1. Kelly Fowler Vice President of Instruction & Student Services, Clovis College Michael Heumann Past Senate President, English Department Chair, Imperial Valley College Thais Winsome Curriculum Chair/Academic Senate President, Biological Sciences, Mission College

2.  Title 5 § 55002: Requires colleges to establish curriculum committees through mutual agreement between the college/district and the academic senate  Ed Code §70902(b)(7): Gives academic senates primary responsibility for curriculum and academic standards

3.  Title 5 §53200: Identifies the “10+1” academic and professional matters where faculty have purview. These include: (1) curriculum, including establishing prerequisites and placing courses within disciplines; (2) degree and certificate requirements; (3) grading policies; (4) educational program development; (5) standards or policies regarding student preparation and success;

4.  New Courses/Programs are conceived and developed  Local Review and Approval Process  State Approval Process  Implementation and Review  Of these three components, who does what? How can faculty, administration, students and staff work together to create and maintain the college curriculum in a collegial, effective and efficient manner?

5.  Faculty: Primacy over curriculum Subject matter experts Develop Course/Program Outline of Record  Administration: Broader view of the college “Dream catcher” Expertise with regulations/compliance requirements for certain programs (CTE, basic skills, non-credit, DE, etc.)  Staff/Curriculum Specialist: Experts on regulations, codes, procedures  Students Per Title 5, students have an integral role in the curriculum process

6.  Establish procedures that are very explicit and that have a means to conflict resolution.  Committee bylaws: ensure they can guide the process and clearly delineate the respective roles of faculty, administration and staff  The Curriculum Committee and the Curriculum Approval Process are two different things: Separate rules and procedures for the committee and the process Changes to the curriculum committee composition must be mutually agreed upon by both the Academic Senate and the administration Per Title 5, the senate must be involved in the approval process

7.  Membership should reflect the diversity of college programs and service areas  Membership should also include faculty/administrators with expertise in distance education, disability access requirements, articulation, and counseling  Students are an important part of any shared governance committee  Who should have voting rights?

8.  Collaborative process – the most brilliant course/program will be a total failure if the college lacks the resources to support it.  Iterative process – a course/program may not fly as originally conceived but may work once faculty and administration have worked together to revise it to meet college resources and student needs.

9.  WHY is this course/program being developed? Does it serve a demonstrable need?  Has the course been discussed by all faculty in the area? Has it been discussed with administration?  How does this course/program fit into the college’s larger plans?  Can the college afford it? Does the college have the faculty to teach it? If not, is there a plan to address this?  Multi-campus districts: has this been discussed at the district level? Should faculty at your sister colleges be involved?

10.  Who is involved in technical review at your college? Department/division chairs, deans/VPs, Articulation officer, Curriculum Specialist, Accessibility specialist (esp. for DE), library, tutoring, counseling, etc.  What questions are important to consider at this stage?  Examples: Clovis, Mission, Imperial Valley

11.  Committee rules: How many readings are needed before approval? Does your college use Curricunet or other CMS for approval? What do your college’s Administrative Procedures say about curriculum and the curriculum approval process?

12.  Is the curriculum committee a sub- committee of your senate?  What role does your senate president play within the curriculum committee?  What questions should senate presidents ask in regards to curriculum?  How does the senate handle curriculum after it has been approved by the curriculum committee?

13.  Do administrators sign off on curriculum at your college? Has this caused problems?  Does your board of trustees approve all curriculum (new curriculum as well as revisions)?  How often does your board approve curriculum?

14.  Usually requires data and documentation apart from the COR/POR Faculty workload Annual completers LMI data Additional documentation and approval for CTE programs  Who “owns” this part of the process?

15.  How often are your courses/programs reviewed/revised?  What roles do faculty play in this process?  What roles do administrators play?  Are there different processes in place for non-substantial changes vs substantial changes?

17.  ESL Deactivation: The area Dean has determined that a handful of courses in ESL need to be inactivated and the department needs to develop courses that are easily stacked into certificates. He works with the Academic Services area to administratively inactivate 15 ESL courses and then begins the process of drafting courses in CurriCUNET for the department. When the Department Head returns from a short summer break, she learns that she needs to restructure the fall course offerings to remove the 16 now- inactivated courses and she is very upset.

18.  The Music department faculty are persuaded to offer an AAT in Music. The new program is vetted at the senate, the curriculum committee, and at the administrative level. After one year, the faculty realize they can't support the program because they lack sufficient resources in terms of practice space, instruments, and faculty load. To everyone’s surprise, when the discontinuance process was started it was discovered that over 100 students had enrolled in the major.

19.  The Police Academy has not updated its courses or programs in well over a decade. This is a politically powerful department, with faculty serving in positions of union and faculty leadership and also holding positions on local and state police academy advisory boards. Attempts on the part of the faculty leadership in curriculum and the senate to reason, persuade, cajole and, finally, beg the department faculty to take action to bring their program into compliance have so far been unsuccessful.

20.  The college curriculum approval process has no provision for administrative review or input early in the curriculum process. This has caused problems with programs moving ahead without sufficient resources to support them, as well as CTE programs not obtaining BACC approval in a timely manner because the area dean was unaware of them. When the curriculum chair and VPI approached the curriculum committee and the senate with a plan to include administrative review early in the process, the faculty unanimously rejected the proposal on the grounds that any administrative oversight was outside the purview of administration and would diminish the faculty voice in curricular matters.

22.  Kelly Fowler, kelly.fowler@scccd.edu kelly.fowler@scccd.edu  Michael Heumann, michael.heumann@imperial.edu michael.heumann@imperial.edu  Thais Winsome, thais.winsome@missioncollege.edu thais.winsome@missioncollege.edu