A Lot to be Thankful For

Hello,

The festive season is upon us and we have a lot to be thankful for. Uppermost is that we are an active, passionate, supportive community striving to best serve the multifaceted needs our students. For me an early gift was the restoration of Instructional Equipment and Library Materials funding; which provides critical support for the information resource needs of students. CCL had a successful Fall 2013 workshop on ACRL Standards into Practice. The handouts are available on our website at http://www.cclccc.org/.

Being President I am fortunate to participate on several Statewide committees; one of which is the Technology & Telecommunications Advisory Committee (TTAC). When the State transitioned from individual College allocations of funds for technology, namely TTIP, to statewide contracts to provide all with equitable access and a large discount, TTAC supported the libraries in their strategic response for a single statewide core database package. We are often praised as pioneers. The Fall 2013 TTAC meeting was devoted to the large Request for Proposals (RFP) related to California Community College Online Education Initiative, California Community College Common Assessment Initiative, and California Community College Education Planning Initiative. These have been subsequently approved by the Board of Governors:

http://extranet.cccco.edu/Portals/1/ExecutiveOffice/Board/2013_agendas/november/1_2_contracts_grants.pdf

The planning for the CCL annual Deans and Directors meeting in Sacramento is well underway. The dates are March 6-7, 2014 and include free registration and hotel room for one person per campus. Registration will be open soon on our web site.

The ACCJC Standard Revisions has taken up a considerable amount of time this Fall term. At this moment in time the next opportunity to provide feedback to ACCJC is the January ACCJC Board meeting. Representatives from the CCL Executive Board will be present to comment during the “public comment” portion of the meeting. We will reinforce our previous recommendations made to ACCJC regarding the Standards revisions. As a resource, the 2012 CCL recommendations regarding the ACCJC Standards, which was vetting through the field in Summer/Fall 2012, is posted at http://www.cclccc.org/resources.html These recommendations would strengthen the voice of libraries and information literacy.

I received communication from ACCJC staff that a draft of the Standards will be presented for first reading at the January 2014 Commission meeting. Following that the draft will be circulated and input will be invited.  There will be public hearings in northern CA, southern CA, and in the Pacific.  The second reading and adoption is planned for the June 2014 meeting.  We will make our voices heard at every meeting; however, possibly not the Pacific public hearing, even though there may be lots of volunteers to fly to a Pacific Island.

At the local level, faculty can build awareness of the issue at their campuses and submit the State Academic Senate Resolution to their local Senates for endorsement. Here is the link to the State Academic Senate Plenary resolutions. There were several resolutions pertaining to accreditation.  http://www.asccc.org/fall2013/resolutions

Executive Board members have taken the lead on this issue, drafting recommendations, attending ACCJC meetings, over the past year+. This is a topic of importance to the CCL Board and the entire library community. ACCJC launched the review/revision process in November 2011. http://www.accjc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Final-summer-2012-newsletter-CORRECTED-page-12_August-13-2012.pdf. The Board has been actively engaged in providing feedback and input at every opportunity. Board members attended and spoke at the public forum in June 2012 in Burlingame, CA.

Subsequently to the public forum, a letter was drafted, sent to the field for feedback, and approved and sent from the Executive Board to ACCJC with specific feedback and recommendations regarding the standards. More information on this can be found in the following Outlook issues and Board minutes.

Lastly, the 2012-13 Library and Learning Resources Survey was released in October and is due by December 17, 2013. If you have questions about the survey please contact CCCCO Dean, LeBaron Woodyard at: lwoodyar@cccco.edu.

All the best,

Tim

 

Felices Fiestas – Trevlig Helg – Jie Ri Yu Kuai  - Buone Feste – Forhe Feiertage – Prettige feestdagen – Hau’oli Lanui – Mutlu Bayramlar – Beannachtaí na Féile – Sarbatori Fericite – Boas Festas – καλές διακοπές – Selamat Hari Raya   –    Happy Holidays

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