Peralta Community College District
Annual Program Update Template 2010-2011
Each discipline will complete this form to update program reviews developed in 2009-2010. These will
be reviewed at the college level and then forwarded to the district-wide planning and budgeting
process. The information on this form is required for all resource requests – including faculty staffing
requests – for the 2011-12 budget year.
I.
Overview
Date Submitted:
10/18/2010
Dean:
Thomas Branca
BI Download:
10/07/2010
Dept. Chair:
Hank Fabian and Arja McCray
Discipline:
BIOL
Campus:
Merritt
Mission
Provide program-based instruction and train students on cutting-edge equipment so
as to provide access to fulfilling careers in high growth, high tech fields of medical,
nursing, radiological sciences and other biology-related areas.
Using evolution as our paradigm, we also wish to promote natural history both
locally and internationally and to develop a master naturalist certification. We also
plan to develop a naturalist website which will assist our students as well as those
in Environmental Sciences.
As our data indicates, we have a strong history of maintaining and increasing
enrollments.
Merritt College’s Biology Department was established in November 1963 when four
community colleges were created from a single school, the Merritt School of
Business. Since then, Merritt College has seen swings in student enrollment.
Proposition 13 destroyed research at our institution but we have recently developed
ways to achieve this end. We established a working relationship with UC Berkeley
Extension in 2006 and have generated extra capital that has served the Biology
program well. We have also created a relationship with Tirimbina Research Center
in Costa Rica and have developed experiments there that will eventually provide
great education activities for our students. In 2000 Merritt had very low enrollment in
Biology but with the nursing boom and administrative backing the department grew
750% over a three year period. Since then we have been able to maintain high
enrollment in high demand classes and we intend to continue growth by creating
the Bioscience Department that will offer courses in cutting-edge biotechnology.
Merritt is the only school in the Bay Area that continues to offer biology courses
abroad and is developing a natural history program focusing on the varied
environments in the Bay Area.
Page 1 of 7
II.
A. Enrollment
Census Enrollment (duplicated)
Student Data
Fall 2008
1,201.0
Fall 2009
1,215.0
Fall 2010
1,208.0
34.0
29.0
26.0
Total FTES
274.99
263.46
260.02
Total FTEF
13.14
11.37
10.9
FTES/FTEF
20.93
23.18
23.86
Enrolled
1,204.0
1,169.0
N/A
Retained
962.0
980.0
% Retained
79.0
83.0
N/A
N/A
1,204.0
788.0
65.0
242.0
20.0
1,169.0
794.0
67.0
189.0
16.0
Sections (master sections)
B. Retention
C. Success
Total Graded
Success
% Success
Withdraw
% Withdraw
III.
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Faculty Data (ZZ assignments excluded)
Fall 2010
Contract FTEF
Hourly FTEF
Extra Service FTEF
Total FTEF
% Contract/Total
4.4
5.33
1.17
10.9
40.35
IV. Faculty Data Comparables F2010 (ZZ assignments excluded) (Z assignments excluded)
Contract FTEF
Hourly FTEF
Extra Service FTEF
Total FTEF
% Contract/Total
Alameda
Berkeley
Laney
Merritt
1.8
2.46
0.69
4.95
36.33
1.15
3.28
0.13
4.56
25.23
3.3
4.64
0.61
8.55
38.61
4.4
5.33
1.17
10.9
40.35
Page 2 of 7
V.
Qualitative Assessments
CTE and Vocational: Community and labor market
relevance. Present evidence of community need
based on Advisory Committee input, industry need
data, McIntyre Environmental Scan, McKinsey
Economic Report, licensure and job placement rates,
etc.
Transfer and Basic Skills: Describe how your
course offerings address transfer, basic skills, and
program completion.
Based on the needs of labor market, we offer
core classes in the sciences such as
anatomy/physiology and microbiology that will
help students achieve their dreams of becoming
allied health professionals or other science
related professionals.
We offer transfer courses in biology. All of our
courses require basic skills. Most of our
students are pursuing certificates in health
related fields. Some of our students do transfer
to UCs and CSUs.
VI. Strategic Planning Goals
Check all that apply.
Describe how goal applies to your program.
Advance Student Access, Success & Equity
Engage our Communities & Partners
Build Programs of Distinction
Create a Culture of Innovation & Collaboration
Develop Resources to Advance & Sustain Mission
We are partnering with Environment Studies to
develop a Ranger Naturalist program to
promote knowledge of the natural world of the
Bay Area.
Our state of the art building and laboratory
space has been planned and will soon undergo
construction.
Page 3 of 7
VII. College Strategic Plan Relevance
Check all that apply
New program under development
Program that is integral to your college’s overall strategy
Program that is essential for transfer
Program that serves a community niche
Programs where student enrollment or success has been demonstrably affected by extraordinary
external factors, such as barriers due to housing, employment, childcare etc.
Other
Page 4 of 7
VIII. Action Plan
Please describe your plan for responding to the above data. Consider curriculum, pedagogy/instructional,
scheduling, and marketing strategies. Also, please reference any cross district collaboration with the
same discipline at other Peralta colleges.
Include overall plans/goals and specific action steps.

Data demonstrates that our enrollment in the sciences continues to be very strong. We are maintaining
and increasing enrollment yearly. In spite of the fact that other schools are getting new buildings, we are
the only campus that is building new programs to occupy new buildings. Rather than cut sections, we
must maintain high productivity and growth to justify the new Health Sciences building which will probably
house not only Biology but also Microscopy, Genomics, and Histopathology programs. As Biology is one
of the main arteries for student advancement, decreasing enrollment in biology will automatically
decrease enrollment in other departments. It is therefore necessary that we at least maintain if not grow
our department over the next three years. An ideal growth pattern would be 10% FTES, with added
sections to accommodate this growth, each semester.

We effectively lost one instructor when we established the Microscopy program. One of our full-time
instructors recently retired, and we have lost some of our part-time instructors, in spite of the fact that our
enrollment is up. Once the Genomics program is established, we will lose at least half of one part-time
load as Dr. Fabian will be teaching courses in that department. We therefore request that we hire three
new professors over the next three years.

To become more competitive, we have initiated two new programs, genomics and microscopy, to help
recruit, maintain and educate students. We strongly feel that the inception of these programs, along with
our core science classes for allied health professionals, will better help Merritt College serve the
community.

We are currently attempting to form consortia with agencies such as forensics departments to help better
serve our communities. By forming these consortia, we feel that we are meeting our goal of preparing
our students to meet the needs of the labor market.

We are also working with UC-Berkeley Extension to assist with labor market needs. We will continue
renting laboratory space to UC Berkeley Extension to augment our budget and to provide funding for
otherwise non-fundable services such as release time, travel money, research, and scholarship.

We are also working with outreach groups to help increase the number of underrepresented populations
in the sciences.

In addition, our plan to put in place foundational courses that will help our students better succeed in the
classroom is on hold until funding opportunities become available. In concert with these foundational
courses, we hope to have in place tutoring centers where the students can have access to tutors and
computer simulations of difficult science concepts such as metabolism and Mendelian and molecular
genetics, etc.

We wish to develop a website that will feature flora and fauna of the Bay Area as well as international
species. This will involve photograph and video clips for the purpose of promoting natural history.
Page 5 of 7
IX. Needs
Please describe and prioritize any faculty, classified, and student assistant needs.
We are in need of two additional full-time faculty to replace Ronald Felzer and Gisele Giorgi (as she is now in
Biological Sciences)
Please describe and prioritize any equipment, material, and supply needs.
We need a cadaver urgently for our anatomy classes. As with all departments, we will need more
equipment, material and supply funds to maintain our productivity. In addition and to help our faculty, we will
need additional money funding for student assistants and tutors. Furthermore, we will need the support of
another full-time lab and a lab assistant to help improve the quality and quantity of science classes that we
offer.
We will definitely need increased funding to continue presenting, to our students, an academic environment
that is enriching, stimulating and challenging. This increased funding will be used to purchase state of the art
supplies and equipment to produce very erudite students.
We will require a webpage and or website for Bay Area Natural History as well as for other biology lectures
including Human Anatomy and/or Physiology courses. We are exploring the idea of hybrid (web/classroom)
courses and will require release time for developing said courses.
We need an equipment budget, since the bulk of our Fund 10 budget is being used for salaries and other
non-equipment related necessities.
Please describe and prioritize any facilities needs.
Once our new science and allied health building is built, our facilities needs should be met.
X.
Course SLOs and Assessment
Fall 2010
Number of active courses in your discipline
67
Number with SLOs
30
% SLOs/Active Courses
50%
Number of courses with SLOs that have been assessed
all current classes (F2010)
have plans submitted
% Assessed/SLOs
0
Describe types of assessment methods you are using
Exams, projects, essays, and laboratory exercises.
Describe results of your SLO assessment progress
All 19 faculty have submitted Individual Faculty Assessment Plans for Fall 2010.
Page 6 of 7
XI. Program Learning Outcomes and Assessment
Fall 2010
Number of degrees and certificates in your discipline
Number with Program Learning Outcomes
Number assessed
% Assessed
Describe assessment methods you are using
Describe results of assessment
Page 7 of 7