Briefing Report
U.S. Department of Education Stakeholder Meetings
October 13, 2009 and October 21, 2009
By Stacey Novelli, Legislative Associate, NCTE Washington Office

The U.S. Department of Education is hosting a series of forums to discuss key issues related to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Last month, Secretary Arne Duncan commented that that rewrite of ESEA should start now and that the reauthorization cannot wait. Congress reauthorized ESEA most recently in 2002 in what is known as the No Child Left Behind Act. Two forums were held in October.

On October 13, the Department hosted the second of five planned forums on ESEA reauthorization. The topic was “Great Teachers and Leaders.” Dr. Thelma Melendez, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, gave opening remarks and spoke of the important role of effective teachers and principals in promoting student achievement. According to Melendez, in order to ensure that all children have access to dedicated and highly-skilled teachers and school leaders we should:

1. Compensate teachers through a redesigned evaluation system informed by multiple measures including classroom observations and evidence of student engagement and learning;
2. Create new pathways to recruit and prepare a new generation of teachers who are supported in their first years in the classroom through mentoring programs;
3. Empower successful school leadership and faculties with the flexibility needed to build their school and create new and innovative programs to meet the needs of their diverse populations; and
4. Reach out to master teachers and leaders and ask them to bring their knowledge and expertise to the schools and communities that need them the most.

Carmel Martin, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, summarized the overarching principles regarding teacher quality that will guide the development of a new ESEA bill for the Department. They include:

1. Treating all teachers as professionals by providing high quality pre-service training, professional development, access to timely student data and skilled leadership;
2. Recruiting and preparing talented individuals into the field of education, omitting barriers to high-quality alternative certification programs, and holding all teacher preparation programs accountable;
3. Developing school leaders that make schools work effectively for students and teachers; and
4. Equalizing the distribution of quality teachers and leaders between urban and rural communities. 

On October 21, the Department hosted the third of five forums on ESEA reauthorization. The topic was “Promoting Innovation and Rethinking the Federal Role.” Assistant Secretary Martin noted that the Department looks to develop an ESEA reauthorization package that better leverages federal dollars and makes the law less compliance-driven. Martin commented, “The best solutions are local, done at the classroom level with parents and teachers and other educators.” Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, echoed these remarks, and noted that the importance of innovation in education reform cannot be understated, but that it is crucial to examine and understand how it happens versus simply trying to replicate so-called innovative programs that are successful.

The NCTE DC Office staff are attending and tracking the information in these Department of Education forums to gather information for the Executive Committee in writing NCTE’s 2010 legislative platform that will guide NCTE’s advocacy regarding changes in ESEA.

For videos from the forums, go to http://www.ed.gov/news/events/forum.html.

Stacey Novelli, Legislative Associate, NCTE Washington Office

Labels: President, TYCA Representative

Presented at the Fall 2009 Board Meeting and Biennial Conference
22 October 2009
Hilton Pasadena

CONFERENCE

This year’s conference theme is Pathways to Community. The theme stands as a reminder of the kind of culture we as college educators strive to create on our campuses and in our classes. We see signs of community life in our classrooms every day. When one student’s shared insight about a poem leads to a more complete understanding for all of her peers—this is community at work. When in an online workshop a student’s draft is strengthened by the comments of his classmate—this is community at work. As educators, one of our most important tasks is to create—and improve upon—learning environments that facilitate the camaraderie, helpfulness, and partnership that characterize community. I am confident that as this year’s ECCTYC conference comes to a close, attendees will take with them new and inspired ways of creating this sense of community on campus and in classroom.

I commend our conference chair, Corinna Evett of Santiago Canyon College, whose vision and perseverance have been essential to this year’s event. Thank you, Corinna, for your dedication to ECCTYC and to the planning of this conference. I also applaud all members of the conference committee listed below for their diligence and industriousness as they attended to important conference work.

• Corinna Evett—ECCTYC 2009 Conference Chair
• John Thomas—Treasurer, Conference Badges
• Micah Jendian and Jan Lombardi—Program Committee Co-Chairs
• Corinna Evett, Micah Jendian, Jan Lombardi, and Sterling Warner—Program Layout and Production
• Corinna Evett (Chair) and Sean Stratton—Promotion Logos and Flyers
• Corinna Evett—Local Arrangements
• Susan Yonker and Gary Enns—Photography
• Chella Courington, Corinna Evett, Heidi Ramirez, and Sterling Warner—Speakers Committee
• Corinna Evett, Christopher McCabe, and Susan Yonker—AV Equipment
• Michael Dinielli, Corinna Evett, and Sterling Warner—Hotel Arrangements
• Sravani Banarjee, John Thomas, and Julie LaMay—Registration Committee
• Sean Stratton (Chair), Rosemarie Guglielmino, and Sterling Warner—Best Article, inside english Committee
• Catherine Eagan, Rosemarie Guglielmino, and Sterling Warner—Best Literary Magazine Award
• Sterling Warner (Chair), Michael Dinielli, and Tom Hurley—Nina Theiss Award
• Christopher McCabe (Chair), Corinna Evett, and Heidi Ramirez—Publicity

TYCA REPRESENTATION

Representation at TYCA National is essential to ECCTYC’s status as the Pacific Coast Region of TYCA, and so the board is indebted to Elissa Caruth of Oxnard College for her hard work and dedication as our organization’s representative to TYCA National. Caruth has been to eight nationals since 2005. Her role as representative has taken her to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Nashville, New York, New York again, San Antonio, San Francisco and next month Philadelphia. Caruth has served on several TYCA committees, including the nominations committee and the best article committee. She has shared her innovative ideas as a presenter four times at nationals, has moderated sessions, and has served as a round table facilitator. Her numerous and insightful TYCA Pacific Coast and ECCTYC reports can be read in current and back issues of inside english and TETYC.

Caruth’s term as TYCA rep is up this year, and after several years of service, she has decided to step down. Thank you, Elissa, for your commitment and dedication to The English Council and TYCA. Former ECCTYC board member Jody Millward of Santa Barbara City College has been nominated to replace Carruth as our representative. Millward, for many reasons which our first vice president will delineate in his report, is an excellent choice for the position and will be a wonderful addition to the board.

NEW CO-DIRECTORS

I have appointed two new co-directors—Kate Pluta of Bakersfield College for Region Five South Valley, and Kevin Ferns of Woodland Community College for Region One Northern California.

Regarding the Region Five appointment, nominations were sought from the division and department chairs of the Southern South Valley, and Pluta’s name rose to the top of the list. Bakersfield College’s English Department chairperson, Pam Boyles, states in her nomination of Pluta: “Kate has been a former department chair of the BC English Department, former Senate President, and has served many years on the CCA Executive Board in various leadership positions. … She has my highest recommendation!”

Regarding the Region One appointment, it was Ferns that noticed the vacancy and expressed interest in participating on the board. I interviewed him through email and am confident that he will make a fine addition to the board. At Woodland, Ferns is working to expand English offerings “beyond just the comp offerings and into lit and creative writing courses. He is also working on “expanding the scope” of his school’s literary magazine and on involving more students in the writing and editing of the publication.

VACANT SEATS ON THE BOARD

Currently, we have eleven of twenty-two co-director positions filled on the board. If the board approves my appointments for Regions One and Five, our number will be brought up to thirteen. That leaves nine co-director positions vacant. I urge the board to be proactive in filling these seats so that we can better represent our constituents throughout the state.

In particular, we need to fill the following key vacancies: Region Four North Valley Co-Director, and Adjunct Co-Director At-Large. Currently, we have no members in these positions. ECCTYC is seeking two promising and motivated adjunct instructors—one from Northern and one from Southern California—as well as two faculty members from the following Region Four schools:

American River College, Columbia College, Cosumnes River College, Deep Springs College (private), Humphreys College (private), Lake Tahoe College, Merced College, Modesto Junior College, Sacramento City College, San Joaquin Delta College, Sierra College

Other regions with vacancies include Region Two San Francisco Bay; Region Six Central Coast; Region Seven North Los Angeles; Region Eight South Los Angeles & Orange County; and Region Nine San Bernardino.

ECCTYC ON THE WEB

Our current website and paid web editor James Fitch of Hartnell College have performed admirably through this conference. Now, upon concluding the event, it is time to consider more cost effective and user friendly alternatives. It is my feeling that ECCTYC’s website should be inexpensive, easy for a board member with little coding experience to edit, and easy for co-directors and officers to post reports and reach their constituents. Members of the web committee are currently evaluating alternative interfaces such as Joomla and Drupal, and even free web building interfaces such as WordPress, to see if one of these technologies might help us to build a more intuitive web space. I encourage the web committee to continue this important work and to report back to the board at our next board meeting.

AGENDAS OF THE FUTURE

Finally, as president, it is my goal to create board agendas replete with topics of the utmost importance to our profession and to our constituents. To do this, I rely heavily on the help of the officers and co-directors of this board who bring with them the issues and concerns of ECCTYC constituents throughout California. I encourage board members to contact me with issues throughout the year in order to help shape the future direction of this organization.

Gary Enns
President, ECCTYC
Professor of English, Cerro Coso Community College

Labels: Conferences, ECCTYC Conference 2009, President

President: Gary Enns, Cerro Coso Community College

First Vice President: Sterling Warner, Evergreen Valley College

Second Vice President: Michael Dinielli, Chaffey College

Secretary: Chella Courington, Santa Barbara City College

Treasurer: John Thomas, Diablo Valley College

Immediate Past President: Heidi Ramirez, Hartnell College

Editor of inside english: Sean Stratton, Chaffey College

TYCA Representative: Elissa Carruth, Oxnard College

Historian: Edith Conn, Ventura College

Labels: Editor of inside english, First and Second Vice Presidents, Historian, Immediate Past President, President, TYCA Representative

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.

Labels: Region 2

Kate Pluta of Bakersfield College

Bakersfield College

SLOs and Assessment: The department is working on its third-semester review of English 1a SLOs and assessment of the research paper rubric.

General Update: BC no longer uses an essay for placement. It relies on COMPASS and multiple measures. The department has revised its department final for English 50 (formerly English 1).

Gloria Dumler and David Moton co-edited their new text Navigating America: Information Competency and Research for the Twenty-First Century, published in March 2009.

The department held its first Meet & Greet for English Majors in the spring of 2009; Cindy Hubble is helping set up an English Majors Club.

Retirement: Dr. Nancy Edwards retired after forty years of service.

New hires: Wesley Sims was hired for fall of 2009 in a tenure-track position. Wes just completed his doctorate, defending his dissertation this summer. Neal Stanifer was hired on a one-year temporary position.

Cerro Coso Community College

The communications department is working to add the "learning and self-efficacy skills" recommended by the Basic Skills Committee into all of its developmental composition and reading courses. We will have these added to all course outlines by the end of this semester. We are also working on offering ESL courses in the Fall of 2010. As a department, we agree that we are behind where we need to be regarding ESL and that offering these courses is essential to our ESL community members. We have faculty attending ESL conferences and meeting with ESL departments at other institutions in order to gain information and improve our own course offerings.

Labels: Region 5

Corinna Evett, Santiago Canyon College
ECCTYC Report for Region VIII: South Los Angeles and Orange County
Fall 2009 Board Meeting in Pasadena, CA

Santiago Canyon College:

As many across the state, our college, including our department, has had a few blows as a result of the dismal statewide budget situation. First, we have had to cut back our class offerings, which has proven detrimental to our adjunct faculty. In addition, we have lost the LHE funding for our Honors Coordinator as well as a portion of LHE for our Writing Center Coordinator. The most difficult thing has been watching friends lose their jobs and/or having to change positions and move from our campus to either the district or to our sister college. We are also facing a difficulty with our Library times and resources as a result of the budget situation. It seems that we might be losing our Literary Reference Center, which will adversely affect our literature students. Likewise, as we’ve lost staff and funding, the library hours have drastically diminished, which makes it difficult for instructors to schedule classroom bibliographic instruction for morning and evening classes as well as for students to utilize library services.

Despite the budget difficulties, we are still doing our best to meet the needs of our students and maintain a comprehensive English program. We have been able to fill all of our literature offerings as well as all of the classes in our writing class sequence this semester.

In regards to SLOs, we have completed our first round of SLO assessments in spring 2009. The assessment process has proven instructive: it has caused us to reconsider our SLOs as well as the assessment tools/models that we’ve chosen to use to determine student success. We have discovered that although we have seen moderate to clear student success, some of the questions may be flawed in that we may be asking students to utilize a skill other than the skill set forth in our SLO for which we are assessing. This semester, we have implemented a pre and post assessment model as well as reconsidering the questions that we’re asking, and we’ll see if they provide any difference in measuring student success.

Also, we continue to innovate our Writing Center (WC). This semester, we have incorporated a customized workbook and a My Writing Lab component into the WC curriculum. Thus far, the addition of group work, practice exercises and writing assignments have proven fruitful for students.

Our department continues to participate in Basic Skills Initiative advancement by participating on a number of BSI committees. We have participated in leading and attending a number of Best Practices Seminars, Writing Center Evaluation Committees, and Mentor Programs for students and faculty. We have also participated in a number of norming sessions with the ACE and English faculty members. The data collected at the norming sessions was shared with the Counseling department, which assisted counselors with student placement.

Our department plays a large role in our campus’ Learning Community program. Many of our classes are linked with other disciplines, which continues to assist students and create a deeper sense of community that crosses disciplines.

Keeping community building in mind, we are thinking about ways to improve adjunct faculty participation in the department. Especially during this time when so many adjunct faculty members are losing their classes/jobs, as a department, we want to communicate our level of concern and appreciation for adjunct faculty. Therefore, we are considering a mentor program for tenured faculty to reach out to adjunct faculty more as well as better ways to communicate department happenings and needs to our adjunct faculty such as re-implementing our department newsletter and monthly updates.

Golden West College:

Dibakar Barua provided the following information:

The English faculty plays a pivotal role in the advancement of the basic skills initiative at Golden West College. Our department has two basic skills lead faculty members. They are responsible for working with respective departments to increase campus-wide awareness of basic skills students and their needs. In this role, the lead faculty planned and implemented a workshop series related to effective teaching strategies and this semester they will offer an additional workshop on technology. The spring workshop was widely attended by full-time and part-time faculty. Workshop evaluations were also overwhelmingly positive. In addition to the support provided by lead faculty, our department has completed a course wide assessment for English 009, Developmental Reading and Writing, and is working on a similar assessment for English 010, Reading and Writing Essentials. This assessment will be used to tailor curriculum and improve student learning. Also in English 010, a valuable learning community has been established linking this intermediate course to counseling. Our English department is committed to collaborative learning efforts and we are looking into future pairings. Moreover, the sense of community fostered by learning communities will advance the success of basic skills students. Lastly, the English department will host a faculty retreat that focuses on basic skills, student equity and academic accessibility for students with learning disabilities. This retreat will inform an ongoing study focused on student equity and disproportionate impact.

Our department was among the first on campus to establish viable Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), and we are currently working on developing and implementing methods of assessment, tracking and analyzing data using the five-column model, and assisting other departments on campus with their efforts in this area. In addition to recently updating the SLOs for all of our courses, our Content Review subcommittee is revising the outlines for each of the four composition courses to reflect the language and intent of SLOs rather than course objectives. Last year, we began including SLO assessment in an exit exam for our entry-level composition course, and we are now expanding that effort to cover all sections of our pre-transfer level courses, as well as one level of ESL. We are tracking the data we have collected in eLumen; we are employing this information to make instructional improvements and reflect our dedication to student success. Several of our department members are also using their knowledge of SLOs and related assessment techniques to assist others on campus through teaching and assessment-related workshops. English faculty support SLOs not only in our own courses, but we are also extremely active on campus committees such as Institutional Effectiveness, Academic Senate, Student Success, and Basic Skills – Lead Faculty.

Saddleback College: Long Beach City College:

No Response No Response

El Camino College: Cerritos College:

No Response No Response.

Coastline Community College: Cypress College:

No Response. No Response.

Fullerton College: Irvine Valley College:

No Response. No Response.

Marymount College: Orange Coast College:

No Response. No Response.

Santa Ana College:

No Response.

Labels: Region 8

Sravani Banerjee

Evergreen Valley College
Articulate September 21-26: Evergreen Valley College celebrated a week-long festival of global arts and cultures to commemorate the opening of our new Theater Arts Complex. The presenters, from diverse backgrounds and a variety of disciplines, included renowned authors, performers, musicians and composers, such as Cherie Moraga, Sandip Roy, and Aimee Pham.
Achieving the Dream initiative: Evergreen Valley College has been invited to join this national initiative:
“Achieving the Dream’s student-centered model of institutional improvement is focused on creating a culture of evidence in which data and inquiry drive broad-based institutional efforts to close achievement gaps and improve student outcomes overall.”

Currently, we have 25 classified professionals, administrators, faculty and students serving on the core and data teams. These teams will use the academic year to analyze disaggregated data to identify gaps in student achievement and develop an action plan to improve outcomes for students. The goal is to identify three to five priority areas for improving student success and have these priorities integrated into our campus-wide strategic initiatives. The teams will also create a four-year plan to reduce the achievement gaps our students are experiencing.

Campus Technology: EVC is transitioning from Blackboard to Moodle for course management systems by next semester and Windows XP to Windows 7 in the next 18 months

Accreditation: The report is in progress with the first draft due next week.

Curriculum Issues: Curriculum separation between Evergreen Valley College and San Jose City College is being discussed and researched for its impact on students.

Budget Issues:

• The General Fund Revenue has been reduced by $2.2 million and translated by the State Chancellor’s Office into a 3.39% Workload Reduction (think of this as negative growth). This means that we now have a permanent lower funded base. The colleges will be working hard to determine the most effective way to approach this reduction.
• The Categorical Programs revenues have had revenues reduced by an initial estimate of 16-32% depending on the program. The large programs are DSPS, EOPS, CalWORKS all at 16% and Matriculation at 32%. These initial amounts assumed the same percentage, as backfill from the federal American Recovery and Re-Investment Act and this is the basis for our adopted budget. However we have just learned that the federal backfill will only by about half of what was expected.
• The state is already predicting that revenues will come up short for the budget that was just passed. In anticipation, we have budgeted a reduction of resources of close to $1 million.
• In 2008-09, after mid-year reductions, the district still had a structural deficit (when ongoing expenditures are greater than ongoing revenues) of almost one million dollars. To address this structural deficit in 2009-10 we have budgeted an annualized reduction of $500,000 in the medical benefit category. The Benefits Committee will be working this fall to identify ways that this target can be met effective January 1, 2010.

Latina Heritage Month: Our celebration of Latina Heritage month included presentations by author Reyna Grande, Dr. David Lopez, president of National Hispanic University, Latin Dance fundraisers, and a writing contest.

We also celebrated 40 Years of the Chicano Movement in San José, with speakers such as Sophia Mendoza who is featured in Nanette Regua & Arturo Villarreal’s book, Mexicans in San José. The event focused on community-based organizing which has played a profound role in empowering San Josés’ diverse Latino community. Rallying around issues of quality education, police brutality, immigrant and labor rights, groups have employed militancy, culture and history as key organizing tools. Newer generations have also worked to strengthen the voices of women and the LGBT community.

Disabilty Awareness Month: Events included: Suicide Prevention presentation by Mary and Victor Ojakian; “Passion = Perseverance: Why Having a Career Plan Makes College Easier”; Interactive discussion presented by Jan Johnston-Tyler, a neurodiversity counselor and author; California State Assembly member Jim Beall presenting on Disability rights.

Labels: Region 3

Region I (Northern California)
Editor: Kyra Mello, Associate Professor of English; Writing Language Development Center; Yuba College; ECCTYC, Region I Co-Director
Butte College
Contributor(s): No response

College of the Redwoods 
Contributor(s): No response

College of the Redwoods—Del Norte 
Contributor(s): No response

College of the Siskiyous 
Contributor(s): Steve Reynolds, Chair, Language Arts Department; Professor of English; Carly Furry, Part-time instructor and Writing Lab instructor

The faculty of the College of the Siskiyous reported they continue to implement projects and improvements for BSI and update course outlines of record to include well-written SLOs. In addition, the faculty continue to implement both appropriate methods of instruction and appropriate methods of assessment that are directly aligned to the SLOs.

They further report that very few curricular changes have occurred in Language Arts as a result of BSI funding though they have instituted several programs that impact Language Arts students. They have instituted a two-week Summer Bridge program prior to the start of the fall semester, which includes math and English refresher courses for under-prepared students (the primary target population has been athletes who arrive to college before the start of the semester). In addition, another BSI project that has affected Language Arts is a learning community that pairs one section of one-level below transfer composition with a college reading course. The other BSI Language Arts project has been to add an instructional assistant to the course which is two-levels below transfer composition. Data for these new programs is forthcoming.

Colleges of the Siskiyous also reported changes in the running of their Writing Lab including procedures for working with students and mechanisms for tracking students’ progress and achievement of learning outcomes. Budget cuts have significantly impacted Language Arts labs. They have experienced cuts to hours and layoffs in both the reading and writing labs. The faculty and staff have been told to expect additional cuts to programs. Contributors conveyed great concern about the future of supplemental instruction in writing at College of the SIskiyous.

Feather River College
Contributor(s): No Response
Lassen College

Lassen College made few changes to curriculum. The faculty reported the addition of a writing lab course to support basic skills writing courses. This semester (Fall 2009) is the first time it is being offered. BSI projects are in progress, but Lassen College reports that it's too early to look at outcomes.


Contributor(s): No Response

Shasta College

Shasta College reports that the loss of full-time faculty devoted to transfer-level courses and cutbacks in literature offerings has been challenging. The faculty also reported concern about Basic Skills faculty smoothly integrating with the English Department. Despite these challenges and budget shortfalls, Shasta College reports that the department's full-time faculty continues to operate at a high level of proficiency.

Shasta College’s Language Arts department has gone through significant division restructuring and expansion of distance learning. Organizing a coherent department with several branch campuses and multiple deans continues to pose challenges.

Woodland College
Contributor(s): Kevin Ferns, Professor of English; ECCTYC Region I Co-Director

The faculty of Woodland College report they are considering revamping their English placement exam. The faculty at Woodland College would like to know more about BSI funded projects and programs and writing-center development at other institutions. The writing center is a particularly important issue because Woodland College is experiencing potential cutbacks due to budget. The faculty would also like to know how other departments are grappling with loss of staff, faculty, and resources.

Yuba College
Contributor(s): Kyra Mello, Associate Professor of English; Coordinator, Writing Language Development Center; ECCTYC Region I Co-Director; Francesca Hulin, Professor of ESL/VESL; Kelly Fredricks, Associate Faculty of English

The most significant program update at Yuba College is the implementation of the Writing Language Development Center (WLDC). Using BSI funds, English, ESL, and reading faculty lobbied and won support for a large-scale tutoring center. Previously Yuba College’s English tutoring services were part of the College Success Center (CSC). While significant improvement had been made to the program over the last three years, the service had long outgrown its space in the CSC. BSI funds supplied the money needed to move the service into its own space. BSI money is also the only source of funding for tutor payroll and supplies. The college has yet to institutionalize the program. The program continues to grow despite a lack of resources.

Yuba College has also made strides to improve the developmental writing classes. Using BSI funds, a team of nine English, ESL and reading faculty, including adjuncts, created an integrated reading/writing curriculum in an attempt to meet the requirements of both developmental 110B (three levels below transfer) reading and writing courses. A curriculum was produced but due to the late marketing, the class did not make enrollment. However, as a result of that project, a collaboration between an English and ESL professor was made to take portions of that curriculum to pilot in a mutual ESL and English 110B writing courses. The outcome of the first semester pilot was students producing a higher caliber of writing than had been seen in the past. While adjustments to this curriculum still had to be made the following summer, the pilot continues and data will be tracked of students involved in these sections down the road. This semester an ESL and English professor continue to pilot the newest, revised version of the integrated 110B curriculum.

In addition, Yuba College has initiated a learning community program. The English department is currently the foundation of this program; English instructors are involved in all links. Learning communities have been formed between Sociology and English 51 (one level below transfer), as well as a community between Chicano History and English 105 (two levels below transfer). Since these communities are in their first trials this semester (Fall 2009), comments concerning their outcome are unknown at this time.

The budget crisis seems to have hit Yuba College harder than our neighbors with news, at the time of this writing, of summer school being cancelled, our satellite branch at Beale Air Force Base is facing possible closure, numerous sections of courses are being slashed from all departments in the Language and Arts division, and 35 adjuncts are being laid off district-wide. We are told another round of cuts is to be expected.

Despite the current economic woes at Yuba College, faculty report continued efforts to improve programs. Faculty would like to work to develop the future relationship between reading as a discipline and writing as a discipline and even more collaboration between the ESL and English faculty with the possibility of creating an ESL-track all the way to transfer.
Faculty in Region I have suggested the following topics and speakers for future ECCTYC presentations and conference themes:

• Creative Writing and the Composition Classroom: Crossovers and Infusions.
• Dr. Dana Ferris to present on Generation 1.5 and ESL writing issues including defining this population and strategies to address their distinct writing needs.
• Dr. Zadina to present on brain research and student learning.
• Molly Emmons (Butte College) to present on learning communities.
• Situated learning
• Faculty inquiry projects concerning writing assignment prompts and assessments.
• Teaching reading strategies to use with writing.

Labels: Region 1

Northern California – Region 1

Butte College, Clear Lake College, College of Redwoods, College of the Siskiyous, Feather River College, Lassen College, Mendocino College, Shasta College, Woodland College, Yuba College

San Francisco Bay – Region 2

Chabot College, City College of San Francisco, College of Alameda, College of Marin/Indian Valley, College of San Mateo, Contra Costa College, Diablo Valley College, Laney College, Las Positas College, Los Medanos College, Merritt College, Napa Valley College, Ohlone College, Santa Rosa College, Skyline College, Solano College, Vista College

San Francisco South Bay & Monterey – Region 3

Cabrillo College, Canada College, DeAnza College, Evergreen College, Foothill College, Gavilan College, Hartnell College, Mission College, Monterey Peninsula College, San Jose City College, West Valley College

North Valley – Region 4

American River College, Columbia College, Cosumnes River College, Deep Springs College (private), Humphreys College (private), Lake Tahoe College, Merced College, Modesto Junior College, Sacramento City College, San Joaquin Delta College, Sierra College

South Valley – Region 5

Bakersfield College, Cerro Coso Community College, College of the Sequoias, Fresno City College, Porterville College, Reedley College, Taft College, West Hills College Coalinga, West Hills College Lemoore

Central Coast – Region 6

Allan Hancock College, Cuesta College, Moorpark College, Oxnard Community College, Santa Barbara City College, Ventura College

North Los Angeles – Region 7

Antelope Valley College, Citrus College, College of the Canyons, Don Bosco Technical Institute (private), East Los Angeles College, Glendale College, L.A. Harbor College, L.A. City College, L.A. Mission College, L.A. Pierce College, L.A. Southwest College, L.A. Trade-Technical College, L.A. Valley College, Mt. St. Mary’s, Doheny (private), Pasadena City College, Rio Hondo College, Santa Monica City College, West Los Angeles College

South Los Angeles & Orange County – Region 8

Cerritos College, Coastline College, Compton College, Cypress College, El Camino College, Fullerton College, Golden West College, Irvine Valley College, Long Beach City College, Marymount Palos Verdes (private), Orange Coast College, Sadivleback College, Santa Ana College, Santiago Canyon College

San Bernardino – Region 9

Barstow College, Chaffey College, College of the Desert, Copper Mountain College, Crafton Hills College, Mt. San Antonio College, Mt. San Jacinto College, Mt. San Jacinto College-Menifee, Palo Verde College, Riverside Community College, San Bernardino Valley College, Victor Valley College

San Diego – Region 10

Cuyamaca College, Grossmont College, Imperial Valley College, MiraCosta College, Palomar College, San Diego City College, San Diego Mesa College, San Diego Miramar College, Southwestern College

Labels: Region 1, Region 10, Region 2, Region 3, Region 4, Region 5, Region 6, Region 7, Region 8, Region 9

The following is a small sampling of the types of presentations that you can expect to attend at the ECCTYC 2009: Pathways to Community conference:

• “Teaching in a Learning Community or What in the Hell Were We Thinking When We Cooked This Up?”
• “Community Through Comics”
• “Creative Ideas to Help Basic Skills Students Succeed in Composition Classrooms”
• “Spoken Word Poetry: Making Artful Connections Between Writing, Speaking, Reading, and Listening”
• “To Dumb Down or Not to Dumb Down? Issues in Teaching Shakespeare in the Composition Classroom”
• “Creating Community Across the Disciplines: Introduction to Literature meets African American History”
• “Between Tony the Tiger and Simon Cowell: Moving Peer Response Beyond ‘It’s Gr-r-r-eat’ but Stopping Before ‘It Sucks’”
• “Reaching All Learning Styles In On-Line and Hybrid Courses”
• “Facebook and the Classroom: Productive Identities and Social Bonding in Nonymous Online Environments”
• “Tips on Getting Hired in a Community College: A Panel Discussion on Hiring”
• "Revisiting Metacognition: Students Think about Thinking in Developmental and Transfer-Level Composition Classes"
• "A Conversation with Andrew Lam"

As you can see, October's conference proves to be a most enjoyable event, so be sure to register soon! See you in Pasadena, Oct. 22-24!

Labels: Conferences, ECCTYC Conference 2009

Region V South Valley South
By G.S. Enns, posted 22 April 2009

Building Bridges Conference: On Friday, 6 February 2009, Region V benefited from the nineteenth annual Building Bridges Conference held at the Four Point Sheraton in Bakersfield. The first retreat was held in 1990 as a retreat focused on improving articulation between Bakersfield College and CSU, Bakersfield. Through the years, the day-long conference has grown and now includes seven colleges. In addition to CSUB and BC, participants now include the English departments of Cerro Coso Community College, College of the Canyons, College of the Sequoias, Porterville College, and Taft College. This year’s breakout session topics covered important college teaching issues such as Basic Skills, Learning Communities, English as a Second Language, Technology in the Classroom, Responding to Papers, Teaching Research, Teaching Reading, Critical Thinking, Grammar/Usage, and Learning Disabilities. This year’s conference was supported by Allyn and Bacon/Longman, Bedford/St. Martin’s, Thomson, Houghton Mifflin, McGraw-Hill, and Prentice Hall. Visit the BBC website for more information.

Cerro Coso Community College: The Cerro Coso Community College English Department is considering moving to WriterPlacer, AccuPlacer’s writing assessment tool in order to place students. Currently, CC faculty score student placement essays holistically. The benefits of WriterPlacer are obvious: results are immediate, and much time is saved. However, some drawbacks exist: the prompts in WriterPlacer are not text-based and therefore do not test how well students can work with outside sources, which is a key distinguisher between placing students in Cerro Cos’s English 70 and placing them in 101.

Some CC English faculty attended TechEd 2009 in Ontario to learn about cutting edge education technology. Faculty found the following sessions particularly engaging: Camtasia Studio: Best Practices in Education; Snagit: What You Need to Know About Screen Capture and Editing; Jing: Simple, Quick and Free Visual Classroom Communications; PowerCounterPoint: How Working Memory and PowerPoint Can Work Together; Focused Discussion Groups That Engage the Online Learner (till next session); Authentic Learning in a Second Life; Beyond the Music: Educational Uses for iTunes U; Practices to Foster Informal Learning

Labels: Region 5

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.

Labels: Region 2

Region II Report, October 2008
By Catherine Eagan, posted 19 February 2009

Region II ECCTYC Report, October 2008

Chabot College (Hayward)

Chabot’s English department was recently awarded a Hewlett Grant to fund an initiative called “The Faculty Inquiry Network,” which “seeks community college faculty to create a ‘community of practice’ united around a set of shared values for strengthening basic skills education.

Chabot is also doing innovative things with its learning support services. TLC—“The Learning Connection,” is currently housed in multiple places due to facilities constraints, but offers all kinds of help to students, whether through language labs, the WRAC Center, individual appointments with faculty for students who are taking English 115 alongside another English course, and computer labs. For more information, consult http://www.chabotcollege.edu/LearningConnection/. Plans are under development for a Center for Teaching and Learning that will be more cross-disciplinary and provide a common meeting place for teachers and students committed to furthering their learning. Not only the previous components of TLC, but also the math lab, Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs) running pilots, and PATH (peer academic tutoring) will be in the Center. Unfortunately, the Center has been put off to 2016, but it is an exciting initiative. For more information, consult http://www.chabotcollege.edu/learningconnection/ctl/

Diablo Valley College (Pleasant Hill)

The English Division at DVC continues to confront several issues. Most prominent are the following:

Class cuts and concerns about our productivity formula: DVC has experienced dropping enrollment over the past few years, but this year there has been a surge in enrollment. Students had difficulty find sections. This has led to discussions with our district about revising our productivity formula so it more accurately reflects our college and district.

BSI: The Basic Skills Initiative funding (BSI Force) has actively explored ways to better serve our rapidly growing basic skills and developmental student population. Several projects have been funded through BSI including: consultations for our developmental IRW pilot, a published student anthology and integrated writing-art project for our EOPS/Summer Institute (ENGL 90) bridge learning community, presentations by reading experts and professionals for our department and the entire college. Some are exploring the possibility of a hybrid developmental composition course through the BSI, although this is still the discussion stage.

Integrated reading-writing (IRW) pilot: After several years of discussion but no action, our English department has integrated three sections of developmental reading and writing (ENGL 116-118). This semester we are offering three sections of the integrated reading-writing courses (IRW) and four in spring ‘09. The IRW Committee plans to collect data on student retention and skills, and compare it to our stand-alone reading and writing courses. We hope to gradually integrate ENGL 116-118; we estimate that this could happen piecemeal in the next ten years. We are also looking at the possibility of integrating our basic skills courses (ENGL 96-98) and there is talk of offering a similar pilot for those courses. Questions about load, possible lab offerings, the length of the course (currently 6 units; 5 seems more appropriate) continue to arise; we will need to address those in the future.

Re-writing our freshman literature offering (ENGL 123) to meet critical thinking requirements: A few years ago our ENGL 123: Freshman Literature sections began dying; students were not enrolling in them because it did not meet the critical thinking requirement the way our ENGL 126 did. Therefore, after much discussion by the Composition Committee, it was decided to re-write the course outline to meet the critical thinking requirement and see if student enrollment would increase. Counseling encouraged us to make this change with the hope more students would enroll and give them more transfer options. This is the first semester we have taught the “new and improved” critical thinking ENGL 123.

On-line offerings: Our department is discussing how many on-line literature courses we should offer. Only recently have some literature courses been offered on-line. While they have been successful concerns still need to be addressed. Some of concerns include: should all of our literature courses be offered on-line, are we offering literature courses on line just to “save” these courses because they do not fill on land, should a full-time department member be allowed to teach only online and not on land, etc.

Las Positas College (Livermore)

LPC is in the midst of making major changes to its basic skills program. Our two introductory developmental courses and our “accelerated” version of those courses, technically a pre-collegiate course, are both housed in an English Center that combines classrooms with a computer lab with a “TBA” lab that currently focuses on grammar. There is also instructional assistant help for each class, and the instructional assistants teach the “TBA” lab. This program has been successful, but its high cost, coupled with facilities constraints, means that we cannot grow much more, and there are many students who cannot get into our courses each semester. What changes, then, are we considering? We remain committed to an integrated reading and writing model and do not have plans to add elementary reading and writing courses. What we may do is take the pre-collegiate course out of the English Center and make it a stand-alone course. This would free up space to add developmental courses and make those courses more like learning communities, perhaps bringing in a counselor component. Our College Foundation Semester, a learning community for at-risk students with a small cohort of students, is in its third semester, and we may import some of the successful aspects of that community into the developmental courses. We also got retention money to develop modules for our developmental courses that are based on the CSU Expository Reading and Writing curriculum. We hope that this will increase the time we devote to reading in our courses and ensure consistency of approach among our developmental and pre-collegiate instructors, only 50% of which are full time.

Our English 1A course is still making use of a “TBA” lab that is beginning its fourth year. Students come into an Integrated Learning Center, staffed by faculty in programs who also have a “TBA” lab, to do lab assignments and work with English 1A faculty. Having common lab assignments and introducing new instructor-designed lab assignments as they develop has been a wonderful way to improve faculty collaboration on this vital course. We are struggling, however, to make sure that students come into the lab at a time when an English instructor is present. Otherwise, students feel that they might as well do the assignments at home, and they lose their investment in the lab. But the “TBA” lab model only pays for one hour of instructor-staffed lab time per course, so we only have around 30 hours per week staffed by English instructors.

We are curious to hear more about how other colleges are spending their basic skills money. Our college developed a list of criteria for evaluating what basic skills projects should be funded with the new BSI monies; the effort has been lead by administrators who have made final decisions about how the money should be spent. We put some money towards developing an excellent “Reading and Writing” website for the use of the whole campus community, teachers and students. We also sent an adjunct instructor to the Basic Skills Institute this summer, and will have Vincent Tinto come to campus to lead a workshop at the end of the month. But we are struggling to access this money in ways that will make a real difference in teacher training and instruction.

We are also curious to hear how other colleges are doing with the SLO process and how they are integrating their adjunct faculty into that process. We have evaluated all sections of 1A, 100B (2nd semester developmental course), and 104 (pre-collegiate course) at least once, but have not really figured out how to “close the loop” and assess the data we are collecting. Our assessment tool is eLumen.

Something we’re working on for spring is a meeting with English teachers from our local high schools. We are sending them a questionnaire to find out what they most want to speak to community college English instructors about and using that and our own concerns to structure a session on how we can better prepare students to be successful readers and writers in college. The college will pay for substitute teachers for the time they miss at their high schools.

Los Medanos College (Pittsburg)

Like LPC, Los Medanos also has an integrated reading and writing curriculum. Their English 60 focuses on foundational skills; English 70 introduces students to college resources and educational planning and ensures that every English 70 student sees a counselor to develop an educational plan; English 90 introduces students to college-level critical reading and writing, and English 100 is the transfer-level reading, writing, and critical thinking course. The department provides binders to the whole department, FT and adjuncts, containing the Student Learning Outcomes for each course, sample syllabi, and sample assignments.

Ohlone College (Fremont)

Ohlone first wanted to share new initiatives. They have a Basic Skills coordination team that is working on the Basic Skills plan for the college.
• Two reading faculty in the department were trained in a Reading Apprenticeship over the summer. They will use this technique in their classes in the fall and hold workshops for other faculty in the spring.
• The department and the college has implemented a requirement that students who place below college-level reading on the Accuplacer Assessment test must take the appropriate developmental reading class before moving on to transfer-level classes. (In the past,
developmental reading classes were optional and few students took them. Now the demand for these classes has significantly increased.) It would be interesting to investigate whether students come to English 101A better prepared as a result of this new requirement.

Ohlone then shared news of ongoing projects:
• The college has been on a 16-week calendar for two years now, and it seems to be working well.
• The department offers all three of the transfer-level writing classes (101A, 101B, 101C) online, as well as quite a few of the literature electives
• The English department has had an AA degree for three or four years now; each year a few more students graduate from Ohlone as English majors (but the numbers are low—about 4 or 5 per year).

Lastly, Ohlone shared their concerns about the following:
• Developmental reading and writing classes, plus the freshman composition course, have a lab component. Some faculty have developed their own curriculum for their students for the lab, while others (mostly part-time writing instructors) rely on standardized reading and writing prompts. There seems to be inconsistency with the quality
and completion of lab work from one class to the next.
• Some students (it’s not clear how many) succeed in Ohlone’s developmental classes but arrive unprepared in the transfer-level class. The department has surveyed faculty and students in the various levels of English classes asking if they (students and faculty) feel students are properly placed into their classes. (These surveys are necessary to validate the assessment tool, Accuplacer, and to help the department adjust cut off scores). The department has found that the students who, according to faculty, are not properly placed into English 101A (placed too high) are not misplaced because of the assessment test, but rather because they have passed the prerequisite class. The English department needs to determine why some students pass the developmental classes but arrive unprepared to do college-level reading and writing tasks in the transfer-level classes. They also need to determine how many students fall into this category.

Skyline College (San Bruno)

Skyline College is on the verge of approving 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). All stepped forward for the position. For Fall 2008, each will receive 20% reassigned time to do preliminary meeting as a coordinating team. In Spring 2009, 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, 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/.

Karen is also the SLOAC coordinator. The English program is doing an assessment of their SLO assessment process—asking the questions of whether the SLOs are working correctly. They feel that it’s difficult to find a good assessment tool. Faculty at the college expressed the sentiment that they are doing good work on these major initiatives, but wish the English department had more full-time instructors, and see that as the number one obstacle to managing all the work there is to do.

The English department is also undergoing a review of its reading program and considering adding a reading and writing connections course at the developmental level (i.e. a more integrated approach). English is also about to reevaluate its use of the “TBA” lab hour to support its basic skills courses. Because of funding, they were encouraged to make the lab a 1/2 unit, which unfortunately has resulted in a decline in attendance in the lab. The other negative to the 1/2 unit of credit now attached to the course is that students how can’t get credit towards their 16 hours of “by arrangement” work by using the tutoring support on campus.

The department is excited about their participation in CalPASS, a program that seeks to understand the gap between high school and college achievement. Schools in San Francisco and on the Peninsula are trying to figure out where the gaps in students’ readiness occur, especially if the high school and community college curriculum is very similar. Skyline is working to compare high school and community college English textbooks and they have already compared Skyline’s English course outcomes with high school English outcomes in an effort to discover where high school and college curricula are similar and where they might differ.

Labels: Region 2

ECCTYC BOARD MEETING, OCTOBER 15-17, 2008

REPORT FROM TOM HURLEY, IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT

Since our last Board meeting, I have been engaged in a number of professional activities related to our work at Diablo Valley College:

1) I’ve just finished serving on the College’s Basic Skills Initiative Task Force; I was co-chair from August to October 2008. During its year of operation, the Task Force completed a self-study for the college related to basic skills practices and developed recommendations for continued activities in support of effective basic skills and developmental education. In Spring 2008, the Task Force created a mission statement for DVC’s basic skills efforts, and launched the Foundations for College Success (FCS) program, which will carry forward the Basic Skills Initiative at DVC. FCS will support the college community as it addresses one of the key components of the college mission: provision of basic skills and developmental education. Also in Spring 2008, the Task Force sent out the first call for proposals for basic skills projects to be funded; a total of eight projects were funded. By October 2008 the Basic Skills Task Force had recommended the establishment of a college-wide FCS committee, selected two co-coordinators to lead the committee and the college’s basic skills efforts. As the Task Force completes its work, it is about to send out the second request for proposals. At this point, our work will be taken over by the FCS Committee and its co-coordinators.

2) As part of the English Department’s commitment to making adjunct faculty part of our community, I have been co-chairing our Mentoring Committee. We have now published a Handbook for New Instructors that includes basic information about working at DVC and in our English and Journalism Departments.

3) I’m also part of a pilot program (“Integrated Reading and Writing”) that will combine developmental reading and writing instruction. With three other colleagues (including John Thomas, Region II co-director), we’ve have begun to teach a course grows out of current thinking about the reading-writing connection. Since DVC has long taught basic and developmental reading and writing as separate courses, this pilot represents a major experiment for us.

Labels: Immediate Past President

Construction and Renovation: Taft College is still undergoing construction and renovation. The administration building and library are now complete with only library landscaping to be finished. The math/science building is also nearing completion. After it is completed, the renovation project will then focus on the tech arts building. The construction has been hard on staff, faculty, and students, but results are now being seen.

New Co-Chair: The Liberal Arts Division has a new co-chair—Dr. Chris Chung-wee. He will be overseeing all things English. The division also has a new full-time English instructor—Jessica Grimes. She replaces an instructor who has taken on other duties.

Comp Exchange: TC English faculty has been invited to the Fall Comp Exchange, which includes Bakersfield College and California State University Bakerfield. The event will be held October 24 at CSUB. The Liberal Arts Division is sponsoring a visit by author Lu Chi Fa. He will be on campus October 22. His book, Double Luck, is autobiographical and tells of his life in China, how he came to America, and what his life has been like since. The Taft College Book Club is co-sponsoring “In the Shadow of the Raven,” a “live, interactive dramatization of the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe by Broadway and film veteran Duffy Hudson.”

SLO’s: The college is hammering out its Student Learning Outcomes, spearheaded by English instructor Geoffrey Dyer. The institution is also preparing for its six-year accreditation.





Work Reprinted

Graupman, Gary. “Re: taft updates?” Email to the director. 13 Oct 2008.

Labels: Region 5

SLO Revisions: The English Department at Cerro Coso Community College covers the largest geographical service area (18,000 square miles) of any community college in California and can sometimes find it difficult to get together for anything other than a virtual email meeting. But this last September the Cerro Coso English department rallied faculty members together at the Indian Wells Valley Campus for the important task of SLO revision. Using an agreed upon set of composition course skills, the department broke up into teams of two and over the course of one morning updated its entire line of composition course offerings.

New Reading/Basic Skills Specialist: The department hired Laura Vasquez as the new Reading/Basic Skills faculty member at the IWV campus in Ridgecrest.

35th Anniversary: The college celebrated its 35th anniversary September 8. As its anniversary theme, the college chose “Educate, Innovate, Inspire, Serve … The Tradition Continues.” The celebration of the college’s success in its service area will continue through the 2008-09 school year. “For 35 years Cerro Coso Community College has brought higher education to 18,000 square miles of service area. We continue to serve all of our communities and look forward to 35 more outstanding years,” stated Dr. Mary Retterer (qtd. in “Cerro Coso”).

Basic Skills Initiative: Recent activity by the BSI Committee includes work on a first draft of an institution-wide definition of “successful developmental education.” Much discussion has been devoted to broad SLO’s turned outward toward the students. Three types of skills have emerged as key outcomes. Broadly, they are:

Content skills—finding and fixing major errors in writing, identifying main ideas of paragraphs in reading, and factoring in math.
Study skills—organizing, memorizing, time management, computer literacy.
Self efficacy skills—showing self-direction, self-motivation, flexibility, and resourcefulness, as well as setting educational goals. (Basic Skills)
Other BSI topics of discussion include directorship of the Basic Skills Program (now known as the “Community of Emerging Scholars”) and ongoing revision of the BSI mission and vision statements.





Works Cited

“Basic Skills Initiative Minutes.” 25 Sept. 2008, Cerro Coso Community College.

“Cerro Coso Community College Launches its 35th Anniversary.” Coyote Howler October 2008: 1.

Labels: Region 5

WRITING RESEARCH ACROSS BORDERS
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

2008 Santa Barbara Conference on Writing Research
University of California Santa Barbara
February 22-24, 2008

Call for Proposals:
Theme: Writing Research Across Borders
Due Date: May 1
Length: under 300 words

The Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and the Writing Programs at
the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of
California, Davis invite proposals for their interdisciplinary
conference, "Writing Research Across Borders," to be held February
22-24, 2008 in Santa Barbara, California.

This is an exciting time where research on writing is having many
births, rebirths, and growing spurts in many nations, with foci on
many levels of schooling and development across the lifespan. At the
2008 Santa Barbara Conference on Writing Research we hope to foster
dialogues across different writing research traditions, located in
varied national, disciplinary, and programmatic venues. We have
invited a premier panel of plenary and featured speakers to represent
the diversity of writing research in the world and to open the door
for further broad participation from researchers of all nations
interested in exploring writing across all life stages, institutional
settings, and disciplinary approaches.

This conference follows on the successes of the 2002 and 2005 Santa
Barbara Conferences on Writing Research, which had the themes of
"Writing as A Human Activity" and "Writing Research in the Making."
Information about the 2005 conference is available at
http://education.ucsb.edu/netshare/wrconf05/. Further information
about our upcoming 2008 conference is available at
http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/wrconf08/.

We invite proposals for panels, roundtables, and individual
presentations that discuss works in progress, completed research, and
reflections on how writing research is conceived, proposed, funded,
carried out, published, and responded to. Conference proposals
should be submitted by May 1, 2007. Proposals should be under 300
words and in English (for a fuller statement on language diversity
at our conference, please see
http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/wrconf08/language.html ). Please send
proposals via email (as a Microsoft Word attachment or in the email
body) to writing@education.ucsb.edu or send paper copies to the
address below.

TRAVEL ASSISTANCE FELLOWSHIPS:

In addition, through the generosity of the Writing Program of the
University of California at Davis and Chris Thaiss, the Clark Kerr
Professor of Writing at UC Davis, we are able to offer a small number
of fellowships to help support travel expenses for speakers.
Fellowships will be awarded based on financial need and proposal
quality. If you would like to apply for a fellowship, please submit
a separate fellowship application letter explaining your need for
funding.

If you have questions about the fellowship application letter or
other aspects of the submission process, please feel free to contact
Dr. Charles Bazerman or Suzie Null, the Writing Research Across
Borders Conference Coordinators. Both can be reached at the address
at the bottom of the page.

Thank you for your interest in our conference. If you have any
questions please contact us at the above addresses below.

For the Organizing Committee,

Charles Bazerman
Sheridan Blau
Robert Krut
Susan McLeod
Suzie Null
Paul Rogers
Amanda Stansell

Writing Research Across Borders
writing@education.ucsb.edu

Committee Contact Information:
writing@education.ucsb.edu or
Writing Research Across Borders Conference
Proposal Committee
c/o Charles Bazerman
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
UC Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9490