state has invested a significant amount of money to support the effort at both the college and state levels. Some people are wondering where the money has gone, if it has made a difference, and what happens when it runs out. These issues lead to two important questions that faculty should ask:

The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) opposed the creation of baccalaureate degrees in the community colleges for nearly a decade, with opposition on record through resolutions starting in the spring of 2010. At that time, faculty leaders were concerned that the state was already in a position of budget cuts and that expanding the mission to include baccalaureate degrees would overtax the system and lead to monies being spent outside of the stated CCC mission of basic skills, transfer, and workforce.

The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges established the Hayward Award for Excellence in Education Program in 1989. Awards have been presented annually to honor community college faculty members who are selected by their peers for demonstrating the highest level of commitment to their students, colleges, and profession.

Nearly 16% of the full time equivalent students in the California Community College System in 2017-2018 were enrolled in distance education courses, according to DataMart from the CCC Chancellor’s Office. This percentage has doubled since a decade prior.

In order to best serve LBGTQ+ students, colleges must first help them to claim and nurture their identities on campuses that support and reflect them by providing targeted services and opportunities for the building of community and the fostering of academic success.

Note: The following article is not an official statement of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. The article is intended to engender discussion and consideration by local colleges.

Libraries can play an integral role in the guided pathways framework rolling out across the state; however, much uncertainty still exists regarding the ways in which libraries fit into a larger guided pathways framework.

In 2009, the Academic Senate adopted the paper Noncredit Instruction: Opportunity and Challenge, which described the state of noncredit instruction at that time and provided a set of recommendations for changes that could improve various aspects of noncredit instruction. In the 10 years since that paper was published, many things have changed for noncredit programs, and those changes are reflected in the updated paper Noncredit Instruction: Opportunity and Challenge, which will be presented for adoption at the Spring 2019 Plenary Session.