Chabot College Program Review Report 2014 -2015 Year Two of Program Review Cycle “You are in the same cycle as last year!” Submitted on 11/1/13 Contact: Kristin Land/Shoshanna Tenn Table of Contents Divisions/Programs remain in the same cycle year for2013-2014 ___ Year 1 Section 1: Where We’ve Been Section 2: Where We Are Now Section 3: The Difference We Hope to Make _X__ Year 2 Section A: What Progress Have We Made? Section B: What Changes Do We Suggest? ___ Year 3 Section A: What Have We Accomplished? Section B: What’s Next? Required Appendices: A: Budget History B1: Course Learning Outcomes Assessment Schedule B2: “Closing the Loop” Assessment Reflections C: Program Learning Outcomes D: A Few Questions E: New Initiatives F1: New Faculty Requests F2: Classified Staffing Requests F3: FTEF Requests F4: Academic Learning Support Requests F5: Supplies and Services Requests F6: Conference/Travel Requests F7: Technology and Other Equipment Requests F8: Facilities YEAR TWO A. What Progress Have We Made? Complete Appendices A (Budget History), B1 and B2 (CLO's), C (PLO's), and D (A few questions) prior to writing your narrative. You should alsoreview your most recent success, equity, course sequence, and enrollment data at http://www.chabotcollege.edu/ProgramReview/Data2013.cfm. In year one, you established goals and action plans for program improvement. This section asks you to reflect on the progress you have made toward those goals. This analysis will be used by the PRBC and Budget Committee to assess progress toward achievement of our Strategic Plan and to inform future budget decisions. It will also be used by the SLOAC and Basic Skills committees as input to their priority-setting process. In your narrative of two or less pages, address the following questions: What were your year one Program Review goals? Did you achieve those goals? Specifically describe your progress on the goals you set for student learning, program learning, and Strategic Plan achievement. What are you most proud of? What challenges did you face that may have prevented achieving your goals? Cite relevant data in your narrative (e.g., efficiency, persistence, success, FT/PT faculty ratios, CLO/PLO assessment results, external accreditation demands, etc.). Our year one goals did not focus on curriculum or course completion so much as on quality of instruction, our relationships with our students, and maintaining consistent standards as faculty members in a very large department. Specifically, one goal was the creation of a full-content English department website, both to help students directly and for internal staff development purposes. This project was completed in January 2013. Another was to create an easy-to-read flow-chart to help our students choose the right developmental English class for their skills and needs, and to also help counselors understand the differences in our classes so that they can better support students . The flow chart was completed and distributed in May of 2012. A third goal was to produce more studentfocused films around the Chabot experience (this goes far beyond English); a fourth was to improve our hiring procedures for new adjunct faculty and new procedures went into effect in May 2013. A fifth goal had to do with addressing the issue of a lack of equityand opportunity among our students, noting in particular that our African-American and Latino students do not succeed in our classes at the same rate as other students, and that financial pressures on these students appear to be particularly damaging to their chances of success. An English faculty member is leading a campus wide FIG to address this issue. As a department, English still needs to address equity and opportunity in our classes. 1 Website/Program Coherence: We have achieved quite a lot of progress in pooling together resources for faculty, both full-time and part-time. Our new English Department website houses many key resources including our Department Philosophy and Teaching Practices document, sample syllabi and text recommendations. This is in place, for now, of much of the face-to-face time we would like to have among our full-time and part-time faculty. We also conducted two workshops for adjuncts and other colleagues to show them the features of the new website. Please see http://www.chabotcollege.edu/languagearts/english/ for more specifics. We have had a few other exchanges in our "Teacher Tawk" meetings, held during college hour the third week of each month. Still, we need more time for staff development, mentoring and peer exchanges. In spring of 2013, a well-attended two hour grade-norming session that included both adjunct and full time faculty indicated that we still need more time for departmental sessions to maintain a more cohesive program overall. Assessment: The English Department continues to explore alternatives to the assessment process and ways to demystify the English course progression for Chabot students, faculty and staff. Collaborationswith Tennyson and Hayward High Schools are underway to address curricular alignment and effective strategies for applying multiple measures for assessment. Three English faculty members are involved with this collaborative effort that is part of the Hayward Promise Neighborhood Grant. Related to assessment, a committee of ESL and English faculty has also begun meeting to discuss issues of common interest, including the efficacy of our current assessment cut scores and guidance for students, grading standards and expectations in our classes, and a possible future collaboration on an English 102 class that would be targeted for ESL students. Our office of Instructional Research, Counselors, and Katrin Field of the Assessment Center are all being consulted in these discussions, which we expect to continue through spring of 2014. Films: English faculty Sean McFarland and Tom DeWit, working in tandem with student filmmakers, have been successful in producing a series of movies to gain student perspectives on their education. Movies have been screened at various college-wide and district-wide events, prompted FIGS, and have also helped to inform PRBC's work over the last year. Making Visible products were also created to raise issues and inform the Chabot campus about The Learning Connection. Student co-inquirers continue to play major roles in raising issues to explore, critically and creatively, in service of making Chabot College English stronger.Partial list of recent movies created:Focusing the Lasers, Tuning the Voice, the Passion Project, For Lack of Space. Hiring: In spring 2013, we completed and adopted a new adjunct interview process to more closely mirror the process we use to hire high quality full-time faculty. We revised the interview questions to better evaluate a candidate’s pedagogy and experience in keeping with English Department philosophy. Program: equity/access/success:One challenge we have recently faced is the lack of FTEF to provide an adequate number of course sections for our students, and at the level that best matches their skills, needs, and motivations. Recent IR data shows that out of almost 6,000 students currently at Chabot who have earned over 48 units, about 3,000 have not yet completed English 1A. Sadly, with 2 the limits imposed by FTEF reductions over the years, we have felt pressure to reduce our sections of 101A and 101B courses, in particular, as well as our electives, which are already few in number and typically only offered once per year. The good news is that from Fall‘11 – Spring ‘12, we saw increases in success rates in our classes as a whole, with a 68% average student success rate across English in Spring ‘12 being the highest in 6 semesters. We noted particular improvement with African-American students who had a 57% success rate in English classes in Fall ’09, but a 62% success rate in Spring ‘12. The success rate of our Latino students also rose from 63% in Fall ’09 to 67% in spring ‘12. With an eye to our developmental classes(101A, 101B, and 102), we have noted that students who pass 101A and then enroll in 1A within 3 semesters pass 1A at a rate of 77%, and we’re pleased with that. However, only 42% of students who pass 101A do enroll in 1A within three semesters. This may be a result of having fewer sections of 101B available than in years past; we need to maintain access to this class for all who need it. The delay may also be a result of students taking “time off” from English after one or two semesters to work on math, for example. Although this may be inevitable, we may want to do more to try to counsel students to stay with English to help them achieve their educational goals in a timely manner, and to encourage students who have been at Chabot long enough to gain priority in registration to actually enroll in English classes, since delaying this work can cost the student a great deal of time in the long term, as the classes are sequential. It is interesting to note that of students who pass 101B, 82% enroll in 1A within 3 semesters, and 80% of those students are successful in 1A. In contrast, 84% of students who pass 102 enroll in 1A, and 76% are successful. 3 B. What Changes Do We Suggest? Review the Strategic Plan goal and key strategiesat http://www.chabotcollege.edu/prbc/StrategicPlan/SPforPR.pdfprior to completing your narrative. Please complete Appendices E (New Initiatives) and F1-8 (Resources Requested) to further detail your narrative. Limit your narrative to two pages, and be very specific about what you hope to achieve, why, and how. Given your experiences and student achievement results over the past year, what changes do you suggest to your course/program improvement plan? What new initiatives might you begin to support the achievement of our Strategic Plan goal? Do you have new ideas to improve student learning? What are your specific, measurable goals? How will you achieve them? Would any of these require collaboration with other disciplines or areas of the college? How will make that collaboration occur? There is no doubt that over the last 7 years Chabot College has developed a strong and deep culture of honoring, incorporating, and leveraging Student Voice and Making Visible products. Unfortunately, it has often been a struggle to secure ongoing reliable financial support for this work. Faculty and students doing this work often are essentially working for free. We strongly suggest that Chabot continue to support this work by institutionalizing it; in particular: 1. Provisions should be made to compensate faculty who have taken leadership roles in this work. 2. Provisions should be made to support 5 to 7 students doing this work. 3. College leadership should continue with plans to integrate SV/MV work into larger Learning Connection initiatives. 4. The college should set aside a budget category dedicated to technical and material support for this work. We also feel strongly that the combination of retirements in the last few years (positions that were not replaced) and the axing of reassigned time for English faculty coordination(f/t and p/t)has hurt our department, along with the loss of stipends for adjunct faculty to attend trainings (as was the case in years past). With fairly high turnover of adjunct faculty and the sheer numbers of courses taught by adjunct faculty, we have concerns about the integrity and cohesiveness of our program – and often problems surface too late. Because English curricula vary so dramatically among colleges, and because our classes are bedrock (reading/writing/critical thinking) to so much of the college experience, we need to be very careful that students in an English 1A class, for example, not have their experiences reduced to rote grammar review or exclusively personal reader responses to texts, but that they practice shaping arguments from multiple perspectives and honing their critical thinking skills in as many imaginative and analytical ways as possible.Developing better hiring practices, plus a comprehensive website, are steps in this direction, but we also need more time – on flex days for example – to work together and teach each other. Issues like “how should we handle plagiarism?” or “how can we best use new technology to support students with the writing process from brainstorming to proofreading?” are best addressed as a department. Regarding the Strategic Plan goal of helping more of our students reach their educational goals in a reasonable time, we believe improving placement is key, and we would like to continue working with counselors on academic advising for our classes, and on improving mechanisms like the pre-requisite course challenge (perhaps by implementing a computer-facilitated writing prompt based on texts). We also want to continue to support our learning communities (Daraja, Puente and CIN) and service 4 learning, as we see that students who are more connected to each other and to real, positive work in the world, tend to stay more focused and in school. We also still have a lot to learn about best ways to help our students address their non-academic pressures (from health to work to finances to transportation to family obligations) which so often derail them. Several FIGS are working on this issue, as well as related equity issues regarding first generation college students, very low income students, and other at-risk populations.The Opportunity and Freedom FIG is working on this issue from a campus wide vantage point, but within the English Department, Carmen Johnston and Kristin Land will begin an Action Research FIG which is further detailed in the new initiatives section. With the Common Core Standards being implemented in the K-12 system, we would like to increase collaborative efforts with local K-12 educators. As writing across the curriculum becomes standard practice in our local public schools, more students will be prepared to reach their educational goal in a timely manner. In collaboration with the Bay Area Writing Project, the English department has formed a group to plan a “College Writing Across the Curriculum Conference” in summer of 2015 on Chabot’s campus. Workshops may be facilitated by Chabot faculty with extensive experience in developing WRAC programs (dating back to the 1990's), and we envision that they will do this in coordination with public school educators and/or Bay Area Writing Project Teacher Consultants. While the English department recognizes a continued need formore in-depth conversations among the ESL department and the assessment center to better direct ESL students to appropriate courses (see page 4), we also are extremely upset at the lack of tutors we have available to students this semester. The late-breaking decision by financial administrators to revoke our scholarship/stipend program for student tutors has hurt our students immeasurably. To date, there is ONE ESL tutor serving this entire college, and this has a devastating impact on students in our English classes who have matriculated beyond ESL classes but who now cry out, quite legitimately, that aside from instructor office hours, there is no one on our campus available to help them identify and correct errors in their writing. This gaping hole in our support services needs to be addressed. As a side note, we are closely following the new ESL Friday workshop class, 1490, with a thought to how we might adapt their model at some point to better help our native speakers who also have sentence-level issues (grammar/syntax/punctuation/sentence structure) which impede them in achieving success in classes that require writing. Deeper collaboration with ESL instructors and tutors is certainly in our future. We have identified a need to revise the English 107 Grammar course because it is not currently functioning to support students enrolled in English (or other writing) courses, as it was originally intended to do. We will offer it in fall as a 149, experimental course, titled "Proofreading and Editing for College Writing." The course outline has been updated and is being taken through the approval process by Stephanie Zappa and Michael Langdon. English faculty will need to dedicate resources to inform the broader community about the course revision. Finally, like much of the campus, we continue to recognize the need for more study space and computer access for our students to complete writing assignments, research, and other projects. We would like to see the library hours expanded to better accommodate evening students and students who have few other suitable spaces to complete assignments. If the library were open until 9:00 pm, more evening students could participate in library research orientations and utilize the computers to compose quality writing assignments. Expanded hours on Friday (until 2:00 pm) would also serve our students who have limited computer access. 5 Appendix A: Budget History and Impact Audience: Budget Committee, PRBC,and Administrators Purpose: This analysis describes your history of budget requests from the previous two years and the impacts of funds received and needs that were not met. This history of documented need can both support your narrative in Section A and provide additional information for Budget Committee recommendations. Instructions: Please provide the requested information, and fully explain the impact of the budget decisions. Category Classified Staffing (# of positions) Supplies & Services Technology/Equipment 2012-13 Budget Requested n/a n/a n/a 2012-13 Budget Received n/a n/a n/a 2013-14 Budget Requested 1 2013-14 Budget Received Mobile computer lab for Learning Connection Other TOTAL 1. How has your investment of the budget monies you did receive improved student learning? When you requested the funding, you provided a rationale. In this section, assess if the anticipated positive impacts you projected have, in fact, been realized. Grant money was used to develop the new English Department website, which has helped us to communicate with one another, as well as proven helpful in hiring, training, and evaluating new faculty. Posted are our English Department Philosophy and Teaching Practices document, developed in the fall of 2011, as well as faculty resources, including sample assignments, sample student papers, and lists of texts and films used, at all levels of our curriculum. Faculty who utilize the site now have a more clear idea of our program cohesion, and this has been particularly useful to new faculty. This enables us to better serve students and support their learning. (completed) Title III $ supported the creation of several films: “Tuning the Voice” “Changing the Stakes” “Kicking Assessment” and to begin Faculty Inquiry Groups, including the Sharing the Page collaboration with high school teachers and the Hayward Promise Neighborhood. (See Narrative A) Students using “Inspiration 9” software in 354 and in WRAC computers have been able to work on their pre-writing skills, including brainstorming and outlining. Faculty and students who use the program find it useful and engaging. 2. What has been the impact of not receiving some of your requested funding? How has student learning been impacted, or safety compromised, or enrollment or retention negatively impacted? Appendix B1: Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Reporting Schedule 6 I. Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes & Assessment Reporting (CLO-Closing the Loop). A. Check One of the Following: XNo CLO-CTL forms were completed during this PR year. No Appendix B2 needs to be submitted with this Year’s Program Review. Note: All courses must be assessed once at least once every three years. Yes, CLO-CTL were completed for one or more courses during the current Year’s Program Review. Complete Appendix B2 (CLO-CTL Form) for each course assessed this year and include in this Program Review. B. Calendar Instructions: List all courses considered in this program review and indicate which year each course Closing The Loop form was submitted in Program Review by marking submitted in the correct column. Course *List one course per line. Add more rows as needed. All English Courses This Year’s Program Review *CTL forms must be included with this PR. 7 Last Year’s Program Review 2-Years Prior *Note: These courses must be assessed in the next PR year. X (We will assess all English courses in fall 2013 and reflect on results in spring 2014) Appendix B2: “Closing the Loop” Course-Level Assessment Reflections. ENGLISH WILL ASSESS IN FALL 2013 AND REFLECT/CLOSE THE LOOP IN SPRING 2014. THE FOLLOWING REFLECTIONS APPLY TO ALL COURSES ASSESSED FROM SPRING 11-FALL 11. PART III: COURSE REFLECTIONS AND FUTURE PLANS 1. What changes were made to your courses based on the previous assessment cycle, the prior Closing the Loop reflections and other faculty discussions? Repeatability changes to Creative Writingand Service Learning courses have been sent to Curriculum. 2. Based on the current assessment and reflections, what course-level and programmatic strengths have the assessment reflections revealed? What actions has your discipline determined might be taken as a result of your reflections, discussions, and insights? We have become better able to discuss our expectations of our students in various classes among ourselves, and communicate these to students, based on the rubrics we developed in conjunction with the SLO work. We continue to develop our program and have discussions about our classes; creating the English Dept. Website and revitalizing our “English Department Philosophy and Practice” (see www.chabotcollege.edu/languagearts/english/philosophy.cfm) in a retreat has also been a part of this – helping us recognize and reaffirm our core values. We have improved our adjunct hiring process, and we do see a need for further staff development opportunities to discuss our students, our teaching practices, how we evaluate students, etc. – both f/t and p/t faculty (there are about 50 of us). We have developed an AA-T degree to help our students transfer more easily as English majors. Two new courses (English 35 and English 41) for the AAT, and the AAT itself, were both approved. They are being sent forward for approval by the state, and for articulation at CSU and (for the classes) at UC. We anticipate the courses will be in the catalogand the AA-T ready to offer by Fall 2014.We recognize that we have many, many strong English students who plan to transfer, and as seen by our literature and creative writing courses in particular, they find a special “home” in these classes, yet there are very few sections of them as compared to our composition and basic skills offerings. These same students serve as tutors, are active in ASCC and clubs, and contribute greatly to our college in so many ways. We want to make sure we don’t lose these students, and we are dedicated to maintaining (and growing) the depth and breadth of our curriculum so as to at least be on par with other Bay Area community colleges. Finally, we are fairly satisfied with our success in our courses. We have reaffirmed our support of both the 101A/B and 102 developmental pathways as viable and needed for 8 our students, and are working to maintain both options in our schedule per student need. We have also reaffirmed our support of our elective courses (literature, creative writing and technical writing support) and are, again, working hard to keep the classes accessible to our students. As a side note on this, we are happy to be offering a course in Youth Literature for the first time in Spring 2014. We hope this class will have crossover appeal across English majors, parents, ECD students, and lovers of literature for children and young adults. This class also refreshes and updates our elective offerings in literature, and, like all of our electives, offers a high “productivity” value for the college. We do have some questions about our online offerings; although initial demand is high, student retention and success rates are not on par with on-site offerings. We recognize that access to these classes is important, but we are equally concerned about success and equity (not all students are equally prepared or equipped to succeed in on-line courses; low-income and first generation college students may be even less likely to succeed online than they are in face-to-face classes). 3. What is the nature of the planned actions (please check all that apply)? XCurricular X Pedagogical Resource based Change to CLO or rubric Change to assessment methods Other:_________________________________________________________________ 9 Appendix C: Program Learning Outcomes Considering your feedback, findings, and/or information that has arisen from the course level discussions, please reflect on each of your Program Level Outcomes. Program: English (developmental, composition sequence, AA degree and transfer___ PLO #1: Independently read and understand complex academic texts PLO #2: Critically respond to the ideas and information in academic texts PLO #3: N/A PLO #4: N/A What questions or investigations arose as a result of these reflections or discussions? We continue to be interested in uses of both non-fiction and fiction texts in our Basic Skills and transfer level courses. As a department we actively share the texts/ideas that we use in order to enhance our ability as individuals to make complex texts accessible to our students, while maintaining a high level of Program Coherence throughout our curriculum and Faculty. What program-level strengths have the assessment reflections revealed? Strengths revealed: Our department offers a rich variety of texts (in genre, cultural contexts, complexity of ideas, etc.) that help our students develop as critical thinkers and writers. We also have articulated clear values around how to teach English, and we have a very dedicated, passionate faculty that works hard to develop relationships with students, and not just present curriculum or evaluate work. What actions has your discipline determined might be taken to enhance the learning of students completing your program? Revise Adjunct Hiring Process—Completed in spring 2013: Given the number of adjunct faculty who teach our developmental and college composition courses, it is critical that we hire, train, and evaluate teachers well. Recognizing the liabilities with the present brevity of the adjunct interview session, a teaching demonstration and student paper evaluation are being incorporated into the interview.We are also revising the interview questions to better evaluate a candidate’s pedagogy and experience in keeping with English Department philosophy. These changes should be in place by early March, 2013, so that Dean of Language Arts can adopt them as part of the adjunct hiring process. The short of it: Better teaching will translate to enhanced learning. On February 14th, 2013 the department also participated in a “grading/ essay response norming” workshop to help us improve our abilities to effectively respond to students’ written work. We’d like to do these regularly, at all levels of our program (basic skills/ college level composition/ electives). We have developed an AA-T degree to help our students transfer more easily to CSUs as English 10 majors. Two new elective English courses have been created per state regulations so that we can accommodate the AAT: English 35, “Modern and Contemporary U.S. Literature,” and English 41, “World Literature from the 1700s to the Present.” The AA-T has been fully researched and both the degree and the courses are undergoing the Chabot curriculum review process at this writing. If all goes well, we should be able to offer the degree by this coming fall (2014). While working on the AAT, we also have made some important revisions to our English AA degree, eliminating old courses that are no longer being offered and discussing ways to make permanent changes to the configuration of the degree so that it complements the AA-T, but serves primarily non-CSU bound students (that is, students who are either transferring to UC or other non-CSU institutions, or students who are not interested in transferring but simply want to earn an AA). Since the AA-T is, by state mandate, quite rigid in its requirements, we plan to make the AA quite flexible, thus serving the needs of a wide range of our diverse Chabot student body. We recognize that we have many, many strong English students who plan to transfer, and as seen by our literature and creative writing courses in particular, they find a special “home” in these classes, yet there are very few sections of them as compared to our composition and basic skills offerings. These same students serve as tutors, are active in ASCC and clubs, and contribute greatly to our college in so many ways. We want to make sure we don’t lose these students, and we are dedicated to maintaining (and growing) the depth and breadth of our curriculum so as to at least be on par with other Bay Area community colleges. Program: Creative Writing and Literature electives (Certificate, GE, and transfer) PLO #1: Student produces a body of quality creative work. PLO #2: Student forms a critical response to the creative writings of others PLO #3: n/a PLO #4: n/a What questions or investigations arose as a result of these reflections or discussions? We are convinced that our Creative Writing and Literature courses are valuable to our student body as they promote both the mission statement of our department and the College. They also further develop critical thinking and communication skills, produce community on our campus, and further both English majors and non-majors in their educational goals, since the courses transfer as GE electives. As the landscape of our College continues to change, we continue to investigate how we can articulate the value of these courses while evolving our methods to reach our students’ needs. What program-level strengths have the assessment reflections revealed? Strengths revealed: We use writing as an assessment for reading, analysis and critical thinking. We see in these courses that a student’s enjoyment of the material and the complex integration of reading and writing leads to improved understanding of not only literature, but the society in which we live in, 11 and leads students to observe more intently, ask better questions, and read more critically into their own lives and the lives of others. The ability to produce more effective and nuanced writing is another key product of our courses. What actions has your discipline determined might be taken to enhance the learning of students completing your program? Our upcoming AA-T degree will help students maintain an academic focus as they continue through our program and beyond to further studies. We are expanding our course selections, which we hope to include more creative writing opportunities and world literature courses. 12 Appendix D: A Few Questions Please answer the following questions with "yes" or "no". For any questions answered "no", please provide an explanation. No explanation is required for "yes" answers :-) 1. Have all of your course outlines been updated within the past five years? YES 2. Have all of your courses been offered within the past five years? If no, why should those courses remain in our college catalog?NO.We haven’t had the FTEF to offer all of the courses we would like to, but with additional FTEF we would, increasing the breadth and depth of our offerings. 3. Do all of your courses have the required number of CLOs completed, with corresponding rubrics? If no, identify the CLO work you still need to complete, and your timeline for completing that work this semester. YES 4. Have you assessed all of your courses and completed "closing the loop" forms for all of your courses within the past three years? If no, identify which courses still require this work, and your timeline for completing that work this semester.YES 5. Have you developed and assessed PLOs for all of your programs? If no, identify programs which still require this work, and your timeline to complete that work this semester.YES 6. If you have course sequences, is success in the first course a good predictor of success in the subsequent course(s)?YES 7. Does successful completion of College-level Math and/or English correlate positively with success in your courses? If not, explain why you think this may be.N/A (we are English) 13 Appendix E: Proposal for New Initiatives (Complete for each new initiative) Audience: Deans/Unit Administrators, PRBC, Foundation, Grants Committee, College Budget Committee Purpose: A “New Initiative” is a new project or expansion of a current project that supports our Strategic Plan. The project will require the support of additional and/or outside funding. The information you provide will facilitate and focus the research and development process for finding both internal and external funding. How does your initiative address the college's Strategic Plan goal, or significantly improve student learning? I. English Action Research FIG – The purpose of this group is to encourage reflective practice among F/T and P/T faculty members, thereby revitalizing the professional development related to basic skills English courses. In particular, we will investigate the experiences of African American and Latino students in our basic skills and transfer English courses in the hopes of crafting classroom practices that allow students to engage and complete these courses at higher rates thereby alleviating some pressure on bottlenecks. To frame the discussions, we will start with a set of general inquiry questions such as: What classroom conditions best support African American and Latino students to develop as writers, readers and critical thinkers? What practices prepare the students to complete the English composition sequence at Chabot? What conditions are unique for students outside of identity-based learning communities? How do students describe their needs/stressors and what practices have they noticed support (or undermine) their engagement, persistence, and success with college composition? One of our first goals will be to convene a focus group of students. By conducting interviews in the focus group, we hope to better understand students’ perspectives of the classroom conditions that support learning. Through action research inquiry protocols, participating instructors can then begin to implement new practices and chart progress for a group of focal students within their specific courses. This type of action research has been used by the Bay Area Coalition for Essential Schools, the National Writing Project Teacher Research Collaborative, and the MUSE (Multi-cultural Urban Secondary Education) Program at U.C. Berkeley. What is your specific goal and measurable outcome? Provide revitalized professional development opportunity for 5-8 English faculty members and, in doing so, establish a common language around institutionalized racism to facilitate reflective inquiry into our classroom practices. Identify practices that support persistence and completion for African American and Latino students in the basic skills English course sequence based on a study of what students identify as successful learning experiences they have had in school and in the community. Share practices and train faculty outside of learning communities to lead conversations campus wide about our findings. Increase persistence and success rates for African American and Latino students by 5%. 14 What is your action plan to achieve your goal? Activity (brief description) Form faculty inquiry group, assemble focal students, and establish inquiry protocols for regular meeting times. Identify preliminary inquiry questions for each participant. Identify and interview focus group of students to understand student perspective of needs more clearly. Edit film. Set monthly meeting dates for the spring 2014 that include research readings, guest speakers, and inquiry protocols. Share findings in Flex Day session and/or on group wiki. Target Completion Date Dec. 2013 Required Budget (Split out personnel, supplies, other categories) $20,000 stipends over two years for fig members & coordinators $200 supplies (chart paper, copies) May 2014 TBD for Making Visible Dec. 2013- $500-$1000 for guest May 2015 speaker honorariums May 2015 – Oct. 2015 How will you manage the personnel needs? Reassigning existing employee(s) to the project; employee(s) current workload will be covered by overload or stipend $9000 - Program Coordinators (2) x ($1500 stipend/coordinator per semester x 3 semesters) 1. Convene English faculty and identify inquiry protocol 2. Supporting faculty through research and to share findings in writing or presentation style a. identify relevant educational research and appropriate guest speakers b. train faculty in inquiry protocols and data collection techniques c. facilitate meetings in which conversations about institutionalized racism through a critical race theory lens to develop a common language d. facilitate analysis of classroom practice through a critical race theory lens e. research best inquiry protocols to support action research questions 3. Work with IR to measure progress 4. Focus Group a. Identifying and inviting a focal students to the interview b. ensuring footage is edited and can be distributed 5. Sharing Findings from inquiry project a. Designing the program and identifying a keynote b. Advertising the program c. Coordinating the event $10,000-$12, 000 Participating Teaching Faculty (5-8) x ($750 stipend/faculty per year x 2-3 semesters) 15 1. Attend 3 Action Research meetings per semester (6 in one year) 2. Read current research related to African American and Latino student success in writing, reading, and critical thinking. 3. Identify inquiry question and design data collection protocol. 4. Implement new practices and track progress. 5. Analyze research findings and prepare to share. 6. Prepare presentation for Flex day At the end of two year period, the proposed project will: Be completed (one time only effort) Will the proposed project require facility modifications, additional space, or program relocation? No Will the proposed project involve subcontractors, collaborative partners, or cooperative agreements? Yes, explain: We would like to invite guest speakers from Urban Education Programs at SF State or USF to consult with us such as Jeff Andrade Duncan, Patrick Camangianand Rita Kohli Do you know of any grant funding sources that would meet the needs of the proposed project? Yes, list potential funding sources: Hispanic Serving Institution Grant (Title V) Appendix E: Proposal for New Initiatives (Complete for each new initiative) Audience: Deans/Unit Administrators, PRBC, Foundation, Grants Committee, College Budget Committee Purpose: A “New Initiative” is a new project or expansion of a current project that supports our Strategic Plan. The project will require the support of additional and/or outside funding. The information you provide will facilitate and focus the research and development process for finding both internal and external funding. How does your initiative address the college's Strategic Plan goal, or significantly improve student learning? II. Take a new look at assessment (likely done through a college-wide FIG, TBD) What is your specific goal and measurable outcome? Improve our assessment mechanism, and/or our advising to students around assessment, and/or our pre-requisite challenge mechanism, and/or enhance counselors’ abilities to determine placement based on increased use of multiple measures What is your action plan to achieve your goal? Target Required Budget (Split out Completion personnel, supplies, other Date categories) Activity (brief description) TBD by FIG on “Kicking Assessment” (this will go outside of English) How will you manage the personnel needs? 16 New Hires: Faculty # of positions Classified staff # of positions Reassigning existing employee(s) to the project; employee(s) current workload will be: Covered by overload or part-time employee(s) Covered by hiring temporary replacement(s) Other, explain At the end of the project period, the proposed project will: Be completed (onetime only effort) Require additional funding to continue and/or institutionalize the project (obtained by/from): Will the proposed project require facility modifications, additional space, or program relocation? No Yes, explain: Will the proposed project involve subcontractors, collaborative partners, or cooperative agreements? No Yes, explain: Do you know of any grant funding sources that would meet the needs of the proposed project? No Yes, list potential funding sources: 17 Appendix E: Proposal for New Initiatives (Complete for each new initiative) Audience: Deans/Unit Administrators, PRBC, Foundation, Grants Committee, College Budget Committee Purpose: A “New Initiative” is a new project or expansion of a current project that supports our Strategic Plan. The project will require the support of additional and/or outside funding. The information you provide will facilitate and focus the research and development process for finding both internal and external funding. How does your initiative address the college's Strategic Plan goal, or significantly improve student learning? III. Create a Chabot Alumni Social Media Network(likely done through a college-wide FIG, TBD) What is your specific goal and measurable outcome? The goal would be to create an appealing, highly user-friendly online database of former Chabot students which Chabot faculty and staff could then access and utilize to find mentors/connectors for our current students. The "Old G" students might have transferred a year or two back and now finishing a degree, or in graduate school, or working. They would be a special group selected by us, invitation only, to help accompany "New G" students -- also specially selected as in need of a mentor/connection -- to navigate Chabot, think about majors and careers, or transfer on. This could take the form of a social media-type database (not open to public) by which we could search to find a good mentoring "match." As we stay in touch with students who leave Chabot, we can invite them to be a part of this program -- a special group, the ones we have so much pride and faith in, and whom we know will want to lend a hand to those who will follow them. The database would need to be built by someone with experience and skills (perhaps a webmaster) and a group of faculty, counselors, and students. What is your action plan to achieve your goal? Activity (brief description) FIG to design, build, and test the database Marketing and Trainings in how to access the database Target Required Budget (Split out Completion personnel, supplies, other Date categories) Spring 2015 Fall 2015 How will you manage the personnel needs? New Hires: Faculty # of positions Classified staff # of positions 1 Reassigning existing employee(s) to the project; employee(s) current workload will be: Covered by overload or part-time employee(s) Covered by hiring temporary replacement(s) Other, explain Student stipends At the end of the project period, the proposed project will: Be completed (onetime only effort) Require additional funding to continue and/or institutionalize the project (obtained by/from):IT support needed to check links, update software, etc. Will the proposed project require facility modifications, additional space, or program relocation? 18 No Yes, explain: Will the proposed project involve subcontractors, collaborative partners, or cooperative agreements? No Yes, explain: Do you know of any grant funding sources that would meet the needs of the proposed project? No Yes, list potential funding sources: Hayward Promise Neighborhood Grant 19 Appendix F1: Full-Time Faculty/Adjunct Staffing Request(s) [Acct. Category 1000] Audience: Faculty Prioritization Committeeand Administrators Purpose: Providing explanation and justification for new and replacement positions for full-time faculty and adjuncts Instructions: Please justify the need for your request. Discussanticipated improvements in student learning and contribution to the Strategic Plangoal. Cite evidence and data to support your request, including enrollment management data (EM Summary by Term) for the most recent three years, student success and retention data , and any other pertinent information. Data is available at http://www.chabotcollege.edu/ProgramReview/Data2013.cfm. 1. Number of new faculty requested in this discipline: ___ STAFFING REQUESTS (1000) FACULTY Position 1. f/t faculty 2. f/t faculty 3. f/t faculty Description Faculty (1000) Program/Unit English English English PLEASE LIST IN RANK ORDER Division/Area Language Arts Language Arts Language Arts Rationale for your proposal. Please use the enrollment management data. Data that will strengthen your rationale include FTES trends over the last 5 years,FT/PT faculty ratios,recent retirements in your division, total number of full time and part-time faculty in the division, total number of students served by your division, FTEF in your division, CLO and PLO assessment results and external accreditation demands. While we were pleased in fall 2013 to welcome a Temporary Leave Replacement to allow Katie Hern to continue her grant funded educational reform work nationally, our current ratio in English is 20 fulltime instructors to 28 part-time instructors. Moreover, many of our p/t instructors have less than 2 years experience at our college. Turnover of adjunct faculty+ high numbers of adjunct faculty (some of whom almost never have an opportunity to interact with full-time faculty or interface with others across campus) = more instability = teaching suffers. We have had several retirements over the last few years (Cindy Hicks, Susan Gill, Ceiny Carney, Dennis Chowenhill, Linda Swanson…) and we must face two more retirements in 2014: Julie Segedy and Larry Cain.Also, as we embrace being a Hispanicserving Institution, it would behoove us to seek out more English instructors with background or experience relevant to this growing demographic of our students. 2. Statements about the alignment with the strategic plan and your student learning goals are required. Indicate here any information from advisory committees or outside accreditation reviews that is pertinent to the proposal. 20 Full-time faculty are under much higher scrutiny in the hiring and tenure process than adjunct faculty; we receive more mentoring and are much more engaged in the workings of the college than adjunct faculty. We build relationships with faculty and staff in the library, PATH tutoring, financial aid, counseling, athletics, and across disciplines. We know where to direct a student who needs tutoring or has health problems; we know the phone numbers for media services and security by heart. All of this can only improve our teaching and our ability to help students find their footing at Chabot and prosper. Full-time faculty also are much more available to students; we have offices with our names on the door so students can find us, and we’re there five hours each week. The more continuity and community we can provide our students, the better they will learn and the faster they will achieve their educational goals. 21 Appendix F2: Classified Staffing Request(s) including Student Assistants [Acct. Category 2000] Audience: Administrators, PRBC Purpose: Providing explanation and justification for new and replacement positions for full-time and part-time regular (permanent) classified professional positions(new, augmented and replacement positions).Remember, student assistants are not to replace Classified Professional staff. Instructions: Please justify the need for your request. Discuss anticipated improvements in student learning and contribution to the Strategic Plan goal, safety, mandates, and accreditation issues. Please cite any evidence or data to support your request. If this position is categorically funded, include and designate the funding source of new categorically-funded position where continuation is contingent upon available funding. 1. Number of positions requested: __1___ STAFFING REQUESTS (2000) CLASSIFIED PROFESSIONALS Position Classified Classified Professional Staff (2000) Description Program/Unit Combination—IA and program support English/WRAC See rationale on page 19 22 PLEASE LIST IN RANK ORDER Division/Area Language Arts STAFFING REQUESTS (2000) STUDENT ASSISTANTS Position Description Student Assistants (2000) Program/Unit PLEASE LIST IN RANK ORDER Division/Area 2. Rationale for your proposal. While the WRAC program began with at least two instructional assistants to provide programmatic, technical, and student support, that support has withered away in the past several years, mostly due to budget cuts. With the heavy use of the WRAC computer lab in 354, we believe it is time to return to our original vision in a way to support students and faculty as they work in the lab. Also, English is under increasing pressure to provide and interpret data of all sorts on a regular basis and that, as well as a number of other program functions (including SARS tracking), needs consistent support. We imagine this position as primarily an IA position with part of the workload consisting of data and program support. Additionally, we hope that this position might enable us to expand our WRAC hours, especially to support evening students and faculty. 3. Statements about the alignment with the strategic plan and program review are required. Indicate here any information from advisory committees or outside accreditation reviews that is pertinent to the proposal. As the entire program review document states, we are under increasing pressure to respond to more needs with fewer resources. As the college and district financial situation continues to show some improvement, we would like to see some hiring that enables us to run our programs more smoothly and with a level of support in line with the numbers of students we serve. This position might also enable faculty to refine their own focus and thus begin to address and resolve some of the bottlenecks we see in our area. 23 Appendix F3: FTEF Requests Audience: Administrators, CEMC, PRBC Purpose: To recommend changes in FTEF allocations for subsequent academic year and guide Deans and CEMC in the allocation of FTEF to disciplines. For more information, see Article 29 (CEMC) of the Faculty Contract. Instructions: In the area below, please list your requested changes in course offerings (and corresponding request in FTEF) and provide your rationale for these changes. Be sure to analyze enrollment trends and other relevant data athttp://www.chabotcollege.edu/ProgramReview/Data2013.cfm. COURSE 101s/102 1A, 4, 7 CURRENT FTEF (2013-14) ADDITIONAL FTEF NEEDED CURRENT SECTIONS ADDITIONAL SECTIONS NEEDED CURRENT STUDENT # SERVED ADDITIONAL STUDENT # SERVED 31.75 29.75 1.75 2.0 89 119 5 8 2599 3513 150 240 We appreciate the increased FTEF we have been allocated to help the college reduce bottlenecks, achieve our funding base, and maintain or improve the depth and breadth of our offerings. This fall our courses are 106% full. In the core courses(101s, 102, 1A, 4, 7) we are over 110% full. We can use any additional FTEF available to ease bottlenecks in our area and support our high-productivity GE transfer electives. 24 Appendix F4: Academic Learning Support Requests [Acct. Category 2000] Audience: Administrators, PRBC, Learning Connection Purpose: Providing explanation and justification for new and replacement student assistants (tutors, learning assistants, lab assistants, supplemental instruction, etc.). Instructions: Please justify the need for your request. Discuss anticipated improvements in student learning and contribution to the Strategic Plan goal. Please cite any evidence or data to support your request. If this position is categorically funded, include and designate the funding source of new categorically-funded position where continuation is contingent upon available funding. 1. Number of positions requested: 20 LAs (for roughly 5% of English classes in fall and spring) and an additional 5 tutors. 2. If you are requesting more than one position, please rank order the positions. Position Description 1. Learning Assistant Learning Assistants support learning in and out of the classroom 2. WRAC tutors extending hours and doubling up tutors in prime busy hours 3. 4. 3. Rationale for your proposal based on your program review conclusions. Include anticipated impact on student learning outcomes and alignment with the strategic plan goal. Indicate if this request is for the same, more, or fewer academic learning support positions. Students’ engagement in our classes will be positively impacted by having more learning assistants in our classrooms. Learning assistants play a positive role in supplementing instruction by offering one-on-one attention to students, assisting in retention activities, and modeling proper student behavior. In addition to receiving more learning assistants, our program would be better served by offering more training to learning assistants. To explain, instructors who use learning assistants need more time to embed our learning assistants in the curriculum and develop leadership opportunities within the classroom for them. 25 Appendix F5: Supplies & Services Requests [Acct. Category 4000 and 5000] Audience: Administrators, Budget Committee, PRBC Purpose: To request funding for supplies and service, and to guide the Budget Committee in allocation of funds. Instructions: In the area below, please list both your current and requested budgets for categories 4000 and 5000 in priority order. Do NOT include conferences and travel, which are submitted on Appendix M6. Justify your request and explain in detail any requested funds beyond those you received this year. Please also look for opportunities to reduce spending, as funds are very limited. Supplies Requests [Acct. Category 4000] Instructions: 1. There should be a separate line item for supplies needed and an amount. For items purchased in bulk, list the unit cost and provide the total in the "Amount" column. 2. Make sure you include the cost of tax and shipping for items purchased. Priority 1: Are criticalrequests required to sustain a program (if not acquired, program may be in peril) or to meet mandated requirements of local, state or federal regulations or those regulations of a accrediting body for a program. Priority 2: Are needed requests that will enhance a program but are not so critical as to jeopardize the life of a program if not received in the requested academic year. Priority 3: Are requests that are enhancements, non-critical resource requeststhat would be nice to have and would bring additional benefit to the program. 2013-14 2014-15 Request needed totals in all areas Request Requested Received Description Amount $100 Erasers/white board $100 $100 pens/chalk $160 More paper for 354 $160 $160 Vendor Division/U nit Priority #1 X X 26 Priority #2 Priority #3 Contracts and Services Requests [Acct. Category 5000] Instructions: 1. There should be a separate line item for each contract or service. 2. Travel costs should be broken out and then totaled (e.g., airfare, mileage, hotel, etc.) Priority 1: Are criticalrequests required to sustain a program (if not acquired, program may be in peril) or to meet mandated requirements of local, state or federal regulations or those regulations of a accrediting body for a program. Priority 2: Are needed requests that will enhance a program but are not so critical as to jeopardize the life of a program if not received in the requested academic year. Priority 3: Are requests that are enhancements, non-critical resource requeststhat would be nice to have and would bring additional benefit to the program. augmentations only Description Amount Vendor Division/Unit 27 Priority #1 Priority #2 Priority #3 Appendix F6: Conference and Travel Requests [ Acct. Category 5000] Audience: Staff Development Committee,Administrators, Budget Committee, PRBC Purpose: To request funding for conference attendance, and to guide the Budget and Staff Development Committees in allocation of funds. Instructions:Please list specific conferences/training programs, including specific information on the name of the conference and location. Note that the Staff Development Committee currently has no budget, so this data is primarily intended to identify areas of need that could perhaps be fulfilled on campus, and to establish a historical record of need. Your rationale should discuss student learning goals and/or connection to the Strategic Plan goal. Description Amount Vendor Division/Dept 28 Priority Priority Priority #1 #2 #3 Notes Appendix F7: Technology and Other Equipment Requests [Acct. Category 6000] Audience: Budget Committee, Technology Committee, Administrators Purpose: To be read and responded to by Budget Committee and to inform priorities of the Technology Committee. Instructions: Please fill in the following as needed to justify your requests.If you're requesting classroom technology, see http://www.chabotcollege.edu/audiovisual/Chabot%20College%20Standard.pdf for the brands/model numbers that are our current standards. If requesting multiple pieces of equipment, please rank order those requests. Include shipping cost and taxes in your request. Instructions: 1. For each piece of equipment, there should be a separate line item for each piece and an amount. Please note: Equipment requests are for equipment whose unit cost exceeds $200. Items which are less expensive should be requested as supplies. Software licenses should also be requested as supplies. 2. For bulk items, list the unit cost and provide the total in the "Amount" column. Make sure you include the cost of tax and shipping for items purchased. Priority 1: Are criticalrequests required to sustain a program (if not acquired, program may be in peril) or to meet mandated requirements of local, state or federal regulations or those regulations of a accrediting body for a program. Priority 2: Are needed requests that will enhance a program but are not so critical as to jeopardize the life of a program if not received in the requested academic year. Priority 3: Are requests that are enhancements, non-critical resource requeststhat would be nice to have and would bring additional benefit to the program. Description Amount Wireless keyboards (20) $69 per=$1400 total Vendor Division/Unit Language Arts 29 Priority #1 Priority #2 Student brainstorming/quotes etc. could be typed, sent to Bb quickly, from all over the room Priority #3 Software: “Write Out Loud” $3, 800 for 90 computers “Write Out Loud” is a text-to-speech program where students can upload their essays and have their essays read back to them through a computer(with headphones) while they revise and fix their errors. This is a great program for students who need help with editing and proofreading. 30 Appendix F8: Facilities Requests Audience: Facilities Committee, Administrators Purpose: To be read and responded to by Facilities Committee. Background: Following the completion of the 2012 Chabot College Facility Master Plan, the Facilities Committee (FC) has begun the task of reprioritizing Measure B Bond budgets to better align with current needs. The FC has identified approximately $18M in budgets to be used to meet capital improvement needs on the Chabot College campus. Discussion in the FC includes holding some funds for a year or two to be used as match if and when the State again funds capital projects, and to fund smaller projects that will directly assist our strategic goal. The FC has determined that although some of the college's greatest needs involving new facilities cannot be met with this limited amount of funding, there are many smaller pressing needs that could be addressed. The kinds of projects that can be legally funded with bond dollars include the "repairing, constructing, acquiring, equipping of classrooms, labs, sites and facilities." Do NOT use this form for equipment or supply requests. Instructions: Please fill in the following as needed to justify your requests.If requesting more than one facilities project, please rank order your requests. Brief Title of Request (Project Name): AdditionalComputer Lab and space for tutoring and group work Building/Location: New library building (100) Description of the facility project. Please be as specific as possible. We desperately need more space for WRAC tutoring and study groups – with walls, please. The current WRAC space is hard to find, and harder to use. We also need another computer lab – with computers that work. Our elective courses max at 44 and there are almost no facilities on campus where instructors can bring students in such courses to use computers to write an in-class essay exam, for example, or do Web-based research. What educational programs or institutional purposes does this equipment support? All of our classes/ all of our students Briefly describe how your request relates specifically to meeting the Strategic Plan Goal and to enhancing student learning? Students will achieve their educational goals quicker if they are successful in their classes, and a quality tutoring center and computer labs with available, working computers are essential to this end. 31