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POSITION IN BRIEF:
Support a statewide community college system with
sufficient resources to fulfill its overall goal: to offer all Californians
access to a quality higher education.
Resources should be stable, accommodate all enrolling
students, be fairly distributed among the college districts, and
provide opportunities for long-range planning.
Governance should allow greater authority within
the system itself with local districts making key decisions about
mission priorities to meet community needs.
POSITIONS
Mission
1. Support retention of all five missions of the Community Colleges:
- to prepare students to transfer to four-year colleges
- to provide workplace skills, career development and certification
in a wide range of occupations
- to offer opportunities for life-long learning
- to engage in programs fostering community economic development
- to provide instruction in basic academic skills to those who
lack them.
Access
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2. Support using the goal of providing access to higher education
to all who may benefit as a prime criterion for evaluating the community
college system.
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Governance
3. Support measures that:
- simplify the governance of the community colleges to provide
greater authority for the internal decision-making structure of
the system to manage its own affairs
- increase local decision making by local college communities
while encouraging an effective and equitable balance of responsibility
and authority, in areas such as funding, between local and state
entities in responding to local needs
- promote the role of the state structure as one of support for
the local colleges as they work to serve the needs of their students
and their communities.
Finance
4. Support measures to finance the non-capital costs of the community
college system that provide:
- stable funding
- opportunities for long-range planning
- funding sufficient to accommodate all students
- funding equity among the different districts within the community
college system, with accommodations for different circumstances
such as special expensive programs, cost of living, urban/rural
differentials and community needs.
Priority Setting
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5. Support local determination of mission priorities for the district,
within system-wide definitions of missions, guidelines and accountability
standards.
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Adopted 2003. Readopted at last convention.
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