By Catherine M. Eagan, Las Positas College

The contacts list for Region II is updated as of early April, 2009. All constituents have been informed of the upcoming Pasadena conference, featured speakers, and the proposal due date. (I provided them with a flyer and proposal form.) They were encouraged to get their dues in and receive the newest issue of inside english as well.

BERKELY CITY COLLEGE (formerly Vista College, Berkeley)

Berkeley City would like guidance on how English departments and their colleges are integrating program review into their budgeting processes and how they are integrating SLOs into program review.

CHABOT COLLEGE (Hayward)

Chabot’s English department is 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. Each college’s projects will be described below.

Chabot is continuing work on TLC—“The Learning Connection,” which seeks to bring together multiple student support services on campus, and the Center for Teaching and Learning, which coordinates faculty inquiry groups (FIGs), BSI research projects, training in instructional technology, and resources generally. The CTL is pledging to help faculty with professional development by “partnering with Institutional Research, Staff Development, Program Review, and the Library in order to ask the right questions and provide access to information related to the questions.” See http://www.chabotcollege.edu/learningconnection/ctl/. As I said in my last report, the Center has been put off to 2016 due to budget constraints, but it is an exciting initiative.

CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO (SF)

No report.

COLLEGE OF ALAMEDA (Alameda)

College of Alameda is participating 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.

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)

Report coming from John Thomas, ECCTYC Treasurer.

LANEY COLLEGE (Oakland)

Laney is participating in the FIN. They are investigating their bilingual Wood Technology/ESL program (called Carpentería Fina) to document the value of contextualized learning.

LAS POSITAS COLLEGE (Livermore)

LPC is participating 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.

We continue to improve our integrated reading and writing curriculum, and are now writing basic skills modules based on the CSU Expository Reading and Writing curriculum but using our own readings and combining the modules with other assignments related to grammar, citation, and group research. Our College Foundation Semester, a learning community for at-risk students with a small cohort of students, will begin its fourth semester. It will have two cohorts for the first time in the fall. CFS is excited to report that though at least half of their students are learning disabled, their success rates are higher than students who “mainstream” and enroll in stand-alone basic skills English, math, CIS, and study skills. (This learning community is based on Cabrillo College’s Digital Bridge Academy.)

Our 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.

We finally have a basic skills coordinator and lead faculty member (in sociology), so that is good. We are still struggling to access basic skills money and institutionalize basic skills initiatives and professional development.

We are still curious to learn how other colleges are doing with the SLO process and how they are integrating their adjunct faculty into that process. We are interested to learn how colleges are meeting ACCJC’s demand that SLOs be on the course outline. LPC’s Academic Senate decided long ago that SLOs should be more dynamic and that faculty should not have to go through a course outline revision when the SLOs changed.

LOS MEDANOS COLLEGE (Pittsburg)

Los Medanos has 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.

MERRITT COLLEGE (Oakland)

No report.

NAPA VALLEY COLLEGE (Napa)

No report.

OHLONE COLLEGE (Fremont)

Ohlone is also struggling with the new TBA hour guidelines. They are thinking of moving the TBA hours for their English courses online.

SANTA ROSA COLLEGE (Santa Rosa)

The CTE dean at Santa Rosa is planning to work with the English department to create a contextualized English curriculum for CTE students. They are looking for examples of best practices at other community colleges. I have referred them to the College of Alameda’s FIN team, but they would appreciate more feedback—contact Stephanie Thompson at sthompson@santarosa.edu.

SKYLINE COLLEGE (San Bruno)

Skyline College has approved release time for three BSI coordinators—two faculty and one counseling faculty, consisting of Karen Wong (English instructor); Jacquie Escobar (counselor); and Soodi Zamani (math instructor). They assumed their posts in Fall 2008; this semester, the counselor will receive 20% release time to take the lead in Student Services components; the math instructor will receive 20% to take the lead in coordinating learning communities; and the English instructor, Karen Wong (also the SLOAC coordinator!), will receive 60% to be the overall coordinator. To find out more about Skyline’s BSI, access their website at http://www.skylinecollege.edu/collegesuccess/.

Skyline is also reevaluating its TBA lab hour.

SOLANO COLLEGE (Fairfield)

No report.

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