Local Senates Handbook

2020
Topic
Academic Senate
Committee
Relations with Local Senates Committee

The Local Senates Handbook has been compiled by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges’ Relations With Local Senates Committee to be a resource for new and experienced academic senate presidents, providing them with information and context to support them being effective faculty leaders.

To view our full handbook, please download the  Local Senates Handbook PDF  or read the Local Senates Handbook online version

This handbook is organized into five parts:

  • Part I: The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges: A Brief History
    This section provides a short history of academic senates in the California Community College System with links to important historical documents that provide the context for how senates operate today.
  • Part II: Roles and Responsibilities of the Academic Senate
    This section of the handbook deals with the legal underpinnings which define and support the operation of academic senates. The first part of this section, The Legal Basis: Education Code, Title 5, Accreditation, and Local Implementation explains pertinent legislation, California Education Code, Title 5 Regulations, and local board of trustees’ policies and regulations. The second part of this section, College Governance, Senate/Collective Bargaining Unit Relations, and Senate Roles in Accreditation, presents effective practices and information regarding collegial consultation, building and maintaining effective relationships between senates and collective bargaining units, and the role of the senates in accreditation.
  • Part III. Duties as a Local Senate President
    This part of the handbook contains sections on the general duties of a senate president, recommendations for developing senate participation and leadership, a list of college or district reports which require the sign-off of the senate president, and effective practices in appointing faculty to committees.
  • Part IV. Ensuring the Effectiveness of the Local Academic Senate
    This section of the handbook provides some effective practices for working with a college administration, running efficient local academic senate meetings, adapting the ASCCC Resolution process for a local academic senate, keeping the faculty informed, and engaging faculty participation.
    This section also offers a list of resources to keep archived in senate files and an explanation of how a Technical Visit can assist in institutionalizing a senate’s effectiveness.
  • Part V. Linking Local Senates to the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
    This section contains information on how the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges operates and the services that it offers to assist local senates. This handbook has been prepared to be read cover-to-cover by new senate leaders or to be used as a specific problem solving reference handbook. The California Community College System is complex. Often in this handbook information seems to be repeated in different sections. This repetition was purposeful to both serve a user who is looking for the answer to a specific question and to allow for different nuanced approaches to the information pertaining to the different sections.