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  • Community college students serve as basic needs support guides for peers

    Community college students serve as basic needs support guides for peers


    Xavier Navarro, left, was a student ambassador while attending Santa Ana College. In this photo, he was tabling with his adviser, Hope Nguyen.

    Over 50 community college students in California currently serve as resource guides for peers in need of stable housing, food access and other basic needs.

    The students are part of the California Community Colleges’ Student Ambassador Program, which trains students to share information on available resources, including CalFresh and housing stipends with their fellow students. The program uses peers to share such resources in an effort to reduce the stigma around accessing basic needs services.

    “They’re students on the campus, on the ground floor, knowing what students need, knowing how their campus operates, what works, what doesn’t,” said Yuriko Curiel, an ambassador program specialist.

    The need is acute. According to a recent report by The Community College League of California and the RP Group, only 32% of the 66,741 students who responded to their survey felt secure in meeting all their basic needs. Over half of respondents were concerned about running out of food; 3 out of 5 students experienced housing insecurity, and 1 in 4 reported experiencing homelessness.

    Anecdotes from two recent student ambassadors, Adela Gonzales and Xavier Navarro, highlighted the program’s impact.

    Gonzales said in a recent interview that she spoke with a student who was on his way to a Riverside City College parking structure where other students had died by suicide. The student told her that he was heading there because he was contemplating doing the same. But on that day, he came across Gonzales, who was handing out pamphlets regarding various student services, including mental health support.

    Adela Gonzales was a student ambassador for two years at Riverside City College.

    “I was able to talk with him … give him a little bit of validation, and then walk him to the Student Health and Psychological Center,” said Gonzales, who is studying biochemistry and sociology. “I still message him here and there to see how he’s doing.”

    She said what most stood out in her work as an ambassador was how only a few students were aware of the campus’ psychology center or their crisis text hotline. Her interest in supporting other students prompted her to join the program two school years in a row.

    At Santa Ana College, Navarro was working at the campus food pantry when he met a fellow student veteran, named Louie, who didn’t have a home.

    Meeting Navarro, who was a student ambassador at the time, led to Louie being quickly connected to resources, including a housing voucher to book a hotel room for about a month, food assistance via CalFresh, a free bus pass, and a job at the same food pantry where he met Navarro.

    “He was hurting, and it hurts you as a person because you want to help … and now that you have the tools, why not?” said Navarro, who is now an accounting student at Cal Poly Pomona University in Southern California.

    It was Navarro’s own experience as a veteran that helped facilitate the initial conversation with Louie.

    “We care about the students, we want the students to succeed,” Navarro said. “Because college is hard, it’s expensive, and it can be challenging. Not having a home, not having food. … Caring goes a long way, especially for a college student.”

    Students’ identities are crucial in connecting with their peers, said Curiel, the program specialist who was an ambassador before she graduated from San Bernardino Valley College.

    Yuriko Curiel was a student ambassador and now works as a specialist for the program
    Courtesy of Yuriko Curiel

    “Not only are they connecting with peers, they’re connecting with people who reflect their own community,” she said, noting that Navarro is a veteran; Gonzales, a former foster youth; Curiel was balancing work and school as a single mom during her time as an ambassador.

    Ambassadors also often understand being food or housing insecure. Gonzales and Navarro, for example, both relied on CalFresh in the past. Gonzales also received a housing grant while enrolled in college because she couldn’t afford her rent after a roommate moved out of their shared apartment.

    Gonzales and Navarro said that a common response they got from students was disbelief that they might qualify for CalFresh, the state’s food assistance program. Complex eligibility rules for students is a known barrier to the program.

    “Not everybody on campus knows what’s available to them and how they can access, and even when they access that, there are still questions,” Gonzales said. “Being able to point them in the right direction and get the right information for them is very important.”

    The ambassador program was launched in 2016. Students who join are expected to put in at least six to eight hours each month, for which they receive a stipend of $1,500 after completing the program.

    The first cohort in 2016 included 20 students, while the current group includes 53 students. Previous groups have included over 100 ambassadors, according to Sarah London, external and executive communications director with the Foundation for California Community Colleges, which operates the program.

    “The fluctuation in numbers is solely based on available funding,” said London. “Ideally, we’d have hundreds of ambassadors every year, so we strive to bring on more philanthropic funders to support and help us grow these efforts in the future.”

    While student support services vary at the state’s 116 community colleges, some examples include CalFresh application assistance, low-cost auto insurance, a mental health crisis text hotline, and emergency financial aid grants, among others.

    Students interested in joining the program must apply for a position and meet eligibility requirements, which include being at least 18 years old, enrolled in at least one unit for the fall and spring semesters during the school year in which they’re applying, and availability to attend a Zoom training.

    Gonzales, Navarro and Curiel were all encouraged to apply for the program by staff members managing student organizations they had joined.

    For example, Gonzales was part of Guardian Scholars, a chapter-based organization on college campuses that helps support former foster and homeless youth, before learning about the ambassadors program. A staff member with the group noticed that Gonzales often took the initiative by sharing basic needs information with her peers and suggested she apply to be an ambassador.

    “I’ve always enjoyed providing resources for all my foster sisters,” she said, adding that joining the ambassador program felt like an extension of what she was already inclined to do in her personal life.

    Student ambassadors use a variety of strategies to reach their peers, such as tabling during campus events, creating social media posts, sending out mass emails about available resources, and presenting to their classmates during class breaks.

    “This is really investing in our next generation of leaders,” Curiel said. “I see our dean of student services coming out of this, our basic needs coordinators, or people doing public policy; I think that’s just the power of the program.”





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  • Community college adjunct professors optimistic as two lawsuits over pay progress

    Community college adjunct professors optimistic as two lawsuits over pay progress


    John Martin is a plaintiff in one lawsuit and is the chairman of the California Part-Time Faculty Association.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    A pair of recent court decisions may bode well for the state’s part-time community college professors, known as adjuncts, who have argued for years that they work unpaid hours to meet students’ needs.

    In Southern California, roughly 1,200 adjuncts who brought a class-action lawsuit against the Long Beach Community College District in 2022 are preparing for mediation to resolve claims of lost pay.

    A judge would have to approve any settlement.

    That the case proceeded to mediation after a judge denied a district motion to throw it out “is having a pretty substantial impact” in California as some districts are “looking at renegotiating their terms by which they’re paying adjunct faculty,” said Eileen Goldsmith, a San Francisco labor lawyer who represents the Long Beach plaintiffs. “Our case really started that process.”

    A spokesperson for the Long Beach district said she could not comment on ongoing litigation.

    Many issues cited in both suits were detailed in EdSource’s 2022 series Gig by Gig at California Community Colleges. Adjuncts routinely claim they are exploited by only being paid for time spent teaching, not for designing syllabi, grading, and answering student emails. Yet they are considered the backbone of the community college system, numbering more than 30,000.

    In Sacramento County, a Superior Court judge ruled in March in a separate 2022 lawsuit that adjuncts working at colleges across the state are employees of the community college system’s board of governors — a decision that could lead to uniformity in pay across the 116-college system, said Dan Galpern, a lawyer for John Martin, the plaintiff in the case. Martin, an adjunct in the Shasta and Butte community college districts, is also chair of the California Part-Time Faculty Association.

    He claims in the lawsuit that the board and districts violated state wage-and-hour laws by not paying for time spent preparing for classes, writing curriculum, grading, and interacting with students outside of class.

    Lawyers for the community college system sought to have the suit thrown out, arguing that adjuncts work for local districts, not the state.

    In a decision rejecting the request for dismissal, Judge Jill H. Talley wrote that because “the statutory scheme of the community colleges” requires the board of governors “to provide oversight, establish minimum employment standards, and to advise local community college districts on the implementation of state laws,” the board has “an obligation that extends to faculty wages.”

    Martin called the judge’s decision to go forward “a big victory.”

    The decision may be appealed.

    California Community Colleges “does not control the wages, hours, and working conditions of part-time professors at local community college districts, which are established through collective bargaining at each individual district,” Melissa Villarin, spokesperson for the chancellor’s office, wrote in an email. 

    “The chancellor’s office is disappointed that it was unable to persuade (Talley) to adopt its motion for summary judgment, and will evaluate its legal options as this litigation moves forward,” she said.

    The favorable ruling in Martin’s case and the mediation in the Long Beach case are building momentum for adjuncts to continue to push for pay for all hours worked, said Karen Roberts, an art history professor for more than 20 years in Long Beach who is one of the lead plaintiffs in the case.

    “I got into academia as an idealist,” Roberts said Tuesday. “Join the professor ranks and we’re all gonna join hands and sing Kumbaya.” But, she said, adjuncts can’t let themselves “be exploited. We live in a capitalist economy. We have a moral obligation to take care of ourselves financially.”

    The lawsuit, should the mediation result in awards for lost pay, should motivate adjuncts to stay active in unions and trade groups, she said.

    The suits are clearly being watched around the state and have the potential to have important impacts, Stephanie Goldman, the executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, said in an interview Tuesday.

    It’s too soon to know how they might impact college district funding through Proposition 98, the 1988 ballot measure that sets funding levels for K-12 schools and community colleges based on the state general fund. 

    “That’s a really big and heavy question,” Goldman said. “I think ultimately it depends on how the lawsuits turn out and the reasoning behind it.”

    Still, she said, schools across California are carefully watching to see what happens. 

    “I don’t think anybody would be surprised if it had a ripple effect across the state,” she said.





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  • Community college math policy: Balancing big picture gains and classroom struggles

    Community college math policy: Balancing big picture gains and classroom struggles


    Is this a picture of something bad, or something good?

    Cognitive scientists call this the global-local processing dilemma: Do we perceive the overall image, or focus on the details? Education policy often faces the same question: Can a policy be considered “good” if the overall data look promising, but the day-to-day experiences feel “bad?”

    This tension is at the heart of California’s college math reforms.

    Like the image, the story of these policies may look “good” from a distance, but “bad” up close.

    Before recent reforms, community college students who needed extra math support were typically placed in remedial courses like elementary algebra. These classes didn’t count toward transfer requirements, and most students stuck in them never made it to a math course needed to transfer to a four-year university, such as college algebra or introductory statistics. This created an academic dead end for many.

    A 2017 law, Assembly Bill 705, changed that. It used high school grades for placement and gave more students direct access to transfer-level courses, with corequisite support (a support course taken concurrently with a transfer-level course) when needed. Instead of multi-semester remediation, students could move into transfer-level math courses faster.

    While challenges remain, the approach led to significant improvements. In 2016-17, before AB 705 was announced, only 27% of students passed a transfer-level math course within one year. But in 2019-20, the first full year of AB 705’s implementation, that number had nearly doubled to 51%. And by 2023-24, it reached 62%. About 30,000 more students were fulfilling their math requirements each year. The story is similar in English courses, and so it’s undeniable that AB 705 has helped California’s community college students get one step closer to transfer. 

    Despite these gains, many faculty don’t see AB 705 as a success. As one instructor put it, “There are a lot more people failing than before … largely students of color. … By making this change (i.e., AB 705) around equity, we’ve created an inequitable system.” And the data do show that pass rates have declined. 

    But here’s the catch: Far more students are now taking those courses. The graph below helps illustrate this shift using data from one community college district. Before AB 705, only a small fraction of students reached transfer-level math, but with high pass rates, as shown by the darker blue shading within the dashed box. After AB 705, access expanded, but pass rates declined from 80% to 70%. Critically, that’s 70% of a much larger group.

    With such an improvement, why do some faculty feel like the policy is a failure? 

    Because of this paradox: AB 705 absolutely led to more students passing. But it also led to more students failing. 

    People respond more strongly to stories than to statistics, and losses loom larger than gains. The students we see struggling — their faces, their frustration, their stories — linger longer than a bar graph showing statewide gains. As faculty members, we know this all too well. We remember the students who didn’t make it. We think about what we could’ve done differently. We agonize over them.

    And often, faculty haven’t been given the full picture. Our research has found that many instructors hadn’t even seen outcome data on AB 705’s impact. So, without that context, and given the classroom experience, it’s reasonable to assume the policy failed.

    This disconnect is a classic challenge in public policy: a policy can be effective overall but still feel painful on the ground. And this tension is always a part of the hard work of building systemic justice. AB 705 succeeded in dismantling long-standing barriers and expanding access to transfer-level math. But that progress has introduced new classroom dynamics that feel personal, urgent and overwhelming to faculty. Good policy must account for both the big-picture gains and the human cost of change. Reforms don’t succeed on data alone. They require understanding, empathy and support for those doing the work.

    And just as faculty were beginning to adjust to AB 705, we face Assembly Bill 1705, a sharper and even more controversial new policy. It asks colleges to stretch even more, limiting their ability to offer even prerequisite math courses. Understandably, many educators are still reeling. They’re trying to adapt to new expectations while managing unintended consequences in their classrooms. Recent guidance has softened the rollout, but confusion remains. The stakes are high, and many faculty feel mistrustful and angry.

    If AB 705 taught us anything, it’s that mistrust grows when there’s a gap between what the data show and what people experience. This is why the next phase of work cannot be just about compliance or policy enforcement. It must be about storytelling, listening and solutions. Faculty need to see the big picture. Policymakers need to understand life on the ground. The policy “worked” in aggregate, but not without professional and emotional cost. If we ignore that, we risk undermining the very equity goals these reforms were meant to achieve.

    Like the image above, the truth lies in seeing both levels clearly. We must acknowledge the trade-offs, the tension, and the very real pain of transition. Let’s take concerns seriously without retreating from hard-won progress. Let’s keep asking the harder, more honest questions: How do we support both students and faculty through ambitious change? How do we ensure that every student, not just the most prepared, has a real shot at success? 

    If we can do that, maybe we’ll find a way forward that is both honest and hopeful, one that sees the whole picture.

    •••

    Ji Y. Son, Ph.D., is a cognitive scientist and professor at California State University, Los Angeles and co-founder of CourseKata.org, a statistics and data science curriculum used by colleges and high schools.
    Federick Ngo, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research examines higher education policy, with a focus on college access and community college students.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • White and male college leadership fails to reflect California’s racial, ethnic diversity

    White and male college leadership fails to reflect California’s racial, ethnic diversity


    Michele Siqueiros, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, hosts a panel discussion with California Community Colleges Chancellor Sonya Christian, California State University Chancellor Mildred Garcia, and University of California President Michael Drake.

    Credit: Ashley A. Smith / EdSource

    With some of the most racially and ethnically diverse student bodies in the country, California’s public community colleges and universities fail to mirror its students in teaching and leadership positions.

    White men dominate the leadership positions within the University of California, California State University and California Community College systems, even as two-thirds of undergraduates across the state identify as Latino, Black, Asian or Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Campaign for College Opportunity. 

    Notably, the three systems are each led by a person of color: a Black man at UC, an Afro-Latina at Cal State and an Indian-American woman at the community colleges, but the report highlights that those leading academic senates, tenured positions, departments and senior administrative positions are disproportionately white and male. 

    Seeing instructors, staff members, administrators and presidents from diverse backgrounds on college campuses has been shown to help all students perform better academically, the campaign’s research shows.

    “I have often found a disheartening lack of representation while going to school, particularly as a STEM major,” said Casey Chang, an environmental science major at Mission College in Santa Clara. “I’ve had a few professors who are Asian American men, but navigating higher education as a woman of color has been difficult. I have yet to take a class with a female Asian American professor, and it feels like my identity has been left out.”

    Chang spoke at an event Tuesday evening hosted by the campaign about the report.

    Autumn Alaniz-Wiggins, a student at Chico State University, said she was excited to study nutrition, access and food justice at the school. But when she started her classes, she found that instead of learning about the intersection of systemic racism and food swamps, her instructors focused on the benefits of kale and quinoa.

    “It became clear to me that the absence of diverse identities in faculty and leadership positions hindered us from equitable student access,” she said. And for a year, Alaniz-Wiggins dropped out of college. That is, until she met her first Black faculty member at Chico State.

    “He taught culturally relevant courses and even hired me as a research assistant where I became published through a study on nutritional knowledge and (low-income) students,” she said. “For the first time, I was getting the support that I needed from the start.”

    For the Campaign for College Opportunity, improvement is too slow.

    “California’s public colleges and universities as well as our governor and Legislature have prioritized and invested in efforts to increase the representation of faculty and college leaders, but the work is, at best, happening at a pace that is far too slow or at worst, only paying lip service to the values of diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Michele Siqueiros, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity. Despite small increases in the racial and ethnic diversity of faculty and college leadership, “troubling gaps” remain, she added.

    The report found that while there have been improvements in gender and racial representations since the campaign’s first report in 2018, the state’s public universities still need to improve diversifying their leadership positions. For example, Latino, Black, Asian, Native Hawaiian and American Indian professors are underrepresented among the tenured and tenure-track faculty groups across the community colleges, UC and CSU systems. 

    The UC system

    There are few Latino faculty members in the UC system, and only 8% of them are tenured or on the tenure track. Among Black faculty, only 3% are tenured or on the tenure track. 

    Only eight of 117 campus leaders in the UC system are Latino, compared with 25% of UC students who identify as Latino, 39% of all Californians and 49% of Californians aged 18 to 24.

    When it comes to women in leadership, only two of the nine undergraduate campuses are led by women, despite 54% of undergraduate UC students identifying as women.

    The Cal State system

    Only 10% of Latino faculty across the 23 CSU campuses are tenured or on the tenure track. 

    The report also found that the CSU’s academic senate is also overwhelmingly white. Seventy percent of the Academic Senate and 64% of the campus-wide academic senate members are white, despite white students comprising 21% of the undergraduate student body.

    California’s community colleges 

    Only 18% of Latino faculty across the state’s 116 community colleges are tenured or on the tenure track. Among Black faculty, only 4% are tenured or on the tenure track. 

    Asian and Native Hawaiian-Pacific Islander students comprise 14% of the state’s community college students, but only 8% of campus or district leaders are Asian or Native Hawaiian. 

    California Community Colleges Chancellor Sonya Christian said she’s optimistic that in five years students will see an increase in diverse leadership across the 116 campuses.

    “Tenure happens at the discipline level, not only at the college level,” she said. “As system leaders, we need to set the expectations and shift the mindset.”

    Unfortunately, too often during the hiring process, people give arguments about not diminishing standards in the pursuit of diversity and equity, but “those are all false arguments,” Christian said. “We need to focus on what the data shows like the (report).”

    UC President Drake said one way to improve the diversity of leadership positions is to encourage the diverse students within the three higher education systems to pursue careers in academia “through graduate school, to the junior faculty, to tenured faculty and to our leaders,” he said. “Those things are evolutionary and they take time. But all the energy’s moving in the right direction.”

    Cal State Chancellor Mildred Garcia, hired at the end of last year, said she’s already starting to hold the 23 campus presidents accountable when it comes to making diversity, equity and inclusion a priority.

    “We have to remember belonging because students do not understand our campuses,” she said. “What are you doing about your staff? And your senior team?”

    But Garcia said campuses should also address the unconscious bias that happens on search committees. The UC system, for example, uses equity advisers in its hiring searches to guarantee a diverse and equitable pool of candidates, Drake said.

    There have been some pockets of improvement in closing racial and gender disparities across the three systems. For example, Black Californians are represented in both tenured and non-tenured faculty positions in the community colleges at 6% for both groups, according to the report, which reflects the state’s Black population. 

    The share of tenured and tenure-track professors who are women has increased from 33% to 40% in the UC system and from 47% to 49% in the CSU. About half of CSU presidents are women and more than half of the CSU board of trustees identify as women. CSU presidents are also racially diverse, with 12 of 23 campuses led by Latino, Black, Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander leaders. 

    Women also lead 52 of the 116 community college campuses, and 49% of presidents in the two-year system come from diverse backgrounds.

    The campaign also recommended requiring all three public college systems to submit a bi-annual analysis of their leadership, faculty and academic senate diversity, and encouraged the Legislature to build a statewide fund that would help the colleges in recruitment, hiring and retention. The campaign also recommended that college presidents be willing to restart searches if their applicant pools don’t have an adequate number of competitive candidates from diverse backgrounds.





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  • Fresno City College professors continue to speak out against colleague

    Fresno City College professors continue to speak out against colleague


    Fresno City College on Dec. 5, 2023

    Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource

    This story has been corrected to say that 50% of senators must be present and 75% must vote to remove the president, according to the bylaws.

    The Fresno City College community continues to reel from an EdSource report revealing that Tom Boroujeni, a tenured communication arts instructor and president of the school’s academic senate, was found to have committed an “act of sexual violence” against a professor and colleague at nearby Fresno State in 2015. 

    The fallout was laid bare during Wednesday’s academic senate meeting when several professors challenged the body’s leadership, criticizing the executive board and demanding change, despite a plea by the acting president that attendants not use the public comment period to “prosecute this (Boroujeni) case or any other case.” 

    Wednesday’s meeting was the first academic senate meeting since Boroujeni was placed on paid administrative leave on Nov. 30, following the EdSource story and subsequent decision by professors to cancel classes. 

    Because of his administrative leave status, Boroujeni, through a request handled by Fresno City College President Robert Pimentel, asked if, and or how he could speak during Wednesday meeting. 

    He didn’t show up, but the possibility that he would be at the meeting galvanized many of his colleagues. His absence did not prevent discussions about him, his case and the conduct of the academic senate, which he led. 

    “You are our faculty leaders; we look to you for guidance in matters related to us,” communication arts instructor Kherstin Khan said at the meeting. “Your silence in the face of controversy has exacerbated the division of faculty and left many of the people that you represent feeling alienated and marginalized.” 

    As Boroujeni remains on leave, Jackie Williams, president-elect and now acting president, asked those who wished to speak during the meeting’s open forum to focus only on concerns about academic and professional matters pertaining to issues concerning faculty, curriculum and their work.  

    “We are here to work on the matters that are on the agenda,” Williams said.

    She told EdSource that she believes in confidentiality for victims, whom she supports, but doesn’t believe that anyone’s personnel matters should be discussed in a public forum. 

    “I have witnessed firsthand how the investigations of assault can be revictimizing and traumatizing, not just to the survivor of that incident but to other survivors and those that are close to them,” she said. “I firmly support, for that reason, matters being kept confidential and being handled by the appropriate legal and human resource experts unless a survivor chooses to share their story.” 

    However, she did not stop people from speaking out about Boroujeni or the Fresno State case. She declined to comment on their criticism of the executive board. 

    What does Fresno State case entail? 

    Boroujeni has taught at Fresno City College since 2015, the same year he began his academic career at Fresno State while still a graduate student. The alleged victim is also a professor and Boroujeni’s colleague at the city college. The State Center Community College District, parent agency to Fresno City College, learned of the sexual misconduct investigation when the alleged victim requested a no-contact order, which was granted in the spring semester of 2022.

    Fresno State opened the investigation based on the federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX, records show. The investigation determined that Boroujeni committed the sexual violence in 2015. At the time of the incident, Boroujeni was a part-time instructor at Fresno City College while finishing a master’s degree at Fresno State, records show.

    Fresno State couldn’t discipline him because he was a graduate student when the alleged violence occurred, Debbie Adishian-Astone, Fresno State’s vice president for administration, told EdSource. Boroujeni resigned from Fresno State in 2022 after officials said the act-of-sexual-violence report would be placed in his personnel file.

    The Fresno State case was not taken into account as Boroujeni was elected senate president at Fresno City College and achieved tenure in 2023, even after the community college district investigated the alleged victim’s request for a stay-away order and found that sexual violence occurred. 

    Fresno State released a redacted copy of the report to EdSource under the state’s Public Records Act, explaining, “Given that Mr. Boroujeni remains active in the educational community and is teaching at a local community college, there is strong public interest in knowing that a college instructor has been previously found to have committed an act of sexual violence at another university.” 

    Academic senate presidency 

    In May 2023, Boroujeni started a two-year term as Fresno City College’s academic senate president. In that role, Boroujeni works with the school’s administration in setting academic policy and hiring faculty. He assumed the academic senate presidency after a two-year term as president-elect — a rule that doesn’t seem to work, said Tiffany Sarkisian, Fresno City College’s program review coordinator and a communication arts instructor. 

    Sarkisian urged the executive board to create a task force to investigate the efficacy of its bylaws, which she said need to be updated by changing its nomination process, voting procedures and board duties. 

    Williams said the executive board has been reviewing its bylaws in light of the situation. 

    “We’re going through every line and addressing some things that we have found that were silent in the bylaws and came up because of this,” she said.

    The bylaws only address the resignation or removal of an officer, not what to do when an officer is on leave.  According to the bylaws, removing an officer requires a written petition detailing the rationale for the removal, with signatures from 25% of the academic senators; 50% of the senators must be present and 75% must vote to remove the president.

    Anthropology professor German Loffler submitted a petition in December, calling for Boroujeni’s removal, according to Williams. Loffler has since withdrawn the petition. 

    “We do not have an active petition; that’s one mechanism that would open the conversation,” Williams said. “We’re not aware of another mechanism, but if it’s appropriate to place it on the agenda as a discussion item, we can do that.” 

    Boroujeni’s case has divided Fresno City College community 

    Even though the community college district has placed Boroujeni on leave and launched an investigation, some faculty members expect more from the district, the college and the State Center Federation of Teachers, the union representing faculty. 

    For example, some professors in the district called for union leaders to be transparent about their knowledge of the sexual misconduct findings at Fresno State while others expected the union to take a position on the case.

    For instance, Liz Romero, an early childhood education instructor at Clovis Community College, told EdSource it was “disheartening” that the union, through its statement, said their responsibility was to “defend the contract” and “defend the faculty’s rights to due process.”

    There have been heated union discussions among a divided faculty. 

    On Dec. 4, the union censured Clovis Community College philosophy instructor Michael Stannard for his conduct during a discussion of the Boroujeni case at a Dec. 1 union meeting, according to union representative David Campos. The district also announced on Dec. 15 that it is investigating allegations of “inappropriate behavior” by many unnamed employees who allegedly made several female employees “feel unsafe” during union meetings. 

    Boroujeni requested to speak first during the public comment period on Wednesday and then be escorted off campus by police during a brief recess. The executive board declined the request, Williams said. 

    Boroujeni published a blog post on Medium focused on “reclaiming my narrative” on Jan. 10. The nearly 8,000-word post casts Boroujeni as the victim of sexual harassment at the hands of the alleged victim as well as racism and stereotyping because of his Middle Eastern background. 

    Some of his colleagues, including communication arts instructor Jerry Thurston, say they believe the alleged victim. 

    “When women share their experiences, I believe them,” Thurston said. 

    “I don’t gullibly swallow anything people say, but when women tell me that someone has behaved inappropriately toward them, explaining what happened, I believe that that thing happened to them. I believe my female colleagues when they tell me someone has mistreated them.” 

    EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to this story.





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  • Students, faculty, staff distrust state college systems’ handling of Title IX cases

    Students, faculty, staff distrust state college systems’ handling of Title IX cases


    Fresno State University

    Credit: fresnostate.edu

    Students and faculty at all three of California’s public higher education institutions do not trust how colleges and universities handle sexual discrimination and harassment. 

    The lack of trust was detailed in a California Assembly Higher Education Committee report released last week that offers recommendations on how the state’s public colleges and universities can better address sexual harassment and discrimination. 

    The report addressed significant deficiencies in the University of California, California State University and California Community College systems’ handling of Title IX, which is the federal education law that prohibits schools from sex-based discrimination. For example, none of the state’s public colleges or universities review how campus leaders plan to address and prevent sex discrimination as part of administrators’ evaluations. Another deficiency: The community college system does not mandate student participation in annual sex discrimination prevention education programs. 

    The report highlighted that students at faculty across all three systems distrust and resent their institutions when it comes to handling Title IX cases. “The prevailing message from students, staff and faculty is that current policies of the CCC, CSU, and UC do not protect survivors and instead are used to protect the institution from lawsuits,” according to the report. 

    Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, president of the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges, said the goal for every district and campus should be moving from being reactive to being proactive and creating a culture of respect. 

    “When you have someone who has already been traumatized or victimized and you’re asking them to go through this incredibly lengthy and cumbersome process without an advocate, that’s not the greatest way to try and come to a resolution,” said Brill-Wynkoop, adding that an oversight body would be helpful. “Every district tries to do things correctly, but without some sort of system check, it’s difficult.” 

    Furthermore, the report found that California lacks an effective method for monitoring and regulating Title IX standards in its higher education institutions. 

    “California’s public higher education institutions are critical to the future of our state, and we must ensure our values of diversity and inclusivity are reflected in providing all students with a safe learning environment and all staff with a working environment free from harassment and discrimination,” Assembly Higher Education Chair Mike Fong said, adding that he will work with lawmakers to introduce legislation based on the report’s recommendations. 

    The report recommended providing more funding to the colleges to address sex discrimination, creating a statewide office to provide guidance and monitoring, annual compliance reports to the Legislature, and creating systemwide independent civil rights offices for each of the three systems. The committee also recommended more training and education, and making campus leaders more responsible for addressing sexual harassment and discrimination. 

    A spokesperson from the community colleges chancellor’s office said: “The Chancellor’s Office agrees with the findings and conclusions of this important report and looks forward to working with the committee, the Legislature and our colleges to implement the recommendations. We are fully aligned with the commitment to improve California’s higher education systems to better address discrimination and provide safe, inclusive environments for all students, faculty and staff.”

    The Assembly Higher Education Committee conducted the report following a series of news nationally and statewide about mishandled Title IX cases. The committee report cites EdSource’s investigation into Chico State, where a professor was investigated for an inappropriate sexual affair with a graduate student. He was put on paid leave last year after EdSource disclosed that he had allegedly threatened to shoot colleagues who cooperated in the investigation.

    The report also noted other EdSource coverage of Title IX cases at CSU campuses and an investigation by USA Today into the mishandling of a Title IX case by then President Joseph I. Castro. The case led to his resignation as CSU chancellor.

    The Cal State system was found to have mishandled a variety of cases over the year and reports from an independent law firm and the California State Auditor’s office last year found the 23 -campus system lacked resources and failed to carry out its Title IX responsibilities. 

    In response to the Assembly committee’s report, a spokesperson from the Cal State chancellor’s office said: “Any form of discrimination, harassment and misconduct is unacceptable. The CSU stands ready to work with legislators and with leaders from across the CSU system — including university administrators, staff, faculty and students — to make the changes needed to improve our Title IX and other nondiscrimination policies and procedures.”

    The report noted that the university system has already changed its policy allowing administrators who have committed misconduct to “retreat” to faculty positions. 

    CSU is currently implementing the changes and reforms called for in the 2023 state audit and in a report conducted by an independent law firm.

    A UC spokesperson said that system has made changes “to address these issues when they arise.”  Officials were interviewed for the Assembly report, and UC pledged to “review the recommendations closely in order to uphold our commitment to fostering an environment free from sex-based discrimination for all members of the UC community.”





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  • When Latinos pursue community college bachelor’s degrees, most find success

    When Latinos pursue community college bachelor’s degrees, most find success


    Los Angeles City College, one of the state’s 116 community colleges.

    Larry Gordon/EdSource Today

    Latino students are enrolling at low rates in bachelor’s degree programs at California’s community colleges. But many of those who do enroll are graduating quickly and finding work after leaving college.

    That’s the takeaway from a new study by UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute examining outcomes for Latino students in baccalaureate programs at 15 of the state’s community colleges. An increasing number of community colleges now offer such programs, giving students a simpler path to a four-year degree.

    But, in many of the programs, Latino students are not applying or enrolling at high rates. Across the programs, which range from equine and ranch management at Feather River College to dental hygiene at West Los Angeles College, just 30.1% of students are Latino. That’s much lower than the 46% of students at those colleges who are Latino.

    To address that gap, the study calls for greater recruitment of Latino students to the programs and for the state to invest more money in the programs.

    However, for the students who do enroll, 64% of them finish their degree within two years after starting their upper-division coursework. That’s comparable to non-Latino students, 68% of whom graduate within two years after starting those classes. 

    Following graduation, the vast majority of Latino students in the bachelor’s degree majors  — 94% of them — reported being employed. On average, they earned $22,600 more annually than they did prior to starting the program.

    Those outcomes are encouraging, but the colleges could benefit from a “public awareness campaign” to make sure Latino students know about the bachelor’s degree programs available to them, said Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, one of the report’s authors.

    “We have this tool now, so let’s make sure people are aware. We’re seeing very promising results once they’re there. But we want to make sure that they get there,” added Rios-Aguilar, who is a professor of education and the associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

    The bachelor’s degrees are more affordable for students than attending a University of California or California State University campus. Students can finish their degree for just $10,560 in tuition and fees, less than half of what it costs at UC or Cal State. Lower-division classes at the community college are $46 per unit, while the upper-division courses in the bachelor’s degree programs cost the same $46 enrollment fee plus a supplemental $84 fee.

    Community college students with financial need can often qualify for state aid to fully cover those costs. That typically includes a California College Promise Grant to cover their lower-division fees and a Cal Grant to cover the $84-per-unit upper-division fees.

    The 15 programs examined in the study are California’s original 15 community college bachelor’s degree programs. The state established those programs in 2015 as part of a pilot program. 

    The state then built on that pilot program with the passage of a 2021 law that allows the community college system to approve up to 30 new bachelor’s degree programs annually. Since the fall of 2022, at least 18 additional programs have been approved, according to the state chancellor’s office.

    Not every college included in the study struggled to enroll Latino students in the programs. At two colleges — Antelope Valley and Bakersfield — the share of Latino students in those programs exceeded the overall share of Latino students at the college.

    At Bakersfield, which offers a bachelor’s degree in industrial automation, getting those students enrolled starts in high school. Students in the Kern High School District have the option of earning an associate degree in industrial automation while they work toward their high school graduation. 

    “This innovative collaboration enables these students to seamlessly transfer into our baccalaureate program. Innovations that bring opportunity to students help explain Bakersfield College’s success in successfully recruiting Latinx students to our program,” Jessica Wojtysiak, the college’s associate vice president of instruction, said in an email.

    In addition to that program, Bakersfield also now offers a bachelor’s degree in research laboratory technology.

    At another college, MiraCosta, the share of Latino students in the college’s bachelor’s degree program in biomanufacturing was only 0.8% less than the college’s overall share of Latino students.

    “In our diverse and vibrant student body, we are proud to observe that the majority of those enrolling in our programs — specifically the bachelor’s degree in biomanufacturing — represent a majority of non-White/Asian backgrounds, showcasing our institution’s appeal across various ethnicities,” Dominique Ingato, MiraCosta’s biotechnology department chair, said in an email.

    To ensure that other colleges have similar success, the study released Tuesday suggests that the state should invest more money in the community college bachelor’s degree programs. 

    That could include spending more on outreach, marketing and recruitment to attract more Latino students. It could also mean investing in “research infrastructure” at the colleges, Rios-Aguilar said. She pointed out that community colleges don’t have the same research capacity as traditional research institutions like UCLA and other four-year colleges. 

    “It’s important to highlight that community colleges are severely underfunded compared to other sectors of higher education and yet they’re doing these amazing things and these promising tools are emerging,” she added. “Colleges are working really hard to make this happen.”





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  • Let’s make STEM opportunity achievable, not illusory, for California community college students 

    Let’s make STEM opportunity achievable, not illusory, for California community college students 


    Two students with drill press

    A student uses a drill press to work on an engineering project.

    Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages

    The design of California’s higher education system has been influential for its twin goals of high-quality undergraduate education and broad access to college. Though our public universities are renowned for their research prowess, the focal point for access has been our extensive network of community colleges — now comprising 116 — offering students first- and second-year courses with the opportunity to transfer and earn a four-year degree at a university.  

    But for students seeking to transfer in STEM fields, that opportunity borders on illusory: While 16% of community college students nationally complete a bachelor’s degree, only 2% earn a degree in a STEM field. Misaligned math policies play a role in unnecessarily narrowing that path. Absent a coordinated statewide approach, that is unlikely to change.

    It’s not just that a student seeking to transfer in, say, computer science has to take three to six semesters of math, depending on the transfer destination. Before even taking those courses, many community college students must first complete two or three math prerequisites. And, because the actual requirements may vary from campus to campus, some have to take extra courses to ensure they are eligible for junior status at more than one university. 

    To make matters worse, there are inconsistencies in whether four-year campuses articulate — or recognize — a given community college course. Plus, the tools available to students to navigate their options tend to be clunky and outdated. Some students have been forced to enroll at a different college to repeat an already completed math course when one of their prospective transfer campuses doesn’t accept the first college’s course. 

    This maze of inconsistent and opaque math requirements is among the barriers to STEM transfer identified in our recent report, “A Complex Equation: Confronting Math Barriers on the Path to STEM Transfer.” Because these barriers are often out of students’ control, it is up to institutions to fix them. But, under current state policies, the state’s higher ed systems have little apparent incentive to alleviate them and increase transfer access to some of the state’s most popular STEM majors. 

    In fact, it appears that at some campuses, it is not a priority to admit even those students who do clear the math hurdles and other STEM requirements, according to the California State Auditor. The education code requires universities to provide “adequate” space for transfer students — generally interpreted as meaning at least one-third of upper-division enrollments — in all “colleges or schools.” But some high-demand majors at some campuses are balanced heavily against transfer students. 

    In biology, for example, for academic years 2018-19 through 2022-23, only 14% of Cal State LA’s juniors and seniors were transfer students, with Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo enrolling just 12% and UC Santa Barbara 14%, the auditor found. UC Berkeley’s transfer enrollment in two highly ranked departments was even lower: 11% of enrollments in computer science and 9% in environmental science are transfer students. Many of these campuses appear to be turning away eligible students, the auditor found: For example, in 2022, Berkeley denied 95 transfer computer science applicants whose preparation was considered “best prepared” or “strongly prepared.” 

    Added oversight is currently the only mechanism for shifting such patterns. A legislated pilot program requires UC campuses, beginning with UCLA, to create paths to STEM transfer. But UCLA chose to focus the program on relatively low-enrollment majors — atmospheric sciences, geology, math, and environmental science — not popular ones such as biology, computer science or engineering that are already at capacity. 

    Barriers in articulation also prevent community college students from benefiting from pioneering instructional approaches. Take, for example, a redesigned math sequence at UCLA. The new course, which has been offered to UCLA undergraduates since 2013, covers some traditional calculus topics in the context of modeling dynamical biological systems. Students taking the innovative course earned “significantly” higher grades in subsequent STEM courses than students who took the traditional course, and their interest in the topic doubled. 

    The two-course sequence is the primary math requirement for UCLA’s biology undergrads. But community colleges have not been able to offer the course. Since it is not available within the CSU system or at other UC campuses, if a community college were to offer it, only students who successfully transfer to UCLA could apply it toward a life sciences degree. UCLA allows students to transfer with a traditional calculus course, but this means that transfer students are deprived of the benefits of the modernized curriculum. 

    Both UC and CSU can take steps to better prioritize transfer students in high-demand STEM majors, as the auditor recommends. But to set and achieve statewide goals for transfer participation and completion — including STEM-specific goals — and improve success for historically underrepresented groups requires a greater degree of coordination across all three higher education systems. 

    One step toward achieving that is establishing a coordinating body in line with a proposal currently circulating in Sacramento. Another is ensuring that students have up-to-date, accurate and actionable information about transfer and course articulation through modernized transfer planning tools. A third is supporting innovation in STEM education through the California Education Learning Lab. 

    These would be minor investments toward ensuring more efficient, transparent, and evidence-based use not only of the billions of dollars our state invests in education, but also of another precious resource: our students’ time.  

    •••

    Pamela Burdman, Alexis Robin Hale, and Jenn BeVard work for Just Equations, a policy institute dedicated to enhancing the role of math in education equity. 

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Florida: College Presidencies Go to Grifters and GOP Cronies. Merit Doesn’t Count.

    Florida: College Presidencies Go to Grifters and GOP Cronies. Merit Doesn’t Count.


    Scott Maxwell is an opinion columnist for The Orlando Sentinel. He tells the truth about the state’s sordid politics and backs it up with facts. Learn here how the state chooses college and university presidents.

    He writes:

    You probably know that Florida’s GOP politicians have taken a wrecking ball to the state’s university system. And the narrative is that they’re on a noble crusade to exorcise evil, “woke” ideology from college campuses.

    But if you believe that’s the only goal here, you’ve been duped. This isn’t about politicians going after liberal doctrines nearly as much as it’s about them going after tax dollars.

    They’ve turned the university system into a political spoils system where politicians with no higher-ed experience can score lucrative higher-ed jobs for themselves.

    It’s been going on for a while now, but the grift was fully exposed this past week. That’s when it was revealed that one of the political has-beens fuming about diversity — as a supposed reason to deny the University of Florida presidency to a qualified applicant — had secretly made a play to try to get the $3 million-a-year job for himself.

    See, you have to separate the theater from the grift. The theater was a bunch of privileged guys griping about the concept of diversity and inclusion. The grift was one of those same guys making a secretive play for the very job he was griping about.

    More about that in a moment, but first, let’s remember where this all started — at New College of Florida with Richard Corcoran. Two years ago, the former House Speaker craved a fat, higher-ed paycheck. The problem was that Corcoran had as much higher-ed experience as my dead cat, Furball.

    So to distract from his lack of qualifications, Corcoran fumed — about DEI, CRT and other scary-sounding acronyms. It was red meat for the trolls. And Corcoran laughed all the way to the bank. He got a $1 million deal to run a tiny college with 698 students. Elementary school principals oversee more pupils.

    Then Corcoran and Co. invited other political has-beens to feed at the New College trough. They gave a former Senate president a $500-an-hour legal contract, the governor’s former spokesman a $15,000-a-month PR contract and the wife of the former Republican Party of Florida chairman $175,000 to run the school’s foundation.

    With the chow bell rung, the politicians came running. Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska scored a $10 million deal for a short-lived and disastrous tenure at UF where the student newspaper discovered he’d quickly blown through $17 million in public money, including $38,000 he spent on a sushi bar.

    Lieutenant Gov. Jeanette Nunez snagged the top spot at Florida International University. A cable-company lobbyist friendly with the administration is in line to lead FAMU.
    At one college, they had to actually remove the requirement that the president have an advanced degree so that they could give the job to Fred Hawkins, a GOP legislator who lacked one.

    But then this past week, the scheme was fully exposed in cringe-worthy fashion.

    The scene was the Board of Governors meeting in Orlando where appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis were once again fuming about the alleged evils of diversity and inclusion. Their reason this time was to try to deny the UF presidency to former University of Michigan President Santa J. Ono.

    Somehow, a qualified candidate had actually advanced through the secretive application process — and that would not be tolerated.

    So the political appointees accused Ono of all kinds of terrible things like embracing equality and believing in science. Former House Speaker Paul Renner led the anti-woke war.

    But then one board member who’d apparently heard enough posturing went off-script.
    Eric Silagy, the former CEO of Florida Power and Light, asked if any of his fellow board members — the ones savaging Ono for being too woke — had applied for the very job Ono was seeking.
    Yes, responded board chairman Mori Hosseini. “Paul Renner.”

    It turned out the very guy claiming Florida needed an anti-woke warrior in this $3 million-a-year position had been salivating over the post.
    Renner became visibly enraged when exposed. He indignantly responded that he’d only inquired about the job because other people suggested he do so and that he’d since decided not to accept the high-paying job even if it was offered to him. Sure, Mr. Speaker. Your nobility is noted.

    Most of the time, qualified candidates like Ono don’t even get a shot. But occasionally, well-intentioned leaders at individual schools try to give them one — as trustees at Florida Atlantic University did two years ago when they nominated Vice Admiral Sean Buck, the superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, to be FAU’s president.

    That’s how these folks treat these positions.

    DeSantis would later admit in a moment of surprising candor that he only supported Fine because other GOP legislators disliked Fine and wanted him gone. “They wanted to get him out of the Legislature,” DeSantis said. “So they asked me to put him up for Florida Atlantic president, and I did.”

    But Buck didn’t stand a chance in this environment. DeSantis allies savaged the respected admiral’s reputation so that yet another GOP legislator, Randy Fine, could have a shot at the job.

    Fine and DeSantis later had a falling out, and Fine didn’t get the gig. But the rules of the game were clear: Qualified applicants need not apply.
    An irony is that former politicians actually can become impressive university leaders. Florida State University President John Thrasher, a former GOP house speaker, was one of them. I respected him. So did many others.

    But Thrasher, who sadly passed away last week, was a different kind of man than the Florida politicians of today. He was a statesman — not someone willing to savage others’ reputation simply to enrich himself.



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  • What California college students think about online classes

    What California college students think about online classes


    “I don’t really like asynchronous or online classes. Yes, it’s convenient for me, but it’s not convenient for my learning,” Chase said. “It’s not conducive to any learning.” 

    Chase is currently taking a statistics class asynchronously with recorded lectures from Zoom and optional lab sections with a graduate student instructor. He feels these lab sections are helpful, but ultimately wished that his statistics lectures could also be in-person. 

    Chase doesn’t seek out online classes because he feels the opportunity to ask his professor questions is lost. He said although online lectures have benefits, including being able to rewind, edit and speed up lectures, he ultimately feels that interaction with classmates during lectures is more valuable for his learning. 

    “Sometimes a few things might slip that I can’t hear the teacher saying that I can’t get back, but I’m willing to sacrifice like a sentence or two for just a general overall interaction,” Chase said. 

    Despite the downsides of asynchronous learning, Chase does enjoy completing homework and exams online because he feels less pressure and is more comfortable. The flexibility in completing assignments on his own time and in a place of preference is an aspect of online class that Chase appreciates. 

    Ultimately, he doesn’t prefer online classes because he learns best in an in-person environment. Chase expressed the value in talking to and collaborating with a variety of classmates on problems. 

    “I get better understanding, especially when I’m mixing with my peers to ask for help. When everyone is separated, there’s no creativity, there’s no new ideas,” Chase said. “When everyone’s together mingling, that’s the spark of new ideas, new creations.”

    By Kelcie Lee





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