SERVING Students: Curriculum, Programs, Student Contacts

1. SERVING Students: Curriculum, Programs, Student Contacts Academic Senate for CA Community Colleges Leadership Institute June 2004

2. Session Description • Professional, rationale, responsible, forthright, honest, committed to students and their community: that describes the community college faculty we know and admire. And how do we as faculty exemplify and nurture these traits in our own leadership? This panel will preview thematic issues to be explored at this institute and suggest strategies they would have us consider.

3. When “Serving Students,” • what recipe shall we follow?

4. First: Resources(setting the tone) • “The Future of the Community College: A Faculty Perspective” (adopted Fall 1998) begins with a primary ingredient: • RESPECT for students, for our disciplines, and for our effective participation in local decision making. Available at <academicsenate.cc.ca.us>

5. This Paper acts as an early warning system: • though adopted in 1998, warns us that productivity models such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) will be promoted as a means of rendering educational institutions an extension of the marketplace. • According to the paper, the aim of TQM is productivity, conceived as “getting more for less.” Since ‘more is not necessarily better…the slogan ‘getting more from less,’ used as a pro forma marker of quality, is oxymoronic.

6. And goes on to say, that advocates of the managerial techniques of transnational corporations insist: “The faculty are the primary resistors to the implementation of necessary change. Managers, who understand that the college’s survival is at stake, must overcome this resistance, a task made inordinately onerous by institutions such as tenure and shared governance.”

7. Proponents of the corporate model will claim • that we should view our students as customers, and, as the saying goes, “the customer is always right.” The proponents will also claim that community colleges are threatened by competition from the private sector, and that we need to form partnerships with the private sector.

8. So let’s set the record straight: • While college superintendents and presidents have replaced their time-honored academic titles with more trendy corporado titles, such as Chief Executive Officer, and attempted to define teaching as a business, we faculty continue to insist that the ones we serve are our “STUDENTS.”

9. “We faculty proudly support the ideal that “community colleges should offer the sort of instruction that is maximally productive of humane values and which contributes toward students becoming informed, compassionate and productive members of their communities. The faculty believe, with many before them, that democracy requires an educated citizenry, literate people who are capable of making informed choices, and that the development of such citizens should be the primary task of a ‘democratic’ educational system.” “In the final analysis, human beings are defined by what they care about, and to the extent that one’s focus is exclusively economic, one’s life is unduly truncated.”

10. And an essential ingredient is our 10+1: • 1.   Curriculum, including establishing prerequisites. •  2.   Degree and certificate requirements. •  3.   Grading policies. •  4.   Educational program development. •  5.   Standards or policies regarding student preparation and success. •  6.   College governance structures, as related to faculty roles. •  7.   Faculty roles and involvement in accreditation processes. • 8.   Policies for faculty professional development activities. •  9.   Processes for program review. •  10.  Processes for institutional planning and budget development. •  11.  Other academic and professional matters as mutually agreed upon.

11. So, when SERVING students, • Begin with respect for students • Add self-respect for our profession • Mix in subject area knowledge • Stir in appreciation of matters academic and professional • And blend in a vigilant determination to safeguard our students and our profession from occupying forces

12. Three areas where we serve students: ► Curriculum ☺ Programs ☼ Student Contact

13. CURRICULUM • Again, begin with resources: The Academic Senate has 41 adopted papers under the heading of “Curriculum” at its website. The vast majority have been written and published within the last decade and cover everything from governance authority to program review, distance learning, Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC), course outlines, and the placement of courses within disciplines.

14. The Curriculum Institute • The Academic Senate also hosts the Curriculum Institute each summer. Our outgoing curriculum chair, Jane Patton, has been hard at work preparing this year’s institute which will take place at the Hayes Mansion Conference Center, San Jose, CA July 15-17, 2004.

15. How does “Curriculum” relate to “Serving Students”? • Academic Senate paper, “The Curriculum Committee: Role, Structure, Duties, and Standards of Good Practice,” adopted Fall 1996 states: • “The main function of the curriculum committee is that of primary responsibility for the development, review, renewal, and recommendation of curriculum to be approved by the Board of Trustees.”

16. The Education Code and Title 5 specify the following: • 1. The academic senate has primary responsibility for making recommendations in the area of curriculum and academic standards [Ed. Code '70902(b)(7)]. This right is protected as a minimum standard set by the Board of Governors [Ed. Code '70901(b)(1)(E)]. • 2. The local governing board has the responsibility to establish policies for and approve courses of instruction and educational programs [Ed. Code '70902(b)(2)]. • 3. Title 5 §55002(a)(1) requires that the curriculum committee contain faculty.

17. Student Learning Outcomes • And because the new accreditation standards call for SLOs, local senates and curriculum committees must work together to make certain that outcomes serve instruction and avoid becoming a matter of subservient compliance to external authority.

18. How to Use SLOs Responsibly: • Keep the needs of the student and the integrity of the disciplines at the center of all planning. • Take it SLOw. The Commission has said that it will take years to establish a viable “climate of evidence.”

19. Programs: • A “program” is defined by Title 5 as follows: “An educational program is an organized sequence of courses leading to a defined objective, a degree, a certificate, a diploma, a license, or transfer to another institution of higher education.”

20. In Practice, • the Chancellor’s office only approves certificates and degrees that community colleges wish to award to students. Recommended patterns of coursework for transferring, or achieving any other objective, are not subject to Chancellor’s office approval. Such patterns, although they may be locally referred to as “programs,’ are not entered into the Chancellor’s office Inventory of Approved and Projected Programs.

21. Programs that must be submitted to the Chancellor’s Office: • Degrees • All associate degrees and associate degree majors that may appear by name on a student transcript or diploma • Certificates • All certificates that may appear by name on a student transcript, diploma, or completion award of any sort, and which require 18 or more semester units or 27 or more quarter units of coursework, require Chancellor’s Office approval. Each certificate that may be separately approved on the transcript or student award requires separate approval.

22. Substantial modifications • Pursuant to Title 5, Section 55130, a program that has been approved by the Chancellor’s Office must be submitted for re-approval if it is “modified in any substantial way.” This would include substantive changes in goals and objective, if job categories change substantially, or if baccalaureate majors for transfer change.

23. Options: • New options, emphases, concentrations, specializations, strands, tracks and so forth also require Chancellor’s Office review before they are offered, if they are intended to appear by name on student transcripts, diplomas, or awards. This is true for both occupational and transfer programs

24. Submission of a New Program Application • requires the signature of both the curriculum committee chair and the academic senate president.

25. Are Courses and Programs Mission Appropriate? • A program or course must be directed at the appropriate level for the community college (it must not be directed at a level beyond the associate degree or the first two years of college, or the primary or secondary school level) • A program or course must address a valid transfer, occupational, or basic skills purpose. It must not be primarily avocational or recreational • A course must provide distinct instructional content and specific instructional objectives.

26. And Student Contact: • Again, RESPECT for students • Among the recommendations with which this paper concludes is that local senates “ensure that the local Curriculum Committee performs a separate review of courses offered by distance education, as required by Title 5 §55378.” Within these recommendations, student access is addressed in a variety of ways: separate review of instructor-student contact, methods, effectiveness, frequency, availability of technical support for faculty and students, access for students with disabilities, and adequate support services by consulting with counseling and library faculty.

27. So, • Student contacts, whether they entail office hours, counseling and library services, curriculum oversight, or our collective effort to insure access to community colleges for all who wish to attend our courses and programs, we, the faculty, must take the lead. • How could it be otherwise, if we respect our students and our profession?

28. During these next few days, our list of ingredients will grow: • Hiring of faculty • Placing courses within disciplines • Working with local boards • Budgets • Ethics • Diversity • Technology • Resources • And so much more . . .

29. But Remember • Our profession is comprised of many ingredients that can rise together. Mostly, our recipe should be a commitment to a comprehensive curriculum and a passion for the success of every individual student.