City College of San Francisco - California Competes

THEME III
I. Overview
College dialogs at CCSF are many and occur at all levels of the organization and among all College constituencies.
Meetings and discussions about institutional issues are pervasive, and the dialogs that occur
are critical to institutional growth and change and address many sections of the WASC standards. Section
II of this essay presents the institutional context—a description of the College’s Shared Governance System
and brief descriptions of a sample of dialogs organized around four critical areas: (1) planning; (2) diversity
and equity; (3) student success; and (4) teaching and learning. In reality there is often overlap between
and among the dialogs that advance the programs and activities reflected by these broad areas. Section III
provides fuller depictions of four representative and important case studies of dialogs originating from four
different sources: students, faculty, administration, and campus/program sites. Section IV, “Conclusions
and Future Directions,” comments on ways to improve the role of dialog across the District.
The increase and ease of access to data, reports, and evidence have greatly informed and improved the
quality and results of College dialogs. Thanks to the Office of Research, Planning and Grant’s development
of the Decision Support System (DSS), any member of the College community can access a wealth of current
and historical data and many reports that analyze student surveys and performance indicators. Other
tools that facilitate dialog across the District are: email exchanges; listservs; City Currents, the College’s
weekly newsletter; department/program newsletters; the various Shared Governance and other organizational
committees and groups conducting regular meetings for the discussion of issues and plans; the
Chancellor’s semi-annual presentations to the College community during FLEX days; the Chancellor’s
Midsummer Report; and listening sessions for all stakeholder groups. Listening sessions have become a
regular part of the review and analysis of major documents and initiatives. The College Shared Governance
leaders responsible for developing a document or initiative engage in dialogs with interested members of
the community who attend these sessions. The listening sessions, scheduled at various sites throughout
the District, are widely publicized and are open to all faculty, students, staff, trustees, and San Francisco
community residents. Three fairly recent examples were the listening sessions held prior to the final
approval of the Strategic Plan 2003-2008; sessions conducted as part of the institution-wide review and
evaluation of the College’s Shared Governance policies and procedures in 2004; and sessions scheduled
at various locations in the District for reactions and comments to the current Self-Study report.
The participants in the examples of dialogs selected for this essay have used some of the institutional
data, as well as information and data they created by engaging in committee and group discussions with
community members, advisory boards, students, faculty, and others. Most of these dialogs have focused
on improving College services and operations to better support teaching and learning.
II. Institutional Context
The three-part College Shared Governance System (Collegial Governance System, College Advisory
Systems, and Planning and Budgeting System) is the major conduit for formal institutional dialogs. It
has been evaluated three times since its adoption and has been improved greatly over the years. The most
recent and comprehensive evaluation contained several findings that relate to dialog. The online survey
of 140 participants, of whom nearly two-thirds were full-time faculty and department chairs, found that
78 percent of the respondents reported that their experience with governance committees encourages
honesty among the participants and 91 percent said that their opinions were usually or always respected
(Evaluation of Shared Governance, 2004, p.25).
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