Audrey Green, College of the Canyons’ Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs. She describes an initiative to make math more relevant to career and technical students. Three faculty members set out to learn what math was used in courses from welding to land surveying. In the coming year, four sections of intermediate algebra will incorporate extensive examples of applied math.

Transcript: (see video)
"We talked about how we could get Career and Technical Education students to perform better, knowing that this would really impact all students because making it relevant was what was important -- that throwing theory at them and just solving problems didn’t really matter. So three math faculty actually went out and did structured interviews with CTE faculty to find out what kind of mathematical applications they use in their curriculum. So what did a culinary arts student need in terms of math? What did an automotive tech student need? What did a land surveying student need? What did a welding student need? So they developed and will be piloting four sections of applied intermediate and elementary algebra to try out what they learned -- the content, the exercises they developed on their own. So this is kind of exciting, we are hoping it transforms into English to try and get them to move away from expository writing and do some things that will be relevant to students."

Laura Hope, dean of Instructional Support at Chaffey College describes an orientation toward teaching basic skills focused on student ability – not skill.

Transcript: (see video)
"The other thing I think is significant is the distinction between skill and ability, which is still a conversation that I think needs to be enlarged, because students present themselves to us with a number of challenges, one of them being socio-economics, but none of those things predetermine their ability – only the skill they present themselves to us with in the moment."

Superintendent/President Kathy Lehner of Mendocino College, describes the goal that all students can receive the same level of support.

Transcript: (see video)
" My desire has always been that every student at Mendocino College get the same level of student services – counseling, support, tutoring – as those in EOPS program and the DSPS program. Some of the students, because they don’t qualify for the special programs, are basically on their own and we don’t have a way to provide them with the same level of support."

President Brian Murphy of DeAnza College, a 2008 Hewlett Leader, said a turning point in DeAnza’s transformation of basic skills was the broad embrace of the school’s changing demographics. “They are not ‘non-collegiate,’ not ‘other,’ not ‘someone else.’ They are our students.”

Transcript: (see video)
"The heart of all this is to pitch what we do not around what they don’t know, but rather who they are and what they bring to this community which, while different that what it was 20 years ago has given us an incredible array of resources that we can build into – or call, for lack of a better word – basic skills."

As a member of Hewlett Leader’s visiting team, Elaine Baker saw many examples of “distributed leadership,” which encourages creativity and initiative across levels of faculty and staff.

Transcript: (see video)
"What we’re talking about are ways to convey value that are not monetary, that will create capacity. At one point I taught a course in Systems Theory in Education called Education and Social Change. In Systems Theory your budget of flexibility, which is your capacity to change is based on your uncommitted resources. If you have no uncommitted resources, you have no budget of flexibility. You can’t create change. I really believe from what I’ve seen in California and elsewhere is that our uncommitted resources, our budget of flexibility for community colleges is the talent and dedication of our adjunct faculty led by our full-time faculty. And the colleges recognized here, and those recognized last year, are where leadership was able to convey value to those adjunct and fulltime faculty in ways that they gave back more than they were compensated for. We’re not going to get a lot more resources. They only way that we can build change is by engaging and valuing and elevating the role of our faculty. And those colleges that do this are colleges where leadership is distributed throughout the college in the presidencies, in the deans, in the VPIs, in faculty leads. We see it. I don’t know how to replicated it, but that’s what I see is the difference, and the people here today -- their colleges have found ways for the faculty to feel valued -- and the return is enormous, and we have to have more of it."

Wade Ellis, Jr., a member of Hewlett Leaders’ visiting team, says that when the sage-on-the-stage model fails, faculty collaboration can transform a program.

Transcript: (see video)
"It seems that faculty collaboration is an important part of how to improve community colleges, especially at the basic skills level. If you’re going to give three courses at the basic skills level in mathematics or English – but let me speak about mathematics – and two of the courses are actually quite good but one is taught by someone who has a “sage on the stage” point of view where enrollment drops and student performance is not what you like -- that’s not going to work; students won’t make it through that kind of system. So you have to have collaboration among faculty, which can come in a variety of different ways, some of which don’t cost very much."

Wade Ellis, Jr. In a climate of economic insecurity, faculty collaboration can be the cornerstone of effective initiatives.

Transcript: (see video)
"It’s not the technology itself, it’s trying to figure out as a group what to do with the technology: it’s the collaboration that counts and, again, this might not cost much. We are already in the position of doing SLOs… If done appropriately in each department where all department members are involved in this important task, then that can be another way that, because is part of accreditation, might not cost so much. If somebody introduced, ‘Gee, we could do Directed Learning Activities,’ (as at Chaffey College), then that might be a good way to use tutorials more effectively – not more expensively – but just more effectively where teachers get together to work and collaborate, and have a united front in presenting student developmental courses. These things are not that expensive and might allow us to maintain what we are doing in troubled economic times."