ARC Employee On Community College Task Force

Tara Cooper is a student personnel assistant at near Carmichael and a member of a 21-person Student Success Task Force for community colleges statewide.

The California Community Colleges’ Board of Governors approved the task force’s 22 recommendations last month to improve state community college student graduation and transfer rates and to close an achievement gap for under-represented students. The task force formed in part as a response to state budget woes from a housing market crash that set off the steepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As a result, student fees are rising as state funding is falling to the California Community Colleges, whose 72 districts and 112 colleges educate 2.6 million students annually.

"I believe the task force recommendations will be extremely effective, Cooper said. "Given the system's current financial constraints, I know some are skeptical, but I am confident as we begin to implement the recommendations and once adequate funding returns to our community colleges, campuses will be in a much better position to serve students and help them make informed decisions as they work to complete their academic goals."

Under 's 2011-12 budget, the California Community Colleges lost $400 million in funds, a 6.8 percent budget cut. Student fees were $26 per unit in 2009-2010 and are $46 per unit in 2011-12

“The de facto rationing system is disproportionately harming first-time students, and our data show that today’s first-time students are more racially and ethnically diverse than continuing students,” California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott said in a released statement.

Scott spoke to lawmakers at a joint legislative hearing about the task force’s 22 recommendations at the state Capitol on Feb. 1.

State Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge) sponsored Senate Bill 1143 that propelled the California Community Colleges Board of Governors to form the 21-member task force, whose plan for students strives to balance their educations with reduced state funding.

For instance, the task force’s Recommendation 3.2 would limit students to 110 units that qualify for fee waivers from the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, which cover the cost of community college student fees only. Recommendation 3.2 would also require community college students receiving BOG fee waivers to: “identify a degree, certificate, transfer or career advancement goal.”

Recommendations 2.2 and 8.2 in part “require incoming community college students to take a diagnostic assessment, participate in an orientation and develop an education plan upon initial enrollment at a community college.” Further, 2.2 and 8.2 “provide fiscal resources for colleges to offer these core support services to newly enrolled community college students.”

According to Stephen Peithman, ARC's public information officer, the community college is moving swiftly on the task force's recommendations. Some of them would require changes to state law, Peithman said.

On Jan. 13, an estimated 500 ARC faculty met to review the task force’s 22 recommendations, and to brainstorm implementing them. ARC administrators will hold a review later in February and propose timelines of recommendations to put into effect and to study further, Peithman said.

"What I like most about these recommendations is that they not only raise the bar for community colleges, but they are also a call to our state leaders to fund us and provide the resources that we need to help our students succeed," Cooper said. "The work of the Task Force has shown that we know what we need to do as a system and these recommendations simply make it clear as to what we all need to do in order to get there."

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For more information about the Student Success Task Force, visit the Associated Student Body in ARC’s Campus Life Center, or call (916)
484-8471. An online newsletter offering task force updates and more is at http://californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/PolicyInAction/StudentSucce...