Referred to the Executive Committee to research and bring back to Fall 2023 plenary whether this resolution would be in contradiction to a legal opinion provided by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.
Whereas, The document Minimum Qualifications for Faculty and Administrators in California Community Colleges [1], commonly referred to as the Disciplines List, establishes the specific degrees that qualify faculty to teach in the California Community Colleges system;
Whereas, At many California community colleges, degree titles that contain minor variations in wording from those included in the Disciplines List—such as “theater” rather than ”theater arts,” “counseling and guidance” rather than “guidance counseling,” and “accounting” rather than “accountancy”—are rejected in terms of meeting minimum qualifications even though the degrees are in fact of the same educational content and within the same discipline as those indicated in the Disciplines List;
Whereas, While California community colleges may declare the holders of these degrees with minor title variations to be eligible to teach through equivalency processes, such processes take time and should not be necessarily based on minor technicalities rather than educational content; and
Whereas, Although colleges have the right to determine that degrees with minor language variations from those listed in the Disciplines List do indeed indicate the degrees listed in the Disciplines List and thus do not require the applicants to go through equivalency, some local human resources offices are very conservative regarding such decisions and refuse to allow any variation from the exact wording included in the Disciplines List;
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges encourage local academic senates to work with discipline faculty and their colleges to create their own expanded degree title lists to pre-approve degrees with minor language variations in their titles from those in the Disciplines List but that are in fact indicating the same degree with the same educational content from within the same discipline; and
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges work with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office and the Association of Chief Human Resources Officers to advise local human resources offices that colleges have the flexibility to determine that minor differences in wording within a discipline may represent the same degree and thus the degree holder may meet the minimum qualifications even when the precise language of the degree title does not exactly match listed degrees.
M/S/R: Referred to the Executive Committee to research and bring back to Fall 2023 plenary whether this resolution would be in contradiction to a legal opinion provided by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.
1. Minimum Qualifications for Faculty and Administrators in California Community Colleges, 16th ed.:
https://www.cccco.edu/-/media/CCCCO-Website/About-Us/Divisions/Educational-Services-and-Support/Academic-Affairs/What-we-do/Curriculum-and-Instruction-Unit/Minimum-Qualifications/cccco-2021-report-min-qualifications-a11y.pdf?la=en&hash=AB424D9D2AEDEEBE2A54757BF58ABFC2B852A2F9