After a long first day at Spring Plenary of basically nothing but Title 5 (T5) discussions, Friday's breakouts were, for me, a change of pace. Instead of the complexities of dealing with T5 (we are now on the most intimate of terms), I got to change gears and focus on things which were far simpler (ha!).
"Money, money, money makes the world go around, world go around!" But first we need a plan! The System Office and the Department of Education are working together to develop a fiveyear plan for Career and Technical Education (CTE) for the State of California. In January they began the inclusive process with a series of three two-day meetings. There are 45 participants from a wide variety of groups of representatives who are critical to the functioning of the CTE system including industry, high school faculty, and Economic and Workforce Development Program representatives, to name a few.
By the time this article reaches the press the furor over the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, AKA Nancy Shulock's The Rules of the Game1 will have died down some. However, the need to address some of the problems within our system will remain-and should be addressed with an approach that respects the role community colleges are supposed to play as they maintain their commitment to access.
Resolution F06 9.03 called on the Academic Senate to conduct a survey of the certificate and degree programs in California community colleges to determine which information competency requirements have been implemented by which colleges. Serendipitously, Shawna Hellenius, an instructional librarian at Cosumnes River College conducted such a survey in Fall 2005 for a sabbatical project. She kindly shares a summary of her sabbatical report in this article.
"The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices-submit or fight"
Nelson Mandela
At Spring Session we examined the delicate balance between cooperating with colleagues who hold a different opinion of issues, versus confronting them. You heard the suggestion that automatic, public confrontation, while perhaps immediately satisfying, is not always an effective long-term strategy. And you've seen the results of recent attempts by the Academic Senate to better cooperate with groups such as statewide administrative organizations, the System Office and the Board of Governors.
This year's Faculty Leadership Institute will be held from June 14-16, 2007, at Hayes Mansion Hotel in San Jose. This year's Institute will be infused with a medical theme, just to make things interesting. Whether you are a medical student, an intern, or a resident, you are sure to gain something to help you to improve the health of your local senate. This Institute is designed for your current or developing local senate leaders, providing them with the knowledge they need to be effective leaders.
At the Academic Senate's first ever Teaching Institute, I had the privilege of facilitating a lively conversation regarding online teaching. I refer to it as a "conversation" because interaction was encouraged and the discussion was as much a part of the presentation as the guiding PowerPoint (available at www.asccc.org). With the able assistance of Elizabeth Fremgen from Glendale College, we covered a wide variety of issues related to online teaching.
"To teach or not to teach." That was the original question. And for the Academic Senate Executive Committee the question was, "Do we have a Teaching Institute or do we leave that to the other fine efforts around the state such as the Great Teachers Seminars and the many fine Teacher Graduate Programs which abound?"
Well, given the 200 odd years of combined teaching experience possessed by your Executive team it was a no-brainer to give it a try. In pulling all this together, however, a number of semi-colliding elements began bouncing into each other.
During the recent Vocational Leadership Institute, attendees heard about a new project.