Board of Trustees Report
District Office
November 16, 2011
Institutional Effectiveness Committee
Harbor presented its new mission statement. It’s short and easy to remember. Marvin
Martinez said they wanted something that would not be shelved and forgotten.
Yasmin Delahoussaye reviewed a proposed process by which the seaside colleges
would present their accreditation self-studies to the Board this December. She added
that a new online program review process should be very helpful to colleges in putting
their studies together. It will make data more readily accessible and link SLO
assessment data to program reviews. She also reviewed some of the main reasons the
ACCJC is giving sanctions and warnings in the last year: intrusive boards, financial
mismanagement, a lack of training for administrators, and satellites without adequate
student support services. Finally, she described the recent and very successful mock
accreditation visit at Harbor.
Steve Veres asked how the State Controller’s Office material will be incorporated into
the self-studies. He also urged candor, saying he didn’t mind seeing studies that were
very critical of the college’s performance, if that will lead to improvements.
The third item had to do with Achieving the Dream progress. Delahoussaye said at least
100 would be attending DREAM, the big February AtD conference in Dallas. Activity at
Harbor, Valley, and Trade was reviewed. Trade has put out a nice AtD newsletter. Chip
Chapdelaine talked about five innovations there. Asked to name them, he declined,
saying that they would be reviewed at a subsequent Board meeting. I commented that
there should be more honesty in how Trade was being depicted recently, given their very
low ARCC numbers. I also said that severe shared governance problems there were
hampering the student success effort. Mona Field said she had heard the contrary, that
things were improving, and the chancellor sharply disagreed with my assessment,
saying that shared governance could be measured many different ways and that the
union and senate were quarreling at Trade. Veres thanked me for my candor. (See
Comments.)
Field asked when the Winter calendar would come out (shortly), and Veres wanted to
know if all colleges were proceeding appropriately in terms of AtD data collection.
Finally, Delahoussaye updated the committee on work towards a new strategic plan.
Lots of data has been accumulated, and over forty focus groups have done SWOT
analyses. She also reported that the full Board will receive a presentation on the Student
Success Task Force recommendations next month.
Open Session
There were no public speakers, nor comments from the Resource Table. Nor was
anything reported out of Closed Session.
Reading was the focus of the Chancellor’s Report. After recounting his own boyhood
spend reading in Carnegie libraries back east, the chancellor described The Reading
Apprenticeship Program, which is now getting started in the district, especially at Pierce
and East. It’s fifteen-years-old, research-based, and was first used in high schools. It
aims to help students read more and increase their retention. It aims to “unpack” the
thought processes of readers and stresses the need to teach how to read in a particular
discipline. It works at all levels. ESL professors Daryl Kinney (City) and Nancy Sander
(West), along with English instructor Nika Hogan (PCC), are all involved in its district
implementation. They reported that only 15% of our students enter reading at college
level, with 29% at 10th-12th grade level and 26% at 8th-9th. That leaves 30% at 7th grade
or lower. They said that West and Harbor have become more involved lately. Once
trained, faculty are expected to then train colleagues. FTLA will be adding a component
of this training this year.
Steve Veres summarized the morning IE Committee meeting (see above).
The Open Session was then adjourned, so that the Board could have a Capital
Construction Committee meeting.
Capital Construction Committee
The main item for discussion was the parking structure at Valley. After an extensive E-7
Studio video, there were a number of questions from the trustees, dealing with the lack
of PV on the roof, as well as lighting, bicycles, and exits. These were all answered to the
apparent satisfaction of the Board. Steve Svonkin was insistent that he didn’t want to
see the college return in a year, asking for parking space size changes, as happened
with East recently. Kelly Candaele said these detailed questions made him “nervous,”
especially if trustees were expecting that their proposed changes would be adopted.
Nancy Pearlman defended the detailed approach, saying that good policy was formed as
a result of such inquiries. LaVista found “creative tension” in the debate.
Trade-Tech presented a number of campus-wide improvement projects, all of a fairly
small scale.
The LACCD Master Building Program Budget Plan was distributed to the Board. For the
first time, this puts in one volume--“one housing”--all the bond projects completed, in
process, or planned. It was assembled in response to the State Controller’s Audit.
The last item was an annual report from the Inspector General’s Office. Christine Marez
noted her completion of training as an IG. She said she was only the 395th to be so
certified in the world (sic). She described the strengths of her office as the experience of
her staff and the strong support of the Board. Mona Field congratulated her, saying she
was “a big fan.” Svonkin asked how her office was evaluated by the district. No clear
answer was given. He also wanted to be sure that the public relations firm that Marez
has recently contracted was being paid for by her personally, and not by the district. She
stated that it was and added that it was due to the recent negative publicity that she has
received. Pearlman wanted reassurances that whistleblowers would have their
confidentiality maintained.
As a final announcement, Tyree Wieder reported that there is now an Occupy site at
East LA College. Some 26 tents have been set up at the main entrance, and the activists
plan to stay until January. They have been very peaceful and cooperative with staff, per
Wieder.
Comment
Those of you who read to the end of these reports may recall my comments last time
about Trade-Tech. If you missed them (shame on you!), they’re repeated below.
Hearing Chip Chapdelaine go on yet again about the great programs at Trade, without
any candid recognition of the true situation there, was pretty hard to take. Unfortunately,
I’m not convinced the chancellor is committed to engaging in a full investigation into
Trade’s problems. He certainly hasn’t done so yet, and we’ve been urging it for over six
months now. Honestly, he seems to just want to hear good news. Nor was I glad to hear
Mona Field more or less dismiss my concern as dated, given that I knew she hadn’t
discussed shared governance issues with any Senate officers at Trade in a very long
time. How could she be so confident? Talk about student success is so much empty air,
if there isn’t a willingness to address all of the impediments to it. There are several such
impediments at Trade, and the lack of true shared governance is a huge one. All of them
need to be dealt with once and for all.
Have a great Thanksgiving! For all the gloom about the economy, there is much to
celebrate, not least the stirring youth protests occurring in so many cities across the
country. They give us hope for the future.
David
From Nov. 12:
It was touching to see the students featured in the Trade video. They’ve really
accomplished something very impressive. And I have no doubt that the community
feeling at the college is honest. But that said, I do think the Trade leadership should be
much more candid about the academic condition of the college and much more modest
in its claims of student success. Trade’s Student Progress and Achievement Rate, the
most significant figure in the ARCC data, was at 36.7% in 2007-08. In 2009-10 it was at
36.4%. Comparable schools (by various measurements, including percentage of basic
skills students) are at 44%, and the district average around 45%. The one other district
college with comparable numbers, Southwest, has shown an improvement (37.1% 0n
07-08, 40.3% in 09-10). Yes, there are many wonderful programs at Trade, but that
doesn’t excuse the disturbing numbers we see.
One reason Trade is not where it should be is that the current administration has never
truly respected shared governance. I’m speaking now of the president and his senior
staff (though not all). We’ve tried hard to improve things in recent years with numerous
interventions but have little to show for it. Without this basic respect for faculty and
faculty prerogatives, student success will never be what it should be, as energies are
spent in needless argument.
David Beaulieu
District Academic Senate President
Los Angeles Community College District
(213) 891-2294
dbeaulieu@email.laccd.edu