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FROM THE OFFICE OF KURT HUEG
Acting Vice President of Instruction & Institutional Research
Dear Foothill College Community,
I hope you take the time to read through our Spring 2016 Newsletter as you will see the broad level of engagement and innovation going on within the Office of Instruction and across our college. As we finish another rewarding academic year and look forward to commencement, it is easy to not see the forest through the trees as we all focus on immediate priorities and getting important work done each day. In looking through this newsletter, I hope you will appreciate, as I do, how much is going on and how our talented group of faculty and staff are helping to improve student learning and support new initiatives, courses and programs, like our new Sunnyvale Center and the Dental Hygiene Baccalaureate Degree starting in Fall 2016.
We are very pleased to welcome new staff members Kelaiah Harris,
Administrative Assistant for Equity Programs, Angel Tzeng,
Instructional Services Coordinator for Equity Programs, Rachel Solvason,
Articulation Specialist, and Ruby Sodhi,
Program Assistant for the Office of Instruction. We also look forward to the hiring of a new Director of Equity Programs in Fall 2016. These new staff members join our talented team in the Office of Instruction and the President's Office, who work hard keeping our college moving forward and supporting students. It is a pleasure to come to work every day and see Mary Vanatta doing great work with our curriculum, seeing Shawna Aced and Denise Perez working their magic with the schedule of classes, seeing Asha Jossis juggle multiple jobs and do it with excellence, seeing Jiatong Li helping our part-time faculty, Red Lucas handling so many budget issues, Jean McCarron keeping Celebrity Forum on track, Diana Cohn helping faculty and staff with business services and last but not least, Justin Schultz and Mike Mohebbi, who do an amazing job supporting so many committees and processes we cannot name them all.
As we close the year it is important to reflect on our accomplishments ... and there are many! Of particular note is Elaine Kuo's contributions to our college's Educational Master Plan (EMP) and its ultimate adoption by the college in the Winter 2016 Quarter. The college should commit to making this a living document that drives our goals and objectives and is at the center of our planning processes. I am excited as we welcome President Thuy Thi Nguyen to our campus in July and continue to move important initiatives forward. Last, we are sad to see valued colleagues leave us and I want to thank Dean Mark Anderson for his service to our college and celebrate his return to teaching in Fall 2016 and also thank Dean Victor Tam for his service as a faculty member and Dean in PSME and wish him well as he moves on to Santa Rosa Junior College as Dean of STEM Programs. Their contributions to Foothill were significant and their friendship and collegiality will be missed.
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FROM THE DESK OF ANDREW LAMANQUE
Associate Vice President of Instruction
Since March, the Office of the Associate Vice President of Instruction has supported a variety of institutional effectiveness activities and special projects. Key milestones achieved in March - May 2016 include:
- Approval from the ACCJC of our substantive change request for the Sunnyvale Center for the move from the Middlefield Campus in Fall 2016.
- Approval by the State Chancellor's Office of the Baccalaureate Degree Program in Dental Hygiene.
- Approval from PaRC and the formation of an Accreditation Steering Committee. Standard Teams are beginning to meet (please note that volunteers are still welcome to join!).
Introducing New Staff
While the Director of Equity Programs search was not successful, we were successful in hiring three great new staff at the College. Please join me in welcoming them.
Kelaiah Harris,
Administrative Assistant for Equity Programs
Kelaiah will be supporting Equity Program initiatives such as Professional Development, Early Alert, and Mentoring. Kelaiah holds a Bachelors Degree from San Jose State University in Health Administration and previously worked as Patie
nt Care Coordinator for JumpstartMD providing administrative and customer service support.
Ruby Sodhi, Program Assistant
 Ruby has joined Foothill College as a temporary back-fill for Justin Schultz who is working as the Executive Assistant to the President. Ruby will provide administrative support for the Vice President for Instruction, the Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Committee and the accreditation self-study. She has worked in U.S. higher education for the past 14 years. Ruby just earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education from Walden University and her dissertation focused on the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) and institutional effectiveness practices at a California Community College.
Angel Tzeng, Instructional Services Coordinator - Equity Programs
 Hsiao-chi (Angel) Chang Tzeng will be conducting equity-related research as well as providing administrative support for the Student Equity Workgroup. Angel holds a Ph.D. in Education from UC Davis and has an Early Childhood Certificate from the UCSC Extension. She taught at the UCSC Extension in early childhood programs while also supervising teacher candidates in Chinese with the secondary education program at San Jose State University.
Program Review Committee
The Program Review Committee (PRC) presented its college-wide recommendations to PaRC for a first read on May 18. There were 13 recommendations, which can be found on the PaRC website. The first 3 are listed below:
- PRC recommends the college examine the strengths and weaknesses of designating one college office (existing or new) to be responsible for integrating the various campus plans such as the Educational Master Plan, Facilities Master Plan, and the Technology, Equity, 3SP, Basic Skills, Sustainability, Professional Development, and Transfer Plans. This examination might also consider ways to incorporate the goals and activities of the various plans in the program review and resource allocation processes.
- The importance of tutoring as an academic support service for our disproportionately impacted students was mentioned in several Instructional program reviews. PRC recommends the college continue to plan for ways to provide these critical tutoring services to more students. This planning should consider the enhanced value to the student of collaboration across our various tutoring programs on campus.
- Several Student Services Division units emphasized the importance to our students of online data systems. PRC recommends the college consider ways in which the efficacy of these tools can be assessed and data from the tools can be used to guide program planning in student service, instruction, and administrative units.
Additional information about the Program Review process and the work of the Program Review Committee (PRC) can be found later in this newsletter.
Assessment Taskforce
Common Assessment implementation for Foothill College has been scheduled for Fall 2017 placement (Spring 2017 administration). Several English and ESL faculty participated in a recent professional development activity. Faculty teams will be needed to map the common assessment competency maps in English, Math, and ESL to our curriculum and to determine our placement 'cut scores'. Further discussions will be forthcoming!
Both English and Math have agreed to pilots for this fall to see if the use of high school GPA and course grades, along with the current placement exam, can result in more accurate placements. We will be following the research results from the RP Group and hope to collect information next fall that will guide our Common Assessment implementation.
A quote from the May issue of the RP Perspectives:
"One of the key attributes of the new assessment tool for math, English, and English as a Second Language (ESL) is that student results will be stored in a statewide data warehouse for use by any college to make local placement decisions. CCCAssess will integrate the Multiple Measures Assessment Project (MMAP) models as an option for colleges, and writing samples will be part of the English/ESL test. Recency and retesting discussions are also under way between the CAI Steering Committee and the ASCCC. Colleges will continue to control local placement and other related policies."
Review of C3MS
The Curriculum Management System (CMS) Review Committee meeting scheduled for May was cancelled. No progress has been made since the winter so we will re-convene in the fall to discuss our options.
Scheduling - Resource Live 25 Software
Resource 25 Live implementation is currently on hold as we continue to discuss our options.
Institutional Effectiveness Partnership Initiative (IEPI) Grant and Goals
The Office of Instruction has been working with College of the Canyons to provide support for Partnership Resource Team (PRT) training. A number of Foothill College employees have served on PRT's this year.
I have continued to participate on the Policy, Procedures, and Practices Workgroup (P3) that is leading the Effective Practices Resource Toolkit starting with developing resources for integrated planning and disaggregation of data (including SLOs). I presented with others at the RP Group conference in April.
Student Equity Workgroup
Discussions have begun around our Student Equity Plan for next year. We are currently examining the key success factors for our Learning Communities and the learning outcomes we expect of program 'graduates'. Faculty members are working hard on proposals for First Year Experience (FYE) and Umoja.
We will be discussing our options for re-posting the Director of Equity Programs position as well as faculty release time to support our equity initiatives (including a mentoring program) in the fall.
Work continues on the online program review tool which should be available in the fall. The program review tool will provide the standard data important for program review as well as allow "drill down" to the course level to allow comparisons between student groups.
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FOLLOWING UP ON PROGRAM REVIEW
By Justin Schultz
The Program Review Committee (PRC) would like to thank all the departments for their time and effort in completing program review this year; particularly those tasked with completed their comprehensive reviews. We understand it is a tremendous amount of work but we hope it has been helpful. Thank you for your ongoing efforts to improve on behalf of our students. The program review allows others throughout the college to learn about your work and how it supports the college mission, educational master plan, and equity goals.
This year, PRC read and discussed each of the 38 comprehensive program reviews during a series of meetings in the winter quarter; the average discussion time was 20-30 minutes per review. In addition, PRC met with 11 departments one-on-one to discuss the program review process.
A summary of the PRC review process was presented to PaRC in April, along with the committee's commendations, suggestions and recommendations for the individual departments. Many of the commendations shared similar themes (equity, curriculum, student learning outcomes). A few programs were asked to submit out-of-cycle comprehensive program reviews for the upcoming academic year - PRC is committed to working more closely with those departments and meetings one-on-one early in the program review process.
It should be noted that all the programs recommended for out-of-cycle comprehensive review this year (Music, Pass The Torch, Spanish, Political Science, KCI) are recommended to continue on the regular cycle next year. Congratulations on your hard work!
As a reminder, a summary of the Program Review Process can be found here:
Last but not least, please extend a big thank you to all the members of the Program Review Committee and their dedication to this crucial process - Andrew LaManque, Simon Pennington, Jiatong Li, Claudia Flores, Craig Gawlick, Cara Miyasaki, Michelle Palma, Sara Cooper, Kevin Harral, Vinita Bali, and Elaine Kuo
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CURRICULUM CORNER
By Mary Vanatta
First and foremost, let us not forget that the deadline for new and updated curriculum for the 2017-2018 catalog is coming up on June 17th. Remember to check with your division curriculum committee for their specific approval deadlines.
As we approach the end of the academic year, I can attest that it has been a busy one - by my count, I have processed over 800 COR updates! These include the new upper division courses for our Dental Hygiene BS degree; moving courses to new departments, such as MTEC and EMR; and renumbering courses that have recently been granted UC transfer approval. The majority of these 800+ updates; however, were non-substantial changes, which are just as important, as they help to keep our curriculum Title 5 compliant. Thanks to everyone for your hard work in helping to ensure that our curriculum is up-to-date!
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CANVAS & COURSE ACCESSIBILITY UPDATES
Our transition from Etudes to Canvas as our course management system is well underway. In the Spring 2016 Quarter, we have 63 faculty members and 114 course sections using Canvas. And, over 125 faculty members have completed Canvas training so far. Did you know that free remote proctoring services are available for students in fully online classes that use Canvas?
Over 35 faculty have teamed up with staff in Foothill Online Learning to work on accessibility reviews and compliance fixes for 75 course sites. Join our effort to make online learning accessible to all students by submitting your request for an accessibility review of your course site at
http://foothill.accessibility.sgizmo.com/s3
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ARTICULATION UPDATES
by Bernie Day
Introducing New Staff
Rachel Solvason,
Articulation Specialist
 Although she began working with us as a temporary employee last summer, the Office of Instruction and Institutional Research officially welcomes Rachel Solvason as the new Articulation Specialist. Rachel is supporting both the articulation and honors programs. She has been actively engaged across campus speaking to a wide variety of student groups about the Honors Institute. Rachel recently completed her Masters Degree in Environmental Science at San Jose State University, where she also completed her Bachelors Degree.
Courses Newly Approved for CSU GE Breadth and/or IGETC
The following courses were newly approved for various transfer GE patterns:
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ANTH 2AH
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Honors Cultural Anthropology
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IGETC AREA 4A
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BIOL 300
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Human Pathophysiology & Pharmacology
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CSU GE AREA B2
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CHEM 9
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Chemistry of Cooking
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CSU GE AREA B1/B3
IGETC AREA 5A/5C
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COMM 60
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Communication Theory & Practice with Aging Populations
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CSU GE AREA E
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D H 506
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Research Methodology for Health Professionals
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CSU GE AREA B4
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ENGL 41
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Literature of Multicultural America
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CSU GE AREA C2
IGETC AREA 3B
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GERN 10 *
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Sociology of Aging
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CSU GE AREA D7
IGETC AREA 4G
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GERN 11 *
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Psychology of Aging
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CSU GE AREA D7
IGETC AREA 4G
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GERN 15 *
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Issues in Death, Dying & Bereavement Across Cultures
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CSU GE AREA D7
IGETC AREA 4G
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HLTH 20
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Introduction to Public Health
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CSU GE AREA D7
IGETC AREA 4G
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HLTH 300
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Health Across the Lifespan
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CSU GE AREA E
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HUMN 1
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Cultures, Civilizations & Ideas: The Ancient World
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CSU GE AREA C2
IGETC AREA 3B
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HUMN 2
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Cultures, Civilizations & Ideas: Of Empires & Conflict
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CSU GE AREA C2
IGETC AREA 3B
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HUMN 5
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Cultures, Civilizations & Ideas: The Modern World
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CSU GE AREA C2
IGETC AREA 3B
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HUMN 6
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Cultures, Civilizations & Ideas: The Contemporary World
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CSU GE AREA C2
IGETC AREA 3B
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HUMN 7
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Global Religions: Contemporary Practices & Perspectives
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CSU GE AREA C2
IGETC AREA 3B
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KINS 10
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Women in Sports
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CSU GE AREA D4/D7
IGETC AREA 4G
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MATH 57/17
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Integrated Statistics
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IGETC AREA 2A
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MUS 11F
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Video Games & Popular Culture
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CSU GE AREA D7
IGETC AREA 4G
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PHIL 62
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Philosophy of Science
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CSU GE AREA C2
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SPED 61
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Introduction to Disabilities
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CSU GE D7/D9/E
IGETC AREA 4G
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SPED 62
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Psychological Aspects of Disability
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IGETC AREA 4G/4I
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* GERN courses are not approved until Fall 2017 when course units increase to 4 units each.
NOTE: 300+ level courses are baccalaureate courses limited to BS Dental Hygiene students
Faculty interested in obtaining approval for CSU GE and/or IGETC or for course-to-course articulation are encouraged to contact Bernie Day
[email protected]
Interested in Obtaining UC Transferability for Your Course?
All new courses for which UC transferability is desired must be submitted to the University of California for review by June 03. Please contact Bernie Day for additional details.
Transfer Time
It is bittersweet as we bid adieu to many honors students who will be transferring to colleges and universities across the country this fall. Here is a partial list of colleges and universities (note several ivies!) to which honors students were admitted for Fall 2016:
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Brown University
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Carnegie Mellon University
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Columbia University
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Cornell University
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Georgetown University
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Harvard University
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Notre Dame de Namur University
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Rice University
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Santa Clara University
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Stanford University
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UC Berkeley
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UC Davis
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UC Irvine
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UCLA
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UC Riverside
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UC San Diego
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US Santa Barbara
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UC Santa Cruz
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Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
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San Diego State University
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San Francisco State University
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San Jose State University
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9th Annual Community College Honors Research Symposium
Six Foothill students presented their original research at the 9th Annual Bay Area Community College Honors Research Symposium held at UC Berkeley on May 07. Our own Scott Lankford served as the keynote speaker! Scott shared his own research journey on Climate Change with the captivated crowd of nearly 500 students and faculty from across the state.
Students, faculty and staff spent theday observing stimulating presentations and interacting with presenting scholars. Other Foothill faculty and staff attending the event included honors photography instructor, Keith Lee, emeritus professor, Konnilyn Feig, web content developer, Julie Ceballos, Bernie Day and Rachel Solvason.
More than twenty honors students submitted abstract proposals for this year's Symposium. This year's process was especially rigorous; however, we are proud that six students were selected to present their original research:
Presenters: Danya Adib & Noelle Gross
Mentor: Robert Harwell
Title: The Battling Mind: Music's Role in Overcoming Adversity
Description: Two survivors of suicide use film to explore how music helps the brain and body to overcome adversity.
Presenter: Heather Kornblum
Mentor: Mark Bauermeister
Title: "I Feel You: Empathy as a Tool to Promote Safer Sex"
Description: Empathy can promote higher rates of condom use in casual sexual hookups.
Presenter: Agustin Pacheco
Mentor: Jeffrey Anderson
Title: Inside the Matrix: Verifying the Dynamics of Pendulums and Spring
Description: Experimental verification of the mathematical model governing the dynamics of harmonics oscillators.
Presenter: Tommy Tjandra
Mentor: Scott Lankford
Title: Fueling the Fire We Want to Put Out: Indonesia and Climate Change
Description: Comparative analysis of arguments regarding failure to control fossil fuel production and Indonesia's approaches to handling climate change.
Presenter: Kushal V Jain
Mentor: Scott Lankford
Title: Climate Change: The New Grim Reaper
Description: Examines the psychological correlation between how our brains deal with death and climate change.
1st Foothill Honors Research Showcase
Six honors students presented their original research at the first Foothill Honors Showcase, held on Wednesday May 25, 2016. We are pleased to report that one of the presenters participates in the Puente program while a second is engaged in the EOPS program. Student presenters included:
Presenter:
Dustin Nguyen
Title:
Singing the Winter Blues: the Cause and Treatment for Winter-Onset Depression
Mentor:
Voltaire Villanueva
Description:
Exploring the side effects of Winter-Onset Depression of students from Foothill College.
Presenter:
Asra Qasim
Title:
A Comparative Analysis of Successful Green Business Models
Mentor:
Scott Lankford
Description:
Examining global and local green business models to compare the sustainable future for energy.
Presenters:
Danya Adib & Noelle Gross
Mentor:
Robert Harwell
Title:
The Battling Mind: Music's Role in Overcoming Adversity
Description:
Two survivors of suicide use film to explore how music helps the brain and body to overcome adversity.
Presenter:
Heather Kornblum
Mentor:
Mark Bauermeister
Title:
"I Feel You: Empathy as a Tool to Promote Safer Sex"
Description:
Empathy can promote higher rates of condom use in casual sexual hookups.
Presenter:
Agustin Pacheco
Mentor:
Jeffrey Anderson
Title:
Inside the Matrix: Verifying the Dynamics of Pendulums and Spring
Description:
Experimental verification of the mathematical model governing the dynamics of harmonics oscillators.
Honors Courses Support Transfer Students
With college admissions becoming increasingly competitive (some students with 3.9 and 4.0 GPAs were denied admission to all of the universities to which they applied), successful completion of honors courses gives students a competitive edge in the selection process. In addition, the seminar-style format of many honors courses prepares students for the upper division classroom experience. New honors courses are currently under discussion in the psychology, chemistry, math and other departments. All faculty interested in developing an honors course should contact Bernie Day for additional information.
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Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Updates
By Jennifer Sinclair
The Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Committee members have been discussing and reflecting on the links between Program Review, SLO Assessment Cycles, reflective improvement, assessment, cultural competence, communication and collaboration, equity, and professional development.
After two decades of institutionalized email and amazing advancements in information access, we find ourselves sheltering in silos across campus. These silos provide a structure in which we can focus on our work, but they also limit our perspectives and get in the way of cross-campus collaboration. There is much work going on campus-wide and the committee is discussing ways to integrate these efforts without further contributing to the information overload that we all struggle with daily. We are working on a handbook to share across campus to reaffirm the alignment between reflective improvement, Program Review, and the SLO Assessment Cycle. We are also working with the Professional Development committee to identify professional development opportunities to share with the college.
In April, a team of faculty attended workshops on incorporating cultural competence into our assessments to improve our effectiveness in measuring student learning. We spent over 16 hours together and found that although our external experiences during that time were the same, our primary take-aways varied based on the individuality of our life and professional experiences. Team members deeply appreciated this diversity of viewpoints and experiences and felt that they learned a great deal from each other. We are researching the possibility of bringing this kind of training to our campus.
If you're eager for something to implement now, you can use these techniques, which Odessa College used with great effect in their Drop Rate Improvement Program:
- Learn your student's name.
- Meet with each student in the first three weeks of class.
- Give assignments and feedback early and often.
- Build and use a much more comprehensive syllabus, implementing ideas from The Common Course Syllabus.
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