Bill Vega
Session II
HISPANIC BORDER LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE (HBLI) SCHOLARS COLLOQUIUM
June 8, 2001
Tempe, AZ
Session II: Community College Articulation: The Link Pin Between K-12 and
Four-Year Colleges
William “Bill” Vega, Chancellor, Coast Community College District (CCCD), California
The combination of the open door admissions policy, low tuition, and easy geographic access
makes the community colleges particularly attractive to many students of color who might
otherwise not contemplate college. College enrollment in community colleges of high school
completers is higher for Hispanic students than White and African American students. While
community colleges provide a crucial entry from K-12 into college, the vital link to four-year
colleges is weak. What challenges still face Latino community college students in moving from
K-12 to four-year systems? For community colleges, what issues regarding articulation need to
be addressed between K-12 and four year institutions?
Introduction by Dr. Valverde
When we look at the educational pipeline or the matriculation of Latinos in the United States
there is one critical segment of that continuum and that is the community college. I should
remind everyone that community colleges began as junior colleges. It is an American creation, a
unit in the education continuum unique to the United States. As a junior college, the terminology
reveals its original mission, to assist individuals who graduated from high school but who
weren’t ready for a four-year higher education curriculum. So they created this new body and it
was another entry way, an additional route people could take. People could transfer from the
two-year college to a four-year college to get a baccalaureate degree. Community college
became the mechanism to assist people to transition into four-year higher education and be
successful at it. This mission soon waned and the community college of today emerged. And the
terminology gives a better sense of what they now do, which is to serve communities in a variety
of ways, not just as transition schools. The reason why they are critical to us is that when you
look at the Hispanic population enrolled in post-secondary education, 60 to 80 percent of Latinos
in higher education are in community colleges. Community colleges, though, for our population
are not transitional but terminal. That is, our population, once they get there, get an Associate of
Arts or Science degree and go no further. They exit from community college because they were
enrolled for other purposes rather than transitioning to a four-year institution.
I thought that it would be important to look at this unit because if we are talking about a highly
technological society, we all know that a high school diploma is no longer adequate. Now we are
talking about at least a baccalaureate degree for people to be successful in the new job market, in
new areas that have not yet been invented. And if most of our people are going to community
college, we have to find a way to get them through that in order for them to get a baccalaureate
and to go beyond, to get advanced degrees. We have a wonderful mechanism to help get more of
our youth to be successful in higher education, but at the same time we are not doing it.
Bill Vega
Session II
Bill is the chancellor of the Coast Community College District (CCCD). The district was
recently awarded the state diversity award for hiring. He is the senior Latino CEO for community
colleges in California right now. Soon he will be the longest tenured one as others retire. Bill has
been an administrator in California community colleges for 28 years and prior to that taught for
the University of Maryland for three years, and he was a faculty at a community college for a
number of years.
Dr. Vega:
Coast Community College District is located in Orange County California, the most conservative
county in a conservative state. Most people don’t realize that those of us in California who live in
San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are semi-liberal, but the balance of the state is very
conservative, as the balance of recent legislation attests. I have been in the Coast District 18
years. It is the 5th largest community college in the nation in credit enrollment. Not as big as
Maricopa County Community College District, but there are 58,000 credit students and 50,0000
noncredit students. Orange Coast College is located in Costa Mesa, Golden West College is in
Huntington Beach, and Coastline Community College is administratively in Fountain Valley. I
was at Coastline for nine years, the last eight as chancellor. It is an interesting place. One of the
colleges in the district has the second highest transfer rate of community college students to fouryear institutions, which is more a reflection of the socio-economic environment than anything
else. It is not a coincidence that many of the low transfer districts in California are in fact
minority urban inner city districts. Again the low transfer rate in those districts is more a
reflection the socio-economic conditions in those communities than it is of their ethnic or
cultural make up. It is important to say that as often as we can. Many confuse transfer with
ethnicity when it is more an issue of economics.
First a few words about what is happened in California externally and, more importantly, what is
happening in the California community colleges internally. As you all know, we have
experienced anti-immigration legislation, anti-affirmative action administration, we have an
environment in which English-only initiatives have been discussed, that is what has happened
externally. In 1988 reform legislation was passed which significantly restructured and refocused
our mission. Prior to that, one of the major criticisms of the community college had been that we
tried to be all things to all people, which was a valid criticism. Part of the problem with
community colleges in California, and maybe nationally, is that , although our roots are K-12,
over time we have tried to identify with post-secondary education rather than secondary
education. When this legislation was passed, there was a change in focus internally to become
more a part of and a partner to post-secondary education. I think we made a mistake in moving
away from our roots and becoming more identified with post-secondary education, as we lost a
lot of what made us a truly valuable entity within the state.
What the legislation was to identify and legislate were two missions: transfer education and
occupational/vocational education. If you want to do other things, such as ESL or remedial
education, that’s okay, but they are now going to be legislatively identified as secondary
missions and are listed as such in the legislation. Since the legislature has just said that these are
our two missions, many asked, “why allocate resources to ESL if the state is telling us that we
don’t have to educate those students?” As anti-immigration, anti-affirmative action, English-only
issues were being discussed externally, internally the discussions were about how our mission
Bill Vega
Session II
has changed, how we now by law are only required to train and transfer students. If we want to
do more, it is incumbent upon us to figure out how. While all this is taking place, another
provision of the legislation mandated collegial and collaborative decision making, which is
shared governance. Many faculty in the state interpreted that to mean faculty government, that
we are now in control of the institutions and all areas listed in the law—nine of them—over
which faculty have primary responsibility or must discuss with the administration. Faculty took
that to mean that they will decide what their focus should be. So if we decide legally that transfer
education and occupational/technical education are our primary missions, then we decide
whether or not we should be teaching ESL or basic skills. The majority of the Latino students
who come to us are in need of some basic education, though the majority of faculty are not of our
kind.
The Coast Community College District is made up of Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Costa
Mesa, Stanton, Westminster, and Garden Grove. This gives a clear indication of the student
makeup of California. CCCD as of fall 2000 is now 50 percent minority students, with 15
percent Latino and the balance being Asian (Little Saigon is in the area), while 5 percent are
African American. The communities of Westminster, Garden Grove, and a large part of Santa
Ana are becoming more Asian, primarily Vietnamese. For a county that was the recipient of
White flight in the 1970s, and for years it was the common perception that it was very Anglo
county, it will in fifteen years be primarily a minority county. The faculty, however, is 78 percent
Anglo. We made a 15 percent inroad in the last few years, of the faculty hired in that time, 32
percent were of color. We work hard at it. We don’t give enough credit to our Latino trustees.
There is one Latino trustee in the Coast Community College District, and he hired me in 1984 as
president of Coastline College. We have to do those hirings ourselves, no one is going to do
them for us. In 8 years at Coastline college, 80 percent of my faculty hires were people of color,
and I was “allowed” to do that because the president realized that the only minority in any
educational/administrative capacity was me. Furthermore, the faculty senate wanted to require
three years of teaching experience as a hiring requirement, which would have been a blow to
minority candidates. As it turned out, none of the members of the senate had had any teaching
experience when they were hired, they were taken straight out of school, so it was unfair that
they should expect a hiring requirement that they themselves did not fulfill.
Another provision of the legislation was for all districts to work for a target of a 75/25 percent
ratio of full-time versus part-time faculty. At CCCD we are at 73 percent, though the majority of
districts rely significantly on adjunct faculty, which is more a reflection of finances in the state
than it has to do with a philosophy of teaching. MCCCD in Arizona is contractually a 90/10
ratio, but Rio Salado Community college is 7 full time per 1000 part time, and the reality for the
district is closer 60 to 70 percent, while at the University of Texas El Paso it is 40 to 50 percent
part time. A valid argument can be made for the use of adjunct faculty in the
occupational/technical focus, and the majority of adjunct faculty in the community college are
located in this sector. One other statement. Even in the CCCD, with Coastline Community
College, which was the first college without walls and where 65 percent are adjunct faculty, the
district total is 72 percent.
Another provision of the legislation had to do with tenure, which was gotten in two years before
but now takes six years. The provision eliminated tenure for administrative positions, and there
Bill Vega
Session II
was no incentive to apply for these positions. In the past, if I left one district for another, I got
tenure after just two years. That was eliminated, and administrative pools shrank over night. For
example, there were only 15 applicants in a national search for a recent position, most of them
from out of state. Once they have tenure in California, people don’t want to leave their positions.
But there is mismatch of student and teachers, with students of color being taught by white
teachers, same as K-12. How do we get faculty to understand, appreciate, and value the culture
of the people they are teaching? I have five trustees who talk about and support diversity. We
have been making headway. My mantra is that we have an obligation to hire on the basis of
potential, not experience, as do the trustees. The average lifespan for a community college
president in California is less than four years. They don’t have the chance to establish a
reputation for honesty or integrity. They don’t have the chance to make mistakes, either. One
reason we have been successful is because I have been there for 18 years and they know that I
won’t bs them, that I will explain a decision. Even if it is contrary to what was developed
collaboratively, I will go back and explain to them why we are implementing another decision. I
have stayed in the system long enough for people to trust me, and as a result of that people will
try and do the right thing, and that is why we are successful at making changes.