A Great Weekend For Community Colleges - January 28, 2014

January 28, 2014

Dear Colleagues,

What a weekend for community colleges!

This weekend, we hosted our Effective Trusteeship Workshop and Annual Legislative Conference in Sacramento. Over 300 community college trustees, CEOs, faculty, staff, and students joined with colleagues to discuss best practices and major policy issues, and then went "across the street" to the State Capitol to advocate for community colleges.

I wanted to share with you a few items from the weekend. Our opening keynote was Richard Kahlenberg from The Century Foundation, who articulately made the case for increased public support for America's community colleges as we seek to close gaps in socio-economic equity. Here is his PowerPoint.

We're still getting copies of presenter materials, which we are posting on our website.

Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom challenged our conventional ways of thinking by pointing our exactly how fast our world is changing, while State Senator Marty Block gave his case for allowing California's community colleges to offer limited applied baccalaureate degrees. Meanwhile, Chancellor Brice Harris welcomed our new trustees and discussed the system's laser-like focus on restoring access for students and continuing to improve student success.

Our advocates used three key documents in their legislative visits -- budget talking points, the League's Fast Facts, and the Chancellor's Office Student Success Scorecard. Simply put, the governor's budget is an outstanding starting point for California's community colleges, which gives us the opportunity to speak with legislators with the improved outcomes we are seeing made possible by the hard work of our faculty and staff to deliver student success.

Isn't it nice to talk about our students being more successful rather than fighting continued budget cuts to our colleges?

Thank you for your continued advocacy for the students and communities served by America's largest system of higher education.

Thanks,

Scott Lay
President and Chief Executive Officer
Orange Coast College '94