1. Assigning Courses to Disciplines: Curriculum Opportunities
Erik Shearer, Napa Valley College
Michelle Grimes-Hillman, Mt. San Antonio College
Key Reference:
Qualifications for Faculty Service In The California Community Colleges (2004)

2. Faculty have authority to assign courses to disciplines.
Who teaches art history? An artist or an art historian?
How can curriculum committees use the Discipline’s List to maintain quality of instruction and appropriate local flexibility?
How can the disciplines list be amended to remain responsive to teaching needs across the state?
For the first one, this was written before the change in the current discipline list but I think it helps build conversation and discussion.

3. Assigning Courses to Disciplines
Title 5§ 53200: (b) “Academic senate,” … as the representative of the faculty, is to make recommendations to the administration of a college and to the governing board of a district with respect to academic and professional matters. For purposes of this Subchapter, reference to the term “academic senate” also constitutes reference to “faculty council” or “faculty senate.
(c) “Academic and professional matters” means the following policy development and implementation matters:
“(1) curriculum, including establishing prerequisites and placing courses within disciplines…”

4. Disciplines What’s a discipline? Established through
Education Code § Minimum qualifications; establishment and maintenance; “discipline”; definition and recommendations
BOG to relying primarily upon the advice and judgment of the statewide Academic Senate shall prescribe by regulation a working definition of the term “discipline” and shall prepare and maintain a list of disciplines
Established through
The Minimum Qualifications for Faculty and Administrators in California Community Colleges (referred to as the “Disciplines List”)

5. The Minimum Qualifications for Faculty and Administrators in California Community Colleges
January 2012

6. Assigning Courses to Disciplines
All colleges should have courses assigned to disciplines but who did/does the assigning?
Who should do the assigning?

7. Assigning Courses to Disciplines
Assigning courses to disciplines - How?
Assigning courses to multiple disciplines – How? Why?
Cross-listing – What does this mean?

8. Three ways to assign a course
Course assigned to a single discipline
Course assigned to more than one discipline with an “or” (cross listed)
Course assigned to more than one discipline with an “and” (interdisciplinary)

9. Courses Assigned to More than one Discipline:
Do not require more than one Course Outline of Record
Maybe “double coded” – i.e., set up on two or more separate Course Outlines of Record1

10. To what Discipline Would You Assign….
Animation
Death
History of American Film
Economic History of the U.S.
Photoshop
YOU MUST HAVE A PROCESS !

11. What if you are a multi college district?

12. What are Minimum Qualifications?
The state, through the Board of Governors, establishes “minimum qualifications” for teaching any credit or noncredit course, or as a counselor or librarian. In establishing and maintaining these MQs for faculty, the BOG shall “consult with, and rely primarily on the advice and judgment of, the statewide Academic Senate.” (Ed Code 87357)
Faculty qualify for a discipline.
Upon meeting minimum qualifications, the faculty member may be assigned to teach ANY class that was placed in the discipline.
It is important to keep these points in mind when placing courses in disciplines. If the committee knows that the history teacher who always teaches economic history also has a few courses in economic history, they may be inclined to put the EH course into the History discipline. If they do that, however, anyone with the history qualifications would be able to teach economic history.
In case:
Each faculty member upon hire is assigned a FSA or multiple depending on his or her qualifications.
FSAs have only one purpose: they determine the order by which faculty may be laid off when a district is facing reduction in force – layoffs of full-time faculty.
For the conditions under which a district may initiate faculty lay-offs, see Education Code §87743

13. Equivalencies
A district may hire a person who “possesses qualifications that are at least equivalent to the [state] minimum qualifications.” “The process, as well as criteria and standards…shall be developed and agreed upon jointly by …the [local] governing board and the [local] academic senate.” (Title 5, section 53430)

14. Who Determines Equivalency?
Create a Process – Academic Senate and Board of Trustees
Discipline Faculty Determine Criteria
Human Resources Helps Applicants Realize that the Burden of Proof Belongs to the Applicant
Board of Trustees Relies Primarily on the Recommendations of the Faculty

15. What About Single-Course Equivalency?
Ed Code and Title 5 refer to qualifications in terms of Disciplines not courses or subject areas within a Discipline
(Ed Code § 87357; Title 5 § and § 53430)
Ask the group if they have dealt with single course equivalencies.

16. The Disciplines List: a constant work in progress
Discipline qualifications are organized into groups
Disciplines requiring a Master’s Degree
Disciplines where a Master’s degree is not normally expected but a Bachelor’s or Associate degree is expected
Disciplines in which a Master’s, Bachelor’s or Associate Degree is not generally expected or available in that specific discipline
Disciplines for non-credit instruction
Other – to include Administrators, Learning Center Coordinators, Health Services Professionals, Apprenticeship Instructors, DSP&S Counselors, Work Experience Coordinators, Faculty Interns, EOPS

17. The Disciplines List: a constant work in progress
Preparation & maintenance of “Disciplines List”
assigned to Academic Senate (Ed. Code § 87357)
Reviewed and revised every two years
Works through local senates
Consults with statewide organizations
Vote on discipline changes occur at Session
Makes recommendations to BOG
(next vote will be Spring 2013)

18. The Disciplines List: a constant work in progress
Proposed changes have a basis in one of the following criteria:
Changes within the profession or discipline
Clarification or elimination of confusion and ambiguity
Inclusion of new degrees
Continual use of the equivalency process to hire under a specific discipline
Assurance of the maximum degree of flexibility for the disciple while maintaining integrity
Other reason, as fully detailed and justified in the proposal

19. The Disciplines List: a constant work in progress
Previously proposed changes not adopted at plenary may be resubmitted under the following conditions:
A new justification and rationale are provided and
A resolution is passed at an Area meeting to include the proposed change in the review and approval process, or
Through the regular resolution process, where the mover must seek approval at the session to include the proposed change in the review and approval process

20. The Disciplines List: a constant work in progress
New cycle began in Feb 2012
To see resolutions on discipline list can search resolutions by discipline

21. This email is sent out on the senate listserv among others
This is sent out on the senate listserv among others. The documents are also available on the ASCCC website and are mailed to senate presidents.

22. Questions??
To see resolutions on discipline list can search resolutions by discipline