Board of Governors meet at City College

I had a chance today to welcome the Board of Governors for the California Community College System to City College. The Board is holding meetings at the College as part of its effort to travel to different community colleges around the state rather than meeting only in San Francisco. It's good exposure for the System and also for City College.

During my remarks at the luncheon, I told the Board members that they honored City College by choosing to hold meetings in San Francisco. I expressed my hope that they would have productive sessions.

Since I had the microphone (and no one was going to take it away from me!), I took the opportunity to let the members of the Board of Governors -- as well as Chancellor Jack Scott and members of his staff -- know about our recent garage sale. I said that there were three purposes to the garage sale: to raise funds to replace classes, to bring the community together in support of City College, and to make a point about chronic underfunding of public education in California. We achieved all three goals.

I also wanted to make certain that everyone in the room understood that, without full-funding for public education, we are going to continue to lag behind other states in academic achievement. While some members of the Board of Governors may feel that they are not "advocates" in the way that some of us want them to be, I felt I had to make a strong argument for the revision of Proposition 13. Eliminating the commercial property component of Prop 13 would provide a significant boost in public funds, much of which should go to public education.

Chancellor Jack Scott presented Governor Schwarzenneger with the first "Community Colleges Governor" award at the recent Association of Community College Trustees Annual Leadership Congress in San Francisco. Let's use the close relationship between Chancellor Scott and the Governor to advocate for proper funding for public education. The Governor continues to talk about his experience at Santa Monica City College as the reason for his success. It's time for the Governor to "give back" to the community colleges. City College should take a lead in showing him the best way to do that.

City College Garage Sale - October 24th

I will have more to post soon; however, I did want to make certain that I provided some background to this event and a link to the website where you can get more information about how you can participate as a vendor, donor, or volunteer.

http://www.ccsf.edu/News/Citywide_Garage_Sale/

Why are we having the "Save CCSF Classes Garage Sale and Flea Market"?

From the website:

"As the budget crisis continues in the State and, by extension, at City College of San Francisco, we would like to invite you to help restore classes and increase counseling hours by supporting the first Citywide Save CCSF Classes Garage Sale and Market. Some 800 classes are being cut during Academic Year 2009/10. Thousands of City College students are being affected by these cuts. Your participation in this community event will enable the College to restore classes and increase counseling hours during the Spring 2010 term. The goals of this event are both to raise funds for the College and to educate the public about the shortage of funding for education in California.

If additional information is requested, please contact the Marketing and Public Information Office at (415) 239-3680.

We look forward to your valuable participation in this community event to Save City College Classes for Spring Semester 2010!"

City College: A central address for good health in San Francisco

My wife is a psychologist who used to work in School-based Health Center (SBHC) working with teens. I learned a great deal from her about the importance of good health -- including mental health -- for student success. I also appreciated how valuable it is for students to have access to health care services at school.

Even before she started that job, I had expressed my interest in examining ways in which City College could play an even more significant role in the delivery of health care and health care education in San Francisco. I met with Mayor Newsom to encourage him to work with the College as part of the City's health care campaign, and I spoke with Mitch Katz, the Director of the Department of Public Health, and with Jean Fraser, then the Chief Executive Officer of San Francisco Health Plan. While all of them agreed that City College had some role to play, their focus was on instituting the Health Plan and extending health coverage to uninsured San Franciscans.

Later, I arranged a meeting between then City College Chancellor Phil Day and our current Chancellor Don Griffin (a licensed psychologist) and Belinda Lyons, Executive Director the Mental Health Association of San Francisco. While Belinda suggested that City College could help to break down cultural barriers to seeking mental health services, we did not continue to explore a partnership.

Finally, I met with members of the staff of the Student Health Center at City College. I learned about the tremendous work that the Health Center does across a range of health issues. At the time -- this was before the new Health Center opened -- they had about 10,000 visits each year from the students. While that is great, the College has an enrollment of over 100,000 people each year.

Here is my idea in brief: City College should be at the center of health care delivery and health care education in San Francisco. The Student Health Center already exists; however, only credit students can access it. There is so much more that can be done to test students for hypertension, diabetes, Hepatitis B, and other chronic conditions. The students in health-related programs can assist with the testing as part of their training. Helping people understand their health issues is an important first step in treatment.

With such a sizable and diverse student population, an educational mission, and a commitment to student success, City College could mobilize resources within health programs, graphic arts, student organizations, and related fields to educate students about good health, to encourage them to get tested, to help them understand the importance of prevention efforts, and to either deliver services directly or through expanded partnerships with government and nonprofits.

My goals are to elevate good health to a central issue at City College, to offer real-life, practical opportunities to enhance educational programs, and to support the College's focus on student success. I welcome partners in this effort, and hope to report again soon on my progress.

Creating a culture of civic engagement and nonprofit careers

Here's a statement that students and career counselors at City College should keep in mind:

"The bottom line is this: nonprofits deserve recognition as a major source of employment in this country."

That quote comes from "Nonprofits are small business employers too" that you can find on the blog of Commongood Careers at
http://www.cgcareers.org/blog/comments/nonprofits_are_small_business_employers_too/
Commongood Careers is a Boston-based, for-profit search firm that helps non-profits attract and retain employees.

While there are programs in service learning and mentorship at City College, plus a new civic engagement center sponsored by the Vice Chancellor of Student Development, Mark Robinson, these programs are not able to involve more than a very small percentage of students at City College. Without greater financial resources -- and an institutional recognition of and commitment to civic engagement -- City College students most likely will not become engaged in their community or seek out careers with nonprofits. What can we do to overcome these lost opportunities?

First, we should confer with other educational institutions about how their programs for civic engagement and nonprofit work experience are handled: what resources are devoted to these programs, how many students are served, do the nonprofits in the community feel a connection to the community college, are new ways to take on issues and problems in social service delivery being developed by community college programs?

In the Bay Area, De Anza College has an Institute of Community and Civic Engagement (see http://www.deanza.edu/communityengagement/). San Francisco State University's Urban Institute, while no longer operating as a research center on civic issues, could provide some important feedback on what works and what does not in an educational setting.

We should also seek out assistance from the Community College National Center for Community Engagement at Arizona's Mesa Community College (see http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/other/engagement/)

With 9,000 nonprofits in the Bay Area that could benefit from involvement of the 250,000 community college students in our region and that could offer employment to many of these students, City College should embrace civic engagement as a core institutional value.

College Board committee meetings September 10th

I am so pleased that the committee structure I proposed earlier this year -- and formally adopted by the College Board last month -- is working. While we still have some things to work out, we now have a College Board that has increased its commitment to considering important matters in public meetings with more deliberation in the past.

Tomorrow night, two committees will meet.

With its meeting starting at 6 pm at 33 Gough Street, the Facilities, Infrastructure, and Technology Committee (chaired by John Rizzo) has on its agenda:

1. Update on the Chinatown North Beach Campus Construction Project, schedule and costs
2. Update on John Adams Campus and Joint Use Facilities Construction Projects
3. Report on status of hiring Local Hiring Monitors for Chinatown and Joint Use projects
4. Discussion and possible recommendation to Board of adding a Chief Technology Officer position to the staff (committee may chose to vote and forward results to full Board of Trustees)
5. Discussion and possible recommendation to Board of maximizing parking revenues while minimizing student costs, and the possible use of a parking consultant (committee may chose to vote and forward results to full Board of Trustees)
6. Update on soccer field construction project

At 7:30 also at 33 Gough Street, the Community Relations Committee (chaired by Chris Jackson) has a full agenda, too:

1. Discussion and possible recommendation to Board of the Greater Access and Opportunity in City College’s Nursing Program resolution (committee may chose to vote and forward results to full Board of Trustees).
2. Discussion of and possible future action for a CCSF Student Ombudsman position.
3. Discussion and possible recommendation to Board of the Authorization to Propose amendments to Agreement for Exchange of Real Property (Balboa Reservoir) with the District Developing a Plaza at Ocean and Phelan and enforcing Good Faith Efforts in Local Hiring by construction contractors retained to develop the plaza and construction of the reservoir resolution (committee may chose to vote and forward results to full Board of Trustees).
4. Discussion and possible recommendation to Board of Expanding Contracts to Local Businesses resolution (committee may chose to vote and forward results to full Board of Trustees).

College Board improvements

Since my last post in May, the College Board has made progress in addressing some of the concerns about how we conduct business and the tension that the Board was causing through some of our actions.

Finally, after many months of discussion through Board meetings and committee meetings, we have a new policy governing our meetings. Among the important changes are:

• The President of the Board of Trustees now authorizes the distribution of the agenda for Board meetings, and committee chairs have this authorization for their committee meetings. While agenda preparation will continue to be done collaboratively with the Chancellor, the Board now has final say.
• There is now a formally adopted process for introduction of resolutions, for referral to committees, and for consideration of items by committee before they must be returned to the full Board for action. The goal is to enable Shared Governance and other interests to comment on proposed action by the Board in a timely manner (by the second Board meeting after referral to a committee or 45 days, whichever is longer).
• Resolutions by Board members must be submitted to the Chancellor no later than 21 days before their consideration, and draft agendas will be ready for review by the Board President no later than 14 days before the meeting and by the committee chair no later than 7 days before the meeting. Again, this is intended to establish a process that feels less rushed and more deliberate than we have had to date.

We will have more, important changes following our meeting on September 24th where, I hope, our Sunshine Policy will be adopted by the Board. I will report on those changes in another post.

Unnecessary tension on the College Board?

When we finished our monthly Board meeting last night, I realized something about the way we function that contributes to an atmosphere of contention and stress on the part of the Board and the College or members of the public. Unlike other governmental bodies like the School Board or the Board of Supervisors, the College Board has traditionally operated without active committees. Yes, we have had committees with chairs and members for the entire time that I have served on the College Board; however, until this year when I instituted new committees and called for these committees to meet as committees (rather than as the full Board) and to make recommendations to the Board for action.

I am pleased that the new committees and committee structure have been embraced by the entire Board, and that some of the committees have been particularly committed to their heightened role.

But, not every resolution is referred to a committee, and some of the resolutions proposed by the District -- as opposed to those proposed by Trustees -- are seen for the first time by the Board just a few days before our meeting. Often, we are asked to make a decision without delay, and that has caused problems when some of us feel that we have not been given enough information on which to base a rational decision.

Similarly, resolutions proposed by Board members (noticeably increased in number and in content since the Board added two new members in January), have not until this year gone to committee. In fact, few of the Board sponsored resolutions (other than Policy changes that require two readings) are referred to committee and most of the Board is unaware of the existence of the resolutions until the Board packet arrives the Friday night before the meeting the next Thursday.

With both the District and Board sponsored resolutions, there can be significant pressure to adopt them at the upcoming meeting. The stress and contention I spoke of at the beginning of this post result from: 1) the legal requirement that less than a majority of Board members can discuss a resolution prior the meeting in keeping with the requirements of the Brown Act, 2) the "political" strategy that a sponsor of a resolution may be employing in timing the introduction of a particular resolution, 3) the concern/fear that members of the College community or of the general public may have about the consequences of a resolution that became known to them with such a short time before a vote will be taken, and 4) the history of non-functioning committees, few policies guiding the introduction of Board sponsored resolutions, and strategic introduction of resolutions to score political points or to use the pressure of a deadline to force a decision.

I joined with my colleagues, John Rizzo and Steve Ngo, in drafting some Policy changes to bring order to the College Board and to reduce the stress that too often taints our meetings. More on those proposed changes in another post.

New term on the College Board

In the spirit of the day, and having just heard our new President's Inaugural Address, I wanted to share some of my words after being sworn in for my third term on the College Board on January 5th:

"It is an unsettling time. Things could improve or get much, much worse. In the face of this uncertainty, it is our obligation to secure the future for those who depend on us. Community colleges serve the most vulnerable people in our society whether they are starting their higher education, about to enter the workforce, or who are returning for a career change. They are banking on the future…a future where there will be a job for them. They are hoping that, in their future, there will be a world that will accept them for who they are and for what they offer and a world where they will want to be.

As we find ourselves facing profound events, whether related to the state of the economy or war, it is easy to get dispirited or despondent. My goal is to not allow that to happen to me, and my invitation to you is to join me in always believing that what we do at City College is equally profound and life altering. The big difference is that City College is about positive change and life affirming actions.

We are being tested by all that we are facing. We have to have the courage to face these challenges and to secure the future for those we serve and those we represent. I am confident that our new Chancellor and our new Board will do this.

We each have personal goals and agendas for our work at City College. Mine continue to be centered on sustainability, open governance, health care and health education, community service, and collaboration. My hope is that the Board of Trustees can come together in unity – not shying away from heated debate, however – to foster a collegial spirit that can shape all that goes on at City College. The future depends on us. We depend on each other."