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.