Robbing the Faculty (and the Taxpayers)

BY HANK REICHMAN In 2012 voters in Alameda County (including this blogger), across the bay from San Francisco, approved Measure B, a parcel tax, to provide the Peralta Community College District, which has  campuses in Berkeley, Alameda and Oakland, an extra $8 million each year.  The funds were designated to “support affordable college education including:…

Is ACCJC Accepted by Educators?

BY HANK REICHMAN A bit more than a year ago then-Secretary of Education John King ruled that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), which accredits all of California’s 112 community colleges, had a year to come into compliance with two Department of Education regulations.  Of particular importance was Regulation 34 C.F.R. §…

Victory at CCSF! ACCJC Fate Still Unsettled

BY HANK REICHMAN San Francisco City College’s (CCSF) five-year battle against a rogue accrediting agency is over and the college has won.  The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) informed school administrators yesterday that CCSF’s latest application for accreditation had been approved for a standard seven-year period. “All of us at the college…

Undevelopment

BY CAPRICE LAWLESS This weekend the Modern Language Association (MLA) is holding its annual conference in Philadelphia. If ever there were a time and place more apropos for teachers of rhetoric to gather, and for rhetoric’s “teachable moment,” it is post-election 2016, in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed. What is remarkable…

Thunder in the Rockies

BY CAPRICE LAWLESS The work of our AAUP chapters in Colorado’s community college system has been in the headlines recently and will continue to be so. It shows how the small, sparky things we do (staffing hallway membership tables, distributing our crossword puzzles, bookmarks, fliers, cookbooks, etc.) can lead to lightning bolts of change. Briefly,…

College PIO Appreciates Shared Governance

POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Most Americans know California’s Napa Valley as a tourist destination and the source of many of the country’s finest wines.  But people live there too, of course, and many of them go to school.  Specifically, many attend Napa Valley College, the local community college.  Last week Doug Ernst, the public information…