Saddleback College gets off the dime

Today, not for the first time this summer, the Saddleback College Academic Senate met to discuss some pressing issues, including the college’s accreditation crisis.

(In February, the accreditation commission [ACCJC] wrote to the colleges, informing them that unless certain long-standing problems—board micromanagement, etc.—were overcome once and for all, they would lose their accreditation. A college report to the Accreds outlining efforts to address those issues is due in October.)

Turnout for this mid-July meeting was impressive: about twenty-five people attended, though this included a few administrators, one or two classified managers, some classified employees, and one trustee (Dave Lang).

Senate President Bob C presented a “proposed plan of action” for completion of the report, which is due in less than three months. Bob enumerated various circumstances “working against us,” including a lack of leadership at the administrative level (the college is between presidents and the Chancellor has failed to name a temporary or acting president), the lack of an Accreditation Committee chair (the recently retired college president had been the chair), the recent resignations of faculty committee chairs, a continued “work-to-contract” action called by the union, and so on.

Bob also listed some advantages and a list of things needed. There was a lively and helpful discussion, and, unless I am very much mistaken, the group managed to assign various crucial tasks and zero in on a (in parts) promising and forceful course of action.

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As you may know, the accreditors have presented the college with three “recommendations”: that the college needs to develop “student learning outcomes” across the college (roughly, these are carefully crafted sentences, describing what students should be able to do at the end of a semester, to be placed in course outlines and other documents), that the trustees must cease their unfortunate pattern of micromanagement, and that groups within the college (presidents, faculty, trustees, administrators, et al.) need to come together to overcome hostility, fear, and despair. (Save the first, Irvine Valley College received a similar list of recommendations.)

It is widely believed that both colleges’ last skirmish with the Accreds went south in part owing to the arrogant meddling of the Chancellor and one or two dominant conservative members of the board who insisted, over vociferous faculty objections, on wedging inappropriate elements into a report. The Accreds were not amused.

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During today’s meeting, trustee Dave Lang said that he would agendize some items for the next board meeting, July 28 (I do believe this concerned, among other things, ways in which faculty might be compensated for doing extra work during the summer months or might be supported, as necessary, during the fall).

The group was unanimous in proceeding with a survey of the college community as a part of the report.

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The SLO issue (the first “recommendation” above) was of foremost concern, since it lay squarely in the lap of the faculty. The group decided that administration and the senate, jointly, should write and send a letter to deans informing them that relevant faculty must finally write and submit the needed SLOs by the end of August (the 27th, I believe)—this is a little over a month away. The group considered later deadlines but, in the end, they seemed compelled by circumstance to accept the earlier one. There seemed to be agreement that, though this endeavor would be challenging, college faculty were up to the task.

Further, headway was made in organizing continued work on reports regarding the remaining two “recommendations.”

Clearly, it was a good meeting.

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The parallel Irvine Valley College accreditation effort has been proceeding with biweekly meetings throughout the summer, a process that started in the Spring. Its report draft is in a relatively developed state.

(Note: I did not attend today’s meeting with the intention of reporting on it; I have done so at the quasi-urging of some SC faculty leaders.)