As education continues its trend towards mimicking the world of big business, the reliance on part-time employees as a means of cost-cutting increases. This calls for organizations that are concerned with academic and professional matters, such as the ASCCC, to take a position on such trends and to consider the value of full-time faculty members in a truly academic way.
Professional development for faculty met its "fork in the road" in 2002 when funding was cut from the state budget. For some colleges faculty development has been at the fork in the road waiting for the light to change or directions and nothing has been given to them. Well, it's time to move on and find a new way. This does NOT mean we give up on funding, but rather focus on what we can do now to maintain our professionalism and integrity despite no funding.
It is long past the time to make sure that processes and policies that determine how Distance Education (DE) is conducted at your college are effective and well established. While such processes and policies should have been in place when colleges began using de, it is apparent that they often are not and the need for such quality assurances is ever-increasing. In the last two years we have seen a significant drop in enrollments in the California Community College system.
At the Fall 2005 Plenary Session in Pasadena, in keeping with the session theme "Managing Conflict by Balancing Principles with Pragmatism," the Relations with local Senates Committee facilitated a discussion about issues that local senates face. The discussion was framed around three topics:
While the target population for community colleges is adults 18 and over, the fact is that more and more minors, those under the age of 18, are appearing on our campuses. With this increase in minors on campus, colleges must face an important reality: course content, pedagogy, legal responsibility, and safety provisions for minors will be impacted in an environment that normally caters to adults.
While the precipitous demise of the California Articulation Numbering (CAN) system in Spring 2005 caused panic in many circles, a new course numbering system is emerging like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes that will take the best features of CAN and build on them to provide greater utility to the california community colleges and their students. this phoenix has been christened the course Identification system, or C-ID for short.
Although it is almost 16 years later, the memory is still bittersweet. I had just been offered a full-time position at Santa Monica College (SMC), and while attending a non-SMC event, I met a part-time Santa Monica College instructor, who whispered loudly to me when we were introduced, "Well, it's good you got the job as long as you don't mind that you're an affirmative action hire." I had a Ph.D. in U.S.
Some colleagues argue that the business of California community college academic senates (CCCAS) has been defined in law and regulation, enshrined in the passage of AB1725, leading to the strengthening of CCCAS by incorporating into code and regulation the position that CCCAS are responsible for the so-called 10+1 academic and professional matters.
An interesting assemblage of characters inhabits our current accreditation drama, and the effect is not unlike the cheesiest of soap operas except that we are all actors upon this stage. Among our players is the tripartite of Wasc (Western association of schools and colleges), with its commissions for schools, two-year colleges, and senior colleges and universities (trademark phrase: "culture of evidence").
Traditionally, proposed changes to the disciplines list were considered once every three years. Imagine this: in a new year's Resolution induced epiphany, a faculty member conceives of a change to the disciplines list that will solve a myriad of problems in community college classrooms statewide. Depending on the timing of the epiphany, our eager faculty member might have to wait two years to introduce the proposed change, then wait a year for the change review process, then wait for the board of governors to implement the change. talk about a recipe for frustration.