City College of San Francisco - California Competes

THEME VI
graduation standard would take effect at some inflexible point in time (e.g., during the summer or right
before the beginning of the Fall semester) or whether continuing students would maintain rights to the
old standard. This generated a necessary discussion about catalog rights, the definition of which was not
readily at hand. A crash course in the significance and determination of catalog rights took place at the
administrative level and a definition was included in the new Catalog. However, the definition and procedures
took longer to make their way down to the office personnel who had the arduous, if not confusing,
task of determining which graduation standard a petitioner was required to meet, based on his catalog
rights. Now, a year later, with the recent raising of the graduation standard for Written Composition, the
College is careful to “see the process through,” to be inclusive of all affected levels of personnel in order
to prevent the disconnect that can easily occur between academic and student development divisions, and
between administration, faculty, staff, and students.
Another institutional issue of academic integrity that is pervasive and challenging is the tenuous balance
between the concern for sound educational standards and the concern for enrollment and student access,
especially to coursework needed to meet graduation and transfer goals. At the heart of this issue is the
validity and implementation of course and program prerequisites. CCSF’s process for establishing course
and program prerequisites, in accordance with Title 5 standards, relies on faculty with expertise in their
fields and the College Curriculum Committee to evaluate the need for prior academic preparation for
credit courses and to propose prerequisites accordingly. Instructional departments and the Curriculum
Committee, a Shared Governance committee, are charged with evaluating the learning outcomes and
content of proposed credit courses in order to determine whether students will need prerequisite
skills—in the subject area or in communication or computation—to successfully undertake assignments
in the course. Statistical evidence (e.g., correlation between completion of a proposed prerequisite course
and performance in the target course), readily provided by the Office of Research, Planning and Grants, is
sometimes necessary to determine the need for the prerequisite and the justification for its enforcement.
The same process is used when the department conducts its periodic review of established prerequisites for
possible revision. This triangular effort of instructional departments, the Office of Research, Planning and
Grants, and the Curriculum Committee towards the common purpose of determining prerequisite validity
is one of our finest demonstrations of professional integrity and excellence at CCSF. However, while the
prerequisite validation process is an academic and research endeavor, the enforcement of prerequisites
is not. Implementation of prerequisites is sometimes viewed by students and the College community as
posing undue delays or even barriers to student access even though an appeals process exists, as mandated
by CCSF and Title 5 prerequisite policy. When these conflicting interests surface, the College must turn
again to the validation process to investigate the appropriateness of the prerequisite in light of the Title 5
standard that a prerequisite be established and enforced if students without the preparation would be
“highly unlikely to succeed in the target course.”
District policies. As an institution that promotes continual evaluation and assessment, the College is
making strides in the systematic review and update of the District (Board) Policy Manual, though the task
has been, admittedly, a slow one. Documentation of policy revisions has not consistently been collected
centrally. In addition, some obsolete policies that reside only in the Board Policy Manual have not been
regularly reviewed. However, in preparation for the 2000 Accreditation, the Policy Manual was restructured
and reformatted in an effort to make it more usable and reader friendly. In addition, over 40 policies were
found to be outdated, and were revised or discarded. Last year, a plan to systematically review the Board
Policy Manual was drafted, indicating responsibilities of senior administrative staff, Shared Governance
committees, the Chancellor, and the Board of Trustees. The plan for review was quite comprehensive and
included a review of Board, Institutional, Student, Instructional, Student Development, Facilities, and
Fiscal/Budget policies. The plan has not yet been implemented. Of great assistance is the College’s recent
subscription to the Policy and Procedure Service website developed by the Community College League
332 CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO