Board of Trustees Report
West Los Angeles College
December 1, 2010
Planning and Student Success Committee
The meeting consisted of two reports: one from Trade Tech on their responses to
ACCJC recommendations and one on our various student success initiatives.
Vice President Deborah Harrington led the Trade report. Also speaking were Faculty
Accreditation Chair Joe Ratcliff and Senate President Lourdes Brent. Trade was
removed from probation and put on warning in June and has a follow-up report due in
March. Their overall task is to implement and assess new practices, with the specific
recommendations in the areas of evaluation, planning, and improvement; SLO's;
leadership stability; and communication. Ratcliff claimed considerable progress with
evaluation, with the program review cycle now completed for all units and over fifty
faculty involved in the PR validation process. Half of all courses offered will have their
SLO’s assessed this semester, with the balance done in the spring. Harrington
described the relative stability of Trade administrative leadership in recent years. Brent
discussed the need for better district-college communication, and this led to a general
discussion about the limitations of the district website. Chancellor LaVista said it was
inadequate and that steps were being initiated to improve it. Board members said they
were impressed with the accreditation progress Trade has made in recent years.
Vice Chancellor Yasmin Delahoussaye then reviewed a number of student success
items:
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All eight colleges will be joining Southwest in the Achieving the Dream Initiative,
with their kick-off meetings planned for June.
LACCD is part of a four-district consortium applying for the Gates Completion by
Design Grant. (Only Southwest is involved at this point.)
Delahoussaye has been selected to serve on Chancellor Scott’s Student
Success Task Force.
There are plans to bring Math faculty together in March for a special workshop.
The district is working with LAUSD to guide a cohort of 500 students through
their last two years of high school. District English and Math faculty are involved.
LACCD and USC are conducting joint research on Math basic skills outcomes.
We also had a long discussion about the implementation of SB 1440, the new transfer
degree bill. I pointed out all of the DAS Exec concerns and efforts we have made to
initiate an ASCCC study into the 18-unit major/area of emphasis requirement. (See the
last issue of Academically Speaking for details. As most of you know, we also discussed
this exhaustively at our DAS meeting last week.)
Open Session
The meeting began with Rose Marie Joyce, West’s interim president, welcoming the
Board and then introducing Adrienne Foster, the Senate president. Foster read a Senate
resolution commemorating Gwen Thomas, a highly respected Business professor who
died suddenly two weeks ago. Joyce then spoke briefly about the progress made in
reconfiguring the bond program. Given the $124 million project cost overrun discovered
in June, the leadership at West has had to make a number of difficult decisions on what
projects to continue and what to cut back.
There were no public speakers, nor reports from the resource table.
Georgia Mercer announced two items out of Closed Session. The Board took two legal
actions (no further details were given, but she said that information would follow). The
trustees also reached a settlement with an employee at the East LA Corporate Center.
Sylvia Scott-Hayes gave a report on the morning Planning and Student Success
Committee meeting (see above). Field noted the "great progress” made at Trade.
In his report, the chancellor described the morning student success discussion as
"terrific," and indicative that "things are happening.” He thanked West for hosting and
said the college was a model in the district for finding ways to address problems
(referring to the bond overrun). He also praised Joyce for her selfless, pivotal role.
Vice President Bob Sprague then gave report on West's Motion Picture Production
Crafts Program. It offers training in "below the line" employment (craft jobs in carpentry,
electrical, et al). With strong ties to Sony and other studios, as well as to the industry
unions, it’s able to provide students with opportunities they’d never get on their own.
Started ten years ago, the program enrolled 600 students in the last two years, and is
unique in the country. The program has been funded with a federal grant, a result of the
support of Congressperson Diane Watson. “Creative genius” Kevin Considine and his
department chair Michael Arata were singled out for special commendation.
Finally, LaVista called up Susan Aminoff, the chair of the JLMBC, who gave the
committee's annual report. I will leave it to the Guild to provide details, but the move to
CalPERS reduced the cost of health benefits from a projected $79 million to $56.5
million (though this doesn't factor in the HSA cost of $6 million).
During the Consent Calendar discussion, Mercer asked about the food lab program at
Pierce and Pearlman asked about change orders for a building project (college not
specified). They seemed satisfied with the answers provided.
There was an extensive discussion about an amendment to an existing contract having
to do with INICI, the firm doing whole-building commissioning for the district. Given that
the original contract to INICI (around $12 million) was awarded without a competitive
bidding process, the trustees decided to require any future "sole-source" contract to be
assessed by the chancellor and determined to be acceptable (due to a firm's one of a
kind qualifications). Trustees Miguel Santiago and Kelly Candaele suggested that the
process should apply to this amendment, in the spirit of the new requirement. Scott-
Hayes disagreed, and Larry Eisenberg defended the selection of INICI, claiming that
they were, indeed, uniquely qualified to do this more complete form of commissioning. I
pointed out that I had asked in Bond Steering for evidence of INICI's special
qualifications some months ago, and that none had been provided. The chancellor, once
Camille Goulet affirmed that there was no urgency, suggested that the item be pulled for
now. That was agreed to without a vote. The Consent Calendar was then approved.
Finally, a solar energy project at Mission was approved. This had been on the agenda at
the last meeting but was withdrawn for technical reasons. It will be using the same
financing structure that other recently approved PV projects at other colleges are using.
Categorical program flexibility was approved for this academic year, as required by the
state. This means that the colleges are free to move money from several (but not all)
categorical programs into other categorical programs. Given the severe cutbacks in
student services, it makes budgeting somewhat easier.
Jamillah Moore announced that Chancellor Jack Scott and State Senator Alex Padilla
would be speaking at City College on Dec. 16 regarding SB 1440 (see above).
Comments
It’s too soon since December’s Academically Speaking for more comments--enough
already!--but I’ll have something to say about the extraordinary West bond projects
overrun in the next report.
David
District Academic Senate President
213-891-2294
dbeaulieu@email.laccd.edu
www.laccd.edu/das