ED 371 810 JC 940 414 TITLE Transfer: Preparing for the ...ED 371 810 JC 940 414 TITLE Transfer:...

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 371 810 JC 940 414

TITLE Transfer: Preparing for the Year 2000. A Report onthe California Community Colleges Transfer Symposium(California, 1994).

INSTITUTION California Community Colleges, Sacramento. Office ofthe Chancellor.

PUB DATE Jun 94NOTE 50p.

PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Access to Education; *Articulation (Education);

College Role; *Community Colleges; Diversity(Institutional); Educational Cooperation; EducationalTrends; *Equal Education; Higher Education; *Role ofEducation; *Transfer Policy; Transfer Programs;Transfer Students; Two Year Colleges

IDENTIFIERS *California Community Colleges

ABSTRACTIn April 1994, a Transfer Symposium wes held by the

California Community Colleges to bring educational analysts andpolicymakers together to discuss trends and issues affecting thetransfer process and other aspects of educational access. This reportpresents transcripts from the two panel presentations and minutesfrom the three discussion sessions that comprised the Symposium. Thefirst panel presentation, "The Role of Community Colleges inCalifornia Higher Education: Looking Forward," discusses the issue ofaccess in the face of spiraling costs and declining enrollments, and

the urgency of finding new solutions for access problems. The secondpanel presentation, "Community College Overview: Roles andResponsibilities in the Transfer Process," examines student access inthe community college transfer process and what colleges are and arenot doing to promote transfer. Next, minutes from the firstdiscussion session, "Student Equity and Diversity-in the TransferProcess," focus on recent efforts to achieve equity for students fromdiverse backgrounds. Minutes from the second discussion session,"What Is the Evolving Role of the System in Ensuring AcademicSuccess," review planning issues related to demographics, technology,funding, and the complexities of the transfer process and collegemission. The final discussion, "Ask the Universities: How Can We WorkTogether," explores cooperative possibilities to increaseeffectiveness in the areas of access and instruction. Recommendationsare included for each discussion session. (KP)

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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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Transfer:Preparing for the

Year 2000

Contents

Executive Summary 1

Acknowledgments 3

Introduction 5

Panel Presentation I:The Role of the Community Colleges in CaliforniaHigher Education: Looking Forward 9

Panel Presentation H:Community College Overview: Roles and Responsibilitiesin the Transfer Process 23

Discussion Session I:Student Equity and Diversity in the Transfer Process 37

Discussion Session II:Community Colleges and Higher Education in California:What is the Evolving Role of the Systemin Ensuring Student Academic Success? 41

Discussion Session III:Ask the Universities: How Can We Work Together? 45

0

Executive Summary

AA s noted by one panelist during this year's....California Community Colleges TransferSymposium, there are two primary purposes forproviding education in the United States. The first isto develop a trained and educated work force. Thesecond, however, is even more fundamental in ademocratic societyrecognizing, and supporting,the role that education plays in providing social andeconomic equity.

The universal message of the nation's commu-nity colleges has always been: "Education offeredhere." Working adults and part-time students havebeen commonplace at the community colleges sincethe 1980s. More than half of all women in postsec-ondary education are served by community col-legesand more ethnic minorities than thoseattending all of the nation's four-year colleges anduniversities combined.

Just how well transfer "works" for Californiahigher education matters. Cutbacks caused byCalifornia's ongoing budget crisis along with rapidand unrelenting student fee increases have led todeclining enrollments at all levels ofhigher education.As costs increaseas general access to highereducation decreasesopen doors at the CaliforniaCommunity Colleges are more necessary than everbefore. Equally important, however, are doors thatare open for community college students at otherpostsecondary institutions.

The Role of the Community Colleges inCalifornia Higher Education: Looking Forwardwas the first panel discussion at the CaliforniaCommunity Colleges Transfer Symposium held inApril, 1994. Chief among the issues discussed bythese education policy experts was the question ofaccess. Between 1991 and 1993 enrollments withinthe California State University system declined by

over 21,000 students, and at the California Commu-nity Colleges by 120,000. That trend continued in1994, with a decline of 10-15,000 more students atCSU and 75,000 at the community colleges. Onepanelist suggested that th.e decision to curtail accesshas already been madeand that decision has been"camouflaged" as a budget related decision. Givenfinite dollars at present, he suggested that differentways of "delivering our educational product"including increased use of new technologies, provideoptions for guaranteeing continued access.

Another panelist stated that alternatives tolimiting educational access have never been dis-cussed, and the third panelist concurred, observingthat "the community colleges are at the center of theaccess questionnot only access to higher educa-tion and opportunity, but also access to better jobsfor California in the future."

Since the National Center for Higher Educa-tion Management predicts an increase of 50 percentin potential higher education enrollment for Califor-nia by the year 2006, panelists agreed that thestate's changing demographics increase the urgencyof finding new solutions for the problems of educa-tional access. Devising a statewide educationalstrategyone that stresses the interconnectednature of all segments of California educationandcreating a new, less "self-serving" system of coop-erative incentives and disincentives were viewed astop priorities, along with developing an explicitpolicy statement about what California expects fromits educational institutions.

The symposium's second panel discussion,Community College Overview: Roles andResponsibilities in the Transfer Process,examined the question of student access to highereducationespecially access provided by the

Community Colleges Transfer Symposium: Preparing for the Year 2000

community college transfer processfrom an"insider" perspective.

Panelists differed as to whether the CaliforniaMaster Plan for Higher Education was outdated.Some panelists considered the Master Plan elitist,perhaps bigoted. The general consensus was thatthe public still strongly supports Califcrnia's conceptof universal access to higher education, yet this isnot a high priority for the Legislature.

Alternatives offered for supporting educationalequity included allowing qualified mnmunity col-leges to offer baccalaureate degrees.

A first step proposed for increasing transfersuccess for community college students system-wideis improved course-to-course articulation with CSUand UCor implementing a "competency-baseetransfer articulation system. One panelist alsodiscussed the importance of promoting alternativerelational teaching styles, since not all students areanalytical "linear" learners.

Educating the state Legislature about theimportance of the community colleges and theirstudents, and exerting political pressure to see thatan adequate number of transfer slots for communitycollege students are available at UC and CSU, weretop priorities.

Three small-group discussionsdesigned togenerate specific recommendations for actionwere also organized by the Transfer Symposium.

The first, Student Equity and Diversity inthe Transfer Process, focused on relatively recentefforts to achieve equity in California higher educ,tion fo- students fiom diverse cultural and ethnicbac1:grounds. The combination of "pluralism ande,:cellence," one panelist stated, means achievingqualitativenot just quantitativeequity in educa-tion. A formal assessment process to evaluate"campus climate," or the perceptions of students,faculty, and staff about specific areas of college life,has now been developed and has been widely used.

Much is already known about how to supportthe success of underrepresented students from thenotable previous successes of various programs,another panelist pointed out. Making use of this

knowledgefrom how to instill a "sense of belong-ing" to establishing high expectations for studentperformanceis as important for high schools as itis for colleges and universities, he said.

The second discussion group was titledCommunity Colleges and Higher Education inCalifornia: What is the Evolving Role of theSystem in Ensuring Academic Success? Onepanelist observed that there are four major areaswith which colleges must deal effectively in order toimprove the transfer function of behalf of communitycollege students: demographics, technology, funding,and the complexities of both the community collegemission and the transfer process itself. Since all fourissues are intertwined, piecemeal adjustments andreforms are inadequate.

Another panelist stated that the Master Planfor Higher Education "d esn't work today." Thepopulation ofCalifornia nigher education is nolonger made up solely of young, full-time, middle-class students, the clientele the system was designedto serve. As a result the unemployed, low-income,and disadvantaged are not well served.

New approaches are needed, approaches that"bring the education to the students" rather thaninsist that the students meet the needs of the institu-tion. One possibility is to offer three-year baccalau-reate degrees at both the community college anduniversity levelsand other changes that accommo-date the needs of part-time and working students.The broad range of legitimate education goalsshould be recognized, and supported, by institutionsand by the programs and services they offer.

The third discussion groupAsk the Univer-sities: How Can We Work Together?exam-ined both past and present university practicesrelating to community college transfer. It waspointed out that all of Cal ifornia higher educationnow faces the problem of how to serve morestudents with fewer resources; reorganization isunderway at UC and CSU. According to onepanelist, new technologies will be the salvation ofCalifornia higher educationand will help educa-tional systems work together more effectively,

2 Community Colleges Transfer Symposium: Preparing for the Year 2000

5

primarily in the areas of (1) access and (2) instruc-tion. Technologies such as Electronic Date Inter-change (EDI) will allow the transfer process inparticular to become much more efficient and

accessible. And in the very near future ATM-styleon-campus kiosks will be able to offer nearlycomplete transfer information and services totoday's busy students.

Acknowledgments

o many people have generously offered theirpersonal goodwill and professional expertise in

support of the California Community CollegesTransfer Symposium that when it comes to saying"thanks"like any serious discussion of the com-munity college transfer issue itselfit's difficult toknow where to start and where to end. With that inmind, I've decided to start at the beginning.

My deepest gratitude to California CommunityColleges Chancellor David Mertes for his thoughtfulintroductory keynote address, especially his re-minder that all of our effbrts should focus on findingsolutions that meet the needs of community collegestudents. This student-centered perspective is toooften the first thing sacrificed in public discussionsabout education. I am also grateful to ChancellorMertes for his strong ongoing support for a healthytransfer function in California.

Sincere thanks also to Thelma Scott-Skillman,Vice Chancellor for Student Services and Programs,for her own strong commitment to communitycollege students and her genuine support for thetransfer process that serves them. Without hervision, enthusiasm, and guidance, this year's Trans-fer Symposium would not have been possible.

I'm also grateful to Karen Halliday, formerDean of Student Services and Programs, for"helping to make it happen." Many thanks also toDesiree Sale, Program Assistant for Student Ser-vices and Programs, who provided invaluable staff

support and personally took on many logisticalheadaches, and to Julie Moore, for her patience andpersistence in handling endless clerical details as wellas registration.

Special thanks to Dr. Mark Edelstein of Collegeof the Redwoods, who so graciously agreed toserve as moderator for both of the symposium'smajor panel discussions. He was as well-informedas he was well-prepared, and as a direct resultbecame an integral part of these intriguing publicconversations.

I am also grateful to Kim Weir, author andeditor of this document, for gritting her teeth andseeing this project through to the end. I appreciateher professional contributions to the developmentand design of this report, and especially her good-natured acceptance of innumerable changes andrewrites.

I extend very special thanks as well to all thosewho participated as panelists and discussion groupfacilitators. It was a very impressive series ofpresentations by equally impressive individuals.

Most of all, I'd like to thank everyone "in thetrenches" who attended the symposium, fromcounselors and guidance staffto faculty and admin-istrators. It's truly inspiring to spend time with somany who care so deeply about California's com-munity colleges and their students.

Kathleen Nelson, Coordinatorfor Transfer and Articulation

Community Colleges Transfer Symposium: Preparing for the Year 2000 3

Introduction

rr here was a time when California's Commu-nity Colleges, like the rest of the state's

system of higher education, seemed capable ofdoing almost anything and everything. Thosetimes are gone, at least for the foreseeable future,replaced by these timestimes in which declin-ing budgets and accelerating demands for ser-vices are forcing colleges and universities torethink old assumptions, and to search for new,innovative, yet less expensive ways to accom-plish increasingly complicated tasks.

How did California's community collegesarrive at this juncture? And what can be doneunder these challenging circumstances to en-Hance and expand educational opportunity, nowand in the future?

Where We've Been:Perspectives on thePassing Millennium

The community colleges have broadcast auniversal message since the first one opened

its doors to the public a century ago. And thatmessage has been: "Education available here."Though what that education entailed may havevaried from place to place nearly as much asnational geography, accessibility has generally beena given.

Nationwide, community college enrollmentincreased from slightly more than one-halfmillion in 1960 to four million by 1980anincrease largely responsible for the overallexpansion of higher education and largely due tostudents who otherwise would not have participatedin postsecondary education.

By the 1980s, working adults and part-timestudents became commonplace on communitycollege campuses. In addition, community collegesserve at least half of all women in postsecondaryeducation and more ethnic minority students than allof the nation's four-year colleges and universitiescombined. The community colleges also serve morethan half of all college freshmena role of continu-inr importance as education costs continue to climb.

The community colleges in California wereestablished as a system more than 70 years ago.These early city colleges or "junior" colleges offerednew opportunities for entire generations of Califor-nians to benefit from higher education.

California's commitment to educationalaccess and opportunity was expanded and codi-fied in 1960 in the California Master Plan forHigher Educationa decision that extended thebenefits of a college education to every citizen, anda legacy unmatched by any other state of the union.

Since the inception of the California Commu-nity Colleges system most campuses have accom-plished two major educational missions, offeringboth transfer and vocational education progams.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the communitycolleges provided high-quality undergraduateeducation at very low costand provided the firsttwo years of college-level coursework for manyCalifornia college students who later went on toreceive bachelor's, master's, and other degrees.

But as state funding for education began todecrease, college "downsizing," growth limits,and course cutbacks began to affect the CaliforniaCommunity Collegesand the open-ended missionofthe community colleges. Even the "lifelong learn-ing" concept as once applied to California's total

Community Colleges Transfer Symposium: Preparing for the Year 2000M t 5

7

system of higher educationthe community col-leges, the California State University (CSU) system,and the University of California (UC) system to-getherfell into some disfavor, at least in terms offiscal responsibility, partially due to criticism thathigher education institutions were trying to be "allthings to all people" and at increasing public ex-pense.

With university budgets staining to keep upwith the costs of graduate education programs, theidea dawned of enrolling more undergraduates.Greater numbers of undergraduate students gener-ated substantial revenue for the universities withminimal increases in costs.

As growing numbers of California collegestudents enrolled as university freshmen, thepublic began to believe that the quality of com-munity college undergraduate education haddeclined.

In the 1990s, with all segments of Califor-nia higher education attempting to cope withbudget cutbacks and the impacts of relatedstudent fee increases, the public is beginning tobelieve that the quality of California highereducation in general has declinedand maydecline still further.

Where We're Going:Perspectives on theComing Millennium

rrhe quality and the effectiveness of the.1 community college transfer function matters.

Nationwide, however, since the 1970s the numberof students who transfer to four-year colleges anduniversities has declined in relation to total commu-nity college enrollment

Since higher percentages of black, Hispanic,Native American, and other underrepresentedstudents begin their postsecondary educations atthe community college level, the number of commu-nity college students who transfer is an increasinglysignificant issue in higher education. And as statesbecome increasingly responsible for community

college financing, concerns about fiscal responsibilityand "accountability" also affect the transfer function.

In California, there has been moderate successin increasing the number of community collegestudents who transfer to baccalaureate-grantinginstitutions. The passage of Senate Bill 121 (Hart) in1991 established that responsibility for a strongtransfer function is shared by the community col-leges, CSU, and UC. That legislation mandated theestablishment oftransfer agreement programs,discipline-based articulation agreements, andtransfer centers. Budget and staff cuts throughoutCalifornia higher education, however, have slowedimplementation of SB 121's key provisions.

What the Experts Say:Perspectives on theCalifornia Conundrum

Education experts, including many whoattended or were panelists and presenters

during the 1994 Community Colleges TransferSymposium, offer a variety of perspectives onCalifornia's higher education conundrum.

Cutbacks caused by the state' s ongoing budgetcrisisand by the response to that crisis fromvoters and legislators alike have led to decliningenrollments at all levels of higher education. In asense, the issues affecting community college tns-fer success are the same issues affecting all ofCalifornia higher education in 1994: inadequatefunding, limited classroom space, and course andprogram cutbacks.

These and other curl nt trends in highereducation seem still more ominous when discussionshifts to include serious reflection on the educationalimplications of the state's changing demographicsa change creating the "new face' of Califprnia. Aswas observed by most participants in the 1994Transfer Symposium, the typical California collegestudent of the very near future will not be fresh outof high school, white, middle class, and attendingclasses full time. This change in demographics,which includes socioeconomic differences and shifts


in educational goals, suggests that new approachesto higher education delivery are necessary in orderto make the transfer function work.

The 1994 California Community CollegesTransfer Symposium was organized to provide aforum for discussing these and other public policy

issues, issues that affect the transfer process andother aspects of educational access and opportunity.

This particular conversation represents only thebeginning ofwhat must, ultimately, become a muchbroader public discussion among Californians aboutwho we are and what we believe about education.


9

Panel Presentation I

The Role of the Community Collegesin California Higher Education:

Looking Forward

The first panel discussion examined the role ofthe community colleges in California education

from an "outside" point of view, from the perspec-tive of analysts and policy makers. Major issuesaddressed in this wide-ranging discussion includedthe effects of budget cuts on educational access andopportunity as well as howand if--the state isprepared, educationally, for the vast social changesposed by changing demographics.

The Panelists

Dr. Joni Finney is Associate Director of theCalifornia Higher Education Policy Center.

Dr. Finney coauthored, with Patrick Callan, the1993 report By Design or Default. Prior to assum-ing her post with the Higher Education PolicyCenter, she was Director of Policy Studies for theEducation Commission for the States in Denver,Colorado. Dr. Finney has served also in a variety ofadministrative posts at Pennsylvania State Universityand the University of Southern Colorado, and hastaught at both the undergraduate and graduatelevels.

Gerald Hayward is Director of Policy Analy-sis for California Education (PACE), an independentresearch center providing analysis and assistance forCalifornia policy makers and educational leaders.He is also the Deputy Director of the NationalCenter for Research in Vocational Education,headquartered in Berkeley. From 1980-1985, hewas Chancellor for the California CommunityColleges. During the decade prior, Mr. Hayward

served as principal consultant to California's SenateCommittee on Education and Finance. He is aformer teacher and administrator in California publicschools.

Dr. Charles Ratliff is Deputy Director of theCalifornia Postsecondary Education Commission(CPEC) and has served as consultant to numer-ous national, regional, state, and local agencieson a wide variety of topics. Dr. Ratliff has beenparticularly involved in programs designed to assistdisadvantaged youth. He was formerly the directorof an Upward Bound program and an EOP pro-gram, and was also Director )f Student AcademicServices at California State University, Hayward.

Dr. Mark Edelstein, moderator of theTransfer Symposium's two panel discussions,has served as Vice President for AcademicAffairs at the College of the Redwoods sinceJune, 1991. From 1987 to 1991 he was Execu-tive Director of the Intersegmental CoordinatingCouncil. He served two terms as president of thestatewide California Community CollegesAcademic Senate, and actively participated inthe 1990 review of the Master Plan for HigherEducation.

The Discussion

Edelstein: There seems to be a very strongconsensus in California that despite our

current budget problems, the greatest mistakewe could make at this pointin all of the educa-tional systemsis to curtail access. Some people

Community Colleges Transfer Symposium: Preparing for the Year 2000 8t 9

10

would argue, however, that in fact that is exactlywhat our response has been to this budget crisis,and perhaps must be.

Between .1991 and 1993 enrollments de-clined at the California State University by over21,000 students and at the California Commu-nity Colleges by approximately 120,000. Thattrend has continued this year, with an additional10-15,000 decline 1, students at CSU and per-haps 75,000 more at the community colleges.University of California (UC) enrollments haveremained relatively stable.

Realistically, if the state cannot increase itsfunding for higher education, what are ourchoices besides curtailing access or watching asthe quality of Califbrnia higher educationinevitably declines?

Ratliff: We've already made the decision tocurtail student access. That decision, however,has been camouflaged as a budget-related deci-sion. We as policy makers and legislators havemade budgetary decisions and then turned to thevarious higher education systems and said:"You've got to figure out what to do with themoney we gave you." Given the current para-digms on how we deliver education, we were leftwith very little opportunity but to cut the numberof students that we serve.

Instead, what we need to be doing in thisstate is have a policy discussion about who we willand who we will not provide with access to highereducation, who we will and who we will not investin. Our social contract, particularly through theMaster Plan for Higher Education, basically saysthat ifyou live long enough, in California you'll havean opportunity to pursue education after high school.

Up until this point, we have had the financial largesseto support that contract. We sold the value of life-long learning and intellectual developmentI thinkrightfully soand made it available to the entirepopulation.

But if we couple that with the fact that the twofastest-growing segments of the population in the

state are those under age 24 and those over the ageof 47, we've created a real problem. Can Californiacontinue to afford to allow all segments of its popu-lation to have access to higher education? Or is thestate going to move in the direction of establishingpriorities? If we cannot or do not have the will tofinance education at a level that continues to guaran-tee access to all those who want to pursue educa-tion beyond high school, then who do we give thefirst cut to? That ought to be a policy discussion.

There's a related question, and it's an equallytough one. Is there a different way of delivering oureducational product that might allow us to continueto provide high-quality instruction at a lower per-unitcost? It may be that there is a place for high technol-ogy in instruction. We need to actively and creativelylook for different ways to deliver education, butrecognize that there would be some substantialup-front costs. To start out, it's not going to beless expensive.

Both of these policy discussions need totake place.

Finney: My belief is that there's no consensusabout that at all, that the biggest policy mistakeCalifornia could make would be to curtail access. Infact, I believe that's been a deliberate policy deci-sionto curtail accessat many levels in this state,from the state Legislature to the governing boards ofcolleges and universities. This is not an accidental

The question is even more basic:"As California has previously

defined it, is educationalopportunity still animportant value?"

strategy. The CSU system, for example, now has apolicy that separates the state's responsibility foraccec- nd the institution's responsibility for quality.Tht.. developed some deliberate mechanisms to


1 1

downsize their student bodies. Students and theirfamilies have been held hostage in this budgetdebate.

Secondly, I don't think that these policychanges ought to be :Acribed to budget cuts. Thathas been our excuse, But that hasn't been ouronly alternative. The alternatives simply werenot discussed. So to say we have no alternatives[to limiting access] is misleading.

I don't think the major question is decidinghow to ration higher education over the next 20,30, 40, or 50 years. The question is even morebasic: "As California has previously defined it, iseducational opportunity still an important value forCalifornia citizens?" If it is, there are many ways to

The community colleges are atthe center of the access

questionnot only access tohigher education and

opportunity, but also access tobetter jobs for California.

serve more people.

Hayward: I agree with Joni on this particularissue. The issue is access, and the issue is oppor-tunity. The dilemma is, not only are the commu-nity colleges the centerpiece of the whole accessargument, but also the centerpiece to otheropportunities for further education.

I've spent the last six years working onissues related to preparation of the work force oftomorrow. And it's clear to me that communitycolleges nationally and in this state are also thelinchpin of that strategy. If in fact California'seconomy is to become more competitive interna-tionally, we have to have a better prepared work

force than we now have. And that work forcepreparation cannot be done solely at high school.It has to involve what, uniquely, the communitycolleges can provide.

So I see the community colleges at thecenter of the access questionnot only access tohigher education and opportunity in that dimen-sion, but also access to better jobs for Californiain the future.

I find it very distressing that the issueshaven't been framed in those two dimensions,and that the discussions in Californianot onlyat the segmental level but at the gubernatorialand legislative levelshave not addressed thisissue head-on. What you hear in Sacramento isthat we cannot raise taxes. "That might cost us ourjobs, so that's not al. option." They have veryirresponsibly ducked the key issue. For the sake ofCalifornia's future, we need to provide more re-sources.

Edelstein: One fact that makes this discussioneven more compelling right now, as Charlesmentioned earlier, is the state's change in popu-lation demographics. A recent study by theNational Center for Higher Education Manage-ment determined that between now and the year2006 we're going to be facing a 50 percentincrease in potential enrollments in highereducation in California. That's an increase from915,000 FTES to 1.4 million. The study con-cludes that even if students can pay a greatershare for the cost of their educations, even if thestate manages to achieve the same kind ofeconomic growth we saw in the 1980s, it will stillbe impossible to .neet this kind of enrollmentdemand without significandy altering the basicassumptions and policies which direct highereducation. That 's the crucial phrase: "withoutsignificantly altering the basic assumptions andpolicies that direct higher education. Easy tosay in a report, enormously difficult to do,especially in systems of this size.

Do you agree with this assessment? And if


12

so, what kinds of restructuring do the systemsneed to consider in order to better met the needsof students?

Ratliff: I do agree, in part. We need to look atnew ways of delivering quality educationalproducts. We need to move away from thetraditional "seat time" approach to deliveringhigher education, and become far more con-cerned about the skills and knowledge we'd liketo impart to our students. Some approaches donot require direct faculty-student contact.

I also think the community colleges are in abetter position than any of the other segments ofpostsecondary education to find "break-throughs," if you will, in how we're going todeliver instniction to more folks in more effi-cient ways.

At this point, I don't believe anyone has anyconcrete answers about just how am' at what pacewe should proceed.

Edelstein: Perhaps we should be one system.Alaska has recently consolidated its highereducation segments into one system. Perhapswe're reaching the point where the state can nolonger support the kind of duplication of effortthat our three systems entail. Now, everyone inCalifornia higher education will say "We are the

We need to be thinkingmore broadly about a systemthat thinks about preschool

through graduate school andiess and less about "systems."We have to show that there is

an education priority.

largest of our kind in the known universe, andthat would create a bureaucratic nightmare."

Joni, as someone relatively new to California,what are your perceptions?

Finney: It's going to take several different ways totry to move the systems to accommodate this newdemand without sacrificing access. My sense, fromthe discussions our center has been holding aroundthe state, is that there is a great deal of energy andcreativity in the system nowpeople doing thingson a small-scale basis. But the California problem isthe "system-think" problem, where one voicerepresents the system. Because of that, much of thediversity, much of the creativity, much of the richness

is lost.We need to loosen these systems up and

provide some incentives for people to go aboutthe very important work that they want to ac-complish. To create such incentives, we can useexisting resources. Much of this we know how todo, and much of it doesn't cost much money. It'sa question of identifying the priorities.

Hayward: This is already a complicated situation.And I'd hate to think of any education system that'smore complicated than the University ofCalifornia.

But, even in this discussion, we're missing the keyplayerand that's the K-12 system.

What we've neglected is taking a strategiclook at education from child care through graduateschool. We still have the systems' views of theirindependent roles, and lack this overall strategy.With this perspective, someone might suggest thatchild care is the best long-term strategy for improv-ing the four-year institutions.

I use this only as an example. We need to bethinking more broadly and more globally about asystem that thinks about preschool through p-aduateschool and less and less about "systems."

We have to show the Legislature and thepolicy makers that there is an education priority inthat budget.

Stressing the interconnectedness between thesegments, and with the high schools and the elemen-tary schools, will be most fruitful.


.t3

Edelstein: I very much agree with that. But thefact is, we seem to be much farther from thatthan we were three or four years ago. Three orfour years ago, the California EducationRoundtable was having serious discussionsabout that kind of statewide strategy. And it wasan important agenda item for both Bill Honigand Ann Reynolds. Today, that discussion isn'teven on the table. How do you get back tosomething like that at a time when we're allconsumed with our own budgets and questionsof access? These problems may not be as impor-tant in a general sense, but are certainly moreimmediate.

Hayward: It's a tough issue. I don't know howyou do it without changing the priorities. Whatare the incentives for people in higher educationto work collaboratively? As resources are moreand more constrained, institutions tend to bemore and more protective of their own share.Education would be much better supported ifinstitutions had a single strategy that encom-passed what they desired. What incentives wouldbring all these people to the table? The majorincentive would be leadership from the Governorand the Legislature. One thing that might bedone: We might eliminate the California Post-secondary Education Commission (CPEC) andmake it "CEC"the California EducationCommission or the Commission on Educationfor California. Just responding to that new entitywould require a different strategy on the part ofthe participants.

Finney: Even more basic is getting back to thepolicy that has been abandoned over the last fewyearstying enrollment for institutions todollars. The Governor has virtually abandoned that,with the permission ofthe Legislature. "We'll giveyou this money, take as many students as you can."Well, what's the easiest thing to sacrifice, then, whenresources are tight? Students. This is particularlytrue for the California State University system. So I

think we need to reestablish the link between dollarsand enrolhnent. Any new money going into highereducationand I mean additional resources from

IMININIYMPIOF .114M.

There is no reason why upperdivision course work could not

be offered at a communitycollege campus. We should bereducing some of the barriersfor students who wish to go on

to baccalaureate degrees.

the base we have right nowought to be used for aset of priorities, not just be allocated to increase thatbase. We've got to define what is important andtarget those resources for that.

Ratliff: There ought to be incentives in place toget more out of a system of education. Rather thanbeing part of a confederation of segments in publiceducation, institutions become somewhat self-servingparticularly institutions that award bacca-laureates but to some degree all of postsecondaryeducation. As institutions, they don't want to do"remedial" kinds of work. Nor do we want toseriously examine what it is that we require for theaward of our associate or our baccalaureate de-grees. Does it necessarily take 120 or 126 units tobe properly educated? Rather than deal with thatquestion, we're now asking, "Is there a way toprovide an incentive for students in secondaryschools to make more productive use of high schoolyears?" That pushes the problem forward, ratherthan talldng about what we need to be doing inpostsecondary to move students more swiftlythrough his or her academic program. We could findways to engage students in productive academicpreparation. There is no reason why upper divisioncourse work could not be offered at a communitycollege campus. We should be reducing some of


the barriers for students who wish to go on tobaccalaureate degrees, at a time when everyoneis trying to do more with the same or less money.There are incentives that might provide at least afirst step toward an integrated system of educa-tion.

Edelstein: Another suggestion was made by theCal:firnia Higher Education Policy Center, tolimit some UC and CSU campuses to only upperdivision and graduate work, and let the commu-nity colleges do the bulk of the lower divisionwork.

Ratliff: We don't react particularly favorably tothat for a couple of reasons. One is money. Offeringonly upper division courses, because of the smallerfaculty-to-student ratios, is a more expensiveproposition. While we don't say it loudly, it is truethat we use lower division course work as a vehiclefor leveraging dollars to lower student-faculty ratiosfor upper division. So if we get to the point wherewe convert UC or CSU campuses into entirelyupper division and graduate level institutionsagain,assuming no alteration in how we deliver our educa-tional productwe create a more costly enterprise.

Hayward: Wait wait, wait, wait. The universitygets its allocatio for undergraduate studentsbased on a forr iula based on a mix of lowerdivision, upper division students, and graduatestudents, right? Why don't you figure out howmuch it costs to fund the higher education part ofthat? What's the number for that, Charles? Is thatnot a known number? Can we compute that?

Ratliff: We know now, for the University ofCalifornia, that for the purposes of appropria-tions for the FTES, we average the lower divi-sion undergraduate, the upper division under-graduate, and graduate student. And we payroughly $12,200 per FTES.

We know it doesn't cost $12,000 to educate alower division student.

Hayward: It occurs to me that it wouldn't be veryhard to allocate money on a different basison abasis of the cost of graduate school, upper division,

It wouldn't be very hard toallocate money on a

different basis. Then youwouldn't have this crazy

system that says,"Gee whiz, the more lowerdivision students we cram

into these giant lecture halls,the better we can offer

upper division and graduateinstruction."

and lower division. Then you wouldn't have thiscrazy system that says, "Gee whiz, the more lowerdivision students we can cram into these giantlecture halls, the better we can offer upper divisionand graduate instruction." Boy, that's a dumbincentive, if the purpose is to give people a qualityeducation at each level. We could make the playingfield more level.

I know the university and state universitysystems don't want to see this kind of costaveraging go away, but we're in tough times,folks. One thing would be to start making ratio-nal decisions about investing in those threecategoriesand in which the community col-leges would be seen as providing lower costlower division work, and upper division work atthe university would be appropriately funded atthe cost level. Is there something terribly wrongwith that kind of rationale?

Ratliff: I don't think it's terribly wrong. Thatrationale is a logical one. But it doesn't changethe fact that it becomes a more costly operation

14 Community Colleges 7) ansfer Symposium: Preparing for the Year 2000

! Et. ;

if you differentially fund upper division andgraduate work.

Hayward: Not on a per-student basis. It costsmore for the average student at the University ofCalifornia, but also the state would be savingmoney if those lower division funds were spentinstead at a community college. And the univer-sity would be paid for what it actually did.

Ratliff: The other part of Llat is, if you follow thatsame rationale, we may well discover at the univer-sity thatas it is currently deliveredthe sameeducation is less expensive. Therefore, trying tobenefit students, one could logically say that weought to have differential fees because it costs lessto provide that instruction.

Finney: What we're talking about so far islooking at the money and trying to cost it outdifferently to provide for the greatest need. There'sanother way to look at this. We need to look at thetotal resources for higher educationnot just UC,

We need to set differentpriorities across thesystem if we want to

maintain access.

CSU, and the community collegeslook at thewhole range of resources and ask: "What are ourpriorities?" And cast that against how we're cur-rently spending that money.

Particularly within the University of Cali-fornia, we treat every faculty member as if he orshe were a top researcher and potential NobelPrize winner. That may well be true, but we haveto look at different priorities now.

We actually have a state allocation for depart-mental research. But if you consider the teachingload difference between CSU faculty and UC

faculty, the difference in that sum of money can beviewed as [an additional] state appropriation forresearch. We ought to look at whether we want thatstate appropriation to continue. And if, in fact, wewant to fund research with state dollars, let's at leastdo it competitively, like we fund federal research.And let's take some of the money and target ittoward undergraduate education.

I think we've got to look at the total re-sources and the purposes for which they're used,not just the money we have right now for in-

struction.We need to set different priorities across the

system if we want to maintain access.

Ratliff: Where is there an explicit statement aboutwhat we want out of our public institutions? As wetalk about changing our primities for what wespend, what is it that we want out of our publicinstitutions? Simply the provision of instruction?Learning throughout a career? Applied research?Basic research? We need to make that decision.Once that decision is made, it becomes easier totalk about how one prioritizes the use of availableresources.

Edelstein: One thing we want, to get back to theearlier discussion, is accessas much access aswe can possibly get. What are your assessmentsof how transfer is functioning today?

Over the past decade there has been a

If there's no pain involved,there's very little incentive for

an institution to changehistorical behavior.

major focus on transfer issues. We've studiedand restudied the Master Plan. We've createdtransfer centers, funded and unfunded and then

Community Colleges Transfer Symposium: Preparing for the Year 2000

defunded them. We've developed dozens ofprograms, funded studies, supported legislative

Do presidents or chancellorscontinue in their

positions based uponwhat happens to theirstudents, how well theyprepare their students?

mandates, and attended endless meetings, allaimed at improving transfer. And yet the totalnumber of transfers to UC and CSU has beenessentially static for the last decade, between50,000 and 55,000 students.

Some people would argue that none of thecommunity college efforts has made a substan-tial differencethat the only thing that drivesthe transfer number is the number of graduatingseniors, which during the same period hasessentially remained stable.

Ratliff: I disagree with you that access is the be alland the end all. That's part of the problem, that wefocus on access alone. Transfer doesn't occursimply because you have access. It also reliesheavily on the outcomes. After you get there,something occurs that puts you in the position totake the next step. So we have to be concernedabout outcomes as well.

As to whether or not the transfer function isworking well or not, the honest answer is, "Probablynot." It works less well for some students thanothers.

One reason is that we've layered one thing ontop of another. So if something doesn't work aftersome finite period of time we add something else to

it. Then we add yet another thing to it when there's anew idea. And if that doesn't work we throwsomething else in. After a point, there are so many

efforts trying to promote transfer that they begin totake away from each other.

We need to have fewer categorical efforts andmore institutional responsibility for promotingtansferbecause faculty are so critical as towhether or not a healthy transfer function exists. Ifcourses are not offered, students don't get it. Iftheintegrity of courses is less than desired, from thepoint of view ofthe receiving institutions, you havethe age-old battle between faculty at the baccalaure-ate-granting institutions and the faculty at the com-munity colleges about whether or not the coursesare acceptable. Then there's a case-by-case, major-by-major, campus-by-campus type of assessmentrather than a system-wide agreement.

But the only way that [a system-wide agree-ment] is Poing to happen is through a combination ofincentives and .lisincentives. Though this is probablyheresy, it lught to be painful to institutions to makethe wrong decisionto decide that it is moreimportant to protect processes than promote thedesired student outcomes. If there' s no pain in-volved, there's very little incentive for an institutionto change historical behavior.

Hayward: I'm not sure it all has to be pain,Charles. There aren't any consequences. Therearen't many incentives, either. This is really atest of the system. What are the consequences foran institution that, we would all agree, doesn'tdo a very good job of transferring students toanother institution? Now, probably none. Do

How much remedial workdo we do in community

colleges? It's a ton.

presidents continue in their nositions? Do chancel-lors of systems continue in their positions basedupon what happens to their students, how well theyprepare their students to transfer to four-year


17

institutions? Their positions don't have any thing todo with the outcomes of transfer or with how well orhow poorly they prepare people for work.

And you can't just look at the numbers,because the numbers are often beyond thecontrol of community colleges, especially ifthere isn't space available at the transfer institu-tions.

But how about something as simple as anAA degree, which is simple to measure andwhich does have a value both as a transferdocument and as a preparation-for-work docu-ment? According to Department of Labor statis-tics, the income differential between high schoolgraduates and students with AA degrees is quitelarge. That tells you it's not enough to just millaround.

There are two areas we need to look at. Oneis, how much remedial work do we do in com-munity colleges? It's a ton. How much betterwould we be as institutions if we did less of that?And I'm not suggesting that we do less of itbecause it's not important. I suggest that we doless of it because high schools have to do a betterjob of preparing students for higher education.That gets us back to these linkages betweeninstitutions. The resources of the state need to befocused on that problem.

The second thing we need to do is look insideour own houses. I'm convinced that there's toomuch milling aroundtoo many people in schoolwithout clear goals, or without taking the necessarysequence of courses to accomplish those goals.Education cannot afford to allow people to take alittle of this and a little of that and hope that somedaya little light will come on and they'll fmd their path tonirvana. It doesn't work that way.

Edelstein: The point that Gerry makes aboutnumbers with regard to transfer is an issue I'dlike to pursue with you. The California HigherEducation Policy Center did a report last yearcalled Public Policy by Anecdote. It wasn't abouttransfer, but it could have been about transfer.

How many times have we heard public policydecisions being made based upon whether or notsome legislator's nephew got into a specific CSUor UC program? Why don't we know more abouttransfer? Why have we not been successful indeveloping a comprehensive student informationsystem? Why aren't we getting the informationon applications and enrollees and admits andacceptances systematically from CSU and theUC? We would be able to determine whetherthere's a transfer problem--and, more specifi-cally, just what it is.

Ratliff: With the comprehensive informationsystem, the biggest liability has been fightinglegal battles over how you monitor individualstudents. We've argued since 1983 that we ought tobe using social security numberswith all of the

How can you say the systemrewards bringing in bodies?We're actually rewarding

downsizing.

appropriate protections. That's the only way we'llbe able to monitor the actual movement of studentsthrough the systems, and be able to do effectiveenrollment management and planningto be able totell whether or not students are progressing atdifferential rates, to assess transfer readiness, etc.

The second issue is the ongoing debate aboutwhat is the appropriate measure [of transfer suc-cess]. I wish to dispel any use of the term "transferrate." I think it's a misnomer, and suggests that thereis a single measure of whether or not the transferfunction is healthy. There are multiple measures thatmake sense.

Gerry has suggested looking at AA degrees. Isuggest looking at "transfer readiness"whether ornot the college does everything it's supposed to doas far as providing the right courses, the academic


support, the requisite number of transfer units, andthe requisite GPA to be able to make the transfer.The choice that student then makes is independentof whether or not the college did its job.

A second measure could assess transitionwhether or not a transfer-ready student made thetransition to a baccalaureate institution.

Another measure could focus on how wellan institution does with underrepresented stu-dents.

We have to get into the habit of talking aboutmultiple measures, not unlike what we've been

We're talking aboutindividual opportunity,not bureaucratic terms.

through with matriculation. We have to look at theactual question being framed, then decide on anappropriate measure.

The third problem is that we continue tooperate with some measure of impunity. This state'sfunding mechanism basically rewards bringing inbodies. It does not recognize or provide rewards fordoing things successfully with those students.

Finney: How can you say that, when we've lost200,000 people from higher education? How canyou say the system rewards bringing in bodies? Idon't get it.

We're actually rewarding downsizing. Thenumbers would indicate that that's the case.

Ratliff: I disagree. Any funding formula that'sbased on head count or FTES count is rewardingbodies. If you fail as a state to provide enoughdollars to provide for everybody who would like tocome in, then you're curtailing access. That's adifferent question.

If we had a funding formula with a portion tiedto the number of students and a portion tied to the

successes of the institution, then you have a systemlooking at something other than simple head count.We don't have that currently.

Finney: But the system is not really fundingbodies. Look at CSU right now. They have moremoney per student now, and 30,000 fewer students.

Ratliff: What it' s funding, though, is a FTES,not each individual student, not a head count.Look at both the enrollment at the CSU and tosome extent at the community colleges, and whatyou'll find is an average increase in the unit loadper student.

Finney: We're talking about individual opportunity.We're not talking about state bureaucratic terms.Opportunity is what we've got to keep our eye on.

Ratliff: It's one reason I suggest we need to lookat a system of funding that rewards or providessome incentive for achieving outcomes.

It's faculty-to-faculty designof programs that changeswhat happens in high schooland the community colleges.

Edelstein: In terms of individual opportunity, astatistic that we don't talk much about is thedecline in the college-going rate of high schoolseniors, which has declinedfrom 53 percent to44 percent over the last decade. That 's a remark-able drop at a time when everyone says peopleneed higher levels of skills than they can getthrough high school in order to succeed in thejob market. Almost all of that loss has takenplace in the community colleges, from ?8 percentto 29 percent, in terms of college-going rates.


! 9

Why do you think the community collegeshave become significantly less attractive torecent high school graduates? Gerry, this has

If the segments can't solve thisissue, then you really have to

wonder about their commitmentto this notion of access.

happened in the ten years since you've left theChancellor 's Office.

Hayward: I think that's why. [Laughter.] Noproblem for me to know the answer to that. [Laugh-ter.] No, actually I'm surprised at the number. I'mshocked. What I had focused onand not re-centlywas the percentage of students v-:io werefulfilling the requirements to get into UC and CSU.And those numbers have been steadily increasing,until this year, when there was a small blip in thewrong direction. I would assume that the highschools were moving in the right direction.

One thing it could mean, as Joni has suggestedso strongly, is that the access for those students hasbeen cut offthat it's not a student choice. They'renot finding places available for them. Because ifthey're going to go through all the work it takes toprepare themselves for the four-year institutions,you would assume that they would go. Perhaps it'sbeen in the past five years, with the financialproblems so great, that this access problem hasoccurred.

Ratliff: You find a correlation with increases infees. The first blip occurred in 1984, when wewent from free to fees at the community colleges.We had two years of that and began to show anincrease [of baccalaureate-bound high schoolstudents] at the community colleges.

And since 1990-91 we've seen a continued

decline again. A portion of that has to do with theperception that it's simply too far to go, even startingat the community colleges. A portion of it is attibut-able to the fact that, in these budget battles, thestandard political rhetoric of the higher educationinstitutions has changed the decisions of thesestudents and their families. They've heard thegloom-and-doom stories that we'll be laying offhundreds if not thousands of faculty, that we'll cutthousands of course sections, that they'llhave a rightto line up for the possibility of getting a course.Rather than go through the hassle of doing that,they're simply making the decision not to attend.

Edelstein: One of the unfortunate aspects of theextraordinary higher education system that wehave in California is that its very excellence,historically, has made us arrogant about whatwe do in California. We're loathe to look toother states for models. As I'm sure you'reaware, there are some very interesting thingsgoing on, in terms of transfer, in other statesFlorida, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, Illinois to namejust a few. What can we learn from other states,in terms of specifics, to improve the transferfunction?

Finney: That's a good question. We saw some ofthese things as we visited campuses across thecountry as part of a recent research project. Using

It is alarming that highereducation is falling apart at a

time when the populations thatwould take advantage of highereducation are more diverse than

they've ever been.

very little money, they got faculty from two- andfour-year institutions to design coursesand not


2 0

just individual courses but entire programs. Therewas a collaboration that seemed to work better inplaces where there was already something to buildupon.

We have used the bureaucratic and administra-tive mechanismsthe course numbering, the articu-lation agreementsto try to move the studentsthrough the system. That's very important. Then we

Quite honestly, we're all at riskright now. There's no guaranteefor anybody who's played by therules, who's done all the things

we've told them to do.

look at student services.But what we have neglected in all of this is the

academic coordination that has to take place, too,to look at the situation in a more holistic way.

Unless faculty are really engaged in this pro-cess, our efforts are going to be limited. We canonly do so much otherwise. The results elsewhereas far as getting students through the systemhavebeen remarkable in some places.

Perhaps we should look at money to develop ajoint core curriculum. That underscores the pointabout putting the students first.

Hayward: We've been doing work nationally,looking at high schools and community colleges. It'sfaculty-to-faculty design of programs that changeswhat happens in high school and the communitycolleges. Two faculties working together provide aseamless transition., a well-connected program that'ssequentially based, with tighter linkage between thetwo systems. There's no reason to assume thatwouldn't also hold for four-year institutions.

Edelstein: It may be that I like large, simplesolutions to complicated problems, but it occurs

to mefrom a student's perspectivethat.figur-ing out our course numbering system is enor-mously difficult. We don't even number in thesame bandsnot only across segments, butwithin segments, and som times even withindistricts. Aren't there simple mechanical thingsthat we could do?

Hayward: This is really bleak news. You'd figure,when asked what would be the easiest things tochange, people would conclude: "How about coursenumbers?" Why is that so hard?

We had this same discussion years before, AndI thought, this is one we can solve. This really speaksiii of our willingness to tackle this issue. That bogglesmy mind. That clearly ought to be a solvableissuebetween the segments. If the segments can't solvethis issue, then you really have to wonder about theircommitment to this notion of access. And I wouldsay to my community college colleagues in theaudience: If you can't even number the courses inyour own college, then you shouldn't be here, youshould be back there renumbering your courses.

map'

We're seeing more and moregeometric growth, in terms of

44 new majority" transfers at thecommunity colleges. Transfer isan outcome, and it's one resultof retention. Yet I'm not sure

how many collegesreally focus on retention.

Comments from the Audience

One conference participant observed that thereare endless problems for community college

counselors and others worldng to improve studenttransfer successfrom the decategorization oftransfer center funds to inadequate counselor-student


2

ratios. To penaliat community colleges fortransfer rates, when transfev projects are under-staffed, underfunded, and not even informed aboutwhat university campuses may be open to commu-nity college students, is highly unfair.

Another participant noted that the primaryreason students attend college is to achieve a betterquality of life, "and by that I mean better jobs andbetter money." In the past, a four-year degreevirtually guaranteed that. New technologies will offernew jobs, 85 percent of which will pay well withouta four-year degree. "How does this new realityaffect our discussion of transfer and what we'll bedoing in the future?"

Hayward responded that this issue is a majoritem of discussion on the national level:

"What happens if we prepare people for thework force of tomorrow and they go through theprocessand then there are no jobs tomorrow?The same thing is true of education in general.The only way I've been able to deal with this isby asking how I would want my son or daughter tobe educated. And I would want my son or daughterto be competitively well situated to face whateveruncertain future is out thereand as an educator Iwould want to move my students as far along thespectnim as I possibly can to help them be betterprepared. We can't predict the economy. But onething I know for certain is that if you don't preparepeople better for work and college, we won't be ina position to make the economy in California abetter one."

A third member of the audience stated hisbelief that "education, the California economy,and the emergence of the 'new majority' areinextricably intertwined. We've known since1974 what today's demographics would be, andtransfer has been part of our mission forever.What part does race play? Why? And whatshould we do about it?"

Finney responded that it is alarming that thehigher education system that has served Califor-nia so well "is now starting to fall apart at the

time when the populations that would take advan-tage of higher educationthat part of the com-pactare much more diverse than they've everbeen." That fact, she said, is undeniableso onemust ask about the commitment of the currentpopulation to future generations.

But, she said, "quite honestly, I think we'reall at risk right now. There's no guarantee foranybody who's played by the rules, who's doneall the things we've told them to do." The onlypeople who aren't at risk in the arena of highereducation, she stated, are "those few who stillhave enough money to buy their way into thesystem." Middle-class familiesnoware affectedalong with low-income families. We need adebate on this issue, Finney said. Opinion pollssuggest that access is the public's number onepriority. "So, how committed are we to educationalopportunity?'

Following up on the same question, Ratliffstated that "this is an absolutely critical issue thatthreatens to bifurcate society if we don't addressit." Very, very few students today are pursuingcollege to erudite, he said, or to be well-informedabout a variety of topics. They want to improve theirlife circumstances. Like it or not, "we need toeducate students for actionnot what you know,but what you're willing to do with what you know."Our institutions do a good job of what they wereintended to do: "They sort folks, and they educatethe sons and daughters of the educated." But extraattention needs to be paid to those students whodon't have that kind of family support.

Another audience participant noted that afterthe near-passage of the school voucher initiativewhich came at a time when the state's population of"people who classify themselves as white" will soonbe in the minority, demographicallythere wassome question about whether California would evenhave public education. "The [higher educationcompact] was not made with [new majority] stu-dents in mind," she said. "Therefore, we have got tochange the policy, the teachers, the teaching styles,


9 2

the decision makers, the administrators, the advi-sors, the legislators, the governor, the nationalleadership. We have not changed those areas, with

We're offering access to what?Access to a quality program

in an institutioncommitted to helping students

get through the system?

regard to diversity. While we have not changedthose things, we still expect those ideas to beapplicable to these students." Only in education, shealso said, is the standard of "less" considered"better." What's "better" about asking students fromcommunity colleges to transfer to institutions whichoffer little faculty contact and smaller faculty-studentratios?

"There's a number that seems to remainconstant" for community college transfer students,another conference participant observed, and isunrelated to how successful the community collegesare in preparing their students for transfer. Thenumber is derived from the number of slots avail-able for transfer students at the four-year institu-tions. "And the standards [at the transfer institu-tions]grade point averageswill go up in order tomaintain that same number, because otherwise the

four-year institutions would have to expand toaccommodate the demand for transfer."

Another member of the audience, however,said "if we get to that point, that won't be a prob-lembut we're not there yet."

From the standpoint of new .naj ority transferstudents, he also said, access is not now an issue."We're seeing more and more geometric growth, interms of the new majority transfers at the communitycolleges. Transfer is an outcome, and it' s one resultof retention. Yet I'm not sure how many collegesreally focus on retention. I urge, whatever we comeup with today, that we really take a look at systemicleadership on retention."

"In conjunction with that," Hayward noted, "Idon't think that every community college has doneall that it could to encourage high school students tocome to the community colleges and engage in this

enterprise. Getting high school students into collegeis a heavy recruitment responsibility. Couple thatwith an effective retention strategy, which now is"usually less than beautiful to behold," he said.

"We're offering access to what?" he askedrhetorically. "Access to a quality program in whichthe institution is committed to helping that student get

through the system?"One conference participant stated that there is

a huge population of nontraditional communitycollege studentsthose who work during the dayand attend class during the evenings and/or onweekendswho also need full access to coretransfer and vocational courses and programs.


9 0u

Panel Presentation II

Community College Overview:Roles and Responsibilities

in the Transfer Process

Moderated by Dr. Maik Edelstein, this paneldiscussion narrowed the focus from the

overall educational circumstances and "climate"for education in California to the communitycolleges themselveswhat the collcs are andare not doing to promote more effective studenttransfer. To the extent that transfer topics wereaddressed from outside the community collegesystem in the symposium's first panel discus-sion, here they are discussed by "insiders."

As with the first symposium panel discus-sion, the breadth and depth of the conversationwarranted including almost everything that wassaid. The following transcript, edited only slightly toachieve brevity and/or clarity, does just that.

The Panelists

Patrick McCallum has been Executive Directorof the Faculty Association of California Commu-nity Colleges (FACCC) since 1981. Under hisleadership, FACCC's membership has grown tomore than 6,000, and the organization hasbecome a major force in all discussions ofcommunity college policy and finance. In Dr.Edelstein's words, "He has been tenacious andtireless in his advocacy, not just for faculty butfor the colleges themselves. He is a street fighterwith a vicious arsenal of statistics, but also anidealist sin,:xely committed to the principles ofaccess and quality which undergird the entirecommunity college system." A fellow in the presti-

gious CORO Foundation Program, Mr. McCallumworked as an aide to Assemblymember JohnVasconcellos before beginning his tenure at

FACCC.

Dr. Richard Moore is President of SantaMonica College. Under his leadership, SantaMonica has developed a reputation for excel-lence and innovation, both within California andnationally. According to Dr. Edelstein, Dr.Moore is an original thinker "whose sometimesoutrageous ideas would be dismissed out of handif they didn't have the disconcerting habit ofsomehow proving successful."

Regina Stanback-Stroud is President of thestatewide Academic Senate. She formerlyserved as Vice-President of that organization,and as chair of the Affirmative Action, LocalSenate Relations, and Student Equity commit-tees. She is a member of the Health ScienceDepartment at Rancho Santiago College, and arecipient of that college's Distinguished FacultyAward. Ms. Stanback-Stroud has served in manycapacities on the Rancho Santiago campus,including President of the local AcademicSenate, advisor to the African Black StudentUnion, and mentor in the Higher Ground Pro-gram. "Her name has proven prophetic of herleadership style," according to Dr. Edelstein,"which is both regal in demeanor and forceful inapproach."


24

David Viar is Executive Director of the CommunityCollege Leal; te of California. The league's primaryfUnctions include research in educational policydevelopment, support for trustee and staff develop-ment, and representation before the executive andlegislative branches of both the state and federalgovernments. Mr. Viar has served as ExecutiveDirector of both the National Association of Com-munity College Trustees and the California Commu-nity College Trustees Association. According toEdelstein, "He has proven enormously successful indeveloping consensus, forging coalitions, andconvincing 107 disparate entities to occasionallypresent themselves as a unified system with a singlepoint of view."

The Panel Discussion

Edelstein: Going back to the study by theNational Center for Higher Education Manage-ment I mentioned earlier, there will be a 50percent increase in higher education enrollmentsbetween now and the year 2006a move from915,000 full-time equivalent students to 1.4million. Their conclusionwhatever happens tothe state economy, and however steep the in-creases in tuition may beis that without signifi-candy altering the basic assumptions and poli-cies which direct higher education, we '11 simplybe unable to serve anything close to this numberof students. Do you share this view of educationin California? And if so, what kinds of assump-tions should we be examining at this point?

Moore: I think such pessimism is correct. Ithink California' s colleges are going to becomelike other colleges in the nationwith majortuition charges. We're well on our way there,with $35 per unit now the norm. Second, I thinkthe transfer job is going to become more diffi-cult, because I think the University of Californiaand California State Universityparticularly UCare going to take fewer students. At Santa MonicaCollege, we see our primary job as transfer. So

when the primary place I want to transfer mystudents is to UC, and UC is going to take fewerstudents, there's a serious question about whetherthe Master Plan is a good plan. We're not followingit. We have, instead, separate and unequal partiesthat it will be harder and harder to couple.

So, I have some pessimism. We've gonethrough about eight years of tough times. I prefer notto ignore the last eight years. They represent a trend.And it's a trend the politicians are going to stay with.They like downsizing education. They're upsizingprisons. They like giving us tuition. And they're notgoing to pressure the University of California to takemore transfer students.

Edelstein: David, you and Patrick were verymuch involved in the last review of the MasterPlan, which essentially reaffirmed the currentstructure [of higher education]. How do you feelabout that now? Is the Master Plan an outdatedframework for California?

Viar: No, I don't believe the Master Plan isoutdated. I believe some of our ideas on how toachieve it are outdated. I also think, unlikeRichard's [pessimistic view], that the publicbelieves very strongly in access to higher education.

It's a trend politiciansare going to stay with.They like downsizing

education. They like upsizingprisons.

And I think that's an area that we in educationhaven't tapped enough. Some of the polling done bythe Higher Education Policy Center has shownstrong support among the general public for theconcept of access to higher education. Now, thedefmition of higher educationwhat that means,what the specific expectations are---can certainly


25

vary. I think we have to do more in convincing thegeneral public that v. have to do some thingsdifferently. But the basic underpinning ofthe MasterPlanaccess to higher education, the role of the

IWNIN./

The social contract regardingeducation in California

has changed sincethe 1960s and 1970s.

111,11L- .11111B

community colleges, and the role of the universi-tiesI believe is still strong, and still appropriate forthe coming years.

McCallum: Going back to your first question, ifyou look at your 500,000 FTES, that translates intoabout 800,000 more students. Given the current taxstructure in this state, if we keep the same fundingmechanisms there will not be enough money to fund800,000 more students. So I'm more interestednow in what we do about that.

The first thing we could do is talk about whatthe Master Plan is, what our vision is, what's impor-tant. For the sake of education, we have to do whatthe Governor and the Legislature did on crime. Injust six months they agreed to spend an additional$2 billion per year, they agreed to add to the cost ofgovernment, to deal with ci ime. If they could do thaton the issue of crime, educators need to put forththe vision of what we believe in, what's importantabout education, and talk about that. If we don'ttalk about the importance of education, no one elsewill. The fact is, the politics of this state do interre-late.

The social contract regarding education inCalifornia has changed since the 1960s and 1970s.Here's what's different: 80 percent of the voters inthis state are white, yet 55 percent of those whomost use government services-45 percent at thecommunity collegesare culturally and ethnically

diverse. There has been a direct correlation withpolitical changes in this state.

Secondly, we have to be able to change. Wehave to rethink how we do things. We know thatwith more direct contact with students, successrates increase. We need to look at new strategies,new teaching techniques. We need to look atdistance learning, at least partially. We need torestructure the University of California system.We need to achieve simpler goals for the good ofthe system. We have to be open to finding waysto educate more students. Fraitkly, the Legisla-ture is going to have to force us to do itUC,CSU, and the community colleges.

But whatever we do, we're still not going tobe able to educate 800,000 more students by2006. The third issue is prioritization. Whodoesn't get to go to college? Someone will nothave access. We have to be willing to talk aboutthat. Politicians don't want to admit it, forpolitical reasons. People in the colleges anduniversities don't want to discuss it, since thatwould amount to political suicide.

Clearly, our first priority must be educatingthe "new majority" students, particularly first-generation college students. After that, the toughwork really begins.

Edelstein: Regina, what do you think about tinsnotion of "prioritization," or downsizing? Anumber offaculty I've spoken to, when pushedon the issue, think it wouldn't be a bad idea forthe community colleges to do less of this or lessof thatand to, in fact, deal with a smaller,"more teachable" cohort of students. Does theAcademic Senate have a position on this?

Stanback-Stroud: The Senate doesn't yet have aformal position. It's my perspective that the basicassumptions we have in the Master Plan, the basicassumptions upon which we base much of ourimplementation, are probably right and just. But thetranslation of those into implementation is different.When we talk about doing less, about how some


26

students may not have access to education, I thinkwe also need to be talking about the alternatives.Many students are interested in achieving a higher

The assumptions of theMaster Plan are

elite assumptions.

standard of livingeven at UC, where the biggestvocational education programs are called theCollege ofMedicine and the College of Dentistry.There may be alternatives to transfer. And there maybe alternatives to transfer to UC and CSU, espe-cially in the area of economic development activities.

Ultimately, if you look at the assumptions of theMaster Plan, they are elite assumptions. If the top12 percent of students go to UC, even if you haveyour fourth graders reading Toni Morrison andFaulkner there is still going to be a top 12 percent.Perhaps that assumption needs to be reconsid-eredbecause no matter how successful we are ineducating our students, there will always be a"bottom part" to the hierarchy, and we have towatch what we assume about what wyshould dowith that bottom part.

Moore: 1 don't want to be misread. I respondedto your question with "Where are we going?" not"What's good." We're kidding ourselves if anyonethinks things are going well. Go visit your localcollege and ask if their fall plan is for a larger studentpopulation, same size, or smaller. I'm not talkingabout what's good, I'm talking about what we'redoing. The forecast is bad. And I think we can do aheck of a lot to change things. But that's a differentquestion, "Can we do something different?"

In my opinion there are some things we coulddo differently.

The Master Plan, in my view, is a bigoted,prejudicial plan. You take the top 12 percent ofstudents and send them to palaces and then givethem twice the amount of money per student,

then ask how well are they doing? You give me thatmodel and I'lltake all comers. You give me half themoney, so-so facilities, then ask, how well am Idoing? It's not an even playing field.

But I'm willing to live with an uneven playingfield, if you will untie my hands. Here's an example:

We run a great nursing program at SantaMonica College. Nobody lets me run my nursesthrough to a baccalaureate degree. And I can dothat at Santa Monica without adding one facultymember or one course to my curriculum. I alreadyrun a two-year vocational nursing program, and Ialready run a liberal arts degree program. Butnobody lets my students stay for 120 units on mycampus and get the R.N. major and liberal artsdegreethe general education programand letsme hook those two together. Nobody lets me say:"You've got a bachelor of science degree. Youdon't have to worry about articulation." And I don'thave to get one more teacher. I could run a BSdegree program in nursing and start cranking out BSdegrees, without any cost to the state of Califor-

I think it's time to trysome experiments.

I don't want to just sitaround and whine about

why I don't haveenough money, about why

I can't do the job.

nia. But the state has no interest in doing that. Ingeneral, there's no interest in doing that.

We have all the resources today to maintainquality, to use our own faculty to teach academicclasses and issue baccalaureate degrees. Minoritieswould have four-year degrees.

You ask, where are the minorities? They'resitting in the community colleges, they're sitting at


Santa Monica College, which is 35 percent white.We happen to have the best transfer rate in the stateof California. But I could double my baccalaureatedegree rate if someone would let me offer a bacca-laureate in nursing. I could also do it in accounting. Ifthe goal is to get more peopleand, in particular,more people of colorthrough to a four-yeardegree, I "own" the resources to do that on mycampus and am legally blocked from doing that job.

I think it's time to try some experiments. Idon't want to just sit around and whine aboutwhy I don't have enough money, about why Ican't do the job. Just let me roll up my sleeves.We said that we would transfer more African-American students to UC than any other college.And we do. It's up to the college president to getthe job done. But most college presidents justmousy around. If the president doesn't get thejob done, then get rid of the president. [Wildapplause.]

Edelstein: There are two important issues herethat I'd like to come back to. One is the issue ofcommunity college commitment to transfer, therole of leadership in that, and the other is theissue of the community college baccalaureatedegree. But there was another point you made,Dickwhat's happening this fall. Communitycollege enrollments will be smaller. Predictionsof a 50 percent increase in demand notwith-standing, what we're actually seeing are de-clines in most community colleges around thestate.

What 's your perception about what 's hap-pening? Is this entirely an issue of studentsgetting discouraged by this constant drumbeatabout higher fees and less access, or are thereother factors in play?

McCallum: The impact on some 130,E0students is not all that complex. The $50-per-unitBA differential fee eliminated about 60,000 stu-dents, strictly due to cost. We know that when wewent to $13 per unit for all other students, that was

another 25,000 or 30,000 students, based on cost.And we've eliminated 12,000 course sectionsstatewide. You don't eliminate 12,000 sections andavoid losing students! We've cut back access in this

system, much like what CSU has done.Recently, we've artificially reduced the cap,

which has given the districts the ability to cut backon courses still further.

Meanwhile, we're seeing that communitycollege students are getting younger. We're pickingup some CSU students, though not many UCstudents, and our retention rates are increasing.We're seeing much more interest, again, in increas-ing transfer as a function of the community colleges.

The issue that comes around is, we have to beopen to change but it's always a zero-sum game.Yeah, great idealet's offer baccalaureate degrees,as Richard proposed. Very good idea, because weknow that people with BA or BS egrees will dobetter in fife. National fact: People with high schooldegrees or less are unemployed now at the rate of

If we increase thenumber of slots

for baccalaureate degrees,what do we not offer?

about 11 percent, while that's 3.4 percent forpeople with baccalaureate degrees. There's a directcorrelation with level of education. Whatever thejobs are, they go to people with degrees.

But if we increase the number of slots at SantaMonica College for baccalaureate nursing degrees,what do we not offer?

What's the implication when 75 percent ofcommunity college students need basic skills orremedial education? Gerry Hayward is absolutelyright, the high schools should do a better job.Butthat's not going to happen next year.

The fact is, these students are coming in. Theyneed to upgrade their skills and training. The fact is,


they need two-year degrees. The fact is, the voca-tional education students are the neglected majority.Most people will not transfer. Somehow we have tolook at all this in totality, in a zero-sum way.

Richard's idea, and other innovative ideasIthink we ought to try them, to model them, and seewhat happens.

At the same time we have to look at our totalmission and how these things interrelate in numbers.Right now, out of1.34 million community collegestudents, 50,000 students each year transfer to UCor CSU or independent colleges. What are those

We graduate morecommunity college studentsfrom CSU than those who

started at CSU.Six out of ten CSU graduates

started at thecommunity colleges.

other students doing? Our mission is also to educatethe future work force of California.

Moore: I think we could double the number ofstudents transferring to UC if we wanted to. I don'tknow where the laws are that would force UC toaccept them, but any college out here could doubletheir number of UC transfer students. They won'taccept them. They keep increasing the acceptableGPA. According to the Master Plan, the necessaryGPA is 2.4. But nobody ever reads the MasterPlan. It's not 2.4. It's 3.2, or 3.9. We're the sec-ond-highest transfer school to UC Berkeleyand4.0s don't make it into Berkeley. So, to serve ourstudents, we make jointdouble--or triple orquadruple applications for our students. Because ifUC Berkeley won't take you, Riverside will. I backup my students.

How many of you do denial counseling? It

needs to be done. Because most of us learned a badrule. The rule we learned was, if you get turneddown by UC you can't go. That's dumb. The rulethat works is, call UC and ask them why you didn'tget in. And they will tell you, precisely: "You didn'ttake Math 20." Or, "You'd be accepted if youchanged your major." Or, "Why don't you agree t.accept a one-semester delay?" Most people don'tknow that you can negotiate with the University ofCaliforniastudent by student. But that calls forsome personal contact between you and the UCtransfer transcript analyst, who you've got to takeout to lunch. [Laughter.] So later you can call thatperson and ask why your student didn't get in. Andthey'lltell you, and maybe make some suggestions.

I love you, Patrick, but this is not about jobtraining or the state of the state's economy.

This is about getting students into the Univer-sity of California. We already own the CSU system.We graduate more community college students fromCSU than those who started at CSU. Six of tenCSU graduates started at the community col-leges. But the UC system is the elite system, andif we're sending 15,000 now, we could send30,000.

Yet UC is not a wonderful place for allpeople. We have learned that some of our African-American students do not feel comfortable at UC.They don't want to be the token students at thatschool. So we said, "OK, then, what's your gameplan?" They said: Historically black colleges angreat alternativesprivate schools, because theirtuition rate is onL-third less than all the other privatecolleges and universities.

So now Santa Monica College is the largestfeeder school to historically black colleges. ForAfrican-Americans, we bifurcate the markethalfto UC, half to historically black schools. But thatcalls for a specific plan. You transfer more studentsby creating more slots.

Viar: But in addition to creating more slots, youalso have to think a bit differently about the 'ssueof course-to-course articulation. You described all


29

of the different one-on-one activities that needed totake place in order for your people to get studentsinto those increased slots. How absurd that is, thatuniversity professorsand not just UC, but CSU aswellare cutting. Even CSU is cutting, they're nolonger accepting large numbers of transfer students.[CSU Chancellor] Barry Munitz has decided thatthey'll find places to cut back. So I'm not sure wereally have this one covered.

I think we have to start putting on some realpressure statewide, talking about a new ap-proachan assessment-based transfer or compe-tency-based transfer model, one not based on acourse and what it looks like and how it's taughtas determined by a UC or CSU professor. In-stead, we need to get our respective facultytogetherprobably forced by legislative action,because that seems to be the only way to getthings goingand sit down and develop thosecompetencies that are expected when studentsenter their junior- and senior-level courses. Whatkinds of skills Jo they need in order to succeedin those classes? Not what book they learnedfrom, not what syllabus was available for thatclass, not what method they were taught bybutwhat is needed to succeed.

If we get away from the course-to-course,one-on-one activity, we don't have to devote somuch attention to calling UC administrators andasking why that student wasn't accepted and whatwe need to change. Each time a division or depart-ment meets at UC, they change the requirements.

We need to get down to talking about what itis that we are delivering. That means we in thecommunity colleges need to be prepared to startdoing some assessments, to show what skill levelsstudents demonstrate when they have an associatedegee. How nice it would be to be in the positionwith the Legislature to say that if a student has anassociate degree from a California communitycollege, we know that's quality, we know that whatthe student learns is appropriate. And our studentswould be automatically guaranteed junior status at

UC or CSU.

I suggest we need a double effortthe stateeffort to increase the numbers, but also our efforts,to change the way in which we look at articulation.

Edelstein: That's exactly what people who havenot been through the community college system

assume happensthat when somebody gets anAA degree, that's automatic access to a four-year institution. The kind of system you describe,David, is a little bit like the Florida system, inwhich both community college students and theuniversity's native students have to show specificcompetencies to rise to the junior level. Regina,what would be the faculty response be to asystem like that?

Stan back-Stroud: I think you need to look at theissue of competencies within whatever context you

are presenting. If you're talking about competencies

as a tool for advice and placement, that's differentthan talking about competencies to serve as a gate[to determine access]. We just had the discussion atthe [Academic Senate] session.

For example, the suggestion showed up in theCommission on Innovation report on exit testing.Basically that would allow students to attend com-munity college with the test determining whether or

What is it that historicallyblack colleges and

universities are doing thatwe can learn from?

not he or she would receive an associate degree.Should we as faculty support that? It was ourassertion that if a student goes to the communitycolleges, meets the class objectives, takes those fmalexams, and is successful, then that should certify that

that student is qualified to receive an associatedegree. If, however, you're looking at exit exams or

Community Colleges Transfer Symposium: Preparingfor the Year 2000 29

3

competency exams as a way to measure what wewant students to achieve, then we would look at thatand make decisions about how we would deliverthat instruction what methodology we would use,what approach we would use. That would be adifferent aspect of competencies.

While we might have to look at the state'sneeds and at the institution and its commitment, wealso have to look at the faculty and the teaching ofdifferent material. And when I say faculty, I mean allfaculty, because all facultyinstructional faculty,counseling faculty, learning resources faculty, everyone of those facultyteach, whether they teach aclass of 30 or they teach a class of one.

I came from Howard University, and I havelong been asking, "What is it that historicallyblack colleges and universities are doing that wecan learn from to increase our students' success?"

I will tell you that walking on Howard's cam-puscoming from being raised in the south, comingfrom segregationwas the experience for me. Thismay seem foreign and very "historical" to manypeople, but I'm young enough to remember drinkingfrom colored-only fountains, to remember that wecouldn't go inside the bus station, that we couldn'tsit at the counter in restaurants. It's phenomenal thatmy mother, who didn't have a formal education,ended up getting me to this stage today. HowardUniversity had a lot to do with that. I don't believethat the University of California or CSU could havetaken Regina Stanback at that point and helped tomake Regina Stanback what she is today. AtHoward, I was going to succeed. It was just amatter of when and how. My faculty at Howardknew that, and they made me know that.

We can learn things from schools like Howard.The average teaching style doesn't take into accountour differenceswhether students are relationallearners or analytical learners. It so happens thatcommon teaching practices value, reward, support,and advance the analytical or "linear" learner. Thathappens to be the learning style of people whoclassify themselves as vitae. People who classifythemselves as other ethnic groups are predominantly

relational learners.My son is a good example of what happens to

relational learners. By the time he was in the thirdgrade he was in trouble. "He's not doing his work.He's a behavior problem. He' s a discipline prob-lem." By the time we got down to dealing with theissue, I heard: "They've got to learn responsibility.We're not going to lower our standards." When Itook him out of that situation and had him tested, itturned out he was intellectually gifted. In one year, inanother situation, he was performing three gradelevels higherthree grade levels according to theirevaluation. Had I not made that move, or had theresources to make that move, there would havebeen one more child lost. And you all wouldhave been sitting here saying, "How can we gethim offthe streets and into our colleges?" Teachingstyles have a direct effect on transfer.

If you look at who's doing the teaching,there's an enrichment that can take place just byhaving diverse perspectives. I know that thecontent of melanin in your skin does not neces-sarily give you a richer perspective than anybodyelse. But your experiences may, your thinkingpatterns, the way you receive information. Weare all very different individuals.

Edelstein: It's getting a little difficult to corralthe 700 or 800 great ideas that are floatingaround out there. But I'd like to get back to theissue of competency-based education. There area lot of strong opinions on both sides, about thevalue and validity of competency-based educa-tion and about the possibility of developing asystem that does not have a disproportionateeffect on underrepresented groups. Patrick youwork closely with the Legislature. Is therediscussion of this kind of system? After thefailure of AB 1725 and SB 121 to make a signifi-cant difference in transfer effectiveness, is therea discussion of more radical solutions?

McCallum: If you go to competency-basedarticulation, there's one thing that will never


34

changeand that is that UC and CSU faculty willbe involved in determining what that competencybase is. So you're going to exchange one set ofproblemscourse numbering, what courses areacceptablefor what is probably a more difficultset of problems, especially looking at the incredibleproblems facing community colleges across the

state.The second thing that's not going to change

comes from constitutional protections. You're notgoing to take away departmental authority andfaculty authority to determine courses from theUniversity of California. It's just not going to hap-pen. And as long as a two-thirds vote is required,you're not going to get major tax increases [tosupport education] in this state.

So I can tell you, as I did, that we ought to talkabout our visionincluding transferring morecommunity college students to UC. But we're stuckwith some existing situations.

The Legislature is moving toward more ac-countability in education. They're spending billions,and they're asking, "What's happening with thestudents? Are they learning?" The direction istoward requiring more accountability. Measure themat the freshman level then measure them at the exitlevel, and see how they've succeeded.

Many in the community colleges say, "Comeup with a test that's valid, that we believe in, and

that's not discriminatory." If we thought coming upwith a common course numbering system was adifficult job . . [Laughter]. So again, we have goodideas about where we want to go, but how do wedo it?

Richard is right. We transfer based on thenumber of slots UC determines, the year before,that they'll accept. The fact is, if they took morestudents, we've got students who are eligible to go

in.

So, the first issue is slots. We're not going toget the University of California to dramaticallyincrease slots. We can get them, over time, to createmore slots. That makes sense for the students andmakes sense for the state, given the cost issue. But

the big numbers are at CSU. We still transfer35,000 to 40,000 students to CSU, and in twoyears CSU has dropped by 4,000 slots while UChas stayed the same. There have to be incentives forJowth.

Another issue is articulation. The same issuesare here that have been here forever. We need toapply some common logic to benefit students. Theyought to be able to come in, know what courses areacceptable, and whether they can get in or not.

The third issue is what Regina is talking about,the value of collaborative learning.

We can't get so focused on everything elsethat's going on at the community colleges thatwe lose our emphasis on teaching. That has to beour primary focus.

..111111W.

There are about threepeople in the Legislature

who probably careabout transfer or

who really understandthat it's an issue.

Viar: There are about three people in the Legksla-ture who probably care about transfer orwho really

understand that it's an issue.

McCallum: That many?

Viar: Well, I wanted to be nice, just in case Imissed a couple. The one I know of is SenatorGary Hart, who has consistently brought forwardsuggestions for improving transfer. But SenatorHart is leaving. We, as community colleges,have not put forth the effort to lobby the Legisla-ture on this subject with the same kind of vigorthat we do when it comes to the budget. When itcomes to the budget, we're well organized.


32

Every union, every faculty association, the Aca-demic Senate, the League, the administrators, theCEOs all do a halfway decent job of coming to-gether and presenting our needs for money.

But when was the last time we sat down asgroups and asked, "What can we do to bring thisproblem to the attention of the Legislature?" Howmany anecdotes can we pull together that put ahuman face to the kinds of situations that RichardMoore was describing? We need to let the legisla-tors know "Your voters are being faced with this,and it's a growing problem."

If we made a major commitment to put this onthe forefront of our legislative agenda, legislatorsmight start talking about some creative solutions.That means, one, we have to have the commitment;two, we have to have some idea of what we want topropose; and, three, we have to have the guts to goup against UC and its powerful lobby and CSU andits fairly strong lobby to push thiseven if it meansembarrassment.

We compromised on SB 121. We didn't needto compromise, I don't think, at that point. Wecertainly need to raise the level of discussion. TheLegislature, right now, doesn't care and isn't aware.

Edelstein: Well, clearly, if the problem is num-ber of slots, as Patrick suggests is the majorproblem, what kind of proof do we have thatthere's a cohort of well-prepared students in thecommunity colleg:s who have been deniedaccess to UC and CSU?

Moore: That's not the issue. There's lots ofevidence ofthat. That's begging the question. TheMaster Plan says [the required GPA is] 2.4 and ex-number of units. Based on that, we can send twiceas many students. They've raised the GPA in orderto ration access. They have restricted how manyslots there are for transfer. We need the battle to getmore slots opened up.

I think we need to do some other things. Thestate's not going to change. They're going to talkand chitchat. It's going to be the same in ten years.

In my opinion, don't waste your time. But you canchange your institutions.

I think we should honor the ten best transfercenter directors. Get them up here, and get them totrade secrets.

Number twoI'm a capitalist at heart, I teacheconomicsthere is no reward for doing a betterjob. Nobody says, "The ten best transfer collegesare [fill in the blanks] and here's an extra $50,000."

Stanback-Stroud: Define "best."

Moore: You make the definition. You define it,OK? And then I'd reward them. But we treat it justlike a government bureaucracy.

Stanback-Stroud: But you're talking aboutnumbers.

Moore: You define it. Nobody rewards excel-lence. Nobody says, "The school that transfers themost African-Americans to UC gets an extra$50,000." That might get them to hire extra counse-lors. Nobody says, "Let's take the transfer centerbudget of the Chancellor's Office and use it toreward outstanding performance."

McCallum: Ten campuses transfer 60 percent [ofall transfer students]?

Edelstein: Twenty campuses transfer 50 per-cent. Another 20 campuses at the bottom trans-fer a total of 2 percent.

Stanback-Stroud: But the issue is not the num-bers, not necessarily just the numbers. Let's taketwo hypothetical colleges. Say I have a large num-ber of students who don't speak English as a firstlanguage, and I take that diverse population ofstudents and they succeedwhether it's throughtransfer or through completion of the programandI transfer ten. And another college starts withstudents comfortable with English and they did have


33

all those skills and came in with the reading levelsthat they needed, etcetera. And they transfer twenty.That doesn't mean they did a better job. Both of uswere successful, and my guess is that I had a harderjob. The number doesn't define the success or thecriteria.

I think results count.I think you can challenge

your faculty to make adifference. I'd like to see the

Chancellor's Officereward schools

that do a good job.

Moore: I think that's a nice speech. But I thinknumbers do count. I think the story you tell is animportant story and that accomplishment ought to berewarded. But I also think the people who transferstudents ought to be rewarded. We at Santa Monicahave a reputation, and we draw students from allover Los Angeles. The message is, "If you want ahope of changing your life, get to Santa Monica.Because Santa Monica will get you to the Universityof California." If you don't care to get to UC, go tosome other college. There are a lot of them in theLA basin, maybe 20.

You should stand there on Pico Boulevard andwatch people get off the buses. Those are all peopleof color getting off those buses and coming to thiscollege, because they know we are the one chancethey have of getting into the University of California.And they come with whatever skill levels they have.And we send more African-Americans to UC thanany other college in this state. We send moreLatinos to the University of California than any othercollege in this state.

I think results count. I think you can challenge

your faculty to make a difference. I'd like to see theChancellor's Office reward schools that do a goodjob. And I'd like to see us try some pilot programs.Try a baccalaureate degree program. We're goingto have to do some things differently. If you want tochange the state of California, good luck. But wecan do some things locally.

Edelstein: Colleges respond to incentives. Butstudents also respond to incentives. The bill theChancellor talked about earlier, SB 1672, is thata Hart bill? That bill establishes the CCIP, theCommunity College Incentive Program, whichwouldfor students who were originally eligiblefor UC--guarantee admission to UC if they didtheir first two years at a community college, andwould waive their fees for their junior and senioryears. That 's a very powerful incentive, and itsounds like a very, very positive program. Butthere are some negatives as well. Some concerns&rye been expressed that this program wouldwork to the disadvantage of so-called "native"community college students, those who are notoriginally eligible for UC or CSU. What 's thediscussion around the state on this piece oflegislation?

McCallum: Based on general discussion in theLegislature, it's popular, given the issue of increasedfees at UC. It's a way for many parents to deal withthe cost of getting their kids through UC. There'sgeneral bipartisan support. The issues for thecommunity colleges are great, though, and I thinkthey will come out.

First of all, 85 percent of all ,:ommunity collegestudents who transfer to UC were not UC-eligible atthe time they started community college. So the factis, if you don't increase the number of slots at theUniversity ofCalifornia, you are creating a displace-ment for those students. That's the first issue that hasto be dealt with.

The second issue is, you're driving morestudents into the community colleges, which doespresent the possibility of driving up our costs unless


we're funded for the added Egowth. Hart's billestablishes a pilot program, so the immediate impactis not great, but at some point we would have tolook at that.

The third issue is, if UC is not receiving fees forthose students, then they're going to say, "Well,backfill those fees." The minute you do that, you'vecreated a new cost. The Legislature will not fund it.

So, what we'll end up with is a system thatgoes back to what our SB 121 was: You're UC-eligible, you elect to start at the community colleges,and you'llbe guaranteed admission if you completethese courses. Because of cost and access, thedirection is to drive more students into the commu-nity college system over time.

But unless we make a major effort, UC will notincrease, proportionately, the number of transferslots to match the demand. It'll probably gothrough, but it'll get back to what we were originallytalking about with SB 121. The University ofCalifornia will have to find slots for those students."If you have to go to 30/70, if you have to rear-range your graduate programs, that's fine. Just fmda slot for these students."

Viar: I've heard basically the same thing, fromfaculty leaders and others. I've heard a concernabout the effect on students who come to thecommunity colleges not eligible for UC or CSU.Will we end up with an elite little group on ourcampuses who are "the UC eligible," treated verywell, and then sent off to UC and CSU?

But on the other hand, I think we need to goback to this concept of being creative, launchingpilot projects, trying new things. We're very good,at the community colleges, at tearing down otherpeople's new ideas and coming up with all thereasons it won't work. With 106 colleges, it's veryeasy to find five people to come up with argumentsagainst your idea. I think we ought to be coura-geous enough to step forward and say: "It's a newidea, it has some merit, let's work on how we candeal with some of the problems. But let's moveforward with it." And that's what I'm encouraging

people to do. It's one of those that can be a goodpilot project. We can find out what the flaws are. Itlets the issue I raised earlier come forward, talkingwith legislators about the transfer problem and thecost and all the others. I think it's something weneed to pursuevigorously.

Stanhack-Stroud: It still gives us the opportunity,though, to make sure we continue to serve thestudents we were intended to serve. If you have thisgroup of students come inand because of budgetcuts it's already so competitive just to get a mathclass or English classthey may compete with ourstudents. Our students may not know the strategynecessarywaiting in line all night before registra-tionto win a seat in that class. So we need tomake sure we continue to pay attention, and not endup displacing those students with UC-readystudents.

Viar: There was a study done at San Diego StateUniversity that hasn't been released yet, and I thinkit fits in here with some of what we've been talkingabout. It was a study of the 1992 graduates at SanDiego State who had stalled in the communitycollege, who had transferred.

The average student was 20 years old whenhe or she started at the community college, andtook five years before entering the university. Thatgroup-59 percenthad interrupted their studiesat the community college during that five years atleast two times, some for as long as four semesters.Twenty-five percent had failed at least one commu-nity college course, 75 percent had dropped atleast one course, and 70 percent had taken reme-dial courses. That was the group that had gotten toSan Diego State, had transferred, and then suc-cessfully gotten their degrees.

Once they got to San Diego State University,five years after starting at community college, onlyseven percent interrupted their studies, only one-fourth dropped a course. And they graduated inthree years.

So what we're seeing is, a large number of


3 5

these students who we could very easily just writeoff"We can get our numbers, we can get ourUC students, we've done our transfer mission"can' t be written off. We can't forget the studentsyou all are working with all the time, day to day.The faculty need to be paying attention, too,because we see that once they got through com-munity college, they understood the value of thatbaccalaureate degreeand were ready to persistonce they hit the university. And they graduatedwith a .1 percent higher GPA than the university'snative students.

McCallum: That's where the policy debate is.Our policy makers still assume the traditionalcollege student. Despite all of our efforts toeducate legislators, they don't realize that that isour student. David's right. We need to tell legisla-tors. That hasn't happened.

The original idea of the Master Plan, in 1960,was to go to 40/60 to create slots for communitycollege studentsand to assure a transfer pro-gram in the community colleges. In the beginningUC-eligible students often started at communitycollege. Then UC and CSU made a concertedeffort to take more freshman students, and thenumber of community college transfers droppedcorrespondingly. There was a direct correlation.

So we maintain our core academic curricu-lum, and attract those UC and C SU students sowe can offer those advanced courses. Yet at thesame time we must recognize that our students aredifferent now than they were 20 or 25 years agoand need a different kind of educational climate.It's a tricky balance.

Comments from the Audience

Dr. Edelstein noted that now there are fewerresources to support the transfer function at

the community colleges, along with minimal feed-back from CS U and UC about "what the slotsare, where the transfer slots are, and when they'regoing to be open." The entire articulation process,

he said, at least at the local level, seems mucn lesssatisfactory than even a few years ago.

"Strong leadership" from the communitycolleges is what's needed to move transfer stu-dentsparticularly underrepresented studentsthrough the system, one participant stated.Decategorization of transfer and other special-purpose funds, he said, represents the "deathcountwe won't see these kinds of funds by theend of the decade."

Another member of the audience reiteratedthe importance of community colleges emulatingpractices of historically black colleges for thebenefit of the community colleges' native stu-dentsand about transferring students to thosecolleges. Dr. Edelstein observed that what thosecolleges do, like most small liberal arts colleges, "isnot mysterious"giving enormous amounts ofsupport and encouragement to their students."When we givefive percent of that kind of supportto our students, people say we're coddling ourstudents. It takes a different attitude about successand failure."

Patrick McCallum discussed FACCC' sexploration, with Dr. John Matsui of UC Berkeley,of offering a statewide workshop on diversityissues inside and outside the classroomand

You are expected to do well,you are expected to graduate,there's no question about it."

distributing that information and experiencethroughout the college system.

Richard Moore followed up with the observa-tion that "formal mentoring" for many nontraditionalstudents is critical. "That's what you do on campuswhen you run out of money." It's the college'sresponsibility, not the counselor's. "If you can'tmentor a student, you don't belong in education."

Regina Stanback-Stroud talked about her


experiences as a mentor in the Higher GroundProgramand also suggested that faculty col-leagues fmd out just what students experience whenthey arrive on campus, from tying to obtain basicinformation to actually making it through registration.How all campus personnel respond is critical."Sometimes what seems real simple to the personsitting behind that desk are extreme barriers andextreme obstacles to those trying to receive thatservice."

Moore concurred. "You've got to train theentire campus. I want my parking security officer tosay 'Glad to see you back on campus, great outfit'rather than throwing them up against the wall. Andmake your admissions people stand in line. Oncethey stand in line they'll change that process. I dothat to my deans, too." [Laughter]

One participant observed that at historicallyblack colleges and universities, "you are expectedto do well, you are expected to graduate, there's noquestion about it."


37

Discussion Session I

Student Equity and Diversityin the Transfer Process

Despite good intentions and genuine commitmentat various levels of California higher education.,

students of color continue to be underrepresented,proportionately, in the ranks of transfer students. Itis also true that a lower percentage of these studentsgo on to receive baccalaureate and graduate de-grees. What roles can the community colleges playin improving the academic success of all students?

Two individuals were invited to discuss thisparticular issue.

Dr. Penny Edgert, Assistant Director forAcademic Programs and Policy for the Califor-nia Postsecondary Education Commission(CPEC), received her B.A. in psychology andher master's degree in ;riology from the Uni-versity of California at Santa Barbara. Shereceived a Ph.D. in Measurement, Evaluation,and Statistical Analysis from the University ofChicago. Dr. Edgert has held a variety of policyanalysis and research positions at prestigiousinstitutions around the country. Starting in 1971,her career became increasingly focused onassisting people who do not usually benefit fromthe higher education system.

Dr. John Matsui is an alumnus of UC Berke-ley, where he earned a B.A. in ecology and amaster's degree in behavioral ecology. He earnedhis doctorate, in science education, from UC SantaBarbara. Dr. Matsui has been very active on theBerkeley campus in attempting to change attitudeson race and diversity. He is currently working toincrease the numbers of ethnic minority studentswithin the molecular biology department, with thehelp of a punt from the Howard Hughes Medical

Institute.The panel presentation and the audience

discussion that followed were facilitated by TrusteeLynn Baranco of the Peralta Community CollegeDistrict

The Discussion

In 1988 the California Legislature "became veryconcemed about the uneven success of the

educational system in educating students fromdifferent racial and ethnic backgrounds," Edgertsaid. "Specifically I would argue that the educationalsystems in this country and in this state have beenmore successful in educating white and Asian

Atudents than they have been in educating black andLatino students."

Edgert asked the audience to "reflect on theway I said thatbecause the way in which it isnormally said is that black and Latino studentsare less successful in education than are whiteand Asian students." The onus, she said, isactually on the education system.

Also in 1988, the California PostsecondaryEducation Commission issued a declaration ofpolicy on educational equity that had a quantita-tive goal: "The goal of educational equity isachieved when the composition of [groups oflindividuals at all educational levels, from el-ementary schools to college faculty and adminis-trative ranks, mirrors the demography of thestate. Realizing this goal requires enhanced successat all education levels, so that there is similarachievement among all goups."


38

That statementlike most statements aboutthe aims of student equity efforts, Edgert ob-servedis quantitative, when the real goal isqualitative. "The goal of education is achieved,"she said, "when pluralism and excellence are equalpartners in a quality educational environment,especially with regard to curriculum, teaching,research, and public service."

Both quality and quantity, as they relate toeducational equity, are important, Edgert said.A CPEC' s study of student equity began withthe question the Legislature asked: Is it feasibleto develop an educational equity assessment sys-tem? But, she said, CPEC ended up answeringanother question: Is it possible to develop anassessment system that evaluates "campus climate"?

Campus climate can be defined as "the formaland informal environmentboth institutional andcommunity-basedin which individuals learn,teach, work, and live in a postsecondary setting."

The perceptions of students, faculty, and staffare crucial in examining campus climate, accordingto Edgert, because people' s perceptions determinewhat people do, not any "objective" view of reality.Perceptions are the proper lens through which toview campus climate, she argued, though thatconcept still lacks acceptance in many quarters.

After lengthy interviews and focus groupresearch, CPEC researchers identified seven keyareas for assessing campus climate: faculty andstudent interaction, curriculum, academic sup-port, student life, campus leadership, communityinvolvement, and campus image. Studying thosefactors, Edgert pointed out, should make itpossible to determine how supportive the cam-pus climate is for all students and all staff,especially for those from historicallyunderrepresented groups.

The second phase involved creating surveyinstruments to field test the assessments.

"The bottom line was our first recommenda-tionthat every California college and universityshould plan, develop, and implement an assessmentof its campus climate that is appropriate to its own

institutional mission and values." Every campusshould "just do it, to quote the Nike commercial,"Edgert said, but how each campus does it should behighly individual.

The resultant CPEC Resource Guide,released during a time of budget cuts and re-source limitations, was designed to serve as aresource for those colleges and universities thatchose to assess their campus climates, she added.

"From the perspectives of community colleges,state universities, and independent colleges anduniversities, I'm quite pleased to report, after twoyears, the extent to which the campuses have takenour recommendations seriously. You might noticethat I left out one sector of California higher educa-tionand we'll just leave that one 'left out."

What the project actually accomplished,Edgert concluded, was to ask colleges and universi-ties to do something that is very difficult to do"tobe very introspective, and deliberately so, aboutwhether or not their campuses are inclusive andreceptive to all students."

The process of examining campus climate isuncomfortable, she said, because people often

Examining campus climateis uncomfortablebecause people

often discover thingsthey would rather not know.

discover "things they would rather not know" aboutwhat students, staff, and faculty think. And none ofCalifornia's college and university campuses are aswelcoming as they could be, according to Edgert.

"But if you don't have the information, youcannot change your campus."

A "sense of belonging," according to JohnMatsui, is very important to supporting the retentionand success of underrepresented students in a


X-)

college or university environment. Students' sense ofbelonging is increased when they can identifythemselves as membets ofa group or discipline.This is significant, he said, "because you need to putyour paths where people walk."

"Front-loading of resources" is also a keyelement of programs that best support nontradi-tional students, since "nothing supports successlike early success." Encouraging students toassist or mentor other students in appropriate

situations"passing on information that isn't writ-ten"also supports success, "because there's nobetter way to learn than to teach."

Encouraging the mentoring of students bysupportive, sensitive faculty and staff is alsoimportant, Matsui pointed out. Too often, stu-dents simply assume that others have neverstruggled against the same fears and obstacles toachieve their goals. Understanding that othershave faced the same problems, and have over-come them, can be invaluable.

Another characteristic of successful studentsupport programs, according to Matsui, is "set-ting high expectations." Challenging students tosucceed and expecting no less than a student's bestwork support success. Providing reality checksor,sharing basic information about what the collegeexperience or a given course of study will actuallybe likeis equally important.

Also, whenever possible, students shouldhave the opportunity to work directly in thediscipline, to directly research what they arestudying in class. That way, "they develop asense that that discipline signifies more than justa distant goal, and they develop a sense of excite-ment." One's work in life is more than just a "litanyof facts," Matsui said. In reality, "it's an open-endedenterprise, one in which questions are asked andargued over, where mistakes are made, and whereone's mistakes may lead to major discoveries."

The connection between course work andcareer goals must be made explicit, Matsui pointedout, so students also understand why they need tomaster math, organic chemistry, and the like. "If

those explicit connections can be madebetweencareer goals and what students are doing nowthere' s a greater likelihood that students will hang inthere. In essence, we need to create a map forstudents, to put up signposts."

Many of these types of student services costvery little money, he said, especially whencolleges make better use of existing resources.

To better support underrepresented stu-dents, Matsui also suggested that campusesmake a conscious effort to answer students'"next step" questions at critical transitionpointsquestions asked when coming out ofhigh school, for example, when planning com-munity college courses, and when planning atransfer program.

Colleges should also reconceptualize whatit means for students to be "prepared." Beyondacademic skills and knowledge, "students reallyneed to become 'systems smart,' or learn how tonegotiate the systemthe kind of informationthat' s not in print anywhere."

Students need to be prepared for the factthat, while they may have been "stars" at theircommunity colleges, that may change once 'heytransfer. "Help' is not a four-letter word,"Matsui said. "Asking for help doesn't meanremediation. Being willing to ask for help whenyou need it gives a student a competitive edgewhen they made need it most, a mind shift thatstudents need to be prepared to accept."

Beyond making better use of existingresources to support the successincludingtransfer successof underrepresented students,institutions also need to make changes, Matsui said.

"Research is needed. But so often researchfocuses on failures. It's also important to take a lookat successes. Why, for example, do historicallyblack colleges and universities doso well?"

Researching student success profiles, hesaid, can dispel faculty and staff mythology aboutstudent successand can help colleges anduniver-sities provide the services and support systems thatactually encourage students.


4 0

Faculty and staff also need to be educatedabout the importance of understanding cultural

diversity.

The Recommendations

1 Encourage efforts, at community colleges and

1 transfer institutions, to assess and improve"campus climate"particularly forunderrepresented groups.

2Encourage faculty and staff involvement in

advising and nentoring studentsand help

faculty and staff understand that it's everyone'sjob to support individual student success.

Educate faculty and staff about cultural diversity

and differences, about how tocommunicate with

and understand others. Encourage experimentationwith, and acceptance of, a variety ofteaching and

learning styles.

4Encourage institutions to adapt to students,instead of continuing to force the adjustment of

students to institutional traditions, practices, and

assumptions.

Develop curricula and student programs and

services that include the known elements ofsuccessful student support systems.

6Support deeper research into both student

success and failure, tofmd out what truly en-

courages student success and retention. Such

research may also serve to debunk long-standing

myths about underrepresented students.

40 Community Colleges Transfer Sympos: m: Preparing for the Year 200014

Discussion Session II

Community Colleges andHigher Education in California:

What is the Evolving Role of the Systemin Ensuring Student Academic Success?

California higher education institutions arek.../ changing rapidly, along with most of thetraditional assumptions that shaped the state'ssystems of higher education. Short-range andpiecemeal solutions to what are now understoodto be long-term challenges are no longer viable.What changes and solutions should the Califor-nia Community Colleges pursue? What is thecolleges' role, now and in the future, in relation tothe transfer processand to the universities?

This discussion session featured panelists LeoChavez, President of West Valley College, andTom Nussbaum, General Counsel and ViceChancellor for the Legal Affairs and ContractsDivision of the California Community CollegesChancellor's Office. Erlinda Martinez, Admin-istrative Dean for Student and CommunityAffairs at Mission College, served as moderatorfor the panelists' presentation and as facilitator forthe group discussion that followed.

The Discussion

Leo Chavez began the discussion by reviewingthe issues with which colleges must deal effec-tively in order to improve the transfer function.These issues, presented "in no particular order ofimportance," fall into four major areas:

Technology, "both in terms of what it willforce us to do and in terms of what it will allow

us to do." The technology discussion, Chavezsaid, includes not just "the ubiquitous informa-tion superhighway or the nefarious distancelearning concept," but the "culture that thattechnology will impose on usparticularly thevery young people who will grow up with it."Broad cultural applications of technology willbring with them "a whole different set of expec-tations." Technology, he said, will "infuse ouryoung people with the demand for convenience,"much like new cable TV trends, allowing view-ers to order programs and services wheneverthey want them, whenever it's most convenient.

Demographics, including the much-dis-cussed change in cultural demographics as "so-called minority students become the so-calledmajority." We're still looking for a new termi-nology, Chavez noted, to "describe the changingface of California."

Complexity of the Community CollegeMission and of the Transfer Process, "the jobwe're asked to do, somethi ag we don't spendmuch time discussing." In a typical communitycollege classroom, Chavez said, a 19-year-oldUC-eligible students will sit next to a 55-year-old grandparent along with a 30-year-old singleparentand everyone in between.

Funding in an Era of Declining Re-sources, with nothing on the horizon to suggestthat we can increase funding at a rate sufficient to


4 4(1

(1) accommodate the growth in population, (2)keep pace with the cost of living, and (3) do newthings with additional resources.

All four issues are intertwined, according toChavez, and will drive community collegestrategies for change: "Piecemeal adjustments andreforms" are inadequate. As Charles Handy haswritten in his book The Age of Unreason, Chavezsuggested that we're going to need "upside-downthinking"ways to reexamine our assumptions andarrive at appropriate strategies.

According to Tom Nussbaum, "the MasterPlan doesn't work today. It has served us welland accomplished a lot, but now we have to havethe courage to do what's right for our state andfor its people."

The Master Plan for Higher Education wasdeveloped after World War II, when two millionpeople came to California. Some 700,000 ser-vicemen were "released" in California after thatwar, Nussbaum said. In 1960, when the MasterPlan was created, the state's population was 80percent white, 10 percent Latino, and 7 percentAfrican-American.

"We put together that Master Plan to servea population that was largely a traditional educationclientele: white, full-time student- " But that clientelehas changed during the interver years. The poor,the disadvantaged, and the un ,ioyed are not wellserved. "Clearly, what we're accomplishing throughthe Master Plan is not working."

Among the new approaches Nussbaumsuggested to better serve today's California: athree-year baccalaureate degree that communitycolleges could offer as well as four-year institu-tions. "We need to get away from that traditionof higher education that says, 'Let the student goto the instruction. Let the student go to theinstitution.' We need to bring the education tothe students." And, these days, no universitysystem designed for full-time students is "evergoing to get us where we want to go."

Fundamental reforms addressed by Chavezincluded the question of whether or not the commu-

nity colleges should in lude the University ofCalifor-nia in transfer planning at all, since UC was designedto serve single 18- or 19-year-olds. The typical daystudent at West Valley College is between 28 and35, a single parent with two children who providestheir sole support.

"I just don't see any place at UC for thatstudent at the University of Californiaand Idon't see the University of California displayany desire whatsoever to accommodate dm_student."

In effect, Chavez said, the Master Plan saysnot that it will take the state's top twelve-and-a-half percent of students, but "will take a 19-year-old with a median family income of $70,000 andwhose parents both v.ent to college." By con-trast, the community colleges were designed toattract first-generation college students, with theCSU system covering the middle ground.

"The UC system was simply not designedto accommodate the typical community collegestudent," he said. "Why we spend so much timebeating our heads over UC transfers is somethingof a mystery to me. I would argue that all of ourUC transfers from the community colleges areindividuals who were going to attend the Univer-sity of California anywayand are probably notaffected, in any significant way, by anything thatwe do."

The typical community college student, bycontrastthe student who could not go to theUniversity of California, or perhaps to anycollege, right out of high school"is restrictedby an enormous number of financial and familyissues that basically eliminates the University ofCalifornia as a possibility."

"Most community college campuses [thattransfer significant numbers of students to UC] arewithin a thirty-minute drive of a UC campus. So oneof the first things we should do is pick up all of ourcampuses and move them close to a UC campus."

"Value-added education" is another factor thecommunity colleges should examine, Chavez said,meaning that the colleges should measure students'


43

abilities and skills when they enter the system andwhen they leaveand that the system should befunded "at least in part" for whatever it accom-plishes with each student, whenever they leave.

"It's arrogant of us to assume that everyonecomes to us with the same level of ability and anarrow range of desires and goalsand we do,"Chavez also observed. "Then ye stuff them allinto the same classrooms and teach to them, inthe same way and at the same rate, for 18weeks."

To better serve students' actual needs, hesaid, new technologies and new approachesshould be introduced to "customize" educationfor every individual student.

"It's ironic that the advances offered bytechnology will allow us to revert to a medievalstyle of education," Chavez said. "In the MiddleAges, to get a degree you went to a professor.And that person gave you a list of books to readand a list of topics to understand and said,'Come back in a few years and I'll give you anexam.' There were discussions with that professorand with fellow students during that time, too, butwhen you were ready you returned, took the exam,znd got your degree. I think we need to go back tothat system, at least in part."

According to Nussbaum, 38 percent ofcommunity college students statewide are ethnicminorities, 26 percent attend college full-time, and74 percent attend part-time. Eighty percent ofcommunity college students work either full-timeor part-time. And 28 percent, almost one-third,are low-income.

The University of California also has a largeethnic minority population, roughly 40 percent, mostof those students of Asian heritage. But 91 percentof UC students attend full-time. At CSU, with a 39percent minority population, 71 percent attend full-time.

"If you look at it from that perspective, inCalifornia we have 29 locations where studentscan pursue education beyond the communitycollege level. We have to funnel them [transfer

students] in" from all over the state, Nussbaumobserved. "So we're fighting over those 40,000[total UC and CSU] transfer slots. It just seemsabsurd to me."

"We have to figure out a way to bring thoseprograms to where the student is, so they canachieve their educational objectives"or we'llfail to provide those students with a collegeeducation.

Looking again at demographics, Nussbaumpointed out that by the year 2000 California willbe 50 percent white, 33 percent Latino, 10percent Asian-American, and 7 percent African-American. By 2020: 40 percent white, 40 percentLatino, 12 percent Asian-American, and 7percent African American.

"It's our duty to find a way to make educa-tion accessible to students," Nussbaum said.

Chavez discussed the two main reasons thatwe provide education.

The first is to develop a trained and edu-cated work force.

"But the second is even more fundamental andspeaks to our very existence as a societyandthat's the issue of equity and the role that educationplays in any democracy." Some argue that classstatus is more important than race and ethnicity interms of achieving equity, he said.

8111MIIMMIi

I think there's a place for elitists,and for elitism. But it should be

an elitism of talent anddesire and drive,

not of class.

In the American tadition, Chavez pointed out,the primary principle has been that every generationbe better prepared and better educated than thosethat came before. Education has been the means toescape poverty, and to transcend the limitations ofclass.

Though UC does not now serve the needs


of the traditional community college student, he said,the social necessity of providing access and equityrequire us to find ways to change that.

"I think there's a place for an elitist institu-tion. I think there' s a place for elitists, and forelitism. But it should be an elitism of talent anddesire and drive, and not of class," Chavez said.

"If the UC system is going to be an elitistinstitution, let it be elitist based on academic perfor-mance and these other issues we've discussed."

The Recommendations

rifthe presentations summarized above and out

e following recommendations, which grew out

of the audience discussions that followed, areorganized logically but otherwise listed in no particu-lar order of importance:

1Shape and share with the public a new vision ofwhat higher education can be in California, and

incorporate that vision into a new Master Plan.Redefine transfer as many possible functionsincluding the functions ofmoving onto vocationaleducation and to work.

I Support the development of new leadership atall levels of California education, as private

industry has successfully done. Develop educationleadership which is comfortable with rapid andmeaningful change.

I Assess and discuss issues of educational accessJ as determined by social class and economicstatus.

4A In reassessing the role of community colleges*within California higher education, emphasize

two fundamental principlesthat the state needs atrained and educated work force, and that publiceducation should be funded equitably.

5In discussions of fi.mdamental education reform,reassess the role of secondary schools.

6Mobilize public opirion, at the grassroots level,to lobby the Legislature to support increased

not decreasedaccess to higher education inCalifornia. Emphasize that educational opportunityalso includes "transfer" into quality vocationaltraining programs.

7Adjust the state's higher education institutions tomeet student needs rather than attempt to adjust

students to meet the needs of institutions. Switch thefocus of education from teaching to learning.

8Achieve cultural, ethnic, and gender balanceamong faculty and staff throughout all

segments of California higher education.

9 Develop ways to customize the delivery ofhigher education in California, via new

technologies and new teaching techniques, tomeet the needs of the individual studentkeeping in mind that 80 percent of communitycollege students work either full-time or part-time.

1 0 Develop a three-year baccalaureatedegreea standard and a practice now

fairly common in Europethat can be offered atthe community college level as well as at CSU andUC.

1I

Avoid reliance on the University of Califor-ma to meet the educational needs of tradi-

tional California Community Colleges students.Explore new ways to provide quality education tothose students.

1 e) Continue to support the concept of "lifelonglearning" as an appropriate function of the

community college, CSU, and UC systems.


4. 5

Discussion Session 111

Ask the Universities:How Can We Work Together?

Rergnizing that California's universities nowace very real constraints on fmancial and other

resources, as do the community colleges, how canwe all work together to ensure educational opportu-nities? Are more restrictive admissions requirementsand increasingly limited enrollments the only solu-tions? Are there realistic ways for the state's univer-sities to accommodate greater numbers of transferstudents? What cooperative approaches andstrategies can these separate systems pursuenow,despite strained education budgets, and in thefutureto more effectively support transfer stu-dents?

Panelists discussing these and related questionsincluded Joyce Justus, Special Assistant of Educa-tional Relations for the Office of the President,University of California; Frieda Lee, Director ofStudent Outreach Services at San Francisco StateUniversity; and Ed Chambers, Associate VicePresident, Admissions and Records, San Jose StateUniversity. John J. Sewart, Director of Articulationand Research at the College of San Mateo, servedas moderator for the panel and facilitated thegroup's discussion.

The Discussion

Given that all of California higher education nowfaces the dilemma of more students, less space

available, and fewer resources, Joyce Justus of theUniversity of California pointed out that the currentquestion is "how to maintain access and diversity"despite these problems. Reviewing the university'smission, focusing on individual campus specialties

and priorities, and reorganization and "re-engineer-ing" are among steps taken by UC to date. Changeswithin the university definitely affect transfer. Thereare departments at UC Berkeley, she pointed out,that have lost 85 percent of faculty due to earlyretirement.

Also 1, _mg addressed are problems whichimpede UC' s ability to coordinate effortsremov-ing "policy impediments to sharing resources acrosssegments." The Berkeley campus, for example,operates on a semester system, the others on aquarter system. There are also serious articulationproblems between the various UC campuses. "Ifwe're going to downsize our academic programs,"Justus said, "we have to create a system where UCstudents can take courses that count on any cam-pus." The UC system is also experimenting withallowing students to take courses at CSU campusesfor UC creditstarting with a successfullongstanding arrangement between UC San Diegoand San Diego State.

Among policy questions the UC system isnot reconsidering, according to Justus, is modifyingits missionas defined by the Master Planinorder to accommodate diversity. There is no reasonto change UC's "highly elite" system, she said, whenthere are opportunities for students who don'tinitially meet UC eligibility criteria. Eighty-fivepercent of all community college transfer students toUC are "second chance" students, she said, noteligible for UC at the time they started college. Inrecent years the UC system has decided not to takecommunity college transfer students who haven'tcompleted their first two years of college. And,


according to Justus, there are students who justaren't ready for the university environment until laterin their academic work.

For more effective transfer articulation, Justussaid the conversation should shift from simply "howyou get them in to how you get them out"what thesegments can do, together, to assure academicsuccess. Discussion should focus on "what it isstudents need to know from lower division courseworkat the University of California and at thecommunity collegesto be successful in upperdivision work."

Frieda Lee of San Francisco State statedthat "it's myth that we are not accommodatingstudents at CSU." According to Lee, CSU hasalways admittedand still admits"everyqualified candidate who applies on time into anon-impacted program." The numbers have gonedown recently, she added, and "analysis of thosefactors" is underway.

The C SU system assumes that California'seconomic decline along with increased studentfees have played a major part in recent enroll-ment drops, she said. Other contributing factors,according to Lee, are new "enrollment managementpractices" designed to help the C SU system copewith leaner budgets.

Most of the CSU enrollment decline, Lee said,is due to a severe drop in the numbers of first-timefreshmen. Lower-division transfer students make upthe next largest category, followed by a very smallnumber (2.9 percent of the total decline) of upper-division transfer students. She explained that theonly substantial enrollment decrease among commu-nity college transfer students has been among lower-division students. The total number has droppedfrom 15,000 to 11,000, for a system-wide loss of4,000 students.

And that drop, Lee explained, has been theresult of the decision by larger CSU campuses tocurtail the number of lower-division transferstudents to accommodate more upper-divisionstudents, who are a "higher admission priority."

During the past five years, according to

Lee, the number of upper-division transfer studentsto CSU has dropped by only 425 students. Thatdecline has been brought about by the decision atsome campuses to require that upper-divisionstudents complete all of their general educationrequirements before admission.

So, compared to first-time freshmen andlower-division transfer students, "upper divisiontransfer students have been spared a proportionalreduction." And, as is now the case at UC, theaverage unit load at CSU has increased.

How many transfer students actually earndegrees from CSU?

In May of 1993, Lee said, CSU awarded thelargest number of bachelors degrees "ever, in asingle year, to former California CommunityColleges studentsapproximately 29,000."

Among other things, she said, this resultsuggests that community college transfer stu-dents arrive prepared for university-level work.It also "tells us that students are finding theclasses they need and they're getting out."

The overall CSU graduation rate is about 57percent, close to the national average of 60 percent.

But, according to Lee, a very recent CSUreport compares transfer students from Fall 1980and 1985 and predicts even higher graduation ratesin the future for transfer students-65 percent, orabout 5 percent higher than the national norm. In theCSU view, these data suggest that "early continu-ous enrollment" has the greatest correlation withgraduation success.

In other words, most transfer students whosurvive their first year at CSU will go on to gradu-ate.

In 1993-94, Lee said, "more than 80 percentof all transfer students reenroll for their secondyearand this is across all ethnic groups."

"This recent good news suggests that we canexpect even greater gains in graduation rates [fortransfer students] well into the 1990s," she added.

One cannot assess or predict student successwithout information on changing graduation rates,changing transfer rates, and changing student demo-


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graphics, according to Lee. She strongly supported"participation in lengthy longitudinal data collection"on transfer students"especially during the initialstages of transfer"by all three segments of Cali-fornia higher education. 3pecifica1ly, she said, thisrequires monitoring "new cohorts of Californiacommunity colleges students" and trackingsubsequent enrollments in four-year institutionsas well as degrees earned.

For example: In the 1989 cohort of communitycollege transfer students, 50 percent transferred 5.5years after they graduated from high school and 50percent took three years or longer, after transfer, toearn their baccalaureate degrees.

But in order to collect useful information, Leesaid, segments must agree on how to collect dataand especially on how to defme "transfer student."Students concurrently enrolled at CSU and at acommunity college, she observed, shouldn't beconsidered transfer students.

In Lee's view practical intersegmentalcooperation also includes improving workshops,conferences, and institutesat the local, re-gional, and state levelsfor California Commu-nity Colleges counselors. Personal CSU outreachis more effective, she said, if counselors providemuch of the basic information to students earlierin the process.

To improve services to students, Lee alsostrongly supported the idea of collaborating onoutreach at high schoolsand not just throughrepresentative involvement as panelists duringeducation fairs. Traveling to high schools tomeet with students who don't yet meet CSUadmissions requirements is something CSU isalready doing, she said. These and similar effortscan and should be achieved cooperativelyespecially now, given budget constraintsthroughout higher education.

An area where "working together" willtake on new meaning in the very near fiture,according to Ed Chambers of San Jose State, istechnology.

"I believe technology is the wave of the future,"

Chambers said. By the year 2010, CSU will beexpected to accommodate another 150,000 stu-dents, a task that "seems impossible." However,students coming into the system are brighter, com-puter literate, and "no-nonsense," he said. "Theywant to know what to take, when to take it, andhow long it's going to take, so they can get on withtheir busy lives."

A greater reliance on technology throughouteducation, Chambers suggested, may wellprovide the tools that will make the "impossible"possible in the future.

Technology can help educational systems towork together more effectively, he said, prima-rily in the areas of (1) access and (2) instruction.

With the advent of voice technology in thelate 1970s, "we saw a new era begin," he said."People are waking up. We must do businesswith students and with faculty in different ways."

By 1995, he said, all CSU campuses will have

A new era is beginning.People are waking up.We must do business

with studentsand with facultyin different ways.

voice response technologies meaning that theregistration process as well as student access toadmission status and financial aid information can beoffered via computer.

In addition, he said, there will be newtechnologies, such as Electronic Data Inter-change (EDI). "This allows us to make thattransfer process almost seamless," according toChamberscutting the time involved andincreasing efficiency.

San Jose State already receives electronictranscripts from several of its feeder schools via


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EDI; six more institutions will be on-line within thenext year. To implement the EDI system, he said,CSU has agreed to purchase EDI license agree-ments for all community colleges in California

In addition, under the auspices of theIntersegmental Coordinating Council all three ofCalifornia's public college systems as well asprivate institutions "are now working togetheralong with secondary educationto find themeans of going to the Legislature for the fundingto implement this technology," an achievementwhich will make transfer as efficient and acces-sible as possible.

The CSU system is also experimenting withelectronic admissions applications, Chamberssaid. "By 1995-96, we believe your studentsworking from homewill be able to submit theirapplications directly to our mainframe com-puter," where they can be "uploaded" withoutdata entry.

Another current technology experiment atCSU involves dispensing information to studentsvia ATM-style kiosks on campus.

"Believe it or not," Chambers said whiledescribing the setup now in place at San Jose State,"in a six-week period we had 28,000 transactionson campus aloneand that's just with continuingstudents."

In Chambers' view these types of technolo-gies, interwoven throughout the state, can grantalmost complete information and services tostudents who wish to transfer from one institu-tion to another.

Efforts to share and coordinate informationwith secondary schools are also in the works.

"Not only should our students be able toregister via telephone," he said. "They should beable to go to a kiosk on your campus and on mycampus to register for the [transfer] campus oftheir choice, if they've been admitted."

Students will soon be able to obtain theiradmissions and financial aid status at on-campuskiosks, receive information on individualcourses, even print out their own transcripts

not to mention request campus maps and othertypes oflocal information.

And technology in instruction. Chambers said,will soon mean "that classes being taught in San LuisObispo can be picked up in San Jose." Though theadjustment may be challenging for faculty, "we cando distance learning."

Technology, Chambers concluded, "isgoing to be our salvation." Getting the necessaryfunds"and working together to put that money togood use"will be critical for the future of Califor-nia education, and for the futures of California'sstudents, he said.

The Recommendations

rollowing lengthy discussion of these and othertopicsparticularly assessments of and experi-

ences with the specific supports and barriersthroughout the education system for transfer stu-dentsspecific recommendations emerged. Sug-gestions for improving transfer effectiveness andsuccess included the following, not listed in anyparticular order of importance:

1 Design and implement a mechanism to identify1 potential transfer students. Gather comprehen-

sive and accurate information about both transferstudent and potential transfer student populations.

2Improve the dissemination of necessary information to potential transfer students regarding what

they need to know in order to (1) transfer and (2)succeed in upper division course work.

3 Foster increased intersegmental faculty-to-faculty collaboration as a means to properly

align lower-division curricula with upper-division.

4Explore the potential uses of Electronic DataInterchange (EDI) and other technologies for

providing students, counselors, admissions andrecords personnel, and articulation officers with


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information vital to successful transfer.

5 Encourage greater collaborative and coopera-tive effort among the segments of California

higher education, in light of batriers to achievingstudent education goals (such as increased fees,enrollment pressures, fewer fmancial resources).

6Continue, and expand, the annual CounselorInstitute (Ensuring Transfer Success workshops).

7 Expand the number of major preparationagreements.

8Improve and "polish" the academic image of theCalifornia Community Colleges among high

school counselors and advisors, students, andparentsand in the community at large. No onewants the community colleges viewed as the "placeof last resort" or as centers designed for the educa-tionally "less able."


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