BY HANK REICHMAN
In the waning months of his term as California governor Jerry Brown embraced a new pet project: a totally online community college. With the enthusiastic support of California Community College Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Brown got the Legislature to somewhat reluctantly agree to spend an initial $100 million to get the online community college going and then spend $20 million a year on the effort. Although anyone could enroll, the college is to focus on adults age 25 and older. (I discuss and criticize the online college proposal in chapter 6 of The Future of Academic Freedom; see also the critique in “Does Online Reinforce the Color Line?” by Christopher Newfield and Cameron Sublett.)
Under the legislation the college — now called Calbright College, a name chosen in May after consultation with focus groups and a marketing and branding firm (there are as yet no faculty to weigh in) — is required to gain accreditation. Calbright was also forbidden to offer programs that duplicate ones that already exist in the state’s 72 regional community college districts. Now, as the college moves toward an announced October 1 opening, it not only has yet to hire faculty or recruit students, it has also come under fire from faculty groups for apparent violations of these two requirements.
The California Federation of Teachers (CFT), which represents 30,000 community college employees, including many faculty members, has been opposed to the online college since Brown first proposed it. Last month CFT sent a letter to the community colleges’ Board of Governors questioning whether Calbright was meeting the legislatively mandated goals, threatening a lawsuit if the online college failed to immediately meet those mandates.
“We have steadfastly argued that the creation of this Online College would be duplicative of existing programs,” the letter said. Yet, “now that the Online College has announced that its initial three core curricular programs would be Medical Coding, Information Technology, and Cyber Security, CFT researchers have found a minimum 15 examples where these programs already exist in other community college districts.” The union also argued that the online college and “the diversion of taxpayer resources to service this new college” have come at the expense of other current initiatives and programs, “causing the majority of our existing community college districts to make do with less.”
With respect to accreditation, the letter pointed out that California’s Education Code “clearly states: ‘The college shall inform potential and enrolled students regarding the implications of taking courses prior to accreditation and how the college will help students rectify this issue in the future.’ However, the Calbright website merely states: ‘Calbright College holds itself to the highest educational standards. We are currently under review and seeking accreditation.’ That statement is a far cry from complying with the legal requirements for transparency with respect to accreditation as intended by the legislature.” The letter also charged that Calbright is recruiting students from other districts, in direct violation of the California Education Code. “Media reports indicate that Online College President Heather Hiles stated the mission of the college would be changing to include face-to-face meetings,” CFT charges. “When confronted about the apparent conflict, attorneys for the chancellor’s office essentially indicated that that portion of the Education Code did not apply.”
The legislation establishing Calbright listed seven milestones that needed to be met by July 1, 2019. CFT’s letter asked, “Have any of these milestones been met? If so, we have yet to be able to find any evidence which would substantiate these requirements being completed.”
The letter, signed by CFT President Jeffrey Freitas, concluded:
This letter is intended to give notice that unless the Online College immediately becomes compliant with all aspects of the CA Education Code under which it was intended to open and operate, the CFT will initiate legal proceedings to protect the existing community colleges in this state to provide the best education for the students of those communities.
The CFT letter was followed by an August 5 letter to state legislators signed by John Stanskas, President of the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges (ASCCC), on behalf of that body. That letter states:
While the ASCCC expressed serious reservations regarding this endeavor as it was proposed and debated, our duty changed once the legislation was signed into law. As the voice of faculty in curricular and governance matters, as is established in statute and regulation, the ASCCC has endeavored to support the online college and has asserted that, until such a time as a sufficient group of tenured faculty at Calbright College may organize themselves into a local academic senate, we will serve as the faculty voice required for consultation regarding academic and professional matters. . . . However, although we have endeavored in all good conscience to provide a positive and beneficial faculty voice in the development of the online college, we have reached a point at which we have difficulty contributing appropriate advice to the new district because two parts of relevant regulation and statute seem to conflict.
The first area of conflict identified by the Senate regards accreditation. The legislation establishing the college requires it to obtain accreditation and, the letter points out, accreditation has been sought from the regional community college accrediting body, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). “For a college to be regionally accredited,” the Senate letter points out, “the ACCJC standards state that the college must offer at least one associate degree with appropriate general education and area of study, and Standard II.A.13 states, ‘All degree programs include focused study in at least one area of inquiry or in an established interdisciplinary core.’ This requirement is an aspect of the confusion regarding the direction of Calbright College: the online college was specifically mandated not to duplicate programs that already exist in the California community colleges, yet to this date Calbright College has not identified any potential degree program that is not offered at another community college in the state.”
The letter continues:
The first three fields of study identified for inclusion in the Calbright College curriculum—medical coding, business information technology, and cybersecurity—all currently exist in districts across the state as both physical and fully online programs. The leadership of Calbright College argues that courses offered through the new college are designed to be competency-based by the nature of their instruction and thus do not duplicate existing programs. However, the curriculum, delivery, and outcomes of the programs would certainly be duplicative of programs at other colleges, making them different at most in the aspects of their grading and scheduling methods. Moreover, noncredit instruction throughout the community college system is typically competency-based such that when the student achieves the outcome or demonstrates competency, often at his or her own pace, he or she has completed the course. The creation and offering of these programs by Calbright College thus clearly appears to be a duplication of the other colleges in the system in terms of both curriculum and instructional approach. . . .
In order to achieve regional accreditation, at the July 2019 Calbright College Board of Trustees meeting, Calbright College leadership announced that the new college intends to develop and offer a general studies associate degree. While such a degree does not exist currently in the system, the reason that general studies degrees do not exist is that Title 5 §55063 was amended in 2009 to clarify that a degree requires both a specific area of focus—an area of emphasis or a major—and general education; under Title 5, a degree cannot consist solely of general education. Any degree offered in the California Community Colleges must have a specific area of focus that serves a transfer need or a verifiable industry need. Therefore, after 2009, colleges were required to delete general studies degrees as inappropriate to meet student needs. The new degree proposed by Calbright College for the purposes of achieving accredited status would therefore be a violation of Title 5 and would allow Calbright College to operate under different standards and regulations from those to which the 114 existing colleges are held.
Given the conflicting mandates of accreditation status and lack of duplication, as well as the lack of a clear definition of duplication and the apparent plan for Calbright College to either operate outside of the regulations established in Title 5 for all community colleges or to simply rename and duplicate existing programs, the ASCCC’s efforts to advise the new district and to move the online college forward in a positive manner have been frustrated.
Calbright officials had announced that fall registration would begin this summer. About 160 prospective students have filled out a form on the Calbright website expressing interest, a college representative recently told EdSource. There has been no followup, however. Instead of letting all California residents enroll as planned, officials say the first class will be hand-picked with help from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), most likely from the union’s membership.
“We don’t want to beta test on the public,” Taylor Huckaby, spokesman for Calbright, told the San Francisco Chronicle in July. “We want to start off with a small cohort of folks — and then expand. We’re just not prepared to take on thousands or tens of thousands of learners. It would be irresponsible.”
“We have to learn important lessons right off. We don’t want to stumble out of the gate,” he added, which is why “SEIU will be supplying our first 300 to 400 enrollees in our three tracks: cybersecurity, general IT and medical coding.”
It is unclear whether negotiations with SEIU will bear fruit, however, as Calbright acknowledges they are “in the early stages.” Still, Mike Roth, a spokesperson for SEIU California, said, “We believe there is a need for an alternative to traditional academia or expensive for-profit education that meets workers where they are regardless of race, industry or income level.”
SEIU’s involvement raises troublesome questions. The union has been aggressive nationally in organizing college and university faculty members, especially those off the tenure track, with considerable success. However, all California community college faculty, full- and part-time, are already organized either with CFT; the Community College Association, an affiliate of the California Teachers Association; or in one of several independent unions loosely affiliated in the Community College Independents. I’ve been told that SEIU came on board with Calbright during this spring’s budget discussions when support for the online college was losing steam in the legislature in the face of mounting criticism by the faculty unions and the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges, which in May voted no-confidence in Chancellor Oakley’s administration, in part because of the online college. SEIU’s apparent support for the college, as well as a massive lobbying effort by Chancellor Oakley and former Governor Brown, may have provided cover for beating back efforts to reduce Calbright’s funding. I hesitate to label SEIU’s involvement scabbing, but they do not seem to have taken the position of their fellow unions into full consideration, a point, I am told, that has been made behind the scenes.
Calbright has not yet hired instructors but has hired its managers. In July the Board of Governors for community colleges approved compensation for a set of new executives:
• $295,000 for Chief Operating Officer Derek Gordon, making him the 26th highest-paid community college employee out of more than 146,000 in the state, according to 2017 figures from the State Controller’s Office.
• $290,000 for Chief Learning Officer Audrey Heinesen (in charge of accreditation and curriculum).
• $280,000 for Senior Vice President of Partnerships Samantha Rosenthal Fisher (in charge of employment and placement).
• $250,000 for Chief People and Culture Officer Cheryl Van (human relations).
• $235,000 for Chief Finance and Administrative Officer Nicolas Schweizer.
Previously the Board named as president Heather Hiles, a technology entrepreneur with no prior college or university experience. Hiles earns a base salary of $385,000, with a $10,000 annual car allowance and increasing yearly bonuses that begin at $10,000 and grow to $40,000 in the fourth year if she meets goals. She is the fourth-highest-paid community college leader in the state. Hiles pushed the Board of Governors to approve a no-bid contract for a friend and politically connected recruiter, whose job was to bring in key executives over two months.
It seems like quite a lot of money for an initiative with no students, no faculty, no accreditation, and a surfeit of criticism. As I wrote in May, Chancellor Oakley “denies that his office has failed to consider faculty perspectives and run roughshod over shared governance. But few community college faculty members agree.”
The on-line education market is a very important development, for at least two good reasons: one, it underscores cost. That is, it throws into relief, the alternative “on-site” or campus model, and its ever-increasing costs that are driving a wedge between higher education, and family economics. I wrote about this issue for the students, parents and others, in this week’s University of Chicago paper, The Chicago Maroon:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2019/8/11/light-tuition-hike-university-needs-financial-tran/
On the other hand, the other issue is whether on-line instruction is being thought through carefully. In my view it cannot be a substitute for “live learning” and the crucial interaction between students, professors, and fellow students. The transmission of knowledge is one thing, but much more happens on a campus than that: social intelligence, physical fitness, leadership opportunities, business and scientific entrepreneurship, and even marriage partner selection, all thrive. The Internet is an obviously poor substitute for those rich experiences.
So, what exactly, or where exactly, does on-line make sense? I think it is very limited to select modular, programmed instruction in certificate programs; lawyer and other professional re-currency training, and perhaps as a channel mix with live instruction, for example, or for specialized international post-graduate programs such as the University of Edinburgh’s very professional and well-thought out MSc and LLM offerings.
In an ideal undergraduate learning environment, on the other hand, all such technology might be idled: no phones, no computers, no social media, no music buds in your ears. Instead, it’s an opportunity to stand up, face one another and live, learn, grow and lead.
As far as college costs, as I discuss in the above article, that is a separate issue that is spiraling out of control and hence feeds the unfortunate “on-line” market. The Academy and AAUP in my view would better serve themselves and students if they worked toward efficiencies in more traditional campus programs, including reducing the BA/BS degree to no more than 3 years (like Wesleyan University in Connecticut). This will take some coordinated effort to re-capture authority from Trustees, most of whom are not pedagogically savvy.
Thank you and Regards.