Chabot College
Basic Skills Committee
MINUTES
January 25, 2011
Attendees
Becky Plaza, Jane Wolford, Jeanne Wilson, Hisako Hintz, Alisa Klevens, Patricia Shannon
1. Called to order at 12:10 PM
2. No minutes were approved as the previous meeting had no business.
3. Old Business
a. Discussion of future meeting topics
A good discussion of possible topics was identified. Specifically, to view and discuss the
Critical Thinking presentation made at the San Jacinto (Mt. SAC?) conference this fall at
our next meeting (2/8). We would like Matt Kritscher to present (delayed from fall), and we
would like to see and discuss the Las Positas video that is shown to students before taking
the assessment tests.
b. FIN workshop coming up on March 4-5, 2011 here at Chabot. Everyone is invited to
attend!
4. New Business
a. Hisako brought a very interesting question to the committee. Through a recent grant, she
and her fellow ESL instructors developed two 8-week classes specifically designed for
career-technical course support. These courses were offered this spring, but no students
enrolled despite support from CTE faculty. It is clear that many of these students ARE basic
skills/ESL students, and they need the course. What can/should she do? Is this a publicity
problem? Do the classes need to be required? Is this a contextual problem (students need to
be taught these skills within the CTE courses? What can or should she do? One
recommendation was to use a ‘late start’ and midsemester start to identify and enroll
students who become known to need the course content. Other ideas are needed.
b. Discussion of budget impacts to basic skills. Actions the committee could take. Discussion
of using program review and lobbying among committee meetings to raise the awareness
for funding basic skills as state funding has significantly decreased and is expected to
decrease even more. As the Learning Connection is ‘owned’ by Academic Services, its
funding is a result of a unit planning/program review prioritization and need identification.
We need to bring more awareness to faculty (via division meetings) to state the priority and
need within their planning documents as well as lobby at critical committee meetings
(PRBC, EMC, and Budget).
NOTE: Disappointingly, when I (Patricia Shannon) spoke with one dean about the need to do this, it
was suggested to me that I come up with ‘boiler plate’ language that faculty could use in their
documents. The request to have supporting data that would in turn drive the need for these resources
was viewed as an additional burden, which few faculty members would undertake.
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Meeting adjourned at 1 pm.
Next Meeting: Tuesday, February 8, 2011.
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