City College of San Francisco - California Competes

THEME V
The College has a variety of organizational means to identify and make student learning outcomes public.
The Office of Instruction and the College Curriculum Committee determined last year that the course
objectives section of each course outline clearly spells out intended student learning outcomes for the
course, and that section is now labeled “Major Learning Outcomes.” The Office of Instruction and the
College Curriculum Committee developed a Technical Review process several years ago to provide
departments with a means of getting assistance in course outline development, including how to align
the objectives, content, and evaluation sections of the outline. This process gives course outline developers
the opportunity to consult with the Dean of Instruction, Curriculum/Tenure Review or with the chair of
the College Curriculum Committee before submitting the outline to the Curriculum Committee. In addition,
the Office of Instruction is now requesting that departments provide descriptions of major program
outcomes that will be published in the Catalog. The Catalog is available online to the public and is for
sale at College bookstores.
The Office of Public Information and the College website provide information to the community about
College programs. The research support to help identify student needs and learning outcomes is provided
by the Office of Research, Planning and Grants. Departments maintain websites with information about
their programs as well.
The College has a variety of organizational means to provide programs to support student learning. The
College’s departments are the main organizational means we have to provide instructional programs
in both credit and noncredit. Additional instructional programs are offered by Contract Education.
The College’s hiring procedures support the hiring of diverse, qualified faculty, administrators, and staff
for programs that provide student learning. The Faculty Positions Allocation Committee (FPAC) invites
departments to submit requests for replacement or new faculty positions each year. Departments must
justify the need for the hiring. The Planning and Budgeting Council then determines which positions
that have been approved by FPAC can be funded. For the past few years, most hiring has been to replace
faculty who have retired, with very few new positions being funded.
There is a close coordination between the planning and budgeting process and the College’s Strategic
Priorities, as stated in the Strategic Plan. The College planning and budgeting processes are designed to
provide a means for departments and schools to identify objectives and seek funding for their programs.
Department Chairs submit objectives to deans, and the deans prepare Annual Plan Objectives reports. The
objectives and the needs spelled out in the annual plan reports can then be used as justification for budget
requests or requests that departments make for grant funding. The College has received a variety of grants
through major support from the Office of Research, Planning and Grants, such as the Title III grant that
supports the College’s efforts to improve programs and student support services for basic skills students,
the Koret Grant that supports basic skills programs in the English and Math Departments, and several
National Science Foundation Grants that support the Biotechnology Program, among others. The College
provides opportunities for departments to request block grant funding, when available from the state,
to fund equipment needs.
The recent changes in counseling have been extensive and have improved services. The College has a great
variety of student retention/success programs to support student learning, as well as services and resources
provided by the Library and Learning Resources programs The College provides student computer labs as
technology resources to support student learning. After a few years of zero funding, very limited funding
for professional development activities was available to faculty in 2004–05 through the Academic Senate.
The Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) Project is an example of a professional
development program that the College supports to improve faculty teaching.
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