"City College information desk. How may I help you?"

An "analog internet" powered by the phone and staffed by "people".  What a concept!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127346925

Would this be part of the solution to increase how well City College students take advantage of all of the resources offered by the College?


Or, does City College need an ombudsman to represent students in maneuvering through the institution?

Maybe both....

I'm looking forward to working with the new student leadership starting this month, and hope to get their full participation in exploring options.

My speech as Board President at the May 29th City College graduation.

A few nights ago at our monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees, I had an epiphany or, rather, the reappearance of an epiphany from some time ago, if that is at all a logical concept.

The meeting had started with student testimony.  Students had lined up to let us know about some of the exciting and highly positive new developments at the College, and many others had told us about how recent changes in their departments were making their lives much, much harder. 

Towards the end of the meeting, the Chancellor passed me a piece of paper on which were printed a few paragraphs.  He asked me to read it out loud at the appropriate moment in our meeting.

I had the earlier student testimony very much on my mind when the Chancellor handed me the piece of paper.   What was written there and  what the students had had to say combined in a particularly meaningful way for me, and I remembered why I chose to seek a position on the Board of Trustees.

See, on the paper the Chancellor handed me was the notice of the sudden passing of a long-time, former member of the classified staff, a woman who spent decades working at the College as a custodian.  In her retirement, Queen Esther Williams loved spending time with her family, she continued to be devoted to her union, and she enjoyed traveling to Reno and casinos operated by Native American tribes.  Just two days after a trip to a casino, she passed on.

I never knew Ms. Williams since she had already retired before I came to City College.  While I had never met her, I knew that, like many of those who have spent their careers working at the college, she had been a person with justified pride in her job and in the way in which she did her work, and who knew and felt the appreciation the college community had for her.

We often forget that we serve people – students, staff, faculty, administrators.  We spend the majority of our Board meetings deciding important matters that are essential to the operation of City College; yet it is abstract conversation with a focus on dollars and cents, balancing budgets, approving courses that show up on our agendas in a long list, determining the details of a parcel tax to help fund essential programs that would be the most palatable to the voters. It is sometimes easy to lose touch with the immediacy of the passion for serving the community of people that make up the college (students, staff, faculty, administrators) that brought us to this work in the first place. Quite frankly, we are often so caught up in details and logistics that we get far too divorced from what is truly important at City College: the people who learn and work here.

This year more than ever, we have been reminded that when we approve a reduced budget, we affect the lives of students who cannot take the few remaining classes they need to transfer to S.F. State, we lower the pay of faculty whose summer classes have been eliminated, and we make the work of people like Queen Esther Williams even more challenging by leaving open vacancies and limiting supplies that she would need to have to complete her assignments as well as she would want.  One of the truths about the culture of City College is that people make do, they pitch in to help each other, they open their classes to more students than required, and they find ways to secure what they need to meet their custodial duties and enable fellow City College employees and students to work and study in the best environment possible.  There is real pride at City College

I have come to the City College graduation for nine years.  I have been to many other graduations – of my own, my siblings, and friends:  high school graduations, college graduations, law school and graduate school graduations– yet this graduation remains the most special to me in many ways.

Let me tell you why I love the City College graduations.   After I was first elected to the College Board in 2000, I spent the initial five months of my term in shock at how hard it was to see the relevance of the day to day activities of the Board to the reasons I had wanted to be a part of the college  -- much of our debate seemed stuck in internal politics or in the minutia of detail, and I felt removed from the meaningful contact I had hoped to have with what had inspired me about the college and the potential for greatness here. 

At that first City College graduation in May 2001, I found my spirits lifted, my hope renewed, and my reasons for seeking to join the Board of Trustees reconfirmed.  The student speakers were captivating, the hoots and shouts expressed the joy people were feeling, and shaking hands with graduating students as they came up to the stage felt personal, if only for a few seconds. I wouldn’t quite call it a religious experience, but it sure felt pretty close.  I left Davies Hall considerably lighter, positive, and hopeful than when I went in.

For most of my education, I attended private schools.  Between kindergarten and 8th grade, I was in a private boys’ school here in San Francisco.  While I flourished academically, there were others who didn’t, and when they expressed their frustration by acting out, or when they were stuck academically and could not do their work, the school sometimes responded by deeming them not to be the “right sort” of boy for the school.  Often, these kids were shuffled out or dropped out.  I’ve lost track of most of my classmates who left before the 8th grade.  I really don’t know what became of them.

Things are different, way different from that at City College.  Instead of trying to shape students into a certain kind of image or channeling school work only into “appropriate” and “approved” avenues, City College embraces everyone where they are, and for whom they are, and the College doesn’t give up on anyone.  When people finish at City College with a degree, a certificate, or simply with the skills to return to the workforce retrained and ready to go, they take well-earned pride in their accomplishment.  That’s what we are feeling here today.

You see, there is always amazing hope within the students who are graduating on this day.  Some of you are graduating FINALLY after many years of juggling classes, family, and work.  Some of you did so fairly quickly following high school.  And, some of you after returning to school after a long break to raise a family or focus on a career.  Some of you have had relatively easy lives, while others have overcome obstacles that most of us could never summon the courage and strength to do.  All of you are role models for those of us up here today on this platform.  You inspire us as do your families whose love and support have helped you get here.

My hope is that I, my colleagues, the Administration, the lab aides, the cafeteria workers, the Presidents of the Academic and Classified Senates, the coaches, the groundskeeper, the Department Chairs, and everyone else at City College can retain this remarkable sense of accomplishment and pride that we witness today.  On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am proud to welcome you here today and thank you for inspiring us to serve you with even more awareness that people, rather than numbers on a balance sheet, make what we do profoundly rewarding.
       
In Jewish life, whenever there is a happy occasion, we say mazal tov to each other as members of a community sharing in the joy.  Please join me by turning to your neighbor and saying mazal tov to each other.  Congratulations to us all, members of the City College community.

A sense of humor always helps

I have to share this email I received today from an alumnus of a certificate program at City College. Seems that this former student (and still very proud graduate) noticed an error after displaying his certificate in his office for all to see.

His email to the Department's Chair (and copied to me) goes on:

"Professor Laws taught us much about engineered plumbing systems with pipes and such. There was, however, no instruction on feather arrangement...."

I must admit that I didn't yet get the error and the relationship to feathers until I read the rest of the sentence and saw the photo:

"I don't believe the department is qualified to issue certificates in Engineer Pluming Systems!"

And now, back to our regular blogging.

How "Wanted: Green talent" caught my eye

"Wanted: Green talent" is what I read on my phone the other day when I was looking at the headlines on SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicle's online website. Truth be told, I was in a meeting and should not have been "checking out" during the meeting and "checking in" to the internet, but I'm glad I did.

David Bank, a vice president at San Francisco's Civic Ventures, was right on target when he wrote in his open forum about the need for workers who can help energy companies and other green industries. There just aren't enough trained people to fill the available jobs. At the same time, however, having the right kind of training programs are still not as widespread or as standardized as they need to be. And, demand is lower than it needs to be to drive these industries to even greater growth than in the recent past.

http://tinyurl.com/yckon47

While Mr. Bank mentioned some nonprofits and government initiatives to help with all of the above, he left out an important piece in how we will find the trained workers needed to help green industries thrive: community colleges, our nation's training institutions.

Within a day of this opinion piece appearing on SFGate, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had a equally compelling headline: "Some businesses having a difficult time filling 'green' jobs". Again, no mention of community colleges, though technical colleges appear in the article.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/89312337.html#comments

The article developed from the release of a new report by...COWS. Not the kind that moo, but the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. http://www.cows.org/ The report, "Greener Skills: How Credentials Create Value in the Clean Energy Economy", http://tinyurl.com/y3sb2hy follows an earlier report released two years ago. "Greener Pathways: Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy".

One important conclusion in the just released report cautions community colleges as they seek to develop programs to train students for green jobs: "Community colleges, for example, shouldn’t simply rush to start their own “green jobs” programs (though many already have,
with offerings that range from important and critical to redundant and ridiculous). While opening a new program may offer a press opportunity and prove your campus is on the green edge, in fact the ways that all schools manage to integrate the green content into existing programs, and the resources they save by doing so in consistent and industry-defined ways are
likely to prove both more important and sustainable."

How does all of this relate to City College? At our January 2009 meeting, the Board of Trustees approved Resolution S7, "Directive to Create Major Green Training Programs and Establish a Green Jobs Industry Advisory Group" http://www.ccsf.edu/Offices/VCFA/January_2009_agenda_items.htm

Two months later, at our March 2009 meeting, our Board passed two related resolutions, "Creation of City College of San Francisco Bridge to Green Jobs Program" (Resolution S1) and "Resolution supporting the creation of a City College Bridge to Green Jobs Policy" (Resolution S2). Both resolutions can be found at http://www.ccsf.edu/Offices/VCFA/March_2009_agenda_items.htm

Vice-President John Rizzo took the lead in convening a Green Industry Advisory Task Force in 2009, and chaired several meetings to discuss how the College might grow how it trains students for careers in green industries. As the College continues to develop Phase 2 of the Sustainability Plan through which curricular elements of sustainability will be laid out and with all of the recent research that analyzes the effectiveness of existing programs and proposes changes for improved training programs, now would be a great time for the College to report back to the Board on the status of all of the resolutions noted above. And, of course, to demonstrate how City College will be a leader in training San Franciscans for "green" jobs.

Cost $aving$ idea contest for City College

Here's your chance to suggest ways for City College to reduce costs and raise additional funds. There have been some great suggestions so far. To review some of these and to find out how you can participate in this contest, please click on
http://www.ccsf.edu/Offices/SavingsContest/

I am submitting two suggestions related to printing from computers (how many printers are there at City College?):

First, join the "Change the Margins" effort by changing the default setting for margins from the standard 1.25 inches to .75 inches. This saves paper and money as more text can fit on every page. See http://www.changethemargins.com/ for details.

Second, select a standard font for City College that will use up the least amount of ink without compromising readability. More on this at http://tinyurl.com/ylb97sa

Even simple things like these can produce significant savings, especially at a place so large as City College. Please visit http://www.ccsf.edu/Offices/SavingsContest/ to offer your suggestions.

Thanks.

Lost opportunities for achievement

One of the myths about a place like City College of San Francisco is that students graduate from high school, spend two years at City College in preparation to transfer to a four-year institution, and then complete their bachelor's degree in the next two years at San Francisco State University. While that may be true for some students in California's community colleges, the unfortunate reality is that many students spend far more time at a community college, some as many as 5 years before transferring.

A number of factors contribute to a lengthier stay at a community college including needing to work to earn enough income, having family responsibilities that take up time, and being unable to register for every class in a timely way due to reductions in class offerings.

All community colleges have financial aid offices and use colleges websites to inform students about financial aid opportunities (see City College's Financial Aid Office's webpage at http://tinyurl.com/yjx5zs4); however, students have other resources where they can access financial aid, including these two websites
http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/and http://www.icanaffordcollege.com/

Given President Obama's recognition of community colleges as a major economic force in this country, the whole debate about how to make community college more affordable has become a topic of increasing coverage in the press. Just today, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story entitled, "Community college students miss out on student aid" detailing how far too many students do not take advantage of all of the financial aid opportunities that they could. http://tinyurl.com/y9akd3j (The article resulted from the release of a report from the Project on Student Debt (an initiative of the Institute for College Access & Success) on lost student aid opportunities http://ticas.org/pub_view.php?idx=583 and http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pub_view.php?idx=584

I found another report, this one from the California Public Interest Research Group (known as CALPIRG), that look at the economic demand on most community college students to work while attending school. The report noted that 80% of community college students work an average of 32 hours per week, and that students who had jobs on top of their course work do not do as well as students who have fewer obligations outside of the classroom. While the report (Working Too Hard to Make the Grade) acknowledge that students who have jobs requiring fewer hours per week actually have a higher retention rate, the unfortunate reality is that too many community college students have a much lower level of academic achievement than they would if they could reduce their work hours and depend more on financial aid. http://tinyurl.com/yabaqtk

As I write this, the House of Representatives is considering health care reform legislation, a major legislative undertaking. In the effort to win over some Democrats who have not yet committed to supporting health care reform, the reconciliation process in the House has now attached reforms to student financial aid to the bill. While the past few days have brought significant hope to community college advocates that college could become more affordable, a late story tonight reported that the reforms have been scaled back. http://tinyurl.com/yef8vlh

During a time in education with a heavy focus on accountability and standards -- sometimes using terms like "student success" and "student learning outcomes" -- finding ways to make college as affordable as possible for as many students as possible will increase the ability of community colleges to improve lives not only of their students, but of their families as well.

Community College Athletes

I listened to this story on The California Report tonight, and thought it was well done. The report lasts for five minutes.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201003121630/c

The one thing that startled me was the statistic reported that athletes who go to Division I four year schools after high school get their BA, while 65% of two year transfers get theirs.

The reporter, April Dembosky, didn't explain the stark difference. I asked her to give me the background information on which she depended in her report. She wrote to me that "These numbers come from the research department at the NCAA. The NCAA is still analyzing data and won't offer possible explanations for the difference until they've finished."

March 4th Day of Action

Budget reform now at City College

For most of my three terms on the Board of City College, I have been advocating for a more open process for budgeting. Related to the transparency of creating the budget is a clearer way of understanding what is contained within the budget. While the materials the College Board receives in approving the budget for the District have become better since I joined the Board in 2001, they are still inadequate if the Board is going to do our job properly in representing the public interest at City College.

Unfortunately, just as I have argued for a better budget process and documentation, for most of the time I have served on the Board of City College, others have argued against my reforms. The arguments of the majority of the Board (until now) have been that any changes to how City College creates and manages its budget would mean that the College Board is micromanaging, mistrustful of the College's Administration, ignorant that there is limited opportunity for changes to the budget with 92% of the budget going to salaries, etc, etc.

Fortunately, there is now a solid majority of College Board Trustees who reject the arguments of the past. We are prepared to open up budget planning, to create a culture that embraces widespread communication about the budget, and to establish timely and accurate assessment of the past fiscal year's achievements and challenges in setting out the priorities and parameters for the next budget. Those are all things that a fiscally-responsible College Board should have been insisting upon a long time ago.

As President of the Board of Trustees, I have appointed Chris Jackson to serve this year as Chair of the Board's Planning and Budgeting Council. I am recommending to Chris that he look for models of better community college budgets as he sets out to reform how City College does its budgets.

One such model can be found at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR. Lane received awards from the Government Finance Officers Association for a number of years for the way in which it presents its budget. You can see for yourself that Lane's Board and Administration understand the importance of clarity, a transparent schedule, and priorities and assumptions guiding the process from early in the calendar. While there are some things I would change, such as a link to a more highly detailed budget beyond what Lane's Board approves, they have it right in many aspects.

Here's the link to Lane's Budget Office site:

http://lanecc.edu/budget/index.htm

City College is a leader in community colleges and higher education in general. Our Board should lead the way to budget reform at City College that will be recognized in the way that Lane Community College has been. Given the state of the economy and City College's budget, our obligation to the people who elected us to represent them is even greater this year. Let's not let them down.

"What's more important than our education?"

Performance Management at City College

The Board of Trustees continues to refine -- and, hopefully, improve -- the Chancellor's Evaluation process. Using valuable feedback from various constituent groups and the Board's experience with past evaluations, the new process will be established in time for the 2009-2010 evaluation of Chancellor Griffin. Under the contract the Chancellor has with the Board, we must complete his evaluation by the end of June.

While the Board manages and evaluates a single employee, Chancellor Griffin, we have an overarching responsibility to make certain that similar processes are functioning efficiently and effectively throughout the District. Every year, usually at our June meeting just before the start of the new fiscal year, the Chancellor presents the Board with a resolution notifying the Board that all Administrators have received at least a satisfactory annual review and recommending an additional year of employment for each. We are not given -- nor do we ask -- for any more information either on individual Administrators or on the process itself.

As this Board continues our efforts to bring reform and change to City College, we remain committed to improving systems and processes that impact the lives of people who work and study at City College. We know that the best performance management system will help both those being evaluated and the larger community at the College.

My colleagues, Steve Ngo and John Rizzo, and I have introduced the following resolution regarding evaluations of Administrators. I expect that we will have at least one committee meeting on this resolution before it is brought to our Board for action, and I hope that it receives a thorough vetting through Shared Governance and a universal acceptance as a good thing to do for the College.



"Resolution directing evaluation and possible changes to the Administrators’ Evaluation process"

City College of San Francisco functions with a significant workforce, serving 100,000 students annually. Whether as classified staff, administrators, or faculty, each person contributes to the success of the college.

As an educational institution, City College is especially mindful of the importance of supporting the entire workforce and assisting each person in growing professionally. The Board of Trustees believes that a sound performance management system is one based on support and assistance for each member of the staff at City College, and should never be characterized as punitive.

The Board of Trustees is undertaking a review of its evaluation process for the Chancellor, and expects to institute a revised process in the upcoming evaluation scheduled to finish by the end of June 2010. The Board is committed to improving the Chancellor’s evaluation and to modeling what it expects for useful evaluation processes at every level of the institution.

The District’s administrators are the next level of staff for which the Board would like to see a review of the evaluation process and outcomes last updated in 2004 (see http://www.ccsf.edu/Offices/Research_Planning/pdf/admeval.pdf.)

RESOLVED that the Board of Trustees directs the Chancellor to report on the progress to date of any review of the evaluation process for administrators during the past year; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board of Trustees directs the Chancellor to prepare and deliver to the Board of Trustees an accounting of each administrators’ numerical rating for the past 3 years for administrators who have served as administrators for this number of years. This accounting will identify each administrator by a number rather than by name, and whose order will be randomized to prevent any identification of any administrator and his/her rating; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board of Trustees directs the Chancellor to engage either the College’s Office of Research and Planning or the Association of Community College Trustees to assess the efficacy of the administrators’ evaluation process both in terms of how well City College is served by the current system and how well administrators are supported in their professional functions; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this assessment shall be completed no later than April 1, 2010, and delivered to the Board of Trustees in open session no later than April 15, 2010; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this assessment will include recommendations for improvements, if any, to the process for evaluating administers, and that, in concert with the Administrators Association and any other pertinent Shared Governance entity, the Chancellor will present a revised evaluation process for administrators by June 30, 2010 for adoption by the Board of Trustees and implementation for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Milton Marks
Steve Ngo
John Rizzo


Submitted February 2, 2010

Student (non)-involvement in budgeting

At our meeting last October when we adopted the final City College budget for 2009-2010, a number of students spoke to our Board about how eliminating the summer session would be harmful to their educational plans. In addition to the reality of facing another semester or two at City College before being able to transfer, many of these students complained that they had been unaware that the Administration had proposed cutting summer classes as a budget saving measure.

There are three or so student representatives to the College's Planning and Budgeting Council ("PBC"), the Shared Governance entity responsible for developing, approving, and recommending the budget to the Board of Trustees. How -- or if -- these students confer with student leaders and the Associated Students is unclear. Is there a robust exchange of information within the student body about the College's budget, the result of which is a true integration of student needs and desires into what the College offers in its educational and support programs? It would seem unlikely that this happens in any more that a scattered way, and that's unfortunate.

While we were listening to students complain about their lack of involvement in planning and budgeting at City College, I felt frustrated that these students were finally showing up to a College Board meeting to talk to us. Where had they been all year? With an enrollment of over 100,000 students each year, surely there are 100 or so who have the time, interest, and passion to challenge the Board of Trustees -- the elected representatives of the public -- to have a clear understanding of how the College fulfills its mission and to be able to document how they, as the Board, are serving the needs of students.

Yet, extraordinarily few students come to the College Board meetings, almost no students advocate for anything in front of the Board, and shared governance spots reserved for students often remain unfilled. I know that hearing from students would be a powerful and effective way to create change at City College; however, either by design or by history, students and the Board of Trustees have a pretty much non-existent relationship. That is a wasted opportunity for both.

At our monthly meeting last week, Chancellor Griffin noted that students want to have more involvement in the budget process and pledged to making that happen. He did not get into specifics, however. Student leaders should seize the opportunity to develop a structure for student involvement in planning and budgeting, and should present this to the College Board at our next meeting in February.