Found Not Feasible

Whereas, The responsibility for adult education in California is inconsistently applied throughout the state, in some cases being assumed by the K-12 system and in others by community colleges;

Whereas, The K-12 system has shifted millions of dollars in adult education funds to support other K-12 categorical programs that had experienced deep funding cuts, leading to a transfer of more than $400 million out of adult education programs;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has not researched nor published administrator to faculty ratios;


Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has not researched nor published California community college districts’ current expense for administration; and


Whereas, There is no legislation or regulation that mandates the amount or percent of a district's current expenses that can or should be spent on administration;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges' paper Developing A Model for Effective Senate/Union Relations (1996) lays the groundwork for defining the roles for the senate and bargaining unit, outlines areas where authority of the two organizations overlap, and provides suggestions for effective communication between the organizations; and

Whereas, Local academic senates are experiencing legal challenges by local college administrations, boards of trustees and individuals in an effort to undermine their influence in the shared governance processes; and

Whereas, Local academic senates and individual faculty within their membership have been named as both petitioners and respondents in recent civil court proceedings;

Whereas, The majority of California community college students are eligible for some form of federal or state financial aid;


Whereas, Students remain in classes even when failing because they fear losing their financial aid, therefore engaging in unproductive and inefficient behaviors; and

Whereas, A substantial number of community college faculty are at or near retirement age;

Whereas, There is an ongoing need for qualified faculty to train community college students to fill occupational job vacancies throughout the state; and

Whereas, Some districts have reported a disproportionately low number of full-time occupational faculty hired as compared to the number of transfer/general education faculty hired in recent years;

Whereas, There have been a number of challenges to student access due to institutional practices;

Whereas, College efforts often affect the success of occupational students in ways that challenge their access;

Whereas, Some recent examples of practices appear to exacerbate access issues for students; and

Whereas, Matriculation, placement efforts and course registration practices can create barriers to student access;

Whereas, Many colleges are in the process of seeking accreditation for academic centers and the accreditation process requires that a local academic senate be formed before accreditation can be granted;

Whereas, Multi-college districts are also considering how best to form district academic senates and often seek advice about how best to work together to form local district senates; and

Whereas, New colleges and academic centers will need to establish participatory governance policies;

Whereas, Local senates often spend an inordinate amount of time addressing the same issues in devising or revising policies and procedures that other senates have already addressed;

Whereas, One of the functions of the Academic Senate is to provide resources to support local senates; and

Whereas, The creation of an easily accessible database of sample policies and procedures would facilitate the exchange of information among the California community colleges, and save valuable senate time;

Whereas, Certain occupational programs involve patient or client safety and classes with large numbers of class hours in laboratory or clinical practice, thus making it difficult for many of the students in these programs to carry a minimum 12-unit load;

Whereas, Many of these occupational programs are impacted and have limited training slots available for students, thus forcing students to attend laboratory or clinical classes as early as 5:00 a.m. and as late as 11:00 p.m., thereby creating burdens on students with families and children; and