Over the summer, I forgot how painful these Chaparral articles are to write. I am no scholar of Philosophy, Education, Math, English, Physical Science, or History; I am just a scrappy dude who reads manuals and figures out how to use software. And then I help other people not have to read these manuals or struggle as much with the software I teach. I’ve made art and music, and I still sometimes think of myself as an artist. Anyway, since my background isn’t classically academic/scholastic, I always feel that I come up short in my attempt to offer my immense, erudite readership the scintillating insights I imagine they desire.
To begin the year, I would like to offer a positive message to my colleagues – and that message would be a hearty, tautological: “We are us.” Tautologies are fun to use, not just because they’re faults of style, but also because they are exciting to say out loud and sometimes can carry powerful implications, like “It is what it is” in a Scorsese film. In my tautology, I hope to celebrate that we, as professors, have established and maintained for decades a supportive, inspiring, engaging atmosphere for our students and for each other. I am also implying that, no matter what happens to the community college system, who we are to each other and to our students will always matter. I forgot to say it on Institute Day, but I meant to encourage every one of us to show our students why it is so advantageous to have you, yourself, illustrate something.
I offer this message in the wake of a nearly two-decade-long history of legislative and administrative incursions against what community colleges once were: “cafeterias” of higher learning, seen in some respects as obstacles to the advancement of our students to UC’s, CSU’s, and to careers. Most of us became professors because of our attachment to the subjects we studied and our desire to make learning our subjects easier for others, and I imagine relatively few of us planned to participate in an integrative redesign of the community college system. Maybe our focus on our subject matter left us vulnerable to what is now taking place – a furtherance of the integration process, one that may be going beyond that which was anticipated by the ASCCC, and even the Chancellor’s Office and Student Senate for California Community Colleges.
On September 16th, Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, President of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC) visited Senate and discussed the role of FACCC as legislative advocate for faculty on academic and professional matters. Wendy talked about the implications of the recent passage of AB928 (Berman), which was opposed by the ASCCC in its April 17 resolution, which I strongly encourage you to read. AB928, among other things, requires students to be automatically placed into ADT’s, which, in the State Senate’s view is a violation of the ethos of Guided Pathways. Wendy also brought up the Campaign for College Opportunity, who sponsored AB928 and virtually all of the legislation that has transformed the “cafeteria” into the “conveyor belt,” such as AB705. It is worth looking at the Campaign’s previously sponsored legislation and legislative priorities for 2021, particularly AB1111 (Berman), which proposes to enact the giving of “comparable courses the same course number across all community colleges.”
If you look through the Campaign’s sponsored legislation, no doubt you’ll find a few bills that you think are fantastic and some you think are disastrous. It would be hard to argue against the notion that, over the past decade, the Legislature and Chancellor’s Office have avoided consultation with faculty groups at key junctures. In this environment, where the faculty perspective may feel undervalued, I recommend keeping in mind that “we are us” – and that each of us is able to bring our subject matter to life, and, by doing so enrich the lives of our students and colleagues. I believe the foregoing is true no matter what happens with transfer pathways, course numbering, or any more legislative disruption with respect to how community colleges function.
Glendale Community College | 1500 North Verdugo Road, Glendale, California 91208 | Tel: 818.240.1000
GCC Home © 2024 - Glendale Community College. All Rights Reserved.