By Catherine M. Eagan, LPC

The contacts list for Region II was updated as of April, 2009. Colleges who have new English coordinators since that time should send their names to me at ceagan@laspositascollege.edu.

All constituents were asked for feedback and reminded of the October Pasadena conference. They were encouraged to get their dues in and receive the newest issue of inside english as well. I have recently realized that I should also be gathering information from private two-year colleges and tribal colleges—I will try to incorporate those voices in my next report.

In any case, no email responses were received; thus, the following report is based on the regional director’s personal knowledge. Any college who would like to add their college’s news and/or questions to the regional report is encouraged to contact Catherine Eagan at ceagan@laspositascollege.edu.

Berkeley City College (formerly Vista College, Berkeley)

BCC continues to participate in the Faculty Inquiry Network (FIN). For more information on their and others’ inquiry projects, see http://fincommons.net/2009/09/21/mid-term-inquiry-update-videos/.

Chabot College (Hayward)

Chabot’s English department continues to be busy with their Hewlett Grant and the Faculty Inquiry Network. Around 20 colleges are participants. Colleges in our region who are participating include the College of Alameda, Berkeley City College, Laney College, Las Positas College, Los Medanos College, and Skyline College.

Chabot’s Katie Hern and Tom de Wit joined with LPC’s Catherine Eagan to present at ECCTYC on acceleration, in an effort to get people reevaluating whether multiple levels of English are necessary for developmental students. Hern and Eagan also shared the work of the FIN on an ECCTYC panel with instructors from San Diego Mesa College, Glendale College, and Santa Ana College. For more information on their and others’ inquiry projects, see http://fincommons.net/2009/09/21/mid-term-inquiry-update-videos/. Finally, Tom de Wit and Sean MacFarland screened their recent film The Written Works, a student film on the experience of researching and writing a transfer-level research paper.

City College of San Francisco (SF)

No report.

College of Alameda (Alameda)

College of Alameda continues to participate in the FIN. Their Diesel Mechanics program is joining with basic skills English, math, and ESL faculty to discover whether the embedding of basic skills curricula into CTE courses will improve student success. For more information on their and others’ inquiry projects, see http://fincommons.net/2009/09/21/mid-term-inquiry-update-videos/.

College of Marin/Indian Valley (Novato)

No report.

College of San Mateo (San Mateo)

No report.

Contra Costa College (San Pablo)

No report.

Diablo Valley College (Pleasant Hill)

Tom Hurley participated in a “Tips on Getting Hired” panel at ECCTYC this year.

Laney College (Oakland)

Laney continues to participate in the FIN. They are investigating their bilingual Wood Technology/ESL program (called Carpentería Fina) to document the value of contextualized learning. For more information on their and others’ inquiry projects, see http://fincommons.net/2009/09/21/mid-term-inquiry-update-videos/.

Las Positas College (Livermore)

LPC continues to participate in the FIN. They are studying their basic skills program, both the accelerated course and the two-semester course, with the help of student co-inquirers and students in the Mass Communication program, who are working on a film documenting students’ experience of our program. For more information on their and others’ inquiry projects, see http://fincommons.net/2009/09/21/mid-term-inquiry-update-videos/.

LPC is continuing to improve its integrated reading and writing curriculum and is now using faculty-written modules, based on the CSU Expository Reading and Writing curriculum, in its basic skills courses. LPC’s College Foundation Semester (CFS), a learning community for at-risk students, expanded to two cohorts of students in this, its fourth, semester. CFS is excited to report that though at least half of its students are learning disabled, its success rates are higher than students who “mainstream” and enroll in stand-alone basic skills English, math, CIS, and study skills courses. (This learning community is based on Cabrillo College’s Digital Bridge Academy.)

LPC’s English 1A course is still making use of a “TBA” lab that students attend in the Integrated Learning Center, staffed by faculty in programs who also have a “TBA” lab. Unfortunately, budget cuts are affecting the amount of hours the center can be open. In addition, the state has handed down new guidelines for how TBA hours must operate that we are struggling with. Unlike Skyline and some other places, we have had students coming to a center that has faculty line-of-sight, which is good, but sometimes students come into the lab when no English faculty are present. This will not be allowed under the new guidelines, but since TBAs are only funded 1 hour of faculty staffing per course, it becomes very difficult to staff a facility where students can come to a TBA hour—in other words, it offers very little flexibility for the student. In addition, students will have to choose a day and time that they will consistently attend the lab for one hour per week, and they will have to submit that time in writing to their instructor at the beginning of the semester. This also takes away flexibility for students whose work hours change from week to week. Since Chaffey College just won the RP Group’s “Leaders in Student Success” award on a model that would not be possible with the new TBA guidelines, we wonder if they are counterproductive.

LPC just completed its accreditation site visit.

Los Medanos College (Pittsburg)

Los Medanos continues to participate in the FIN with its three different FIN teams. The English team is working with African-American students to look at how the Umoja model might improve African-American student success in English 70, an integrated reading and writing course three levels below transfer. The Math/Puente/Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching team is creating an “open-entry, one-semester accelerated course that prepares students for transfer-level Statistics,” as compared to the standard “three- to four-semester developmental path toward Calculus.” The course will be included in the Puente Learning Community. The third team is working collaboratively with San Diego City College’s Umoja program to improve African-American retention in basic skills math. For more information on their and others’ inquiry projects, see http://fincommons.net/2009/09/21/mid-term-inquiry-update-videos/
Katalina Wethington represented her team’s FIN work at the RP Group’s Strengthening Student Success Conference in San Francisco in early October.

Merritt College (Oakland)

Liz Green presented at ECCTYC this October. Her panel was entitled “Spoken Word Poetry: Making Artful Connections between Writing, Speaking, Reading, and Listening.” Green also teaches at DVC.

Napa Valley College (Napa)

No report.

Ohlone College (Fremont)

Ohlone, like LPC, continues to struggle with the new TBA hour guidelines. They are thinking of moving the TBA hours for their campus’ courses online. For more information, contact Perri Gallagher at Ohlone (pgallagher@ohlone.edu). Perri also presented at ECCTYC this year. Her presentation was entitled “Metaphors We Teach By: Research in Community College English Online.”

Alison Kuehner also attended ECCTYC. She shared the reading curriculum she has developed. For more information, contact her at akuehner@ohlone.edu.

Santa Rosa College (Santa Rosa)

No report.

Skyline College (San Bruno)

Karen Wong, Skyline’s SLOAC, has just been recognized by the RP Group for her outstanding contribution to SLO work at Skyline—she received a POWER Award at the Strengthening Student Success conference in San Francisco this October. (POWER stands for Promising Outcomes Work and Exemplary Research.) I reprint Wong’s reflections on receiving the award because it contains so much valuable advice on how to make SLO’s meaningful on our campuses:

Most loved? I hope so, or at least respected. I admit that I’ve had moments when I felt like the stigmatized Hester Prynne, only the scarlet letter “A” signifies assessment, in the case of us SLOAC Coordinators. Our colleagues’ attitudes depend in large part on how the SLOAC is rolling out (or unraveling, depending on your perspective). At my campus, we began with a discussion of assessment’s purpose, and in our planning, we’ve tried to stay true to that purpose: to improve student learning.

It’s a true honor to be the first recipient of this award, as I can easily think of so many equally deserving leaders. I don’t think I am deserving on my own, but I am happy to accept it on behalf of my campus’ SLOAC Steering Committee, with members from every campus Division, my College President, and the Dean of Research and Planning, and without whom my campus would not have been able to make such strides. Among our accomplishments. we:

• Researched the SLOAC initiative and created a Framework for its implementation;
• Continue to host or facilitate SLOAC professional development workshops in departmental, division, and campus-wide settings:
• Created an assessment flowchart and checklist for faculty and staff to track their progress on the SLOAC;
• Continue to collaborate with the Curriculum Committee to integrate SLOs and assessment into program review:
• SLOs on course outlines,
• a spreadsheet to track which courses have SLOs, assessment plans, completed assessments,
• specific questions that address outcomes and assessment in the program review instrument,
• a matrix to align courses with institutional outcomes;
• Drafted and adopted degree level outcomes (a.k.a. ISLOs), after soliciting campus feedback;
• Initiated research on and discussion of how to assess ISLOs:
• Working in coordination with the BSI (Basic Skills Initiative), reviewed and administered the CCSSE (Community College Survey of Student Engagement) as one means to assess ISLOs;
• Created an annual reporting template for assessment results that was tentatively approved by the Curriculum Committee but is presently submitted to the Office of Research and Planning;
• Reviewed database programs to document our assessment efforts, resulting in the District purchasing TracDat;
• Secured a personnel and financial commitment from the campus leadership to implement the initiative.

The list doesn’t even begin to reveal the thoughtful, intense deliberations that informed their eventual implementation. Thus we were quite pleased with the accreditation visiting team commending us on our SLOAC infrastructure (and recommending that we giddy-up with the actual assessment—no surprise there).

It’s also been a pleasure sharing what works and what doesn’t, as statewide SLOAC leadership has afforded me multiple opportunities. According to Eric Weiner (2008) in The Geography of Bliss (which I highly recommend), we derive pure joy from helping others. We definitely see this principle at work in SLOAC circles. My campus could not have moved forward without the assistance and input from SLOAC pioneers Janet Fulks and Marcy Alancraig, among others. In appreciation, I’ve enjoyed being able to reciprocate in kind, presenting at venues such as the Strengthening Student Success conference and the Academic Senate Accreditation Institute. I’ve also learned a great deal from the multiple presenters who so generously share their processes and insights.

As an educator firmly committed to access and equity, I am eager to put into practice a reflective methodology whose purpose is to increase student success. The SLOAC has enabled us to explore the meaning and implications of data, and to craft and implement a response that draws on our campus’ resources and expertise and is best suited for our student population. As much as I appreciate this recognition, I look forward to passing it on next year to one of the many thoughtful, inspiring leaders in the California Community College assessment movement. Let’s keep the ball rolling!

Solano College (Fairfield)

No report.

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