The Academic Senate met on Oct. 23, discussing a proposed series of general education requirements that aim to simplify course requirements for students aiming to transfer. Faculty briefly addressed the inefficiency of purchasing textbooks at City College’s bookstore.

 Textbooks

English professor Barbara Bell expressed that students have raised concern about City College’s bookstore and their current  textbook offerings to students. According to Bell, students are struggling to find availability and check-out duration for certain books.

“This has really disrupted classes,” Bell said. “English class specifically.” 

In a meeting with Bell last week, bookstore administrators said that if students would have bought these books earlier, this would not be an issue.

Social studies professor Elizabeth Chrisholm addressed the matter as well, expressing that students have been very unhappy because of this.

It was lightly brought up that Follet may have a role in the lack of textbooks for students.

Academic Senate President Joshua Ramirez acknowledged that this will be discussed further at the next meeting.

Spring 2025 Schedule 

Assistant Superintendent and President of Academic Affairs Maria Villagomez provided the senate with an online update on the spring 2025 class schedule.

Villagomez stated that the spring 2025 class schedule is live and priority registration will open on Nov. 4. 

Faculty members questioned whether or not there was student input on this new schedule, specifically in regard to an increase of online classes. Laura Woyach, accounting professor, noted that many students have reported to prefer online classes and brought up the matter of increasing the variety of online course offerings.

Anneliese Resse, commissioner of academics, sat in on the meeting, representing the Associated Student Government. Ramirez appointed her to speak with her board on the matter, and report back at the senate next meeting.

General Education Proposal

Vice President of Academic Senate Tara Carter and Articulation Officer Laura Castro presented a draft of updated general education requirements required by AB 928. This law establishes one clear pathway for lower division GE courses required to transfer to CSU or UC schools, effective Fall 2025. This bill has ultimately led to changes in Title Five regulations, which affect local GE requirements, particularly Career and Technical Engineer students.

There are two general transfer pathways, IGETC and CSU GE-Breadth. It was noted that there are a lot of overlaps and differences between the two. Carter introduced a unified pathway called CALGETC.

This pathway includes 25-units across 6 areas with listed courses required. Each area requires 3-4 units from each area.

“We acknowledge that our CTE programs tend to have the highest number of units for the major and that is the nature of their disciplines,” Carter said. “Title Five allows us to add additional requirements, we don’t want to make a burden on students who are taking a lot of units, so we wanted to make it worth our while.”

This led into Carter and Castro’s introduction to proposed Area 7.

This area is designed to apply living skills and implements areas like oral communication, critical thinking, and lifelong learning and self development. Physical education, computer technology, and finance were also included in these course requirements. This draft brought critique from faculty.

“Students will be much more alert and present if in physical education,” Chisholm said. “Physical health is a great outlet for anxiety as well.”

The Senate discussed the roles of mental health and how these requirements could possibly motivate students to succeed in their major. Faculty members agreed that these classes would allow students to explore self development that supports their careers and goals.

“After all these areas, this is truly what we are missing here,” Carter said. “This promotes not only wellness, but career exploration and it can build on their own experiences.”

It was deemed that Area 7 would be tabled until the next meeting.

The next academic senate meeting will take place on Nov. 13.