This Canvas site is a place where we will house resources and information related to Academic Senate that may be helpful to our campus community. It's a work in progress and a lot of information to organize, so please let us know how we can make it more useful through this google formLinks to an external site. - what should we add? what should we change? what should we delete?
To navigate the site:
Click on the roles at the bottom of this page to get started.
Read through the information on the tabs below for an overview of the Academic Senate.
Find resources and information using the navigation menu on the left.
In 1963, an Assembly Concurrent Resolution asked the State Board of Education (which at that time had a junior college bureau) to establish academic senates “…for the purposes of representing [faculty] in the formation of policy on academic and professional matters …” While there were at the time local academic senates, this resolution gave senates legal recognition and a specific jurisdiction—academic and professional matters. In 1967, legislation was enacted to create the Board of Governors and the Chancellor’s Office for the California Community Colleges.
In 1968 Norbert Bischof (Math and Philosophy, Merritt College), called the first statewide meeting of local academic senate presidents to explore ways to create a state senate to represent local senates at the Chancellor’s Office and before the Board of Governors. A constitution was drafted in May 1968, ratified statewide, and approved by the Board of Governors in October 1969; the Academic Senate incorporated as a nonprofit organization in November 1970.
In 1986, the Commission for the Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education issued a report focusing exclusively on the community colleges. This document, The Challenge of Change: A Reassessment of the California Community College, led the way for the great reform legislation, AB 1725. Passed by the legislature in 1988, AB 1725 gave many new responsibilities to both local senates and the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, among them being:
Creating the focus for CCCs on transferring students to universities
Shifting the power of governance from the legislature to local boards
Involving faculty directly in matters of hiring and participatory governance, and creating areas of responsibilities known as the 10+1
Instilling the 75:25 ratio of full-time to part-time instructors, creating a calculation known as the Faculty Obligation Number, or FON
Creation of funding models (which have undergone much revision since inception)
In 1989, the document California’s Faces, California’s Future supported this community college reform and contextualized the Master Plan within California’s shifting demography. The legislation resulted in the July 1990 adoption of Title 5 Regulations, “Strengthening Local Senates.” In 1992, the Academic Senate and the trustee’s organization the Community College League of California (CCLC), issued a Memorandum of Understanding that offers a joint interpretation of the Title 5 regulations.
AB 1725Links to an external site. is therefore the root of the way the academic senate operates today.
Since faculty are directly involved in participatory governance matters per AB 1725, these matters are delineated into the 10+1 agreed-upon areas of responsibility that faculty are charged with. This agreement means that faculty undertake these duties as part of their faculty obligation. These areas are, specifically:
Curriculum, including establishing prerequisites and placing courses within disciplines
Degree and certificate requirements
Grading policies
Educational program development
Standards or policies regarding student preparation and success
District and college governance structures, as related to faculty roles
Faculty roles and involvement in accreditation processes, including self-study and annual reports
policies for faculty professional development activities
Processes for program review
Processes for institutional planning and budget development
Other academic and professional matters as are mutually agreed upon between the governing board and the academic senate