President’s Update - February 2008
The Update is intended to inform local senates of significant issues. Comments may be sent to the Academic Senate at info@asccc.org. Please copy and distribute this Update to all faculty! Share it with full- and part-time faculty, as well as with your administration and board.
In the Chinese calendar, we have just entered the Year of the Rat. Both my mother and I were born in the Year of the Rat, and my mother said over lunch the other day that this would be a significant year for both of us. Some of the characteristics of those born in the year of the Rat include hard work, thriftiness, and charm. Clearly all three of these characteristics will be needed in large measure in this challenging year.
State Budget
The System Office has done an exceptional job at communicating with the districts, and by and large, it appears that districts have been thoughtful and measured in their responses to the Governor’s mid-year cuts. While the System was originally saddled with a proposed mid-year cut of $40m, transparent efforts on the part of the System to identify cuts and ongoing conversation with the Legislature has resulted in the System’s share of cuts to K-14 being reduced to $31m. While some feared that the cuts would come from monies already allocated to districts but not yet distributed, this has not turned out to be the case. One third of the cuts come from unspent categorical funds from 2005-2006 and 2006-2007. The bulk of the cuts come from unspent categorical funds for 2007-2008 in the areas of workforce and economic development and career and technical education. As a result, districts should feel no hit from these mid-year cuts.
The same cannot be said for what might happen in 2008-2009. The latest news is that the state will have a $16b shortfall rather than a $14.4b shortfall, resulting in the Governor’s recent call for an additional 1.5% reduction in agency expenditures above the 10% already called for previously. With the System Office already at bare bones, Chancellor Woodruff is focusing on preserving the jobs of all current System Office staff and leaving vacancies unfilled to achieve these economies.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has also released its report on how to deal with the shortfall. With the defeat of Proposition 92, it’s hardly surprising that one of the suggestions from the LAO is to increase community college student fees back up to $26, continuing the roller-coaster practice of fee setting.
The Governor has also proposed a 10% cut in all state expenditures. In addition to the cuts to the System Office, this means proposed cuts to all categorical funds such as DSPS, EOPS, and Basic Skills funds. The System is working hard to convey to legislators and the Governor the short-sightedness of this “share the pain” approach. Which leads me to…
Legislative Advocacy
Three major legislative events are scheduled in the next two months, through which the System hopes to convey to the Legislature and the Governor the importance of preserving System funding. The first is a legislative advocacy day on March 4, following the Board of Governors meeting in Sacramento. Teams of 4-6 community college representatives, including faculty, administrators, trustees, staff, students, and a System Vice-Chancellor, will be making visits to legislator offices and making a case for the community colleges. There will be eight teams and two visits per team, for a total of sixteen visits.
The second event is a Rally for Higher Education being coordinated by the Community College League of California (CCLC) for April 1 in Sacramento. The hope is to bring students, faculty, staff, trustees and community supporters to Sacramento to call attention to threats to our colleges and to protect the chance for every Californian to go to college. Information regarding the event will be updated at http://www.april1rally.org/.
The third event is being organized by the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates (ICAS), which the ASCCC is chairing this year. The event is scheduled for April 2, and we are working with FACCC to arrange for meetings with legislators to talk about the budget from a unified higher education perspective.
Accountability Reporting for the Community Colleges (ARCC)
In its second year, colleges should now be more familiar with the ARCC report required by AB1417. Districts received a copy of their latest reports at the end of January and should be in the process of crafting their self-assessments related to the data in the reports, which are due at the end of February. Last year, this 500-word document was called a “response,” and the LAO and the Department of Finance (DOF) were dissatisfied with the quality of the responses received. Many colleges simply provided public relations pieces and failed to respond to the data in the report. The term “self-assessment” makes the purpose of this document clear. Colleges need to reflect on the data, good and bad, and examine how they achieved these good results or how they need to do better in 2008. These self-assessments are published as part of the full ARCC report, and ideally, colleges should be involving all constituencies, especially faculty, in the drafting and review of the self-assessment that is being submitted. The deadline for the response is February 29 at 5:00p.
Major Projects
There is an enormous amount of energy surrounding the Academic Senate’s three major grant-funded projects.
Basic Skills: The ASCCC is working closely with Foothill-DeAnza CCD on phase III of the Basic Skills Initiative. With a focus on professional development to support college efforts to implement Basic Skills Action Plans (due in May), the project has a very aggressive timeline and a full slate of activities and resources rolling out over the course of the coming year. The project continues under the direction of Barbara Illowsky, and you can find out more at http://www.cccbsi.org.
Statewide Career Pathways: The Academic Senate’s work on improving articulation between high schools and community colleges in the area of career and technical education has garnered the strong support of the Legislature due to its success in bringing community college and high school faculty and administrators together. In mid-February, the project kicked off a major marketing campaign for the effort before a hundred members of the media. Project director Jane Patton was joined on the stage by Senator Jack Scott, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, Secretary of Education David Long, and Secretary of Labor Victoria Bradshaw. You can get a strong taste of what this project is doing at http://www.whodouwant2b.com/.
C-ID: Not as glamorous or as publicized as our other two projects, the C-ID has the potential to make a significant an impact on articulating courses between community colleges and among the segments of public higher education. The Course Identification project is working to provide each community college course with a unique identifier that can be used across campuses and systems. In some measure, this project takes up where the old CAN project left off, but a significant change is that this time, the University of California is involved. The project plans to build on the work of CAN, and in this pilot year, the project is working with courses in the areas of biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology. The project is being led by former Academic Senate President Kate Clark.
ASCCC Resources
In closing, I just want to remind all of you of the wealth of resources available to you in the approved papers of the Academic Senate. In particular, I call to your attention What’s Wrong with Student Fees? Renewing the Commitment to No-Fee, Open-Access Community Colleges in California, of particular importance in this difficult budget climate, and Textbook Issues: Economic Pressures and Academic Values, which deals with a major issue in affordability for our students. Many faculty have recently asked for advice about planning and budget, and the ASCCC paper The Faculty Role in Planning and Budgeting may be of use. And finally, it is important to remember that difficult budgetary times always affect our part-time colleagues more severely than those with full-time positions. The Academic Senate paper Part-Time Faculty: A Principled Perspective provides a good foundation for local discussions and action.
Happy Year of the Rat.
Mark Wade Lieu
President
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