Community Colleges of Ventura County
FUTURES FORUM
External Scan Meeting
Minutes
April 27, 2000
The meeting began with a welcome, a review of the Futures Forum ground rules, and an introduction of guests including student representatives. Phil Westin announced that Elton Hall had been reappointed chair of Futures Forum for academic year 2000-2001.
Phil discussed CQIN (Continuous Quality Improvement Network). In concept, CQIN fits with what we are trying to do with Futures Forum. Phil explained that Burt had told him about CQIN, a CEO organization, and Phil explored it at www.cqin.org and found that it could form a nexus with Futures Forum activities. Though a CEO organization, it is actually a working partnership to assist in organizational transformation. For example, there is a learning experience each summer. Last year the learning experience consisted of a visit to Saturn to see how the management and union worked together to develop a team approach. The year before it was Motorola University, to see how that institution engages in staff development as a private company. The year before, the visit was to PacBel to look at technology.
This spring Phil went to San Antonio with other CEO’s to learn about a visit to Disneyworld in Orlando. He and Larry Calderon are now both members of CQIN, and the other two college presidents are exploring the possibility of joining. This would give CCVC four bites of the CQIN apple. In San Antonio, CEO’s got an overview of what would happen in Orlando; then they picked representatives to do an advance stint in Orlando in preparation for team visitations. Phil named Elton as Futures Forum chair and employee at MC, Carmen Guerrero-Calderon for OC, and Cheryl Shearer for the DO; Larry named Diane Moore for VC. We are now finalizing the teams to go in August.
The four representatives to CQIN gave brief reports on their experiences in Orlando. Diane noted that she was especially impressed with the way Disneyworld employees are trained to know their guests, and she saw a connection between that and “making magic” for our students. Elton indicated that those attending the CQIN experience in Orlando would have to be prepared to make three commitments: initial preparation for the experience, actually being at the experience in Orlando, and sharing what was learned throughout their locations during the coming year. Phil indicated that anyone interested in being on one of the CCVC teams going to Orlando could email him immediately at pwestin@vcccd.net.
Burt Peachy outlined the time for the CQIN learning experience. Aug 5 will be a travel day with an evening reception, and the experience will end at noon Aug 9. Those who have gone through the experience will guide those going so that no time is wasted. The learning experience is designed by those participating in CQIN. The experience will be valuable because it can be translated back into renewal and change at the four locations.
Burt also announced the first colleague to go to Fetzer Institute Training in Parker Palmer in Colorado.
In looking ahead, Burt noted that during last summer a lot of study and analysis took place; this summer will be more active. Faculty will have a teacher formation training program in June. There is also the summer CQIN learning experience. In addition, there will be College of the Community Institute, again conducted by Michael Dolence. Last year, the program concentrated on curriculum development, and this year the focus will be on implementation. The perspective of the Institute is that it is the curriculum that drives enrollment. Drafts of college plans needed by Futures Forum in September for dissemination. The internal scan will occur in October. Today is the first day of the new model. Our process must honor the college plans, and the Internal Scan Task Force needs to identify a process.
The first guest was Susan Graham Director of Human Resources, Buena Medical Group. Her remarks below are followed by questions and her responses to them:
Buena Medical partnered with Ventura College in the past to develop a change management program for all employees. The Group has been through two mergers in the last three years. These mergers have taught us that we have to take personal responsibility for good communication throughout the organization, and that we have to care for others within the organization, as well as take care of patients.
Our needs: The expectations of those seeking non-medical positions are quite different from 5 years ago. They expect to be partners in decision-making, so we are working with our managers to emphasize the importance of empowering people even at entry-level positions. We need to see personal responsibility and professionalism in potential employees. We are delighted with the medical assistant program at VC. We need to emphasize what it takes to be a successful employee—work ethic, communication skills, confidentiality, and communication skills, oral and written, are often lacking in our applicants. We’d like to see an LVN program in Ventura. Those going into nursing need to have a realistic view, that includes, for example, awareness that 50% of the job is paperwork, because this is a managed care environment and it’s the nature of the environment. Also needed is understanding of co-pays, case-management programs as part of RN program, IV certification as a requirement in our nurses. The ethics of health care is essential. So is safety and risk awareness. We are impressed with what we get from VC. The relationship between the physician and the nurse is not always well understood. The colleges of CCVC can instill these values.
Another program is the customer service program, and it should have a module on medical terminology. Our entry-level position is medical records, and it is a step into health care; we afford opportunities to grow from there. But to move, medical terminology is essential, for both reception or managed care departments. There is a big difference between out patient and hospital care, and since there is a big shift to out-patient care and we need more emphasis on that. We would be willing to partner on this topic. We also need stress management in health care, because a particular kind of stress exists in the profession. Individuals need tools to deal with that.
We need people who really understand what out-patient settings are, what nursing is today (it has changed radically over 10 years), a realistic view of what nursing actually is, and a set of values. Although people have a lot of software support skills, we have a need for hardware support skills. In addition, we need renewal opportunities for older employees, increased bilingual skills, and a whole range of technology skills. A service focus as well as competencies is crucial for our employees.
Our old-timers have seen dramatic changes in nursing health care. Those who have been with us for 5 or 10 years could use help in understanding. (Note: what about translating the message and methodology of Parker Palmer into the field of health care?)
Q. In addition to in-house training, do you work with other medical facilities to provide training, or a consortium for training? Could we participate in such a group?
We don’t have such a consortium, and we would welcome a partnership in training on a number of fronts. Partnering with the community college district is a valuable experience, and doing so is already on my list of goals. We need to help people pursue their own personal growth goals.
A whole set of values—what it means to be professional, what it is to have a work ethic, because we need to be professional at every level. We want to give our patients the best treatment possible, and that requires very professional values.
Q. Differences in values?
Baby boomers sometimes went into the workforce with the view that rules were set and you just followed them. Now people want to be an integral part of decision-making, creating the market, developing policies, etc., and this is a good thing. Such interest sparks creativity in the organization. Empowerment has become a big issue, and Generation X demands it.
The general population and the employee staff are both diverse, and that alone helps deal with the diversity of the patient population. We expend a lot of effort helping patients understand their own insurance plans, and so we have to be sensitive to the patient population in every area we are in. I guess I decided to hire a diverse staff, but I can’t quite say how it came about, except that it’s important to have a diverse group. The diversity is necessary for serving the population. Language is important: in Oxnard, only bilingual staff members are hired, and we pay a differential for that skill.
We’ve just started talking about such a thing. Any partnering process would require thinking through things like this. We just put in a massive medical management system, and we spent hours training everyone, and then retraining them, before we went “live” with the system. And they got trained whether or not they were going to actually use the system, because we encourage growth and wanted everyone to be part of the system. The first time we went through technological change, we did it in house; this time, we brought in a team and worked with them.
We see ward clerks emerging, a cross between medical treatment and business/referral work. They need training in managed care—and we’ll partner in doing that. Medical records will change, converting paper into electronic files, and we don’t even know quite how this will work, but people will need training.
The second guest was Dan Little, School-to-Career Coordinator, a position housed in the offices of the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools. His remarks were followed by questions and responses:
Three current projects fulfill the school-to-career mission, which includes bringing relevance to the classroom. We give mini-grants and have given two to community colleges here, reimbursing projects that further school-to-career objectives. Classrooms should have an academic purpose but also a career purpose, and we work on the latter. For us, relevance is the “fourth R.” We create opportunities for students to experience the world of work through internships, mentorships, job shadowing, special projects, etc., and we support interaction between administrators and the business community . We work with “career majors”, so that a student can matriculate from high school to college with as little trouble as possible. We’re also promoting the learning institutes at Moorpark College, parallel to high school academies, where the institute focuses on career in the educational process. MC has the Health Sciences Institute, the Liberal Studies Institute, and the Media Arts Institute. We need to think of jobs that will be out there as we design curriculum. The ROP program is completely labor market driven.
We’re looking for diverse ways of granting college credit for high school work. We are also looking for smoother articulation, independent of granting credit, by looking at the standards in courses to align them. This avoids repetition of information and holes in instruction. E.g., the Cisco Labs approach, where a high school student can move directly to the appropriate point in his or her training to achieve certification.
The biotech project at Ventura College brings high school, community college, and university instructors together to try to create a completely seamless sequence all the way through. It shows what courses to take from high school on and specifies available careers for those who exit the program at different points.
The Feds have cut off funding and it will expire in two years. But in California, Governor Davis has been promoting school-to-career, though we do not yet know what form that support will be. AB 1873 is moving through the legislature, and it, if signed in its present form, would allow us to sustain current partnerships. Some support is from private funds, and some from the Workforce Employment Act (WEA), and some from corporations (especially in junior achievement). So on the Federal level, things look bad; on the state level, good. At the community college level, VATEA is firmly in place.
Yes, there is the school-based component (curriculum), an internship program and work experience, and this is essential.
More collaboration between colleges and high schools, and not just between instructors, but also betweem counselors. We need better sharing with high school students of what is available in community colleges. We need more field trips, more community college instructors in high school classes, and more high school instructors in community college classes. Joint staff development would make great sense. It’s remarkable how little communication occurs between educators in different sectors.
Q Emerging jobs/skills that we need to work on?
SCANs—the concept—is great. We need to make sure that those standards are included throughout the curriculum. Business people say these are the skills required, soft skills—e.g. customer service, diversity—as well as reading and writing. Emerging fields include biotech and these job openings will continue; also to be included are media and art, especially when computer based; and health. There is a move to make Ventura County a “second Silicone Valley”, but not in microchips. Rather the aim is to develop a niche in power supplies and related matters. VACEDA is focused on this right now, and businesses do not have enough technically trained employees. Schools have to be able to provide such training in order to attract the businesses they want. E.g., technical skills, skills related to production, management and distribution—basic math, writing and reading, higher than high school, but not degree level. We’re working to produce a model curriculum that we can share with high schools and show around.
The goal of an internship program is to have a course directly connected to the internship, so that the job is discussed and tracked in class.
Q. The internship needs to be “practical work experience”, and that is perhaps the name to use.
Where these are done best is where there is an internal training plan and where the instructor meets individually with the student.
Yes, there is a booklet on best practices. I’ll supply some material.
Q. A San Francisco conference indicated that everything went well until you got with the administrators and counselors who wrangled over FTES, etc.
One of our jobs in school-to-career is to deal with that.
Yes and no; our mini-grants, some modest state grants, and a few large ones that look like they are written for particular places constitute what is available. Often mini-grants for particular faculty have been the way it has gone, as it has in Kern County.
After lunch, Victor Belinski and Scott Corbett gave a technology presentation.
Vic: We’ve started in distance learning, websites, etc., and now UCLA has a distance learning program that is collaborative in nature. It is a virtual classroom, with everyone miked and visible, and students learn more from each other than simply from the instructor. This pushes the envelope in technology mediated instruction. CCVC may not be ahead of the game, but we are right up there and could be in the forefront of distance education.
Scott: This fall, we’ll have our first fully multi-site course in the district.
(Powerpoint presentation).
Pace of change: into 50 million households
Radio: 38 yrs.
Television: 13
Cable: 10
Internet: 4+
We as an institution will never be able to be fully current, and so we need to prepare for ceaseless change—of technology, of workforce, of students, of needs.
Demonstration of educational portal (mybytes.com)
Outsourcing possibilities; in the example shown, the portal is free, and ads are kept off of strictly “academic” pages; students will not get unsolicited email; services and information are also provided including research, search engines, scholarship service, financial aid, on line tutors.
Vic: If you’ve done online buying, e.g., at Amazon.com, you know they know what books you buy, etc. These student services will do similar things, showing what courses students take, etc., provide best-of-the-web in subjects.
Burt: a new job category may be web-surfer.
Scott: there is now an M.A. in web marketing.
Vic: And team rooms are embedded in the site.
Scott: One bonus is that students involved in this kind of technological interaction may learn something of technology as well as the subject matter.
Vic: One of the best ways to learn new pieces of technology is to have a reason to.
Q. We were told about the need for people skills this morning. How is that learned on the Internet?
Dennis Cabral: One of the things we must teach is how to develop such skills online. It will be part of our job.
Q. It seems that a small student population will benefit from such instruction, but we adjust our financial investment to the size of each population. And the smallness of this population is an issue.
Scott: within 5 years, estimates are that 50% of our students will take at least a single online course.
Steve Arvizu: there are problems of access here, but community colleges are in the best place for providing access because of the open access foundations of the institution.
Bruce Stenslie, Director of Administration, Ventura County Human Services, provided a Powerpoint program.
Q. Market makes sense, but what guarantees that the market will increase compensation?
There is a business employer market that is not interested in raising wages, but this is largely in the service sector. Nonetheless, there are opportunities to rise. Some employers maintain the view that there is still a pool of workers “out there” that can be tapped at present wages.
Burt: We need new ways of looking at our curriculum committees so that the career rather than merely job approach to training has a place to be developed.
Comment: In Disneyworld, people can begin as housekeepers and then move up, eventually into salaried and managerial positions. The organization encourages and provides for such aspiration.
Steve introduced an education panel, consisting of Barbara Thorpe, Vice-President, California State University, Channel Islands; William Studt, Superintendent of the Oxnard Union High School District; Richard Duarte, Superintendent of the Oxnard Elementary School District, and Yolanda Benitez, Superintendent of the Rio Elementary School District. Each made comments and responded to questions.
Thorp: We need to see what our stakeholders are, and how we work together to meet their needs. We are committed to 60% transfer, and we are faced with questions of time to degree and transfer rates. Our trustees say that we will not take remediation people. If we cannot do remediation, community colleges will have to do it for us and on our behalf. In the issue of time to degree, there are troublesome implications: someone who starts with a vocational program, eventually decides to go for a degree, then comes to CSU runs into financial aid problems, because the state allows for only 7 years of financial aid. If 5 of those years are spent in community colleges, what happens at CSU? And CSU is mandated to deal with the nursing crisis and the teaching training crisis; we need to pull in the industry to help us. You produced 23,000 graduates in liberal studies last year, but if CSU does not grant unit credits for teacher education, the time to degree will be long indeed. In a 2+2+2 approach, CSU could be 2 years, not 3 or 4. So we need work-based learning that can provide access, and this requires getting workplace courses certified between community colleges and CSU. Financially, we are shockingly short for a state that is the world’s 9th largest economy. We must work together to change that.
Benitez: There is a disconnect between the young teacher coming into our district and the students to be taught: more than 50% of our students are minority, and the teachers are not. Although a teacher does not have to be minority to understand a minority, there has to be sensitivity to situations with students and parents, and the gap can sometimes be appalling. We need a program to incubate teachers. The track for teaching begins in elementary school. From the standpoint of the 7th and 8th graders, MC, OC and VC are seen as unreachable. So we need much more outreach, getting students on campus in the 6th grade and up.
Studt: Everyone reads about exit exams, API’s, and all the accounting procedures coming from the state that raises the bar for academic achievement. We are working to get prepared for the graduating class of 2004, which will have to take an exit exam to graduate high school. This is a real challenge, including a high math level, language skills, arts, reading and writing. While this may look good for you, we are going to have serious difficulties at the beginning, especially with 6000 limited English-speaking students in the district. We have begun Target Teach, seeing that all materials teach the standards the state will be using for the exit exams. We found huge gaps between our texts and those standards. So we need to understand these requirements and you need to see how they match your own standards. We cannot build all the training programs we need, and we’ve been working with colleges in developing them—in hospitality, nursing science, pre-engineering, oceanography. We will be looking for crossover agreements. Regarding teaching training: teachers who come out of the university are ill prepared to handle the diversity we have. This problem does not begin at the university. We need to play a role in preliminary training. And we should be able to have a say to the university about what we need in a teacher, given all that’s evolved—diversity and technology being two obvious areas of great change. And besides training, we need retraining of current teachers. Keeping up technologically is a real problem. All schools including community colleges and universities need to meet, talk and think of forming a consortium to pool our resources and technology in creative ways. We are also thinking of distance learning coming into our schools, using you. So let’s explore pooling resources in the technological area.
Duarte: We can’t avoid demographics. It’s a must in Oxnard. We are in a political pickle in Oxnard, having grown by 20% in the last 6 years. We’re now at 15,000 students, the largest elementary school district in Ventura County. We’re 81% Latino, 12% white, 4% black, 1.5% Asian. We have 17 school sites and we need 4 more. We now have 4 teachers for every 3 rooms, saving the district millions. Right now 52% of our students are identified as limited English-speaking. We have a 30% mobility rate, no longer due to agricultural work but to the search for affordable housing. (External Scan supplied.) Teachers need to be prepared to meet students with these backgrounds. We’re working closely with UCSB on math training for teachers, and are expanding that work in other areas, so that we can gain more control of what happens in the classroom.
Benitez: A great partnership would be with community colleges on math and science, but for a primary teacher to go to a community college math course can be intimidating. We need to tailor these courses to teachers in ways that make them feel supported.
Q. Technology and the digital divide—how can we reach across organizational boundaries to help on this issue?
Benitez: The Rio District has been hustling dollars, and much of this is coming from private sources. This means we may be competing with one another for those dollars. Hence any kind of collaboration might be mutually supportive.
Duarte: Our big issue is in staff development. We already have the hardware.
Studt: We’d be very interested in an approach to math that would allow a teacher to take a course right in his or her own classroom. That is, a program on our own campus would be very successful.
Arvizu: Our Cisco Systems program is a place where we might collaborate to mutual benefit.
Cabral: I’ve seen success where there is a high level articulated partnership that sends forth a message that says “we will accomplish this.” We might develop a cross-level educational agreement setting objectives for two years.
Q. What if we had an education summit that worked on such plans and objectives. Would you be interested?
Yes, but we would need many meetings on specific projects.
Peachy: Once a year there could be a summit and report; other meetings would be of task forces working on specific issues.
Studt: Yes, we need an approach that is more than nice talk, good fun, and not much happening.
Duarte: There are political considerations, but our board is already committed to reaching out to the whole community.
Benitez: My push is to get my community so involved in OC that our students think the next step is OC. We need to get agreements, so our students move on, and your students come in and practice their skills with us.
Cabral: We can tap the resources of every community and institution, not so that everyone is doing the same thing, but that everyone is doing productive things.
Deborah Ventura: We could focus our effort around teacher training, especially in ways that take into account diversity and other training issues, so that students do not pursue just an education but rather education as a career.
Thorp: Internships with community colleges are very much worth exploring.
Duarte: At the immediate level, the early childhood program is a place to get going, given the present funding and its direction.
After thanking all the guests who engaged in dialogue with Futures Forum, a brief plus/delta was conducted. Among the deltas was a wish for more time and in-depth discussion of some of the issues, a desire to include some external scanning at Futures Forum meetings throughout the year, and a wider variety of guests. Among the pluses were the organization of the day, the quality of the guest presentations and of the dialogue, and the level of discussions.
Community Colleges of Ventura County
FUTURES
FORUM
Minutes
April 28, 2000
Patti Ross announced a set of summer meetings and institutes and invited expressions of interest from participants. As available, the opportunities will be opened to a wider audience. Sign-up and expressions of interest forms were made available at each table.
Cheryl Shearer reminded the group of the ground rules for discussions and deliberations.
Irene Pinkard drew attention to the revised agenda for the day and asked participants to review it. Floyd Martin initiated an icebreaker by asking participants at each table to take a few minutes to share some event or encounter that profoundly affected one’s life. After these conversations, Martin asked individuals to share any interesting story they had heard in the last few minutes, and a number of people shared stories they had heard.
Sharon Dwyer introduced Phil Westin. He reminded the Forum that a number of local school district superintendents and a vice-president from CSUCI appeared on a panel yesterday. All had urged greater collaboration and cooperation between the educational sectors represented. In the hope of nurturing the ideas that emerged, Phil introduced Dennis Cabral, who read some thoughts he had put on paper.
Dennis reviewed the advantages and disadvantages in cross-county education collaboration. Among the advantages he identified are:
Ø District faculty dialoguing with each other
Ø Moving from talking to acting
Ø Creating new options for students
Ø Signaling importance of education in the county
Ø Signaling educational unity to the county
Ø Positioning us politically to be very strong in the state
Ø Leveraging resources (e.g., common computer labs)
Ø Providing one-stop education center
Ø Preparing elementary, middle, and high school students psychologically for college
Ø Broadening our perspectives by walking in the shoes of others
Ø Formalizing, focusing and organizing efforts which are now scattered
Ø Pooling funds and technology
Ø Applying for grants that emphasize collaboration
Ø Developing systems view of education
Ø Developing voluntary and optional arrangements
Ø Developing opportunities for leadership
Ø Establishing and articulating common goals
Disadvantages and obstacles include:
Ø Being caught up in bureaucracy
Ø Consuming valuable time
Ø Encountering resistance from groups already meeting and collaborating
Ø Realizing that these ideas are not for everyone
Ø Making required changes
Ø Facing turf struggles
Ø Having different academic calendars
Phil then requested that participants at tables discuss the ideas suggested and report responses. Steve Arvizu recalled four ideas: teacher training, collaboration on curriculum, collaboration on technology, and grants and contracts, and requested that these ideas be kept in mind. He also noted that such discussions have been occurring around the county but that CCVC as a whole has not always been a part of those discussions.
Sharon asked each table to give a brief report on its discussions. The results of those discussions, captured on flipcharts, is included here.
Table 1 noted the main ideas that seemed to emerge from yesterday’s dialogue among educators. These included:
Ø Teacher education
Ø Developmental curriculum
Ø Technology, especially tied to both of the above bullets
Ø Grants and contracts, affected the above bullets
Ø Immediate possibilities include hosting visits, classes, camps
Ø An educational summit to learn about all educational groups
o Inventory and analysis of all county educational activities
o Discussion of plans of various groups and how we could help
o Value-added collaboration
o Expansion of Futures Forum to include others outside of CCVC
Table 2 began a review of existing activities:
Ø VC and Ventura Unified Middle School
Ø VC and Anacapa Middle School
Ø VC and elementary schools
Ø OC/VC/UCSB/Oxnard Elementary Enlace Program
Ø VC Biotech Lab/Tech Prep
Ø UCSB/VC/high school internships
Ø VC/Foothill Tech/Gateway
Ø VC/Fillmore computer collaboration
Ø MC Cyber-Summer
Ø MC/CSUCI Biotech Lab
Ø Possibilities for the future:
o Annual summit: progress reporting
o Continuing activity, including open dialogue between partners (presidents, superintendents, trustees, board members)
o Accountability necessary for all affected parties
o Special meeting event to address issues raised here
o Inclusion of private schools
Table 3 focused on the upsides and downsides of building bridges between various educational communities.
Upsides include:
Ø Shared resources (grants, technology)
Ø Shared expertise
Ø Bridge-building communication
Ø Establishing an open forum (including students)
Ø Clearing misconceptions (e.g., community college vs. university)
Ø Common calendar, scheduling, dual credit
Ø Coordinated vacations
Ø Volunteer participation across educational groups
Ø Mentoring (e.g., using talent in Leisure Village)
Ø Breaking down stereotypes of educational models
Downsides include:
Ø Lack of shared governance (e.g., in resource allocation)
Ø Who is in charge of guiding curriculum?
Ø Difficulties in establishing guidelines
Ø Extra burdens on time and on people
Ø Question of contact person(s)
Table 4 reviewed areas where collaboration could occur and identified existing work.
Ø Teacher training
Ø Technology
Ø Contracts/resources
Ø Remedial education
Ø Collaboration could include life-long learning, adult schools, vocational training
Ø Examples of existing work:
o Ventura Adult School: computer maintenance
o VC and OC require computer maintenance
o Santa Paula Facility: has computer repair/upgrade program
o OC: collects computers to donate to students
o VC: biotech program distributes surplus donations to high schools (e.g., microscopes)
Ø Additional collaboration possibilities:
o Between adult education and colleges (program development)
o Articulation between adult education and community college
o Sharing resources and knowledge of available resources
o Collaborative math program from elementary school through college (e.g. the Cuesta College Program)
o Cultural sensitivity training
o Increase in outreach efforts to include grades 4 through 8
Table 5 suggested ways to address the four issues that could involve all educational levels—teacher training, remediation, technology, and grants and contracts.
Ø Use Parker Palmer’s techniques
Ø Subject-related colloquia
Ø Extend ongoing invitation to participate in CCVC summer institutes
Ø Learning center in collaboration with university
Ø Expand collaboration and coordination among staff
Ø Recognize remediation as concern across all educational systems
Ø Revitalizing curriculum to address current concerns
Ø Host a remediation conference
Ø Deploy creative solutions using technology
Ø Hold a county-wide conference aimed to
o Dispel fears of loss of autonomy, of finger-pointing, and of resistance to a single approach
o Seek solutions to past obstacles to collaboration
o Build in follow-through and resources
o Create formal agreements between and among county educational systems
o Identify those who self-select to participate
Phil indicated that he would like to have a working group synthesize the information and ideas gathered. He will contact superintendents county-wide and Handel Evans of CSUCI to solicit interest in general meetings to look that the possibilities. Elton asked Dennis to chair this ad hoc group and invited participants to volunteer to be part of it.
Irene and Sharon provided a external scan puzzle in which participants sought to find a list of external scan words in it. Rebekah Dannucci, a student participant from OC, found 15 words in the puzzle, the best performance in the room.
Irene discussed the issue of fear in thinking and acting outside the box, noting that incentives help us overcome fears. In the case of CCVC, the incentive is better serving students and the community.
Cathy Garnica made a presentation on Ventura County demographics, drawing attention to the increasing diversity of the population as well as population increases, age changes, economic changes, housing, the growing gap between affluent and impoverished, and other trends. She noted that the changes addressed need to be considered in CCVC planning for the future.
Sharon presented information on economy and employment, broadly indicating that both will continue to grow over the next decade, but that growth will slow in comparison with the growth of the last few years. Nonetheless, the growth will continue to be significant. CCVC is the 11th largest employer in the county. Growth affects training needs of the community.
Anthony Tricoli presented data on enrollment growth by age group. These data show that the great increases in enrollments are occurring at both ends of the age spectrum, in the over 51 and under 18 age groups. Anthony noted that Leisure Village is interested in programs in the arts, humanities, music, and the social sciences. Other colleges that are sited in populations with a significant proportion of older individuals have major emeritus educational programs, an educational dimension that CCVC could explore. Population age should be a factor in the consideration of course development. Different institutions use different combinations of the FTES for credit, not for credit and community service courses to meet the needs of the older population.
Irene addressed growth in population in the county, especially in light of the increased young and elder populations. She focused on future high school populations. Because of the impending disconnect between exit exams and high school graduation, community colleges may have to step in with some form of certification in the area of basic skills. Clearly, we will need to be sensitive to changing needs of high school students, including their computer literacy that can outstrip our current technological capacities, programs, and delivery of instruction. Today’s high school student may wear more computer technology on his or her wrist than many of us have encounted in our lifetimes. For example, computer literacy is a graduation requirement at Oxnard High School. Clearly, flexibility in offerings is a demand being placed on us.
Floyd Martin reviewed the CCVC apportionment situation, noting that we are at the bottom of the apportionment scale. Unlike in the past, CCLC has taken a unified position on the needs of community colleges. Floyd drew attention to the fact that, in a 10 state comparison, the major difference in per FTES funding lies in tuition and fees (and some in federal support), rather than in state apportionment. CCLC’s position is that considerable additional funding is needed to bring California Community Colleges minimally up to speed. The range of support for this position is exceptional in the history of California. He acknowledged drawing some material from a report developed by Carolyn Inouye and thanked her for it.
Char Arnold pointed out that CCVC FTES apportionment remains significantly below the state average.
Irene and Sharon divided the participants into four tables to work on synthesizing the information received, with reports to the Forum due after lunch.
Just before the lunch break, Elton asked Shirley Baskin to come to the lecture and receive the recognition and thanks of those present for her years of helpful service to CCVC and to Futures Forum. The Hotel and Restaurant Program at Oxnard College furnished a decorated carrot cake for the occasion, and several individuals as well as the Grants/Resources Task Force gave Shirley gifts. Shirley thanked participants for their recognition and expressed her pleasure at having been able to work with many people over the years. She promised not to disappear from the scene.
After lunch, Cheryl reminded participants of the next process facilitator training sessions and asked people to let her know if they are interested in becoming process facilitators. Training dates for new process facilitators are:
Monday, May 22
Tuesday, May 23
Wednesday, May 24
Tuesday, May 30
Wednesday, May 31
Each meeting is from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. The location of these sessions will be announced soon.
Sharon asked each table to report on the thinking and synthesis of material that occurred in the discussions before lunch.
Table 1 dealt with social, economic, employment and demographic trends.
Ø Title Wave II implications: How do we need to change to be responsive? (50% of faculty and administrators will retire from CCVC over the next decade)
Ø Latino population will be 30% of county by 2010. Do we have enough ESL? What about teacher training? How do we hire to reflect general population?
Ø Employers want us to link with them; they want partnerships and cooperation. We do not respond quickly enough
Ø We cannot build the facilities we will need: we need to share with business and others to maximize space. Year round classes?
Ø We need to encourage young people to set the goal of going to college
Ø Because there are not enough full-time positions, we are finding it ever more difficult to recruit faculty
Ø We need to respond to the training needs of employers while conveying values and professionalism as well as SCANS
Ø Education must stress the practical
Ø We need to teach coping skills (including problem-solving)
Ø We need to address basic skills and integrate them across the curriculum
Ø We need to hire more diverse staff and emphasize technical breadth, language skills, and a broader range of skills
Ø Aging baby boomers will alter curriculum needs
Ø We need to encourage our employees to stay on top of technical changes, and we can use students to help us
Ø We need to have a clear message to the county and market ourselves better
Ø We do not have a cogent way of teaching young people how to interact with people who are different so that they can work together
Ø Paradigm shifts that might be useful:
o Negotiate with IBM to use their facilities after 5:00 pm
o Create mobile labs
o Use theaters, churches for classes
o More practical applications, including service learning and internships