My Comments to the Board — 10/22/09

As you would expect, the college community continues to be occupied, as it should be, with the budget and how we will deal with the funding cuts from the state. In recent weeks, we are experiencing the economic downturn in a new way through the “bumping” of members of our classified staff by city workers who have been laid off by the city. The workers coming to City College are not to blame and we will do all we can to welcome them into a situation that is ideal for no one. At the same time, the loss of experience and institutional knowledge in many key roles will be difficult for the college. The Senate office itself is losing an excellent worker who has helped bring the office to an unprecedented level of organization.

During these times, it may seem strange to focus on how to improve the college, but fewer resources makes it more important than ever to focus on what is most important, on our mission, on our responsibility to our students and to our city; and I spoke to the importance and the difficulty of setting priorities at your last meeting.

One way the Board has helped us set priorities is through the Student Achievement Gap and Social Equity Resolution (090430-S7), unanimously approved by the Board April and also approved by the Academic Senate prior to that. The Chancellor has now completed and released a Student Achievement Gap and Social Equity Report (October 2009) requested in that resolution. The report states that “the data point to the existence of a racial/ethnic achievement gap at City College of San Francisco.” As a result, “we must accept the existence of an achievement gap and move on to propose solutions, implement them, and measure their success.”

Fortunately, the report continues, “the college already has many programs and services that successfully promote educational achievement for students from ethnic/racial groups that typically succeed at lower rates than college averages.” That is, the college community has a wealth of knowledge and experience that, together with input from the community and others, can help us improve. We won’t succeed by doing things exactly the same as we’ve always done, but by focusing on the problem, as the Board and the Senate have said we should, we will make progress – and the sooner the better from my point of view. I look forward to working with the Board and the rest of the college community to create policies and other measures that address the achievement gaps that have already been found and any may be found in the future.

Before I leave this topic, it should be noted that all communities of students are not adequately represented in the report, because of lack of appropriate data; further study and data collection is needed to identify achievement gaps that may exist for other communities of students. I support the Chancellor in forming workgroups of stakeholders in communities of students for which the college does not have adequate data so that such data can be available for future reports.

I’d like to further acknowledge that the Chancellor prepared the report while dealing with many other issues, most notably one of the worst fiscal situations in the college’s history. He should be commended for his efforts to prioritize the success of CCSF students and for helping the college look at the ways we are succeeding and the ways we are not so that we may address those areas that need improvement.

Another way the Chancellor is working to improve the college, and save money at the same time, is by reorganizing our administration to improve efficiency and reduce the number of administrators. To my knowledge, he has currently had several conversations with the administrators and others, including the Board about the details of the plan. Again, he is to be commended for this work. You won’t hear many faculty complaining about reducing the number of administrators at the college. Unfortunately, although the Chancellor has repeatedly promised to sunshine the details of the plan in the college community, that still hasn’t happened. Since the plan potentially impacts every aspect of college life, the faculty and the rest of the community need to see it. Now that the administrators have had a chance to discuss it, the rest of us need the chance to deliberate and weigh in. It has become especially important because the Academic Senate has been given a proposed administrative job announcement – an Associate Dean of Student Life and Student Learning – that is clearly part of a reorganization plan; we can’t hope to rationally evaluate the job outside of the context of the entire plan. In addition, the students are directly affected by the potential new job and their input will be crucial with regard to the position. The college should not go forward with the job without informed input from the Associated Students and Student Trustee Nielsen. I hope the Board can join me in urging the Chancellor to make the plan public as soon as possible.

Now more than ever, to be an institution that stands for integrity, responsibility, and service we must continue to work transparently together and to focus on what’s important: on our students and on preserving our core missions in the community.