Senate President’s Report February 3, 2011

Part I Notes from the Joint AAC&U and CUS Conferences, January 26-29, 2011

Seven of us from Harbor College attended the American Association of Colleges and University National Conference the last week in January, 2011. In addition to this conference, we participated in the California State University’s sessions to develop pilot programs to achieve a seamless transfer in general education courses between Long Beach State and Dominguez Hills. My notes from both of these conferences follow. Participants were: Ellen Joiner, Shazia Khan, Norma Noriega, Maritza Jimenez-Zeljak, Angelica Vega, June Smith, and Pamela Watkins,

MAKING GENERAL EDUCATION RELEVANT, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY

PROJECT

Session 1/26 noon January 26, 2011

KEN O’DONNELL, Moderator, John Tarjan, Ashley Finley, Bettina Huber, Jean MachKen

O’Donnell introduced the session by a brief overview of what COMPASS is:

COMPASS (This is not an acronym. It simply is used as a focus for discussion about guiding student success.)

Intent is not to rewrite the curriculum

How can we really engage the modern student who is plugged into technology? o What is needed? Four Learning Outcomes for all degrees

o analytical skills o integrative knowledge o Lifelong learning o content mastery

John Tarjan, Chair, CSU Chancellor’s General Education Advisory Committee

Let’s review the current check list of GE (48 units) o Community Colleges have to teach what the CSU demands (39 lower-division units) o Very highly structured—and it may be partly responsible for why our students are going

to the University of Phoenix whose marketing is terrific.

Ashley Findlay, Director of Assessment & Research, AAC&U finleyaccu.org High Impact Practices

1. Why am I here? Oregon, Wisconsin and CSU are leaders in what student outcomes and high impact

practices

2. National Survey of Student Engagement) NSSE special report on educationally purposeful activities: learning communities, service-learning, Study abroad, student-faculty research, internship, and senior capstone.

3. Greater heterogeneity within disciplines, not across them 4. Common elements: time on task, interaction, reflection 5. Outcomes: deep learning gains in GE, gains in Personal Development gains in Practical

Development 6. Showed a chart of first and seniors high impacts and outcomes

7. Showed both student and institutional positive effects 8. Also showed that we don’t reach many students with these high impact practices.

Showed how non-1st generation students; 1st generation; non-transfer; transfer 9. Shows that Hi Imp practices have a more positive effect on non-Caucasian students 10. We haven’t studied each of the activities separately; these results are an aggregate, so

we don’t know what the differential impacts are. 11. Types of outcomes described included:

Higher Grades

Higher rates of persistence

“If you do not raise your eyes, you will think you are at the highest point.” Antonlo Porchia

Ashley is working on going back over the data to disaggregate the results

Bettina Huber from Northridge SU

What NSSE Data Reveal about High Impact Practices (HIPs) first year students Service Learning 36% Learning Communities 17%

Barriers are more pronounced on part-time and older students, not the 18 year old full time

student

Service Learning is greater in private institutions than public ones Learning Communities are about the same Student background (especially underserved and low income) –access to high impact

practices –student engagement with Studies--college success (GPA & Persistence). George K.

Bettina did a study of all freshmen in 2007-8. Traditionally served; high school or less, both parents, Pell Grant recipient plus three HIPS: Service Learning (4%), Freshmen seminar (27%) and learning communities (17%). She found few freshmen involved in service learning.

Students who take more units are more likely to be involved in HIPs, and the more units attempted, the higher rate of persistence. Huber also found that students who engaged in more than one HIPs (two different kinds) were more successful. Pell Grants and Latino students fall into this category. Learning communities showed positive results for both these groups.

Huber’s results reinforce the NSEE study, and her disaggregation showed that HIPs benefit traditionally underserved students

JEAN MACH, Professor of English, College of San Mateo: collegeofsanmateo.edu Showed the Integrative Learning page at the College of Mateo website: learning

communities, hard-linked learning communities (more than two courses centered on issues); Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC); Center for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Used a whole web of opportunities, not just isolated projects.

Showed a video that documented what the faculty was doing on the campus: integrative learning using real life situations.

College of San Mateo one of ten colleges in the Carnegie experiment in integrative learning.

Writing in the End Zone: for scholar/athletes and the football team.

Use e-portfolios collaboratively and service learning.

Because of budget cuts, only the Writing in the End Zone is extant.

We need to make high impact practices visible, probably on students’ transcripts, in order to move forward.

Student Panel: 1. Most engaging experience: honor society (PTK); honor society and honors program;

honor society; lab experiences; integrative learning community; a political science course whose professor got the student engaged to the point where she became the president of the democratic club.

2. What was the least engaging experience (course?): older student, no obstacles; gender woman studies class; went to Professors.com and only went to those who were highly rated if possible; boring “I don’t know your name classes…”; lecture class from a teacher who didn’t even know her name.

3. Some of these students knew they wanted to transfer. EOPS student had a counselor and a plan to fill out.

How would we fix the current GE requirements. Is there something we could do in any of the

four quadrants that can be used throughout the entire higher education system. Two criteria:

GPA and persistence. And can this be done, and is it sustainable. Looking for pilots.

CSU Pilot: Critically Thinking in Community Problem-Solving Harbor College participated in the AAC&U national conference and met with counterparts in Long Beach State University to draft a potential pilot program for a seamless transfer of students in the general education areas. Here is a description of that project proposal the group listed below submitted.

There is a second pilot proposal that Dr. Ellen Joiner participated in with CSUDH, so there are two potential opportunities for funding.

Shazia Khan, Los Angeles Harbor College Angelica Vega, Los Angeles Harbor College

Maritza Jimenz-Zeljack, Los Angeles Harbor College Norma Noguera, California State Long Beach

June Burlingame-Smith, Los Angeles Harbor College Pamela Watkins, Los Angeles Harbor College

Bernie Day, Foothill College (Visitor) Eileen Barrett, East Bay State (Facilitator)

Meg Gorzycki, San Francisco State (Facilitator)

Pilot Participants Participants were Los Angeles Harbor College, and CSU Long Beach Los Angeles, with options to involve

Dominguez Hills, and CSU Los Angeles.

Mission/Philosophy/Vision

The mission of this project is to improve the seamlessness of transferring from community and junior colleges to four-year colleges and universities. This mission seeks to advance critical thinking and problem-solving by participating in learning that fully integrates multiple disciplines. This project envisions studies that are organized around student interests and objectives. The philosophical

principles that drive this project are those associated with democratic participation. The vision of this learning community is to involve instructors from various disciplines including math, English, Social Science and Life science, who will participate in all lessons to provide a truly integrated rather than single disciplinary approach to learning. This project will serve developmental students who require some remediation in math and English; these students will be learning alongside those who are not developmental. This project envisions the faculty who participate as a community of learning that will use their experiences as the basis for further curriculum development and report their findings to their peers.

Objective

The objective is to create a project-based learning community of students and faculty that would function as a course inasmuch as it offered GE credits and utilized blended methodologies of instruction. Students will develop a consensus on how the community will function and proceed with their investigations and learning. They will select a project based on their interests and goals. This community/course will improve students ability to ask the “right” questions and use the proper intellectual skills to gather information, evaluate data, make a rational and fair judgment, and articulate their findings effectively. This pilot will involve two cohorts of students, each will commit to a year-long course, which including summer training and orientation. This project will generate 9 GE units: 3 for English and critical thinking; 3 for understanding natural and social world; 3 for developing self.

How Does this Project Address Essential Learning Outcomes (LEAP?)

1. The class/ learning community mandates that students will address problems from a scientific,

mathematic, and sociological perspectives

2. The overarching theme of this pilot is critical thinking; they will engage also in creative thinking

that prompts qualitative and quantitative reasoning

3. This pilot integrates learning for both students and instructors

4. The students will engage in problems solving that address social, economic, and environmental

issues immediate to their lives in ways that prompt their own development of civic responsibility

and ethical thinking

Outcomes

1. Students will demonstrate proficiency in written and oral communication in English

2. Students will demonstrate proficiency in math and algebra

3. Students will demonstrate proficiency in critical thinking: students will detect/assess in texts and

other media:

a. The biases or fairness of assertions

b. The implications and inferences in assertions

c. The logic of assertions

d. The clarity and accuracy of assertions

e. The relevance of assertions

f. The credibility and validity of sources

g. The significance of assertions

h. The lacunae or missing pieces of assertions

i. The degree to which assertions acknowledge and develop alternative perspectives

j. The depth of breadth of assertions and how well the author uses evidence to explore and

describe the complexity of the issues

4. Students will demonstrate a greater understanding of their role as learners, researchers and civic

and professional problem-solvers

5. Students will articulate their values and strategies for improving democratic participation and

autonomous thinking with a view to how their thinking impacts others

6. Students will demonstrate their understanding of how local activities have a global consequence

7. Students will conduct research and identify relevant and credible data in problem-solving

8. Students will interpret data

9. Students will differentiate between fact and opinion; substantiated claims and assertions;

10. Students will identify the main ideas of readings, define key concepts, define key vocabulary,

identify supports for main ideas and identify pattern of organization in texts

11. Students will summarize ideas and synthesize the ideas from multiple sources

12. Students will solve computational problems

13. Students will solve algebraic problems

14. Students will interpret and represent data in formal academic modes

15. Students will distinguish between primary and secondary sources and identify the functions of each,

strengths and limitations of each

16. Students will analyze data and formulate questions

17. Students will publish their work

18. Students will identify the ways this problem is impacted by demographics, class and economics, and

geography

19. Students will identify the ways the problem is impacted by law and public policy

20. Students will identify the stakeholders involved in this problem and explore their own values and

attitudes about these stakeholders

21. Students will articulate their understanding of how scientific theory relates to the problem and

identify the key scientific concepts that inform the problems and its solutions

22. Students will identify how this problem impacts public health, ecology and general community

wellness

23. Students will reflect upon and compose essays on the ethical dimensions of the problem and its

solutions

Student Selection for Pilot

Campuses will advertize this course as a pilot and invite open enrollment from developmental and GE students. There should be incentives for students to enroll as they will be moving around a great deal and expected to attend events/classes on both campuses and in the field. Monetary compensation might be offered for transportation.

Faculty Preparations and Role

This project requires nine faulty members:

two coordinators (one from LA Harbor and one from Long Beach),

one from developmental reading, (LA Harbor)

one form life sciences, (Long Beach)

one from English, (LA Harbor)

one from social sciences,(LA Harbor)

two from mathematics, (Long Beach and LA Harbor))

one with expertise in education psychology and critical thinking (Long Beach or CSU consultant)

The faculty will require one semester or summer session to construct the course, receive the training necessary to facilitate the appropriate instruction, guidance and student assessment. Training includes:

Critical thinking: fundamentals of elements and standards and elements and standards specific

to various disciplines

Ethical thinking: fundamental elements and standards of ethical thinking from a secular

perspective in a democratic society

Designing and assessing student outcomes

Using student achievement for program evaluation and development

Partnering with community resources

The faculty learning community will develop the specifics relative to what outcomes will be germane to the course, how each lesson will be organized, who will facilitate each lesson, how students will be assessed, which aspects of the learning will be conducted on-line and face-to-face, how students feedback will inform course revisions, and how the experience will be documented and reported. Compensating faculty could be achieved by providing .2 (one fifth of one’s work assignment) release time or stipends. Faculty will be supported by counselors, peer mentors (students who will need some training and guidance), learning centers

Course Meetings

Students will meet a various sites for instruction and research. In addition to attending both campuses for class meetings, this project will employ on-line discussion groups, and hybrid learning modalities that will require students to view materials on-line for writing and class discussion. Students will be expected to form learning clusters that meet in student’s homes to review work, conduct research, and complete projects.

NOTES FROM THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (AAC&U) NATIONAL CONFERENCE January 26-29

ACC&U PLENARY January 27, 2011

President’s Opening Remarks, Carol Geary Schneider Welcome

AAC&U has developed pathways to achieve the Essential Learning Schools including high school achievement

Lumina Foundation is a Partner: Liberal Education & America’s Promise (LEAP) Opening Speech: Kavita Ramdas, Visiting Fellow and Scholar at the Center on Democracy Development , and Rule of Law at The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. It Ain’t What You Do: Global Education for Gender Justice

In India, girls are now going to school in small villages, and in other countries, such as Bangladesh, education is increasing for girls

Three points: 1. Consider education as a whole and its global in nature

The future is Asia: world’s richest and poorest. Women most oppressed and yet among the most women leaders in the world. (Visited India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

Huge tensions from rapid growth in China and India, including a growing Maoist movement. Sense of basic security has become too compromised.

Threats of flooding and global warming in Bangladesh are imminent Current models of 19th century growth are unsustainable in the face of scarcer

resources

2. Education is the way to move forward Shifting attitudes and paradigms will not be easy but they are necessary Referenced Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat and Obama’s State of

the Union speech where Obama said the United States will be number one. Ramdas suggests one can only be second if one is standing in a line, and we need to change that concept to a circle.

The US is being challenged in a global way intellectually and economically. We throw the word “global” or “international” around, but we have not changed our concept of being the dominant power in the world.

The US still divides the world into developed and developing countries, but this is not an accurate division. Albania and Macedonia are developed?

3. Truly liberal education is one that aspires to be feminine and feminist

Education cannot be narrowly focused based on the assumptions that girls and women are lesser than men.

Most illiterate people on the planet are women. More than 10,000 are married before they are 15. One in every three women in the world has been the victim of violence or sexually assaulted.

Women who are educated make substantial contributions to economic success. Women are leading the efforts for change in the world. Told a story about a Kenyan girl who escaped genital mutilation (FGN) and who

addressed an American audience. The American media brought the girl and her father together on the same program (but the girl didn’t know her father was going to be there) and the girl couldn’t meet her father’s eyes. The results of this broadcast were perceived differently by Kenyans and Americans. Kenyans say that there is more to their country than FGN and that Americans don’t really know their country.

Indians/Kenyans/Tanzanians/ and Dogs not allowed in the world Ramdas grew up in.

Indigenous people must be able and allowed to speak for themselves. Liberal education enables people the opportunity to achieve the heights of one’s own inner power and possibilities.

Poetry cleanses the corruption of power. Insights in both men and women will enable us to achieve the changes that we

need to liberate people from persecution. Questions and Answers

Knowledge is to be found in the rickshaw driver, too, not just in the universities or institutions of knowledge.

We need to use different models to envision a different world. We have to use something other than violence (in words, too).

Students need to feel that their voices are heard, too. Ramdas: not just one form of economy, medicine, and all other fields. We have

forgotten how to think holistically: we treat the lungs but poison the liver, and the patient dies of liver failure. The US has allowed for a kind of opportunity that is rare in the rest of the western world; mentioned Joseph’s many colored coat as a metaphor for the US and that the US can share our experiences and attempts to be inclusive.

Ramdas: There is a third world alive and well in the US. Over 15% of the US lives in poverty. We need to address these injustices before we lecture to the rest of the world.

We have prophetic voices that we are missing because of stereotyping. Educators have to start being comfortable with being uncomfortable and lead.

How do demographics affect the effort towards globilization. www.gapminded.org.

Gender is what is between your ears, not your legs. There are some trends that show how we can get around the narrow conscripts of capital versus labor.

There is a tension between short term and long term training/education. Right now, we are being squeezed by the economy, but in the long term, we need to keep looking towards the future needs, or the short term focus will ultimately fail.

Discuss the lack of geography in US schools? Other countries require this knowledge. Men have drawn lines on maps to create countries (Pakistan and in Africa) without taking into account the people it is affecting

We need to redefine redevelopment that includes loving children, brothers and sisters. Emerging giants need to encourage the keeping of traditions that are important. Buildings and clothes are examples of Westernization that don’t make sense.

Many forms of leadership development: have confidence; speak out; listen carefully. Hung up on a hero on a white horse, but we can look to convective leadership as exemplified by women as another model.

DEGREE PROFILE, Bringing New Currency to the Meaning of US Degrees January 27, 2011

Handout: Lumina Foundation, “The Degree Qualifications Profile”

What is he Bologna process? A joint European collaboration model. Dublin Desciptors

Why is the degree profile important? Increase high-quality degrees to 60% of the populace by 2025

Requires attention to quality and transparency; quality equals learning Started with the TUNING process Need to meet the needs of the 21st student Models must be shared By 2018, 63% of jobs in the US will require postsecondary education.

Shift from what is taught to what is learned Looked at models in US and Europe Seven outcomes identified Three Degree Levels: Associate, Bachelor’s, and Master’s Five Learning Areas: Specialized Knowledge, Broad/Integrative Knowledge, Intellectual

Skills, Applied Learning, and Civic Learning Framed as Successively Inclusive Hierarchies of “Action Verbs” to Describe Outcomes at

Each Degree Level Intended as a “Beta” version, for Testing, Experimentation, and Further Development

Beginning this Year Work can be used: by institutions for reviews; development of new assessments;

curricular development; development of outcomes-based state articulation and transfer standards; common template for accreditation reporting; basis for establishing “learning contracts” between entering students and institutions.

We have near-consensus on essential competencies, but many students are doing what works.

Writing Is central to gaining confidence and higher levels of using critical thinking When students do engaged work, they make gains. Making excellence inclusive is our most important educational priority. Access to

excellence remains exclusionary—and that has become an unaffordable luxury. We must guarantee quality as well as an increase in number of degrees. For faculty, it

underscores a shift from “my work to our work.” Departments need to come together to decide just what is required in each level of the

course. For students, the degree profile will provide a roadmap to move their work to the center

of assessment and accountability.

What we can learn from other countries Winston Churchill: “I hate being taught, but I love learning.” Three types of qualification: communications; reforming; transformational Look to: Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, India, China, Japan. There is no silver bullet, and all transformation will take time. England has several different frameworks to look at from the Scotland model to English

school system. In Ireland, tensions between an outcomes-based approach to a student centered

approach.

What happens next? Testing in a variety of settings with a variety of partners Future feedback forums and national conversation Opportunity for Higher Education

LIBERAL EDUCATION AS AMERICA’S PROMISE (LEAP) Compelling Accomplishment and Student Success (COMPASS) January 27, 2011

Need professional development to assist the processes of making transfer seamless. Emphasize student learning outcomes instead of course number.

Designs for learning that embed high-impact practices (HIPS) throughout the curriculum—for all students, making excellence inclusive—are proving to be successful, a significant discovery of our shared work. How is this discovery working for you? The Northridge University study on HIPS showed the positive impact of HIPs on GPAs and persistence levels. Using one HIP raised scores by 12% and 17% or more if two or more HIPs were involved.

AAC&U has rubrics on its website that faculty can use to use the LEAP criteria for assessment in capstone projects.

Every element of the community should be included in the discussion about LEAP.

Book: High Impact Practices, by George Kou (sp)

Agree on common definitions for everyone to use.

Honor the campus traditions and culture.

Leverage high impact state projects

Make more graduates and close the achievement gaps is the focus of the CSU.

METACOGNITION January 28, 2011 Associated College of the Midwest Collegium Project: www.acmu.edu/collegium Teagle Foundation: www.teaglefoundation.org/ Meta-cognition at Science Education Resource Center: www.carleton.edu

Three principles of learning: meta-cognition is one of them

Successes and challenges

Knowledge Surveys Carl 1. People with meta-cognitive skills: Know task, know strategies, know which one to

apply 2. Reflection, plan, regulate, and monitor. Meta-cognition is a self-imposed regulation 3. We need to help students learn how to do this. There is a correlation to students’

abilities in meta-cognition and student success 4. Use Knowledge Surveys in courses that use the range of Bloom’s taxonomy. Gets

students questioning and thinking about their background knowledge. At the end, it captures their learning gains. Before tests to guide them. Process of designing the survey helps the teacher focus on the goals of the course; it becomes an outline of the course. Results of the surveys show gains and gaps both in what the students perceptions are and in the individual items of the test.

5. Also can use the survey and test results to show the “mind” of the class as a whole; what they knew at first and how much they learned.

Examples John: Can test Questions be a Measure of Meta-cognitive Abilities?

1. Designed a test and told students they could choose three questions that they didn’t want to answer (with no penalty). Redesigned the test to tell the student to answer the question first and then go back and eliminate, telling the teacher why they didn’t want to answer it.

2. Answers as to why students didn’t answer indicated that they lacked confidence in the answer, either they didn’t remember or weren’t sure. Teacher got some idea of how/what the students are thinking.

3. Not sure what the conclusion from this study will be, but it is a place to start. 4. Gave them a knowledge survey every week that gave the teacher an opportunity to

talk to students about the responses on a weekly basis. 5. Did surveys help the students? Asked why the surveys and new test design was

given, and the students essentially knew what was occurring. 6. Did the test responses help? Students told the teacher about their thinking about

studying time. 7. Do a lot of this on-line.

David Thompson, teaches Spanish at Luther College 1. Will comprehensive testing, in addition to content master, also help self-monitoring

activities in students? 2. MSLQ developed at the University of Michigan (for prompts). 3. Results of his experiment showed moderate results in self-monitoring practices in

both the control and the intervention group. 4. Used exam wrappers (post exam reflection exercises) the second time he did his

experiment. Saw noticeably higher results in both groups. In control group, he introduced study strategies in class, and this seemed to have made a noticeable difference.

5. Asked students how much time they spent studying for the test, and after the second test wrapper, the students were better able to predict their progress.

6. A more explicit intervention appeared to bring better results. 7. Found that working with his colleagues, all younger and eager professors, helped

energize him. Holly Swyers: Lake Forest. The POD:--Meta-cognition as a Shared Practice Across

Multiple Domains of Student Experience 1. Found that all teachers could do this, in the first year experience. Brought three

classes together, plus student affairs, learning support service, safety, and athletics. Came together because they realized they were working on life-long learning.

2. Had to pick two key ideas: Cycle of Learning and Bloom’s Taxonomy. Got together over the summer to discuss how ideas. Then gave it to the students to read and discuss.

3. First day is Chicago Day (upperclassmen take all the freshmen downtown). Groups had professional mentors who observed the classes and then debriefed with each other.

4. Getting to Know You Grids. Gave to students in a mix and match format quiz and gave out prizes for the best guessers.

5. The mentors were someone other than the teacher that students could go to for help or just talk.

6. Had six support sessions during the semester dealing with questions students might have. How do you deal with knowledge that comes at the wrong time? Talked to them after “warning grades” came out and had students who survived warnings on hand for discussion.

7. Teachers did a teaching triangle and then talked about what they observed. Visits were informal, not planned, but they were frequent.

8. Podosium: at the end of the semester, one class would present before the other two classes.

Still a Work in Progress

STUDENT LEARNING: Stimulating a Conversation Between Scholars Journalists January 28, 2011

What can journalists learn from scholars? Distinction between short term reporting and long term. What can a journalist truly

learn in two or three days on a campus? Typical tensions between journalists and academics: how is the media going to

“spin” the material. An issue is measurement. What is learning and how do we measure it? Leadership

skills? Course specifics? Long term general knowledge? What do graduation rates have to do with learning?

Another issue is where should we look for it? In higher education, the attitude is that learning occurs outside the classroom as well as in it (library, coffee shop, dorm rooms, clubs). Students spend about 10-12 hours studying a week, or 16% of their time.

There are a lot of data sets for K-12, but we don’t have the same data set for higher education. Until we have such a data base, it is difficult to have a rational conversation about learning.

There is a good amount of fear about assessment in higher education because issues of learning go to the core of what higher education is. Because student failure challenges the existing paradigm in higher education, it is scary.

Word to academics: have a conversation with the media ahead of time so that the conversation doesn’t occur in a crisis mode or with time pressures.

Scholars must ask the media to keep up a constant conversation; don’t let it die. Asking for investigative journalism.

Scholars should ask the right kinds of questions and keep asking those questions. For instance: graduation rates don’t have anything to do with learning. Graduation rates don’t measure student learning.

Journalists can highlight positive examples. Negative stories come across all the time. Takes about ten years before an institution starts assessment and improvements become reflected.

Carnegie Advancement’s program in teaching math 1. Build a bridge between scholarship and practice. Build a new r and d using

assessment to remedy the gap. 2. Community College Math is the subject chosen for study. Put students

through the old paradigm of developmental math. Gathered scholars to change the paradigm. The problem is difficult, and it requires both researchers and practitioners, with the administration, working together.

3. Take students through their developmental math in one year. Emphasized conceptualization instead of memorization of equations. Speaker thought everyone should enjoy taking calculus but realizes that not everyone needs it!

4. About 70% of cc students are placed in remedial math. Only about a 7% chance of success if the student is three levels below freshman math.

5. 19 Community Colleges nationwide in the experiment. Hinging the project on flexibility: testing, changing, to see what works for what students.

6. Outcomes were agreed upon but were drafted collectively, not a top down model. Then the curriculum was built on those outcomes.

7. Have to have a common language and that is only built by talking to one another.

What can scholars learn from journalists? No longer national reporter and local reporters. All really national now. Short study by one of the panelists showed that the major newspapers are not

covering teaching and learning. Media can’t visit a school when children (K-12) are present in some states. Time is also a factor: speed is essential in daily reporting, and most journalists can’t take the time to find out what teaching and learning is. Staff reductions have hampered the ability to do investigative reporting.

Newspaper readers don’t tend to send their children to community colleges. Topics: budgets, admissions, cheating, sex, grade inflation, pets in dorms, poor

dorm rooms, graduation rates (but not about why?), students abroad but emphasis on how hard this is to do

Biggest story right now is the gap between the K-12 system and college, but it’s not being covered.

Journalists cover institutions. If the institution isn’t having the teaching /learning dialogue, how will the reporter know about it?

Topic to be covered: what are students getting out of school? Education jargon is a huge barrier for journalists. Schools are reluctant to talk to journalists, and this is a real problem for the

journalist. The college publicist doesn’t really know about teaching/learning, so this hampers

the dialogue. Schools send out a lot of press releases and choose the positive ones to print. If the professor would contact the journalist herself, the information would be more in depth and the journalist would probably be more receptive.

Journalists need to have the differences between graduation rates and learning explained to them.

Schools should feel free to approach journalists if the schools see gaps or problems in media coverage.

Q and A

MIT project wanted to put materials out at low cost and wanted to make them available to more people. Open educational resources.

How do journalists handle student responses? Some really don’t want to talk freely or honestly about their feelings, or they don’t know the issues.

Accountability conversations at the higher education level must be more sophisticated than it has been in K-12. The K-12 experiences have polarized the camps, and higher education needs to move beyond this. How do parents fit into the conversation? What are their expectations for expending 200,000 for their child’s education?

Two camps: no credibility at all, market place will take care of it –don’t touch higher ed; or the government will step in. Public schools need to be able to say what the students will get when they attend those schools. What are we doing and how can we demonstrate what we are doing.

When does research on teaching and learning become news? Journalist responded that when the research shows the big picture that affects real people, he’ll be interested. Has to relate to the general audience. Scholar should call the reporter; don’t send out a press release.

Journalists are gone in two years. The Carnegie story would not appeal to the regular press, the tabloid press. Start with a metaphor. Isn’t a journalist’s job to tell a story? Researchers should tell a story. Rules of the game have changed: blogs and electronics. There is a lack of simple background checking (did the journalists check the Bush figure of only 18% of high school graduates graduate from college?).

Senate President’s Report February 3, 2011

Part II CORE February 1, 2011

Handouts: Minutes from 1/25 an 1/37; Construction Schedule Report:

Focus meetings going forward

SAILS: Completing work on Old Administration landscaping. Planning to do some repair work on the Deans’ parking lot on Friday. Signage is up. Walk will be open on Monday. Fence going up around the Astronomy Building on Friday. Fence will be up for six to eight months.

CDC design team is still working on completion but close to completion. Looking for gold or silver. Enhancements almost complete.

Humanities: will continue the themes started on the Fine Arts area. DSA will be a challenge. Start the theater project in the fall of 2011 or sooner if plans get approved by DSA. Demolition of GC won’t happen until after the modernization of the Science Building.

Phase II of NEA enhancements have been approved.

Ribbon cutting for the parking structure on April 28th.

Science Complex has lost about three weeks because of the rain. Not expecting that this will delay finishing the building.

Have to install a switch before we can use the rest of the solar voltaics. We will have 3.2 megawatts on this campus. District is looking into getting a grant for a battery for storage of energy for lighting, heating, air conditioning.

We need to send an inquiry to the Chancellor about the payback for leasing the solar equipment from Chevron. The District still hasn’t signed an agreement with DWP for the buyback, and this is going to cost the campus this lease amount out of Program 100 funds.

There will be a power outage over spring break, so people need to prepare their refrigerators for this event.

The library steel construction continues. Sewer lines complete; still cleaning up from the rains. About four to six weeks behind schedule. Will ultimately work on two floors concurrently. First quarter of 2012 for opening.

Looking for a gold certification for the PE/Wellness Building.

Demolition of the old gym: relocation of utilities almost complete; demolition is free to start.

Marque sign walk is today.

TV Studio is still in negotiations.

Softball field: sodding should have been raised about a foot for drainage; the field is too flat. Needs weeding. We have a home game next week, so the field needs to be done properly before the girls play on it.

Job Placement Center will be part of the Student Services Building.

Campus events restrooms had about 50 contractors show up for the bidding.

All future buildings will be design-build; we get to choose who we want. In design-bid-build, we have to take the lowest bid.

Community Services project will be referred to Science modification because that is the description in the bond literature. Renovation amount is about $7 million. $5-6 million is for seismic retrofitting.

ADA: eliminate all issues in Nursing and General Classroom buildings because those buildings will be demolished. RFQs will be reviewed soon.

HTPA: LAUSD is still holding onto the contract.

Nursing programming going forward and getting close to finalizing plans to move ahead. This is a high priority because the existing nursing building needs to go forward before we can start on the new student union building.

President Martinez announced that the District is starting a new storm water project, so campuses can put together proposals. There is $25 million available. These have to be projects we did not budget for in our bond proposals. It’s first come, first served. The storm drain that drains the west side of the campus is complicated because several agencies “own” a piece of it.

CORE will meet the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month to monitor progress on the various projects.

Department of Labor Grant Meeting: Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training (TAACCCT)

January 31, 2011 Rosas, Patterson, Humphreys, Sparks, Smith, Martinez, Tomlinson, Naranjo

John Sparks passed out a list of grants that the College already has or has in progress

TAACCCT 1. Outline passed out of the RFP 2. Add a new bullet: will require a third party evaluator 3. Can apply for up to $20 million if in a consortium of at least two colleges. If the college

is the lead, it can’t also apply for its own grant. 4. Can apply for up to $5 million if in single application 5. Target population is workers who have been displaced or threatened with job loss due

to foreign trade. 6. The lead agency will be responsible for enrolling people into the program, so the college

has to provide the eligibility. 7. Training program must be two years or less. 8. Four funding priorities: 1) accelerate progress for low skilled and other workers; 2)

improve retention and achievement rates to reduce time to completion; 3) build

programs that meet industry needs; 4) strengthen online and technology enabled learning

9. Leveraging required 10. Veterans are a priority 11. The RFP did not put in whether or not job placement is required. There may be more

advisories as to numbers and job placement. 12. Due date in April 21, 2011. 13. Because there will be partnering with One Stop, job placement is implied in the grant. 14. The grant is aimed at capacity building: staff and equipment/materials. 15. Entrepreneurial training, such as culinary arts, is a primary target. What do we want to

focus on: port, health, culinary arts, aero-space, refineries, energy, manufacturing, or what? Focus can include more than one discipline.

16. One of the objects of the grant is to train students for transfer, also. 17. In-class tutoring might be a strong component of the training model. 18. Interested in data. What is the evidence for the success of learning communities? The

college will need to collect data to show more than anecdotal evidence. 19. Mr. Martinez asked what might be unique to our community, saying that other grants

are going to concentrate on health and greening areas. However, few have a Port to work with, so if we partner with Long Beach City College and emphasize the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, we might have a better chance at receiving a grant.

20. Since this is only a two year grant, the participants are going to have to be freshman level ready.

21. This grant is very big on technology based learning. 22. Can the grant be used to purchase textbooks? Can use digital texts. 23. Can we use the PACE model to begin with? 24. Very specific requirements for curriculum design:

A. Accelerate progress for low skilled and other workers B. Work on critical thinking C. Contextualizing basic skills is an easy part D. Strengthen on-line delivery E. Use Learning Committee

MEETING WITH PRESIDENT MARTINEZ January 31, 2011 Pamela Watkins, June Smith, and President Martinez We discussed plans for the upcoming Summit, faculty hiring, the Economic Redevelopment Reorganization and the need for a CTE Dean, CORE and the Student Services building , division reorganization, the budget, and a brief overview from the CSU/Association of American Colleges and University conference that Pam and I attended last week. President Martinez also told us that he would be making decisions about the faculty hiring list very soon so that departments can begin the hiring process. We are still planning to hire six full time probationary faculty for the fall of next year. The President has placed the subject of division reorganization on hold for right now. He wants to wait to see just what the budget fallout will be as well as finish the economic redevelopment structure before turning his attention to divisions. His feeling is that whatever changes are made should be driven by curricular pathways and not the budget because there really won’t b e much dollar differences.

One of the budget issues that will have a direct impact for 2011-12 is paying Chevron for leasing the solar equipment installed at the strong insistence of the District. We will have to budget $340,000 next year for this payment. Additionally, we will have to pick up the salary of the Transfer Director next year (the District was paying for this person in transition), so this impacts the Student Services Cluster budget appreciably. The good news is that the District has deferred our debt payment of $2.3 million, and this will help us bring our budget into balance for the short term. At the next Budget Committee meeting, we will have to look at the prospect of a 15% reduction for next year and figure out how we can meet such a drastic reduction. The President has said he doesn’t want to reduce course offerings further. Currently, counseling and admissions and records, and financial aid is not scheduled to go into the new Student Union building, but the President has asked Student Services to research One Stop operations elsewhere to see if this is feasible. Decisions about the joining of Student Activities, Culinary Arts and all student services will have to be made fairly soon. Plans for nursing to move to the Old Administration Building are proceeding well. The old nursing building as well as the general classroom building will be torn down.

NURSING USERS’ GROUP MEETING February 2, 2011 Recap from last week showed the overall configuration that the nurses have chosen for the Old Administration Building. Offices and conference rooms will go into the south wing and classrooms and labs will go into the north wing. Handouts included the program elements and diagrams of the proposed classrooms and offices. The group had a discussion about lecterns and the types of lecterns that they will need. We are trying to avoid the problems that lecterns caused in NEA. Wall outlets for electricity should be ubiquitous and there will be wireless in the building. There was an ADA compliance person at the briefing who made sure that ADA requirements were being considered and met. Offices will have 100 square feet, and Steinberg showed two possible configurations. There will be three conference rooms with 18 person capacity in each. And, there was a complicated discussion about the SIM lab’s configuration and requirements.