City College of San Francisco - California Competes

THEME V
Former students who have gotten jobs have been invited to return to speak to students in the program.
Through these speakers, students and teachers learn more about the essential skills students need in the
workplace. The Northern California Biotechnology Center advertises student employment rates. There is
currently no College-supported systematic method used to collect information on the success of graduates
of the program. Fortunately, two of the grants the program receives provide some support to track students
after they finish the programs to record job placements and job success.
Faculty report great satisfaction in seeing many disadvantaged students move from being under-skilled and
often under-motivated, to successful, enthusiastic employees in the biotech field. They see the program as
a successful vehicle for getting more students interested in science and math and report that many return
to CCSF to take additional coursework. Bio-Link and NCBC facilitate sharing among colleges on effective
curriculum and instruction and foster a culture that promotes continuous improvement at all of the
participating community colleges.
IV. Conclusion & Future Directions
The cases of Biology and Biotechnology highlight several areas in which the College has made significant
strides in the past six years in improving organizational structure to support student learning. For example,
the College has made notable advancements, through the Office of Research, Planning and Grants,
in the pursuit of grant funding to support programs and has had a high rate of success in receiving grants,
including major support for Biotechnology and improvement of basic skills instruction. In addition, the
College administration has provided significant support for developing new programs, particularly interdepartmental
collaborative programs such as the Design Collaborative and the Biotechnology program.
Furthermore, major improvements have been made in providing more easily accessible data to administrators,
faculty and staff via the Decision Support System (DSS) and the reports and research studies that
are now available on the College website. Moreover, faculty, department chairs, and staff feel that the
construction of a data-rich environment that is easily accessible has been a notable achievement but
also caution that the Office of Research, Planning and Grants should remain responsible for meeting the
information needs of faculty and staff and providing rigorous checking of the accuracy of the data that
is reported. Finally, the Office of Instruction has significantly increased the support it provides to departments
in developing course proposals with the technical review process. This optional technical review
of course outlines and certificate and degree proposals, prior to submission for College Curriculum
Committee action, eliminates many common problems that cause delays in obtaining final approval.
The case studies contained within this essay also point to several areas for improvement. The College
has made outreach and recruitment a priority in the current Strategic Plan. However, the College has very
limited resources to support advertising for recruitment of students into the great variety of programs at
CCSF. The College website is generally a good source of information for many programs but can be overwhelming
and difficult to navigate; especially for the many non-native English speakers that CCSF serves.
The Communications Committee is currently reviewing possible improvements to the website. CCSF has
hundreds of programs spread out all over the city at different campuses and other locations. The College
needs to do a better job of reaching out not only to people who are not yet CCSF students but also to
those who are already students to make them aware of the opportunities available to them at CCSF.
Additional efforts are needed to assist new students in navigating the application, matriculation,
and registration processes.
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