Conference Program.pdf - The RP Group

Conference 

Program 

Presented by the RP Group in collaboration with 3CSN, the Accrediting Commission for 

Community and Junior Colleges, the Career Ladders Project and LearningWorks 

Strengthening Student Success Conference: Embracing & Leading Change | Oct 3-5, 2012 | 1

Schedule Overview 

Wednesday, October 3 

8:30 – 6:00 Conference Check-In/Information Desk | B-2 Level Foyer 

8:30 – 3:45 Exhibitor Displays | B-2 Level Foyer 

9:30 – 11:00 Welcome & Keynote Presentation by Uri Treisman | Pacific I-III 

11:00 - 11:30 Coffee Break, sponsored by CCSSE | B-2 Level Foyer 

11:30 – 12:30 Briefing Session 1 

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch and POWER Award Presentation | Pacific I-III 


3:15 – 3:45 Coffee & Cookies Break, sponsored by Scantron | B-2 Level Foyer 


4:45 – 6:45 Reception, sponsored by eLumen | Fountain Terrace 

Thursday, October 4 

7:30 – 4:30 Conference Check-In/Information Desk | B-2 Level Foyer 

7:30 – 2:45 Exhibitor Displays | B-2 Level Foyer 

7:30 – 8:30 Continental Breakfast | Pacific I-III 

8:30 – 10:00 Interactive Session 1 

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee Break, sponsored by Nuventive | B-2 Level Foyer 

10:30 – 12:00 Interactive Breakout 2 

12:15 – 2:15 Lunch & Keynote Presentation by Chaffey College | Pacific I-III 

2:15 – 2:45 Coffee Break, sponsored by Wiley Learning | B-2 Level Foyer 

2:45 – 4:15 Interactive Breakout 3 

Friday, October 5 

8:00 – 9:00 Conference check in/information desk | B-2 Level Foyer 

9:00 – 1:00 Post-Conference Workshops (includes lunch) 

Save the Date 

The 2013 Strengthening Student Success Conference will be held October 9 – 11 at the San 

Francisco Airport Marriott. 

Watch the RP Group website for details later in the fall | www.rpgroup.org 


Briefing Session I 

Wednesday, October 3 | 11:30-12:30 

Implementation Update on the Recommendations of the Student Success Task Force 

Strand: Defining and Measuring Success 

Room: Newport Beach 2 

In January 2012, the Board of Governors adopted 22 recommendations from the Student Success 

Task Force (SSTF) that will affect virtually every facet of how community colleges operate. 

Major recommendations address linkages with K-12 schools, student intake and support, 

instructional programs and accountability. This session will explain the status of implementation 

efforts. The vice chancellors responsible for implementation of the SSTF recommendations, led 

by executive vice chancellor Erik Skinner, will explain new statute (SB 1456) and regulations 

that we expect will have been recently adopted (Enrollment Priorities); additional regulations 

that will be in process (BOG Fee Waiver, Score Card); and additional efforts underway related to 

instruction and professional development. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions 

and it is likely that discussion will be lively. 

Steve Bruckman, Paul Feist, Marlene Garcia, Linda Michalowski, Patrick Perry, Barry Russell, 

Erik Skinner, Van Ton-Quinlivan & Dan Troy, California Community Colleges Chancellor's 

Office 

Can Diagnostic Assessment Help Improve Developmental Education in California? 

Strand: Building College Readiness 

Room: Emerald Bay 1 

In January 2012, the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges adopted a 

recommendation that California’s community colleges develop diagnostic assessments for use 

across the system that would provide detailed information about each student’s specific academic 

strengths and weaknesses. This session will discuss what three other states—Virginia, Florida 

and North Carolina—have already developed, or are developing for their community colleges. 

These states reforms are still in their infancy, and how they will play out over the long term is 

not yet clear. This session will help to clarify the crucial issues for California and how the 

ambitious reforms envisioned by the Task Force might differ from those being undertaken in 

other states. 

Kimberly McDaniel, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office; Louis Freedberg, 

EdSource; Pam Burdman, Independent Consultant; Robert Gabriner, San Francisco State 

University/RP Group 

Rethinking the Developmental Sequence 

Strand: Rethinking the Developmental Sequence 

Room: Balboa Bay 1 

The days are past when colleges teach a long developmental sequence of math and English 

classes—often both composition and reading—without question. In recent years, in light of 

critical analysis of evidence and increased attention, every aspect of developmental education 

content, outcomes, length of sequence and instruction has been examined and in many cases, 

redesigned. In this session a panel of faculty members will talk about changes and their 


experiences in developmental courses in the classroom, in their departments and at the 

institutional level. 

Rose Asera, Asera Research and Evaluation; Jennifer Lowood, Berkeley City College; Lars 

Kjeseth, El Camino College; Lisa Cook, Laney College; Tue Rust, Los Medanos College 

What Professional Pathways? Research Findings and Ideas for Action from a Multiyear 

Study of Transfer in Career Majors 

Strand: Creating Pathways for Students 

Room: Laguna Beach 1 

A comprehensive examination of transfer in five professional disciplines reveals that California 

lacks a transfer superhighway in majors that prepare students for high-demand jobs. Rather, 

students must often navigate a confusing map of crooked roads and dead-ends. Learn what 

factors over 1,400 students said supported and challenged their own journey to transfer and 

bachelor’s degree. Explore insights both across disciplines and within specific majors from the 

analysis of the paths taken by 14,500 students from community college to the university. 

Participate in a discussion of what this research means to your own efforts to support community 

college to university transfer, particularly focusing on what data you might gather at the local 

and regional level to begin building a transfer autobahn for your students. 

Kelley Karandjeff, Eva Schiorring & Terrence Willett, RP Group 

We Are One! (Or Am I Just Crazy?) 

Strand: How Learning Connects to Work 


Do institutional structures and names of units at our colleges and in the System Office tend to get 

in the way? Do they divide us rather than unite us to work collaboratively for the success of ALL 

of our students? Are CTE and transfer mutually exclusive? Join us for a discussion as we explore 

how students need technical skills, soft skills, basic skills and general education to get prepared 

for a career in the 21st century. Student success and college navigation might be improved if we 

reduced institutional silos and collaborated more effectively within colleges and with external 

partners to better prepare our students for the future. 

Ruth Goodin, Kiran Kamath, Gail Newman & Ryan Pedersen, Los Medanos College 

Sherpa: Increasing Student Success with a Recommendation Engine 

Strand: Creative Approaches for Supporting Students 


The South Orange County Community College District has created Sherpa, an academic 

recommendation engine that combines human expertise and predictive analytics to provide 

students with the right information at the right time, enabling them to make better academic 

decisions. Sherpa uses time, event or location-based “triggers” to deliver multimodal (email, 

SMS, voice, text-to-speech or Facebook announcements), personalized communications such as: 

helping students find acceptable alternatives when their preferred courses are full, targeting atrisk 

students for academic interventions, tailoring information about campus events to individual 

interests and pushing important tasks into students’ personal to-do lists. At this session, we will 

discuss the compelling nature of personalized online services, outline our development process 

and provide a live demonstration of the Sherpa system. 

Robert Bramucci & Jim Gaston, South Orange County Community College District 


Method-ists: Building a Data-Informed Culture 

Strand: Accreditation: Advancing Authentic Assessment 


In the Summer of 2011, Los Angeles Harbor College (LAHC) joined a national initiative to 

increase student success: Achieving the Dream (AtD). Success has been defined to include 

degree and certificate completion, retention, completion of gate-keeper courses and transfer. 

Through participation in AtD, LAHC has committed to find out why there are gaps in student 

success as well as how to eliminate barriers so that students can achieve success. A cornerstone 

to this process has been an extensive examination and analysis of data by a broad representation 

of campus members, known as the Data Team. It is through teamwork, examination, 

communication and collaboration that we have been able to further evidence-based decision 

making in addressing student equity and success. 

Kristi Vollmer Blackburn, Rhea Estoya & Elena Reigadas, Los Angeles Harbor College 

Moving Beyond Implementation: Barriers and Best Practices for Institutionalizing SLOs 

Strand: Institutionalizing Student Learning Outcomes 


Community college faculty and administrators have worked together to create the profound 

organizational change necessary to institutionalize SLO assessment. This session shares results 

of a statewide survey that examined the critical challenges colleges face at each stage of this 

journey and the best practices colleges used to overcome each barrier in order to close the loop 

on assessment. We will also discuss findings from a qualitative study that examined how well 

faculty members at a single community college embodied the assessment of SLOs and used 

assessment for pedagogical and curricular change. Together, these research projects provide an 

in-depth look into the current state of the community college assessment effort and provide 

specific recommendations to help successfully institutionalize the SLO assessment process. 

Lori Bennett, Moorpark College; Barbara McNeice-Stallard, Mt. San Antonio College 

Contextualized Academic English-Paired Courses and Reading Apprenticeship Models 

Strand: Improving our Practice 


We will present our continuing work with paired courses of ESL and general education 

(GE)/transfer content courses (ESL with Art History 102 and 101 (Humanities), ESL and 

Personal Development 40, and ESL and Anthropology 102). We will describe the formation of 

our new Faculty Inquiry Group for Reading Apprenticeship (RA) and how we are integrating RA 

into our ESL and content courses through the formal pairings of our courses. Preliminary 

findings will be presented. This is a panel of faculty from ESL and several disciplines at West 

Los Angeles College. ESL students receive college credits for both ESL, (elective units) and the 

content courses, GE units. 

Alma Narez Acosta, Nancy Sander & Alice Taylor, West Los Angeles College 

Steering Ships: Guiding Principles for Shifting Institutional Direction 

Strand: Leading from the Middle 



This interactive session will focus on practices and principles of organizational transformation, 

specifically how a college-wide task force ignites enthusiasm, builds support and implements 

initiatives. Presenters will first describe factors that led to the formation of a basic skills task 

force. Presenters will also describe how the task force adapted, providing leadership even as 

parameters changed. Within this context, participants in this session will examine and discuss 

principles underlying the task force and see how these principles help model effective shared 

governance. Participants will also discuss lessons learned from the creation of the task force. 

Finally, participants will consider how the processes and principles of this task force could help 

inform and improve similar large-scale institutional changes at participants' own colleges. 

Gregory Anderson, Karen Chow, Rob Mieso & Mallory Newell, De Anza College 

A District's Struggle to Own, Define, Quantify and Actualize a Responsive and Responsible 

Definition of Student Success 

Strand: Critical Topics for Community Colleges 


Nationwide accountability movements have produced a number of definitions for student success 

including means to measure student success. Invariably these definitions and metrics focus on 

transfer and completion of degrees and certificates. While these are legitimate measures of 

student success, they do not adequately measure the transformational educational interventions 

provided by community colleges for community college students. What is needed is a more 

comprehensive definition of student success that refocuses the issue as a process and not merely 

an outcome. This session will present the journey of discovery within the San Jose/Evergreen 

Community College District including the challenges and opportunities in finding our own way. 

Mike Casas, Rita Cepeda, Marjorie Clark, Maria Fuentes, Dan Hawkins, Tamela Hawley, Sam 

Ho, Jeffrey Lease & Charles Stevens, San Jose/Evergreen Community College District 

Making Scantron’s Class Climate Work for your Institution 

Strand: Utilizing Assessment and Learning Technology 

Room: Huntington Beach 

If you use Scantron's Class Climate to evaluate courses or you’re looking to transform your 

institutions evaluations, and looking for tips on how to maximize its features or have ideas for 

how to make it more effective, this session is for you. Structured as an open dialog, you will 

have the chance to: discuss key issues that you are facing in using Class Climate for student 

learning assessment, share stories about how you are managing reporting needs and 

requirements, identify gaps in current solutions and describe what functionality is needed to help 

meet accreditation standards and strengthen institutional effectiveness. Scantron Associate Vice 

President Brad Zentner will be there to answer questions, foster an exchange of solutions, and 

most importantly, bring back your perspectives on how Scantron could be more responsive to 

your needs. 

Brad Zentner, Scantron 


Briefing Session 2 


Why Don't We Just Ask Them: Using Student Voice and Opinion in Decision Making 



In 2010, Los Angeles Southwest College became an Achieving the Dream (AtD) college. An 

integral part of being an AtD college is reaching out to students and gaining input on their 

experiences and challenges. What students have told us has not only changed how we look at our 

instruction and how we offer services, it has also transformed students roles in empowering 

themselves and becoming engaged in their own education. In this workshop, we will outline our 

methods for gathering student input and using this data to plan and implement student success 

initiatives throughout the college. This practical how-to workshop will give attendees tools to use 

as soon as they return to their campuses. 

Patrick Jefferson & Sabrena Turner-Odom, Los Angeles Southwest College 

Assessing Transcript-Based Placement 



This summer, 20 California community colleges participated in a study that explored the efficacy 

of transcript analysis for assessing college-readiness, based on research done by Long Beach 

City College (LBCC). LBCC found that local high school grades were unrelated to placement, 

but were the strongest predictors of course performance, whereas 11th grade California 

Standards Test scores were the best predicator of placement but only weakly related to college 

success. This session will share the results of the statewide study, including variables that 

appeared to influence the usefulness of transcript analysis. Representatives from Long Beach 

City College will then describe how the results of their earlier study were translated into a large 

pilot project that is exploring methods of augmenting and enhancing the college’s existing 

assessment process. 

John Hetts & Mark Taylor, Long Beach City College; Terrence Willett, RP Group 

The Laissez-Faire College: Findings from a Two-Year Study on Basic Skills 



This session will present many of the findings of a two-year study of basic skills programs in the 

California community colleges that included 20 colleges, 323 interviews with faculty and 

administrative staff and 169 classroom observations. Findings have been organized into four 

topics: remedial pedagogy; fragmentation of services; islands of innovation; and structural 

obstacles to alignment of assessment, student services and instruction. Session participants will 

discuss four major questions: What is the cost for transforming the community colleges? How 

can colleges establish sustainable and renewable practices that support student success? How can 

colleges integrate the delivery of student services and instruction? How can colleges evolve into 

organizational risk-tolerant cultures supporting innovation and sustainable change? 

Laura Hope, Chaffey College; Robert Gabriner, San Francisco State University/RP Group 


Priority Registration for High School Seniors 



According to the Student Success Task Force report, in the 2009-2010 academic school year, 

approximately 137,000 first-term students were unable to register for a single course. In 2011, as 

part of a strategic planning initiative, West Hills Community College District (WHCCD) 

modified its priority registration process to include high school seniors. This resulted in an 

increase of 34% of feeder high school graduate enrollments. Chancellor Jack Scott has praised 

WHCCD for the implementation of a priority registration process that includes high school 

seniors and addresses many of the matriculation requirements outlined by the Student Success 

Task Force. This session will provide an overview of the work and collaboration required to 

implement a priority registration process for high school seniors. 

Erin Corea, West Hills College Coalinga; Sylvia Dorsey-Robinson & Joel Ruble, West Hills 

College Lemoore; Pedro Avila, West Hills Community College District 

Separated at Birth? The Twin Proficiencies of Work and Civic Engagement 



Employers tell us they want graduates who can think independently and express themselves 

originally, yet work with colleagues from across disciplinary cultures and around the world. For 

many, the new emphasis on collaboration departs from the traditional approach of solitary 

intellectual development. Constantly connected, we're expected to solve problems, build 

businesses and even invent and learn as members of teams. Are we ready to prepare our students 

for lives that will be led more collectively than ours? And what does American higher education 

have to contribute, with its tradition of shared governance? Our responses will shape our colleges 

and universities for decades to come, as we reconcile the twin proficiencies of work and 

community. 

Ken O'Donnell, California State University Office of the Chancellor 

The Rio Hondo College Gateway Tutoring Program: An Integrated Approach to Learning 

Support and Student Success 



Adopted in 2009 as a Basic Skills Initiative project, the Gateway Tutoring Program has provided 

an integrated approach to tutoring services at Rio Hondo College. Furthermore, it has become a 

key component of an emerging first-year student success framework, which guides and supports 

students from prematriculation through transfer and/or degree completion. This workshop will 

highlight the planning, implementation and on-going development and evaluation of this best 

practice tutoring program. 

Robert Holcomb & Lydia Okelberry-Gonzalez, Rio Hondo College 

Pinpointing Areas to Improve: New Accreditation Expectations for Disaggregating Data 



Colleges have always looked for ways to use student success metrics to assess institutional 

effectiveness and increase student achievement. Beginning Fall 2012, all colleges conducting 


self-evaluations as part of the accreditation process will be expected to sufficiently disaggregate 

student success data to pinpoint areas where resources and efforts need to be repurposed to 

improve outcomes for all students. What are the specific expectations for capturing and 

documenting our efforts to measure and improve student success? How do we use existing data 

resources at our disposal to collect and report the evidence? Specific strategies will be shared by 

college researchers tackling these new reporting expectations. 

Barbara Beno, ACCJC; Gregory Stoup, Canada College; Robert Pacheco, MiraCosta College; 

Daniel Martinez, Riverside Community College 

Exemplary Student Learning Outcomes Assessment: The Only Constant Is Change 



Across California, key stakeholders are leading the way in assessing and improving learning 

outcomes as we strive to improve opportunities for students to achieve their educational goals. 

This work varies from college to college and even from one program or department to another. 

One key feature remains constant, however, and that is the concept of change. Thus, the power to 

leverage change will be the focus in this session, as winners of the Promising Outcomes Work 

and Exemplary Research (POWER) Awards provide their perspectives on the work that they 

have accomplished. After each brief presentation, small groups will discuss how to apply lessons 

learned about change from these award winners. Plan on walking away with both a refreshed 

attitude and some concrete tools for your own work in improving student success. 

Gregory Anderson, De Anza College; La Shawn Brinson, Los Angeles Southwest College; Fred 

Hochstaedter, Monterey Peninsula College; Arkady Hanjiev, West Hills College Coalinga 

New Approaches to Using Labor Market Information to Improve Student Decisions 



While a postsecondary education is critical in today’s economy, not all postsecondary education 

and training programs are equally good fits, particularly for individuals with limited time and 

means to invest. In this session, Jobs for the Future (JFF) will share strategies to identify a range 

of best bet programs. Drawing on one of its newest initiatives, Counseling to Careers, JFF will 

offer an approach to identify quality career pathways in your region, determine the skills and 

experience needed to enter and advance in those pathways and find best bet programs that lead to 

employment in those pathways. Strategies and materials presented in this session can position 

colleges and their community partners to do a much better job helping students and their families 

make informed postsecondary decisions. 

Todd Weissman, Jobs for the Future 

So Many Initiatives, So Little Communication: How to Build a Community of Practice 

Devoted to Student Success 



We noticed that we were all having conversations in the halls, the lunch area and our offices 

about the great projects we were doing across the college conversations that pointed to great 

ideas needing to be shared. We needed a score card to keep track of all the things we were doing. 

The solution was to hold a Student Success Summit, which has become a very effective yearly 


event informing the college community about existing projects and creating incredibly fertile 

ground where new student success ideas could develop. Participants who attend this session will 

experience the highly interactive format of our summit, discover how we put these events 

together and receive agenda/guidebook samples. 

Ted Blake, Patricia James & Janice Levasseur, Mt. San Jacinto College 

Contextualization, Tutoring and Acceleration in an Urban ESL Program 



While research studies have highlighted contextualization, acceleration and tutoring as some of 

the most promising approaches to address basic skills, few examples of the use of these 

approaches to engage ESL students with college-level material have been presented to date. 

Models of contextualized learning, individualized student support and an accelerated curriculum 

in a large ESL program will be described and made visible through the use of video. Student 

voice videos will illuminate students perspectives on their learning in the Green Jobs Education 

Program, ESL Writing Workshop and accelerated ESL curriculum at Laney College. Participants 

will be encouraged to explore the specific models, strategies and student responses presented to 

come up with their own ways of using these approaches in their practice, programs and colleges. 

Lisa Cook, Sonja Franeta & Suzan Tiemroth-Zavala, Laney College 

Meeting Two Institutional Challenges at Once 



Each college now faces the double challenge of increasing the number of completers (courses 

and degrees) and clearly specifying what these students know and can do. To enable colleges to 

meet these two challenges together, instead of having them be at odds which each other, eLumen 

has significantly expanded its capabilities. It now handles completion outcomes as well as 

learning outcomes. Within SLOs, it now supports multiple models electronic submission of 

assessment reports, electronic creation of reports with prompts, submission of aggregated data in 

addition to per-student assessment. We still believe the latter is best because it engages students, 

but each department can now move toward this goal on its own timeline and still be part of 

institutional reports all along the way. 

David Shupe, eLumen 

Briefing Session 3 


Introducing Equity Achievement as a Strategy for Strengthening Student Success 



In the Summer of 2011, Los Angeles Harbor College (LAHC) joined a national initiative to 

increase student success: Achieving the Dream (AtD). Through participation in AtD, LAHC has 

committed to find out why there are gaps in student success, as well as how to eliminate barriers 

so that students can achieve success. A cornerstone to this process has been an extensive 

examination and analysis of data by a broad representation of campus members, supported by 


campus leaders in order to sustain ongoing improvement. In Spring 2012, we conducted student 

focus groups to ask questions about obstacles in students' paths to success. Equity and cultutural 

competence in education became an area for us to strengthen. We will explain our process as 

well as our five-year plan to strengthen equity. 

Kristi Vollmer Blackburn & Jassiel Dominguez, Los Angeles Harbor College 

Focusing on College Readiness with High School Seniors 



A partnership between Clovis West High School and Willow International College Center has 

resulted in a substantial increase in the percentage of Clovis West High School seniors who have 

placed directly into college-level English and will therefore not require remediation. Students are 

being taught to read, think and write critically through a variety of rhetorical strategies using 

college-level nonfiction literature based on the Common Core Standards. A team of Clovis West 

English teachers and Willow International English instructors are discussing curriculum 

alignment and monitor student academic performance as well as student academic behaviors. As 

a result of this collaboration, the percentage of Clovis West High School students placing into 

freshman English increased by 76%. 

Karen Boone & Ellen Surra Melocik, Clovis West High School; Jeff Burdick, Willow 

International College Center 

Preparing Students for Success in Transfer-level Composition: Faculty Beliefs and Student 

Experiences 



English faculty believe that developmental students need a strong foundation in reading and 

writing to succeed in transfer-level composition. On the basis of this belief, the English 

department at Ohlone College established a reading prerequisite to freshman composition. 

Institutional data suggest this prerequisite has improved student success in writing courses. 

However, indepth interviews and case studies of students as they move from developmental to 

transfer-level classes reveal many of the challenges these students face, as well as how they 

overcome these challenges to be successful. This session will be an opportunity to share 

methodology, data and conclusions about a reading prerequisite, as well as ways to support 

success as basic skills students move into transfer-level English classes. 

Alison Kuehner, Ohlone College 

Scalable Success for All Students: Curriculum Redesign, Supplemental Learning and First- 

Year Experience Programs 



College of the Canyons, through a holistic approach with instruction and student support 

services, has implemented new programs and curriculum designed to improve student success 

and progress towards their educational goals. These programs include a First Year Experience 

(FYE) program for first-time full-time freshmen, supplemental learning activities and 

development of a new, accelerated developmental math course (Intermediate Algebra for 

Statistics) for non-STEM (Science, Technology, and Engineering Majors) and non-business 


majors. These programs address the needs of all students by providing enrollment and 

persistence opportunities and support for course-level success. Large-scale pilot programs, a 

uniform evaluation tool developed for Basic Skills Initiative funded projects and meetings to 

discuss program changes and implementation have enabled the college to make an overall 

commitment to student success. 

Joe Gerda, Audrey Green, Daylene Meuschke & Denee Pescarmona, College of the Canyons 

Create a Support Program that Promotes the Advancement of Immigrant Professional 

Students 



This workshop will outline steps to create a support services program that promotes the 

educational and employment transition of immigrant professionals who earned college/university 

degrees in their country of origin. Practical developmental steps will be outlined and discussion 

topics will include the reasons and value of developing, implementing and maintaining a 

program that enforces the incorporation of immigrant professional talents in the workforce and 

higher education. Session participants will discuss and develop ideas for developing similar 

programs in their institutions. 

Sheyla Castillo, San Diego Community Colleges Continuing Education 

Supplemental Instruction: Implementation, Outcomes and Recommendations for 

California Community Colleges 



Supplemental Instruction (SI) was recently included in the Student Success Task Force 

recommendations for California community colleges. What does this model look like? Does it 

increase student success? Butte College implemented their SI program with grant funding in Fall 

2009. Data since this time shows that the program supports student success in a variety of 

disciplines. Presenters will share quantitative data as well as qualitative data that support students 

increased confidence, interdependence and fluency with study skills, as well as faculty input on 

how the program enhances the classroom environment overall. Learn from our challenges to 

create a pilot or improve similar programs on your campus. This session is appropriate for 

faculty in STEM disciplines, basic skills and other disciplines; program developers; 

administrators and researchers. 

April Hennessy & Miya Squires, Butte College 

Federal Regulations and National Conversations Impacting Accreditation Practices and 

Policies 



ACCJC/WASC President Dr. Barbara A. Beno will provide current information from the US 

Department of Education’s regulations on incentive compensation, misrepresentation, gainful 

employment, the credit hour, state authorization, distance education and the two-year rule. Dr. 

Beno will also talk about pressures from the national dialogue on changes in accreditation 

transparency, public disclosure, greater focus on student outcomes and other emerging topics. 

Barbara Beno & Susan Clifford, ACCJC 


Assessment into Action: Using Results to Drive Curricular and Pedagogical Change 



After investigating ways of improving the number of students who complete the developmental 

English/ESL sequence and reviewing the results of the SLO assessment for the transferable 

English course (English 1A), Berkeley City College (BCC) English and ESL faculty 

implemented a departmental portfolio review process that drastically changed the developmental 

sequence the departments provide, the pedagogy and design of their courses and the mechanisms 

for professional development. In this presentation, a developmental English instructor, ESL 

instructor and campus SLO coordinator will share how weaving together SLO assessment, 

professional learning and course design have led to an accelerated, clear and cohesive 

English/ESL sequence while also invigorating the practice and identity of the faculty and 

department. 

Jenny Lowood, Cleavon Smith & Gabe Winer, Berkeley City College 

Rethinking Equitable Student Success through Developmental Evaluation 



The developmental evaluation method enables practitioner to become aware of their cultural 

beliefs, assumptions and values as they participate in action research projects related to minority 

student underachievement. Developmental evaluation establishes social and personal interactions 

that encourage practitioners to agree on the processes and procedures that establish ongoing 

observations, reflections and action as institutional effectiveness and equity are evaluated. 

Participation in all aspects of the evaluation process is elicited by asking evaluative questions, 

using evaluation logic and gathering data from these questions, which makes ongoing data-based 

decision making possible as practitioners evaluate the effectiveness of institutional programs. 

The results of CUE’s action research work with STEM faculty at the community college and 

state university will be presented to show STEM faculty involvement in developmental 

evaluation. 

Peggy Smith & Chelvi Subramaniam, University of Southern California 

Building Faculty Engagement in Improving Outcomes 



When community colleges make a deep commitment to faculty engagement by supporting high 

quality instruction, providing access to data on student outcomes, and creating opportunities to 

test out potential improvements, they see results. This session shares lessons learned from 

finalists for the Aspen Prize and other institutions that have built cultures of continuous 

improvement. You will learn how Valencia College structured its professional development and 

tenure processes to support high caliber instruction and ongoing inquiry, a four-step process for 

instigating a similar transformation at your own institution, activities to help support this process 

and answers to common sticking points, plus hear examples of how this process has been applied 

in a variety of institutional contexts. 

Rose Asera, Asera Research and Evaluation; Kathy Booth, RP Group 


Developmental Education Learning Communities: What Works? What Doesn't? What's 

Next? 



New research shows that learning communities can help students progress through their required 

developmental education courses. Yet the same studies highlight the fact that these programs are 

difficult to implement consistently or bring to scale. Furthermore, while learning communities 

often have short-term impacts, there is mixed evidence on longer-term impacts. Are learning 

communities a valuable tool for student success? MDRC researchers and college leaders will 

draw lessons from evaluations with over 7,000 students at six community colleges, leading a 

conversation around the implications for practice: What have we learned to improve learning 

communities for students in developmental education? How can we move forward ensuring that 

learning communities fit into larger and broader strategies for success across the campus? 

Alex Mayer & Evan Weissman, MDRC; Audrey Yamagata-Noji, Mt. San Antonio College; Mary 

Beth Love, SF State/CCSF Metro Academies 

The Benefits of an Online Assessment System: Using Taskstream for Outcomes Assessment 

and Program Review 



In 2009 San Diego City College adopted Taskstream, an online assessment system. This session 

will describe both the work involved and the benefits derived from the adoption of this 

multifaceted program. We will describe some of the challenges, as well as highlight what we 

perceive to be the many advantages of this online assessment system, including how we used the 

tool to establish our college’s proficiency level in outcomes assessment. 

Dotti Cordell & Berta Harris, San Diego City College 

Interactive Session 1 

Thursday, October 4 | 8:30-10:00 

Measuring Our Success: Providing Evidence for CTE Outcomes 



If the ultimate goal of a CTE program is prepare a student for employment, shouldn’t our 

measure of success be whether students find jobs in their field of study? Cabrillo College has 

been surveying CTE students since 2000 to assess employment outcomes. This year 14 colleges 

have joined with the RP Group and the Bay Area Community College Consortium to pilot a 

similar study. More colleges plan to participate in the next round. This workshop will review the 

motivations for the study, overview the major findings and present how City College of San 

Francisco intends to apply the findings to drive program improvement. Workshop participants 

will explore the implications of wider use of follow-up studies of employment and the potential 

impacts on programs and funding. 

Rock Pfotenhauer, Cabrillo College; Beth Cataldo, City College of San Francisco; KC Greaney, 

Santa Rosa Junior College 


Foundation for Success 



Through its Trade Bridge Academy, LATTC has re-engineered how students are oriented and 

prepared to succeed in college by implementing a nine-hour noncredit Introduction to Post- 

Secondary Education course, a pre-placement diagnostic assessment and noncredit math/English 

refresher courses for all new and returning students. Data has shown significant student success 

in course completion, persistence and credit math and English course success. Course objectives 

for the noncredit introduction to college course are: (1) bridge students from community to 

college, (2) foster emotional intelligence competencies, (3) build networking and relationship 

building skills, (4) change students internal tapes and myths, (5) build critical thinking skills, (6) 

introduce students to available post-secondary program options and (7) provide students with 

information and skills to navigate campus and community services and resources. 

Maryanne Galindo, Joe Guerrieri, Dorothy Smith & Allison Tom-Miura, Los Angeles Trade- 

Technical College 

The Pedagogy of Acceleration: Classroom Practices in Pilot English Courses at Three 

Community Colleges 



In this session, English faculty from three community colleges will share the specific ways in 

which they have taught their pilot accelerated courses differently from their usual practice in 

developmental composition courses. We will focus on three areas in which our pedagogy has 

most deliberately and dramatically changed: intensified reading instruction, just-in-time 

remediation and greater attention to the affective domain. Presenters will share particular 

strategies in each area and participants will generate ideas for how they might apply these 

principles in their own classrooms to better prepare students in developmental English for 

success in transfer-level courses. 

Jeanne Costello, Fullerton College/3CSN; Bridget Kominek, Fullerton College; Melissa Reeve, 

Solano Community College; Kyra Mello, Yuba College 

Santa Ana ¡Adelante! — Ensuring a College Degree in Every Home by 2025 



The Santa Ana ¡Adelante! initiative guarantees that all 56,937 Santa Ana Unified School District 

students who graduate from high school, enroll at Santa Ana College and complete all academic 

and application requirements for transfer admission will be admitted to CSU-Fullerton or UC- 

Irvine. With the solid support of a broad coalition of educational stakeholders, civic leaders, 

community-based organizations, foundations, Latino organizations, business, media sources, 

parents and students, this recently launched model has implemented a new era of Latino student 

college access and success in the country’s most Latino city. At a time when public postsecondary 

institutions are finding it hard to accept more students, Santa Ana ¡Adelante! serves as 

a model of collaboration to ensure prepared students have guaranteed admission. 

Melba Schneider Castro, California State University, Fullerton; Micki Bryant & Sara Lundquist, 

Santa Ana College; Ed Winchester, Santa Ana Unified School District; Santana Ruiz, University 

of California, Irvine 


Empowering Students to Succeed in College and Career 



Join us to discuss innovative and integrative approaches focused on preparing students for both 

college and career. We will provide an overview and contacts for statewide initiatives which 

involve the California Community Colleges and local workforce boards including Community 

College Pathways for Former Foster Youth and California College Pathways. You will hear from 

specific colleges that have evidence-based approaches in providing their students with effective 

strategies and techniques which equip them for success in the classroom and on the job. Features 

will include video, strategies that empower students to achieve despite multiple barriers and 

innovative practices that enhance learning and contribute to vocational success. 

Carol Davies & Devon Werble, Career Ladders Project; Dione Washington, Los Angeles Trade 

Technical College; Dameion Renault, Orange Coast College/CLP; Chris Dech, Riverside City 

College/CLP 

Complex Lives: Educating the Whole Person 



What strengths and needs do our students bring to community college? What hopes and fears? 

Why is it important for colleges to understand the complexity of students lives? Two programs 

will share the ways they are designed to address the affective domain as an integral part of 

students academic development and performance. The Academy for College Excellence (ACE) 

has incorporated hope, self-efficacy, connection, self-identity and mindfulness into an integrated 

academic program. Chaffey College has organized a campus-wide initiative on hope. These 

programs will share what they have learned in research and practice about supporting students 

strengths and acknowledging their needs. Strengths can be built on and needs can become a great 

source of motivation. 

Rose Asera, Asera Research and Evaluation; Diego Navarro & Tue Rust, Academy for College 

Excellence; Rob Rundquist, Chaffey College 

Spotlight on Assessment: Transforming Your Campus Assessment Process and Outlook 



How do you move from doing the minimum requirements and filling out forms to making the 

assessment process something of value on your campus? This workshop will provide tips and 

proven practices from experience, including: (1) how to set up an Assessment Committee that 

works well and gets things done; (2) how to make assessment something of value for both 

instructional and non-instructional units, and from course level to GE; (3) how to integrate SLO 

data into decision-making processes for budget allocation and curricular changes; (4) how to 

develop institutional-level assessment that impacts the full institution and (5) how to involve 

faculty, administrators, staff and students. There will be an opportunity to share your own 

successes and pitfalls and learn from each other. 

David Koeth, Bonnie Suderman & Bernadette Towns, Bakersfield College 


Developing Institutional Student Learning Outcomes 



This session offers three case studies of how California community colleges are articulating and 

assessing institutional learning outcomes (ILOs), as well as how they are engaging faculty in 

discussions about the outcomes and assessment results. One college has embraced the AAC&U 

LEAP learning outcomes and adapted the organization’s VALUE rubrics for assessment of 

ILOs. A second college has orchestrated ways for faculty to engage in cross-discipline 

discussions where those disciplines are all contributing to a common general educational 

outcome. A third college has used group collaboration to develop ILOs and recently focused on 

using electronic surveys of college data from students both in the science disciplines and across 

disciplines. You will leave the session with ideas for how your college can use ILOs to inform 

institutional improvement efforts. 

Susan Clifford, ACCJC; Fred Trapp, Cambridge West Partnership; Daylene Meuschke & Paul 

Wickline, College of the Canyons; Greg Baxley & Sally Demarest, Cuesta College; Katy French 

& Marty Furch, Palomar College 

Lost in Transition: How Faculty across the Disciplines Can Learn to "Own" First Year 

Student Success 



It is easy to agree that both students and faculty need access to robust, contextualized, inquirybased 

and reiterative learning experiences in order to develop. One common concern is the lack 

of faculty drive to seek out professional learning experiences (often described as a lack of buy-in 

). The design and implementation of a First Year Experience (FYE) seminar taught by faculty 

from across disciplines has repeatedly shown to be effective in addressing student experience 

and faculty development goals simultaneously, but only when such efforts are rooted in a broad 

base of support across campus. This workshop will demonstrate the approach used by an 

interdisciplinary faculty team to create ongoing, sustained, campus-wide learning experiences in 

order to inspire interest in both professional learning and first-year student success across 

disciplines. 

Cecile Davis Anderson, Shelagh Rose & Carrie Starbird, Pasadena City College/3CSN; Nika 

Hogan, Pasadena City College 

Leading from the Middle: Navigating Organizational Cultures with a Change Agenda 



Using case studies and tools to assess college cultures of innovation, this session will examine 

successful and failed strategies for change within the community colleges. Community colleges 

are facing the most difficult set of challenges in their history: the evisceration of budgets and 

programs while addressing the need to increase student progress and success. This interactive 

session is primarily for practitioners from the middle of the community college organization— 

deans, directors, department chairs, coordinators and faculty who are leaders without title or 

formal authority—who are trying to promote a student success agenda in these hard times. 

Participants will have an enhanced understanding of how to adapt change strategies to specific 


institutional cultures. (This session is one part of a series developed by the Leading from the 

Middle initiative of the RP Group) 

Robert Gabriner, San Francisco State University/RP Group; Rebecca Wong, West Valley 

College 

Implementing the Student Success Task Force Recommendations 



Legislation and Title 5 changes have directed community colleges to implement aspects of the 

Student Success Task Force (SSTF) recommendations, and more modifications will occur this 

year. From enrollment priorities to basic skills to the scorecard, colleges are bracing for more 

changes that should lead to greater student success. In this breakout, we will discuss recently 

approved Education Code or Title 5 sections as well as those on the horizon; knowing about 

these updates will enable faculty leaders and their partners to design and implement important 

strategies for instruction and student services. Want to know how to help your college meet the 

challenges set forth in the SSTF recommendations? Join this breakout and learn what's coming 

next. 

Michelle Pilati & Beth Smith, Academic Senate for California Community College 

SOCCCD’s TracDat Implementation: from SLOs to Strategic Planning 



The South Orange County Community College District was looking for a solution to address 

assessment and planning at the colleges and district services. We needed a product that would 

house student learning and administrative outcomes, program and administrative unit reviews 

and our strategic plans. After trying other products, we made a unified decision to purchase 

TracDat for all of our needs. This presentation will focus on our initial year of implementation 

and the three different approaches we took with TracDat. The colleges focused on the assessment 

areas of SLOs and program reviews, while district services chose to focus on the district wide 

strategic plan and administrative unit reviews. We will share with you the lessons learned and 

our plans for the upcoming year. 

Christopher Tarman, Irvine Valley College; Scott Johnson, Nuventive; Claire Cesareo-Silva, 

Saddleback College; Denice Inciong, South Orange Community College District 



Don't Just Sit There, Do Something! Developing Your College's Own Student Success Plan 



Regulations, legislation and task force recommendations are dictating what community colleges 

should do to address student success. This session will focus on how colleges can develop their 

own plans for student success based on institutional needs, student data and collegial ingenuity. 

The presenters will share how Mt. San Antonio College hosted a Student Success Conference 

from which a Student Success Plan was developed using a collegial approach involving faculty, 


students, administrators and staff. Three main goals were developed with strategic objectives 

ranging from facilities improvement and technological interventions to intrusive counseling and 

faculty development. Participants will discuss institutional approaches to initiate similar 

activities on their campuses and share strategies in improving student success. 

Glenda Bro, Thomas Mauch & Audrey Yamagata Noji, Mt. San Antonio College 

Readiness: Immersion and Responsiveness 



So many of our students are not only not ready for academia, they begin college already 

alienated from it, hopeful but seriously fearful. Our job as educators includes attending to the 

affective domain as a strategy for inviting our students cognitive engagement. We will involve 

participants by sharing the affective practices being used by Umoja faculty from 15 colleges. We 

address alienation by immersing our students in the holistic college experience. This deep 

immersion accelerates their readiness, by challenging us instructors to be authentic and 

responsive. It echoes Baldwin’s call to students, “If I were you, I would force me, and, ask me 

the most difficult questions you can. And I would not be able to answer them. My responsibility 

is to hear them.” 

Tom deWit, Chabot College; Erin Charlens, San Diego City College; Umoja students 

The Network: A Three-Semester Learning Community for Basic Skills Students 



Community colleges are looking for ways to improve student success. How does a college create 

successful outcomes for students who start at the lowest levels of reading, writing, math and 

ESL? This workshop will provide a case study of Fresno City College’s process to address the 

needs of basic skills students. The Network’s Pilot First Year Experience program is designed 

with basic skills students in mind and spans nine departments and six divisions. The program 

provides students with the math, reading, writing and ESL courses they need beginning with 

their first semester of college. Come hear how they were able to launch such an ambitious 

endeavor and brainstorm with the facilitators and participants specific strategies to pilot or adapt 

existing first year experience programs. 

Donna Cooper, Fresno City College/3CSN; Janine Nkosi, Fresno City College 

Fast Track to Success: Pathways to Completion at Chaffey College 



Chaffey College designed a unique configuration of accelerated learning pathways for students 

in order to promote student completion and success on a large scale (100 + courses each 

semester). In order to provide multiple access points for students, faster and more successful 

completion of sequences and increased motivation and engagement in learning, Chaffey created 

several types of fast track courses for students at all levels of instruction (basic skills, transfer 

level, etc.). The presenters will share the design, implementation, research and implications of 

Chaffey’s program. Participants will also have the opportunity to explore strategies for building 


and using evidence to create, evaluate and scale up acceleration initiatives on their campuses 

during the interactive break-out session. 

Jan Connal, Cerritos College/3CSN; Angela Leontas, Giovanni Sosa, Carli Straight & Cindy 

Walker, Chaffey College 

Developing CTE Career Directed Pathways 



California Community Colleges are using diverse approaches to create effective career pathway 

programs to increase college completions and prepare students for the workforce, especially for 

students from underserved/underprepared communities who face multiple barriers to postsecondary 

attainment. The Career Advancement Academies (CAAs) have utilized regional and 

sector-based strategies to develop CTE career pathways by building partnerships between 

colleges and leveraging government and industry resources. The CAAs have also served as the 

foundation for other efforts to actively engage regional industries, local WIBs and nonprofit 

partners to create stackable certificate and pathway programs that foster access and completion 

by target populations. Presentations and dialogue by statewide CAA leadership will focus on 

what is involved in the development and the ongoing support of such programs. 

Linda Collins, Career Ladders Project; Randy Tillery, Contra Costa Community College 

District; Naomi Takuda, El Camino College; Anjana Richards, Skyline College; Angela Allison, 

West Hills Community College District 

Student to Student Connections: The Key to High Persistence Rates 



In the age of Facebook and texting we have found that community college students still place 

high value on face-to-face interactions! In a time of diminishing staff resources, implementing a 

Group Peer-Mentoring program at our community college was the solution to connecting 

students to academic and wellness resources and thus increasing persistence rates. This 

workshop will interactively introduce the concept of Group-Peer-Mentoring, report student 

benefits from the experts and creatively explore the snowball effect this service has on other 

student success driven services your campus may have to offer. You will leave with an action 

plan on how to implement this service customized to your own campus. 

Anneka Rogers, Columbia College 

Administrative Unit Assessment: Different Purposes, Different Measures 



Administrative unit assessment gathers, analyzes and uses evidence from various sources to 

measure program demand, quality, efficiency and effectiveness. Yet, each administrative unit 

plays a unique role in fulfilling the college mission and the connection to the larger institutional 

efforts to promote student learning often seems strained. How do successful colleges express, 

assess and implement administrative unit outcomes (AUOs)? What does the literature suggest are 

the most effective ways to tackle performance measurement in administrative areas? In this 

session, multiple examples of best practice from around the country will be offered and 


discussed, including two college models in detail. Participants will investigate and reflect on 

AUO design and reporting processes that fit the culture of their own institutions. 

Mallory Newell, DeAnza College; Elaine Kuo, Foothill College; Robert Pacheco & Gail Shirley, 

MiraCosta College 

Student Learning Outcomes Focused Program Review: An Integrated Planning Model 



Academic program reviews should be driven by student learning outcomes (SLOs) and integrate 

SLOs with budget development and other college-wide planning processes. Two common 

reasons for sanctions from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges 

include lack of integration of planning with resource allocation and failure to meet requirements 

regarding the use of assessment results in integrated planning. Planning needs to be an 

interactive process that results in more effective plans and enhances student learning. This 

presentation will demonstrate how the College of the Canyons online program review process 

has evolved to integrate and link department objectives to the strategic plan, SLOs and the 

budget development process. We will also discuss how these principles can be applied to other 

colleges and the pitfalls to avoid. 

Barry Gribbons & Daylene Meuschke, College of the Canyons 

Professional Development: Lessons from Effective Programs (Puente, Umoja) 



Studies have shown that creating communities of support that both challenge and guide students 

as they progress through college can make the difference between staying and leaving for many 

students. This workshop will extract the key components and essential pedagogical approaches 

of these programs and discuss how particular strategies may be used as core practices by 

everyone that has chosen to work in the community colleges. Presenters will highlight the 

structural, instructional and transformative strategies that have been effective in successfully 

supporting students from historically marginalized backgrounds and discuss how these methods 

are essential to increasing completion rates. 

Donna Colondres, Chaffey College; Darrick Smith, LearningWorks; Julia Vergara, University of 

California Office of the President 

Leading from the Middle: Addressing Barriers to Transformational Change 



Relying primarily upon the experiences of the presenters and participants, this interactive session 

will expose the barriers within community colleges to significant change in the delivery of 

educational services, and engage in a dialogue on strategies to break through those barriers. As 

community colleges face increasing pressures to redefine their mission and refocus their scope of 

activities, other forces pressure them to resist transformation. Collective bargaining agreements, 

long-standing modes of operation, funding constraints, an aversion to risk, unbending shared 

governance structures, fixed hierarchies and deeply embedded and unquestioned beliefs—all of 

these and more can block transformations with the potential to improve outcomes for students. 

Participants will have an enhanced understanding of how to adapt change strategies to specific 


institutional cultures. (This session is one part of a series developed by the Leading from the 

Middle initiative of the RP Group) 

Gregory Anderson, De Anza College; Matt Wetstein, San Joaquin Delta College 

The California Acceleration Project: Where We Are Now 



More than 90 of the state’s 112 community colleges have participated in workshops and 

presentations by the California Acceleration Project since fall 2010 and 30 colleges are part of 

the project’s Community of Practice, an extended professional development program for faculty 

piloting accelerated English and pre-statistics courses. This interactive session will present the 

problems faculty are working to address, early results from colleges that piloted in 2011-12 and 

elements from the project’s lean and lively approach to faculty development. 

Katie Hern & Myra Snell, California Acceleration Project 

Using Student Engagement Data for Accreditation 



Student engagement measures can provide powerful evidence of institutional effectiveness. This 

session will describe how community colleges can use data from the Community College Survey 

of Student Engagement (CCSSE) and the Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE) 

during the accreditation process and beyond. The facilitator will introduce the CCSSE and 

SENSE Accreditation Toolkits, which help colleges map survey results to regional standards. 

Through college examples and discussion with college practitioners, participants will gain an 

understanding of how colleges can use Center data to improve their accreditation processes. 

Angela Oriano, College Relations Center for Community College Student Engagement; Rob 

Johnstone, RP Group 



Leading Conversations about Student Goals and Outcomes: What Course-Taking Analysis 

Reveals 



California’s community college system encompasses a broad-ranging vision for higher 

education. Yet, as resources dwindle, the conversation about what constitutes success has 

focused on those outcomes that can be counted easily. Completion defined as the attainment of 

degrees and certificates or transfer to a four-year institution is increasingly becoming the 

yardstick for effectiveness. But does completion capture the full impact of community colleges? 

And if community colleges desire to demonstrate their effect on students more broadly, what 

should they be measuring? This session looks at the question of completion through the lens of 

course-taking behavior, based on a study by Peter Riley Bahr of the University of Michigan for 


the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, and introduces a simplified 

methodology for investigating course-taking patterns at your own college. 

Gregory Stoup, Canada College; Kathy Booth & Terrence Willett, RP Group 

Making the Case for Revising the Placement Process 



Placement is one of the first experiences students have at community college. The Student 

Success Task Force identified several ways the placement process has been an obstacle rather 

than an entry way for students. Placement is caught in the misalignment between high school 

outcomes and college expectations. And, as the basic skills curriculum is redesigned, the 

placement process will also have to be redesigned. This session will look at the research 

literature on placement and will have faculty from colleges that have implemented alternative 

placement measures such as high school transcript analysis and self-placement discuss what they 

have learned. 

Deborah Harrington, 3CSN; John Hetts, Long Beach City College; Patricia Ewins, Moorpark 

College 

Making It Real: Integrating Reading Apprenticeship Strategies in Your Class 



Hundreds of California Community College faculty from across the disciplines and levels have 

explored Reading Apprenticeship (RA) and become enthusiastic proponents of using the RA 

framework to help students not only read for comprehension, but to develop as disciplinary 

thinkers and problem-solvers. Still, the process of changing the way that you teach can be slow, 

difficult, daunting and reiterative. In other words, revising your syllabus, assignments and 

assessments is a long-term learning project worthy of time, attention and support. This session 

will provide some of that support. Bring a course syllabus and textbooks and get ready to work 

with colleagues to deepen the metacognitive conversation in your classroom. Note: this 

workshop will be relevant and accessible to all, regardless of your prior experience with RA. 

Jane Wolford, Chabot College; Nika Hogan, Pasadena City College 

Completion and Pathways: Moving from Buzz Words to a Student-Centered Approach 



Drawing heavily from the RP Group’s work on the major national initiative Completion by 

Design, this session will be an interactive exploration of fundamental questions about student 

success within the framework of a completion agenda. We will engage in a nuanced discussion 

of how we can make this rhetoric relevant to work at your own college. You will have the 

opportunity to consider a new lens on student completion that was developed by the Community 

College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University that emphasizes student pathways 

through college. Then, we will explore the use of Completion by Design’s Loss-Momentum 

Framework to better understand students' abilities to navigate existing pathways. You will leave 

with tips for how to shape campus student-centered conversations about improving success. 

Priyadarshini Chaplot & Rob Johnstone, RP Group 


The Power of Partnerships: Faculty Working Together across the Disciplines 



An essential element of cohort-based career pathway programs is faculty collaboration. Come 

listen to instructors who have successfully worked across disciplines to integrate CTE, basic 

skills and student success course materials and develop contextualized, project-based 

curriculum. The emphasis of this session will be on the nuts-and-bolts of establishing and 

maintaining such partnerships and building faculty learning communities. 

Calais Ingel & Pam Sanborn, Cabrillo College; Peter Simon, Career Ladders Project; Laura 

Hinckley & Renee Newell, El Camino College 

(Re)defining Student Support for Success 



In an environment of extreme scarcity, how can support be structured both inside and outside of 

the classroom to improve success for all students, and in particular for African American and 

Latinos? Come learn about what nearly 900 students at 13 California community colleges had to 

say about what helps them stay connected, engaged, directed, focused, nurtured and valued. We 

will provide an overview of support approaches and activities that students reported as being 

most important to their completion and retention while highlighting supports that can be 

integrated into students daily experience and/or the overall curriculum. This session will offer 

opportunities for you to explore how to apply what we have learned to how supports are offered 

and structured at your own institution. 

Darla Cooper & Rogeair Purnell, RP Group 

Beyond Compliance: Breathing Life into Accreditation Processes 



Taking accreditation processes from a place of compliance to one characterized as meaningful, 

robust, integrated, authentic and sustainable is possible at your college. Join us in this interactive 

session as we explore ways to breathe life and meaning into your college’s accreditation 

processes by way of meaningful outcomes assessment, program review and planning. Reflecting 

upon your own institutional processes, along with strategies learned at the conference, we will 

discuss and map ways to take your college to the next level. What will emerge is a specific 

action plan to take back to your college. 

Julianna Barnes, Cuyamaca College; Leonor Perez, Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College 

District 

Saying It All in 250 Words or Less: Tackling the Narrative Responses in the ACCJC's 

College Status Report on SLO Implementation 



How do you explain in 250 words or less that your college meets each of the proficiency-level 

characteristics on the ACCJC’s Rubric on Institutional Effectiveness, Part III? In this session, the 

presenters will report on the types of questions SLO coordinators, ALOs and other interested 

parties have been asking about the College Status Report on SLO Implementation. The 


presenters and participants will engage in an interactive discussion about what these questions 

mean in terms of prioritizing the content of the narrative responses and balancing the quantitative 

and qualitative evidence to be included. Participants will have the opportunity to examine 

hypothetical campus situations and develop criteria for what to include in the narrative analyses 

and table of evidence. The session will close with a discussion on what other colleges are 

identifying as areas for improvement to meet the Accreditation Standards about SLOs. 

Susan Clifford, ACCJC; Anu Khanna, DeAnza College; Sarah McLemore, Glendale Community 

College 

Bringing the Conference Home: a Professional Development Implementation Strategy 

Session with 3CSN 



It is motivating and inspiring, throughout the conference, to learn how various colleges have 

implemented professional development programs and policies to strengthen student success but 

when you get back to your own campus on Monday, where do you begin? This action planning 

session will present 3CSN’s theory of change and provide tools and routines from our 

communities of practice and leadership institutes to help you design a professional development 

implementation plan. Participants will learn about the professional development resources 

available through 3CSN and will strategize about how to best leverage these to begin a change 

initiative on your own campus. 

Jan Connal, Cerritos College/3CSN; Rebecca Rudd, Citrus College/3CSN; Bradley Vaden, Los 

Angeles Trade Technical College/3CSN; Crystal Kiekel, Pierce College/3CSN; Lisa Brewster, 

San Diego Miramar College/3CSN; Ann Foster, Santa Rosa Junior College/3CSN 

Leading from the Middle: Wholeheartedness—Sustaining the Momentum of Change on 

Your Campus 



This workshop will focus on the affective issues directly related to effectiveness as a mid-level 

leader. Effective leaders are not only people who have strong skills but a passion for supporting 

others, a willingness to take risks and the conviction of their purpose. However, work requiring 

such demands can sometimes take a toll. This workshop will explore ways to safeguard the 

wholeheartedness required to effectively lead as well as fortification strategies to ensure that 

mid-level leaders can sustain their work for the long term. 

Merrill Deming & Laura Hope, Chaffey College 

Moving to Dynamic Data: Using Integrated Pipeline and Student Focus Group Data to 

Engage Faculty in Change 



Static data such as completion and course success rates serve as valuable benchmarks in college 

success efforts, but do little to engage faculty in discussions on what needs to be done to improve 

student outcomes. This session will present the use of pipeline data to determine targets for 

improvement and methods for conducting focus groups on these target areas. Techniques will be 

offered for developing student video clips as dynamic qualitative data. These videos bring to life 


student barriers in a powerful way that actively engages campuses in discussions on student need 

and can be used to stimulate conversations on student improvement among faculty. This session 

will demonstrate the impact of the use of videos and provide methods for parlaying this 

engagement into faculty-driven change strategies. 

Ryan M. Cornner, Alfred Gallegos, Veronica Jaramillo & Amanda Ryan-Romo, East Los 

Angeles College 

Improve ePortfolio Implementation by Flipping Faculty Development 



Departments and programs face a number of challenges when they decide to adopt and 

implement ePortfolios for students to demonstrate competencies and bridge to careers. These 

challenges include mapping ePortfolio assignments to standards and course or program 

outcomes, designing an ePortfolio structure, engaging students in reflective writing, assessing 

student work during a course and when they finish the program and preparing faculty and 

students to work in the ePortfolio environment. Faculty preparation itself can be enhanced by 

“flipping faculty development”—providing avenues for faculty to review basic information on 

their own so your time is better spent helping them put knowledge and skills into practice. This 

interactive, 90-minute workshop will provide strategies related to addressing ePortfolio 

implementation challenges and flipping faculty development. 

Kevin Kelley, Wiley Learning Institute 

Post-Conference Workshops 

Friday, October 5 | 9:00-1:00 

What I Did on My Summer Vacation (and So Far This Fall): Refining and Deepening Our 

Narratives of Institutional Change 



Teams of faculty and administrators from across California participated in 3CSN’s Basic Skills 

Initiative Leadership Institute in Summer 2012 and identified an institutional problem they 

wanted to change while supporting a campus initiative based on at least one of 3CSN’s 

communities of practice: Acceleration, Reading Apprenticeship or Habits of Mind. Join us as we 

reconvene these teams for an interactive progress report. You will learn about 3CSN’s theory of 

change as well as tools for systematic program planning and evaluation that the teams used to 

support their initiatives. You will also join us in reflecting on how we present and discuss our 

change initiatives for maximum impact. In other words, how does change beget change? How 

can a progress report be an important part of the change itself? Note: this workshop will be 

relevant and accessible to all, regardless of your prior experience with 3CSN. 

Jan Connal, Cerritos College/3CSN; Rebecca Rudd, Citrus College/3CSN; Deborah Harrington, 

Los Angeles Community College District/3CSN; Bradley Vaden, Los Angeles Trade Technical 

College; Nika Hogan, Pasadena City College/3CSN; Crystal Kiekel, Pierce College/3CSN 


Troubleshooting Acceleration Implementation 



Katie Hern and Myra Snell, leaders of the California Acceleration Project, will focus on common 

implementation challenges that can come up at all phases of implementing accelerated pathways 

in English and math from making the case for acceleration on campus, to developing pilots, to 

professional development for faculty teaching in redesigned accelerated courses. Participants 

will leave this interactive workshop with tools and strategies for moving acceleration forward in 

their local context. 

Katie Hern & Myra Snell, California Acceleration Project 

Conducting a Pathways Analysis to Drive Improvement 



This session offers an interactive exploration of fundamental questions about student success 

within the framework of a completion agenda. First, we will introduce the model used by the 

Gates Foundation’s Completion by Design (CBD) initiative to look at student success. Then, we 

will explore the use of completion data by using a simple and authentic set of analyses. Next, 

we’ll use CBD’s Loss-Momentum framework to initiate conversations about student success at 

your own institution. Finally, we will introduce the design principles that CBD colleges are using 

as guideposts to improving completion outcomes for students. 

Priyadarshini Chaplot & Rob Johnstone, RP Group 

Rethinking Equitable Student Success 



What do we mean when we use the term "equity"? As hard as one may try, one cannot discuss 

equity in education without carefully examining the role that race and class play in our 

institutions. This session seeks to unpack issues regarding the silence around race and class in the 

current discourse on student success. In socio-historical context, the goal of this discussion is to 

empower practitioners to begin to ask the difficult questions around race and class in their 

workplace as it relates to research, pedagogy and organizational structures. Participants will also 

discuss what might be needed to move toward addressing some of these issues in their 

classrooms and on campus. 

Rose Myers, Foothill College; Darrick Smith, LearningWorks; Lupe Dannels, Puente; Savita 

Malik, San Francisco State University/City College of San Francisco Partnership 

Integrating and Evaluating Planning Efforts across the Institution 



Do your college plans speak to each other? Are they aligned? Do they emphasize student 

learning and success? Do they inform resource allocation decisions? And, what about 

evaluation? Are you working to implement or improve planning structures that meet 

accreditation standards and ensure that all levels of the college are working to accomplish similar 

goals? This session offers clarity on what it means to have integrated planning and what you can 

do to better integrate planning at your campus. You’ll leave the session with a work plan that 


will identify where integrated planning can be strengthened on your campus and tips on how to 

facilitate the changes needed to improve your planning processes. 

Barry Gribbons & Daylene Meuschke, College of the Canyons; Barbara McNeice-Stallard, Mt. 

San Antonio College; Michelle Barton, Palomar College 

SLO Proficiency into Practice 


Room: Pacific III 

ACCJC/WASC staff will begin with the Commission’s expectations and instructions for 

reporting Proficiency on the ACCJC Rubric for Evaluating Institutional Effectiveness for 

Program Review, Integrated Planning and Student Learning Outcomes. Two SLO Power Award 

winners, Marcy Alancraig and Karen Wong, will serve as coaches to participants as they work 

together to develop successful practices and strategies to take back to their campuses. 

Susan Clifford, ACCJC; Marcy Alancraig, Cabrillo College; Karen Wong, Skyline College 

Leading from the Middle: A Case Study in Collaboration, Coalition and Transparency in a 

Time of Scarcity 



This interactive session will focus on a case study on leadership and scarcity. As a result of 

budget cuts, many mid-level leaders find themselves, either directly or indirectly, at the forefront 

of discussions about institutional and departmental priorities, resource management and 

restrictions to access or services. Through a practical case study analysis and discussion, this 

session will provide a forum for sharing concrete strategies that can be applied to decisionmaking 

conundrums forced by scarcity and resource reductions. The presenters will also 

demonstrate the ways that sessions like this one relate to the Leading from the Middle initiative 

sponsored by RP Group and share ways for participants to connect to future opportunities. 

Laura Hope, Chaffey College; Robert Gabriner, San Francisco State University/RP Group

Conference Program.pdf - The RP Group

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