Chabot College
Basic Skills Committee
March 24, 2015
Minutes - Final
Attendees: Michael Robinson (SSCC), Jeremy Wilson (OIR), Trish Shannon (AHSS), Mike
Hodsdon (ENGL), Carolyn Arnold (OIR), Hisako Hintz (ESL), Kent Uchiyama (ESL), Katie
Hern (ENGL), Deonne Kunkel (PRBC), Michelle Iriarte (CalWorks)
Called to Order at 12:05 PM
1. Minutes from February (both dates) were approved. Jeremy moved, Hisako seconded.
2. ESL Curriculum (please obtain supporting data from Kent). Kent Uchiyama presented
on the major revisions that ESL is proposing to the ESL curriculum. He showed data
from how students currently move through the curriculum, including four semesters of
ESL 110, plus two semesters of 101 A/B. Seventy-five percent of their students don’t go
to ENGL 1A.
Lots of questions. Kent in response to why they don’t persist to 1A, anecdotal evidence
is that they are intimidated. They put it off and lose skills, then when they finally take it,
they don’t succeed. He then compared the existing Chabot pathway and the Las Positas
pathway to ENGL 1A (see chart).
ESL’s proposal is to develop a new 110D course that integrates the ESL 13/14, followed
by ESL 15/16, then 1A. WE’D like to pair the ESL 14/15 with ENGL 101A. It would
not be team taught. They would agree to follow the same “course” (same books,
assignments, etc, with joint meetings as possible). Student would get more contact hours,
more support, and interaction with native English speakers, which appears to be part of
the intimidation fear.
The biggest challenge is the FTEF to support the offering. Discussion is also needed with
English.
Carolyn: How is the conversation with English going? Kent: We have a working group
with English, plus our own working group with some English faculty participation. The
English faculty working with us are well-respected by their peers, and they are sharing
the work we are doing with their peers. We hope to share the proposed work by the end
of the year. We need to show progress to the Equity Task Force, which has supplied
funding for this phase.
Michael H: How many people might sign up for this course?
Kent: More than we could handle in all likelihood.
Kent: We have issues around placement testing. We’d really like to use a new approach
to better direct students to the ESL or English tests. So, more students will be directed to
ESL; thus, to this class sequences.
Kent: There is FTEF available at this moment, so we are hopeful. Tom Dewit is the
contact for presenting at CEMC. We are thinking of aligning with LPC’s curriculum.
We want to adopt the first level of their curriculum and the develop the bridge (to 1A)
curriculum. If English likes it, we can argue for the FTEF.
Katie: Why adopt the entire Las Positas program? Do they have data that support more
students persisting or succeeding?
Kent: There are reasons other than success/persistence for adopting the parallel model. If
we got the whole thing and after a few years we didn’t have data to show it works, I’d be
willing to change it again.
Carolyn: we could look at their data and see now? Thank you for sharing.
3.
With that, Carolyn shifted the focus of the meeting to the shared governance proposals
that we have been asked to review. To sum up, there are several recommendations, and
we have been asked to consider them and respond, specifically to the ones that affect us.
With several proposals, we are still members of PRBC. One of the propsoals expands the
role of the budget committee.
The general response from the committee is a deep concern with still another group
managing “working” budgets, and trying to get involved in managing efforts they don’t
know much about, yet would have veto power over. We don’t think it is an effective way
to manage.
We don’t think that putting SSSP, Equity, and BSC as one big lump is effective either, as
the important work of discussion and presentation of results/recommendations might be
lost. We do think that an integrated proposal process/review is effective.
Carolyn: our “conversation” needs to be shared more broadly.
Jeremy: Equity meetings are already so full, I am not sure there would be time for the
kind of sharing that is done here, to be done there.
Trish, Carolyn, Katie, Deonne: quick exchange about what is and isn’t working.
Summing up: We’ve historically positioned ourselves with priorities, goals, and process,
with follow-up on work completed. We could request a representative of the budget
committee to attend and participate in our decision-making meetings.
Meeting ended at 12:55 PM.