April

Part I: Mental Health and Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning

By Mitra Sapienza, ASCCC North Representative

Meetings of various types are a common aspect of the professional experience of faculty members, and many faculty leaders have extensive experience with preparing and chairing meetings. However, far too often an individual is selected to serve as chair of a committee or other body with no real guidance or mentoring on how to manage the position. New chairs are often metaphorically thrown into the deep end of the pool and told to swim without support or preparation for the role they have assumed.

One of the crucial ways that the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) disseminates information to local academic senates is through formal ASCCC liaisons. Several prior Rostum articles have been published on the history and importance of establishing liaisons.[1]  However, in recent years, the ASCCC has received feedback that the connection with these liaisons has been less than ideal or consistent.

The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) has made faculty diversification part of an overarching inclusion, diversity, equity, antiracism, and accessibility  goal over the past six years. While an initial focus was placed on hiring practices, this concept also includes the diversification of faculty leadership locally and statewide. Various encouraging practices can help local academic senates to develop a faculty leadership pipeline that is inclusive of diverse faculty.

After several years of systemwide focus on implementing and growing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, California’s community colleges are making good progress, with data showing that the system is decreasing equity gaps in areas such as numbers and diversity of students applying to transfer to the University of California (UC). According to the Los Angeles Times, applications for Fall 2024 transfer to UC

As attempts to undermine and attack efforts on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are evident at many colleges and universities across the nation, faculty should pause and reflect on the consequences these attacks have had on college campuses.

Credit for prior learning (CPL) practices have been in place in the California Community Colleges system for years. Standardized exams are included in the possibilities available for awarding CPL, with various options available for colleges to grant CPL for such exams.

Community colleges are open access institutions that serve a diverse student demographic, including non-traditional students who may be the first ones in their families to attend college, are older than traditional college and university students, attend part-time, have work or family responsibilities, have a lower socio-economic status, and have taken non-linear paths to higher education. Thus, these institutions strive to offer services that support disproportionately-impacted students.

While to suggest volunteering for service to faculty who may already be feeling exhausted or burned out may seem counterintuitive, engaging in networking, learning, or service with colleagues from outside one’s own campus community can often provide social and intellectual nourishment that is helpful for recharging as educators.

Assembly Bill 928 (Berman, 2021), the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act of 2021, was an expansive bill intended to simplify the transfer process for community college students.[1] It mandated the creation of the California General Education Transfer Curriculum (Cal-GETC), the singular general education transfer pathway that satisfies lower division requirements of both the University of Cali