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THEMES & SALIENT RESPONSES from the
PLANNING SUMMIT December 2012
In each small group discussion session and across the day, there was a great deal of consistency, and
it is easy to see some themes that emerged. Below are salient points. I expect you will find benefit in
examining both this themes document as well as the raw data. In general, I used the original verbiage.
Morning discussions: A Look at Program Planning
Part I
A. Historically, how have we planned our program offerings and determined how to
schedule our classes?
 How is it done?
 When is it done?
 Who is involved?
 Who’s responsible?
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Schedules are rolled over ----this is the norm
Depends on division/dept. It’s dept-driven; Areas decide on program offerings
Ensure degree requirements for day and evening students
Coordinate with related departments when possible
Should see that all degree requirements are offered over a period of time and at variable times
Facility constraints also come into the picture; room availability
Community demand; past enrollment
Larger departments use a subcommittee
Some departments plan course offerings then assign teachers.
Advisory committees have input
Unit plans
PrOF influences course enrollment and offerings
Student demand (look at surveys and enrollment trends)
FT/PT mix of instructional FTE determines schedule
Based on available FTE
Is a top down process by necessity
Use a formula (e.g. more beginning level classes)
A balance between basic skills & transfer (classes)
Conservative approach--- tend to prefer status quo over change
Think about what other courses a student would be taking
Map courses over a 2 year period
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Part II
A. What is working well? (for faculty, students and the college)
For faculty
 It is a fairly collegial process; Dean and Department chair conversations are positive
 Engaged in tough conversations
 Autonomy--faculty are their division experts
 Use of technology – such as electronic rosters with contact links, PrOF that feeds data into
other processes
 Support from administration for innovative curriculum
For students
 The process is primarily focused on students
 The process is responsive to shifts in demographics
 Students are getting through
 Diverse offerings
 Recognize skills levels/needs
 Different modalities instruction
 Have student support services
 AA- T and AS-T degrees should be a benefit for students
 Good programs are offered at CRC
 HCD/Freshman Seminar have good outcomes for students
 Faculty willing to accommodate student needs
 Online options
For the college
 The schedules get turned in and are published in a timely way
 There are processes in place that work for large and small departments
 The process is responsive to the needs of industry
 The process looks toward the future
 The process is responsive to local data about student success and challenges
 The process looks at ways to streamline our programs
 In some areas there is good coordination between different departments
 We do have special projects option to help students complete programs when we can’t offer a
class.
 The process involves ongoing evaluation and revision
 Program Review makes faculty look at and review their program and focus on what might need
to change
 TMCs help
 Rolling over helps consistency
B. What’s not optimal or not working as well as possible?
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For faculty
 Faculty interest/available affect planning; faculty availability conflicting with student
demand/need; Full time faculty only wanting to teaching during day
 Some territorial faculty
 No automatic pre-requisite checking
 Lack of district-wide collegiality
 Lack of clear guidelines for online teaching assignments
For students
 Limited FTE; lack of classes offered; reductions; can’t get core classes
 Students take classes they don’t need because of misinformation
 Limited ability for students to test out
 Inconsistent course substitution and waiver process
 Students not knowing what is needed
 Students having to attend multiple campuses (to get classes)
 Time conflicts between major & GE classes
 Priority registration-student enrollment process not fair
For college
 Limited FTE; Competition for FTE
 Facility constraints; Poor learning environments (facilities); Not enough classrooms
 Not maximizing use of facilities afternoons & weekend
 No clear enrollment guidelines/priorities
 Difficult to prioritize competing missions/student groups within the program (e.g. basic
skills/transfer and GE/majors courses, day and evening)
 Unreliable enrollment data
 Programs should be coordinated better between colleges in the district
 The new demands (e.g. SB 1440, enrollment priorities)
 Schedule due too far out
 Last minute decisions; surprises
 Staff not represented in planning
 Planning favors large programs
C. What might be improved? Brainstorm strategies. Be creative!
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Greater integration instruction/student services
Strategically schedule high demand courses
Strengthen the ISEP process& use ISEP data to inform program offerings
Enhance the data that is provided and available to inform (course rotational data,
degree/certificate awards, assessment, pre-requisite info, etc.)
Streamline our ability to evaluate previous work
Re-evaluate the culture of 3 unit lecture courses as “normal”
Add more courses! Get more FTE
Faculty flexibility in scheduling; Fair rotation of courses/scheduling with depts
More dialog, summits; More dialog between counseling & teaching faculty
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2 year schedules/flow charts---especially for smaller programs---documented in the catalog
Strengthen the connection between enrollment priorities and completion of the matriculation
steps
Develop/institutionalize faculty advising
Align CC Classes with 4 year university (from program to program)
District-wide coordination of program offerings
Help students understand how to be a successful student (student accountability)
More academic advising
Enable students in remedial classes to be able to fulfill required coursework prior to taking
higher level courses
Allocate resources to basic skills instruction
More uniformity (in how we schedule); disseminate good practices
Document the scheduling process and the reasons for decisions that are made
Strengthen the electronic pre-requisite checking process
Implement basic skills pre-requisites for some of our college and transfer level courses
Develop and mandate an intervention for students who fail or withdraw two times before they
can enroll again
Increase/expand cohort models and/or team teaching opportunities
Enhance the information available to students (sort of a student-self assessment site) to help
them make more informed choices when they enroll (put all syllabi online?).
Increase college success courses and/or imbedded activities
Develop and more nimble and realistic SEP process that takes into account students’
workload and is responsive to contingencies (such as dropping a class)
Less turnover in deans; chair training
Add pre-reqs to courses.
Afternoon Small Group discussions: Visioning & Values
Part I
A. What stood out in these data presented and the readings we did in preparation for today? What
themes emerged? Are we lacking any information?
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Students take a long time to finish! 6 yrs. to graduate or transfer is ridiculous!
Pre-reqs---paradox
We can do better if we collaborate
How are we orienting our students so they know how to succeed?
Need better coordination
Total # of transfers (low)
It’s a different world than before
Finite resources
Too many certificates that no longer have value; why do we have them? We add degrees but
don’t delete
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1 year drops---needs research
Relatively few students complete their educational goals
The scope/impact/needs of basic skills students are not well understood
Our value of open access is in conflict with calls for greater efficiency
Student access is still important
More college-wide data (such as that about program completion, course rotations, assessment,
results from the new degree audit system? etc.) needs to be available to inform the scheduling
process
There is need for further disaggregation of the data
There has been a shift from quantity to quality; There has been a de-facto change in our
mission
Access will suffer if we only focus on data
Clearly communicate the gap between high school completion standards & college standards
Local data about the scheduling process, and reasons for various decisions that have been made
in this process, need to be written down and available to incoming chairs.
Alignment w/ K-12 & 4 years & informing them of standards/expectations
An ideal system we could have a person who is in charge of our planning “warehouse” (PrOF
B. Brainstorm an ideal way to plan for course offerings and schedule classes? (in a perfect
world) If you were to open a brand new college, what system would you put in to place to
coordinate program offerings and develop class schedules? Consider college –wide (though
you may also reflect on department level factors).
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Have all students assessed with an electronic SEP. Use this data to inform scheduling
Research student need/goal to develop a college-wide distribution of FTE model (by class
level, GE pattern and majors courses)
Conduct degree/certificate audit to identify outstanding courses needed for program
completion to inform the process.
Centralize the schedule development for the GE patterns
Need to break through the silos – especially between student services and instruction
Implement basic skills block scheduling
Have a strong system of pre-requisites
Ensure coordination; Robust, active involvement
Easy access to information and environmental scan
Develop a community service program to balance access with the new external demands
Two step process – program offerings/then assignment of personnel
Have a longer term master plan to ensure program completion goals and access at multiple
time and in multiple modalities is accomplished
Automatic pre-requisite checking implemented – blocking enrollment if not met.
Unify collegial thinking – particularly between planning and budget
Could we create a distance ed department with a Dean and secretary who are responsible for
managing only (and all) the DE offerings
Don’t schedule in isolation (w respect to GE, day versus evening classes)
Chair training for scheduling; Flex offering on effective scheduling
Less choice; clear advising; more defined & linear 2 yr programs
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Longer term planning
Counselors attend dept. mtgs for purpose of scheduling---review 2 year program
Assess degrees & transfer programs that we currently have & (are) creating. Start w/ 2 year
process (see also red group’s easel paper)
Start from scratch. Don’t look at semester to semester.
Align student level preparation with access to courses.
Part II
A. As we move forward, what values and guiding principles should we have regarding our
program offerings/ class scheduling?
Values and Principles (they are mixed together, as some groups did not delineate)
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Program planning should value all constituents. However, the needs of students are
more important than faculty interests.
Program planning should be informed by and responsive to internal (college-wide data
and local) and external data.
Program planning should be coordinated across the college. This is important with
respect to majors courses and GE offerings.
Course offering priorities should be based on student need and their role in supporting
program completion.
College-wide discussions about FTE distribution across basic skills and the GE patterns
should occur. Goals should be set in this area and we should move in the direction of
correcting any imbalances that are identified.
Clear understanding of mission
Plan paths for students
Actual planning---not just reactive
Ownership of student success; Hold ourselves accountable & hold students accountable
Prescribed courses/ cohorts
Strengths-based approach
Honest dialog
Willingness to change
Need someone (an oracle) who knows external trends and analyzes our offerings, then
tells us what we have and what we need in order to maximize our programs’ ability to
access resources and be on track in a unified way.
Really utilize the Program Placement Council
Need broad view and it needs to be widely shared
Is there a rubric for deciding what to do, offer, buy, etc.? Does it impact student
success?
Map course offerings across campus between divisions, so we maximize offerings by
area of need such as IGETC, or Area A for transfer. Consider technology driven colorcoded mapping to see what fits what needs and when (how much) it is offered.
Start from square one: reset the entire schedule based on student need (not faculty
preference) but still accommodate the special needs of labs and various schedule issues
with facilities.
Remember the student first!
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Map division and college-wide offerings
Schedule as students need; not based on faculty preference
Make completion of programs possible
Access---maintaining access in the face of change
Revisit program discontinuance
Must be some kind of demand for courses
Motivate students to succeed
Provide support for support programs (e.g. MESA, Puente, DIOP?)
Alignment of resources w/ scheduling (e/g/ testing center hours that don’t conflict with
classes)
Revisit curriculum. Emphasize/ support core curriculum
Priority to schedule course required for degree & certs that lead to meaningful
employment/industry demand or helps students transfer
“Design A Student”---ask what we see as the ideal student in terms of learning
outcomes, characteristics, “global citizens,” ability to write, speak, calculate, physical
fitness, health & nutrition, arts, etc.
Academic integrity. Upholding academic quality & rigor.
Excellent student support
Responsibility to the community
Program completion
Don’t let the “community” be removed from “community colleges.”
Collegiality---interacting as colleagues. Not insular; not as individuals
Resources----consider others. Share the pie.
Making informed, good-faith decisions about FTE