Curriculum

Whereas the Chancellor's Office has not reviewed stand-alone courses for some time, having delegated that task to local curriculum committees and local governing boards, and

Whereas the local academic senates, administrators, and governing boards have established and maintained curriculum approval processes that have integrity and are designed to ensure that all approved courses meet appropriate Title 5 Requirements and academic standards, including rigor, and

Whereas the Chancellor's Office has asserted that it needs to resume review of stand-alone courses and has proposed language in the Program and Course Approval and Reporting Handbook that would exclude "courses in study skills and college orientation, and other guidance, counseling, or personal development courses" from blanket approval accorded to other stand-alone courses, and

Whereas guidelines for course approval have changed since the publication of the Program and Course Approval and Reporting Handbook, and

Whereas a re-examination of the regulations for approval of stand-alone courses is now underway, and

Whereas changes in the procedures for the approval of stand-alone courses are likely,

Resolved that the Academic Senate work with the Chancellor's Office to revise the Program and Course Approval and Reporting Handbook, and

Whereas ethnomathematics or multicultural, global mathematics has been recognized by conference nationally, internationally, and statewide, and

Whereas mathematics remains a gatekeeper/gateway course for many of our students, and

Whereas mathematics classes have a high dropout or attrition rate (some say 30% actually finish the classes), and

Whereas the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has certainly always supported a variety of intellectual pursuits and student success is a key component of Academic Senate activity,

Whereas the IGETC/CSU GE Breadth Requirements Evaluation Committee has the task of reading 600-700 courses submitted by 107 community colleges each year to determine whether or not these courses meet the criteria for granting IGETC and/or CSU general education credit in the categories requested by the community colleges, and

Whereas the Community College Articulation Numbering System (CCAN) Model was endorsed by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges at its Spring 1999 Plenary Session, and

Whereas the CCAN Model was adopted by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors in March 1999, and

Whereas the CCAN Model complements the articulation work in CAN, ASSIST, IMPAC, and IGETC, and

Whereas the students in the California community colleges will benefit from articulation agreements that begin with faculty dialogues,

Whereas an increasingly large number of students take courses at more than one California community college, and

Whereas it is often difficult for students to identify the role of a course as transfer, degree applicable, or nondegree applicable, especially when moving to a new college, and

Whereas some colleges use a numbering system (numeric taxonomy) that associates a range of numbers with a particular type of course (for example, <100 = transfer, 100 - 199 = applicable nontransfer, 200 - 299 = nondegree applicable), and

Whereas there are striking inconsistencies among California community colleges in the standards they apply for awarding degree-applicable credit for English as a Second Language (ESL) courses and in how ESL courses relate to English sequences, and

Whereas California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (CATESOL) is currently developing a paper on the status of ESL courses, that will address these inconsistencies and related issues, and

Whereas the "Articulation of Math and Language Sequences" may be used to grant course approval for stand-alone basic skills courses, and

Whereas this document was published in 1994 and has never been reviewed and updated,

Resolved that the Academic Senate review and revise as necessary the "Articulation of Math and Language Sequence" and publish its results at a future session.

Resolved that the Academic Senate adopt the paper "State of Basic Skills Instruction in California Community Colleges."