Peralta Community College District

Annual Program Update Template 2010-2011

Each discipline will complete this form to update program reviews developed in 2009-2010. These will be reviewed at the college level and then forwarded to the district-wide planning and budgeting process. The information on this form is required for all resource requests – including faculty staffing requests – for the 2011-12 budget year.

I.  Overview

Date Submitted: / 10-18-2010 / Dean: / Tom Branca
BI Download: / 10/07/2010 / Dept. Chair: / Chris Grampp
Discipline: / LANHT
Campus: / Merritt
Mission / The Landscape Horticulture Department’s mission is to help students attain knowledge, skills, and broad-based outlooks needed to succeed as professionals, as stewards of the land, and as responsible citizens. To accomplish these goals the department provides open access to educational programs, support services, and community outreach in a rigorous, diverse, and culturally rich learning environment.

II.  Student Data

A.  Enrollment / Fall 2008 / Fall 2009 / Fall 2010
Census Enrollment (duplicated) / 829.0 / 971.0 / 871.0
Sections (master sections) / 29.0 / 31.0 / 26.0
Total FTES / 97.18 / 129.45 / 84.89
Total FTEF / 6.45 / 6.77 / 5.81
FTES/FTEF / 15.07 / 19.11 / 14.61
B.  Retention
Enrolled / 770.0 / 873.0 / N/A
Retained / 648.0 / 723.0 / N/A
% Retained / 84.0 / 82.0 / N/A
C.  Success
Total Graded / 770.0 / 873.0 / N/A
Success / 585.0 / 638.0 / N/A
% Success / 75.0 / 73.0 / N/A
Withdraw / 122.0 / 150.0 / N/A
% Withdraw / 15.0 / 17.0 / N/A
III.  Faculty Data (ZZ assignments excluded)
Fall 2010
Contract FTEF / 1.63
Hourly FTEF / 3.88
Extra Service FTEF / 0.3
Total FTEF / 5.81
% Contract/Total / 28.06

IV.  Faculty Data Comparables F2010 (ZZ assignments excluded) (Z assignments excluded)

Alameda / Berkeley / Laney / Merritt
Contract FTEF / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 1.63
Hourly FTEF / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 3.88
Extra Service FTEF / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.3
Total FTEF / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 5.81
% Contract/Total / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 28.06

V.  Qualitative Assessments

CTE and Vocational: Community and labor market relevance. Present evidence of community need based on Advisory Committee input, industry need data, McIntyre Environmental Scan, McKinsey Economic Report, licensure and job placement rates, etc. / The Landscape Horticulture curriculum prepares students for a broad range of public and private sector job opportunities, including landscape design, landscape contracting, irrigation design and installation, nursery management, maintenance, and more. Typical jobs include preparing designs for residential gardens, drawing up irrigation plans, making water-use calculations, installing irrigation, maintaining gardens and commercial landscapes, pruning shrubs and small trees, working in horticultural nurseries, propagating plants, installing simple landscape structures and flatwork, working for parks, golf courses, and regioanl preserves, and planting new and existing gardens. Typical professional licenses and certifications that our students – upon completion of classes and subsequent internships – include Landscape Contractor, Certified Landscape Technician, Certified Water Auditor, Certified Arborist, Certified Pesticide Applicator, Certified Nurseryman, Certified APLD Landscape Designer, Certified Irrigation Design (CID) and Certified Irrigation Contractor (through the Irrigation Association, a group which offers 6 certificates), and more.
It is difficult to quantify the employment status of the nearly 900 students enrolled in our program each semester. However, based on the data sheets every student fills out, on informal instructor surveys, on attendance and participation in our Landscape Design Forum class (a professional practice seminar), on postings to our Landscape Horticulture Yahoo group, on the Pruning Club membership list, on the frequent use of our job board, and on the six landscape design groups that have formed in the past ten years, we can estimate with a fair degree of accuracy that:
• 55-60% of our students are currently working in the field part or full-time, and are either taking classes of the first time, or returning to learn new skills.
• 25-30% of our students are making a career change and possibly have some recent experience in the field.
• 10-15% of our students are starting their first career.
The current economic downturn notwithstanding, job prospects for landscape professionals in the Bay Area are excellent. There are currently more than 2800 registered landscape architects in California, many of whom practice in the Bay Area. The Oakland ATT Yellow Pages lists 42 professional firms alone, a number which is several times bigger if the greater metropolitan area is counted. The numbers grow considerably when related professions are included. ATT lists 590 landscape contractors and 626 landscape design consultants in the Walnut Creek, Lafayette, and Concord areas, 171 landscape contractors and 213 design consultants in the San Francisco area, and 219 landscape contractors and 423 design consultants in the San Rafael area, all locations potentially served by Merritt College students.
Transfer and Basic Skills: Describe how your course offerings address transfer, basic skills, and program completion. / Transfer and basic skills:
Several of our classes meet University of California and California State University articulation requirements, and we presently have six landscape design classes in the articulation process with UC Berkeley.
The great majority of our classes are requirements or electives for our AS Degree and our four certificates. Thus, students enrolled in our program are making progress towards degrees and tangible professional goals. Over the previous two years we have an 82% retention rate, and a 73% success rate.
All of our instructor (2 full-time, approximately 26 part-time) are also landscape professionals. Our faculty includes two licensed landscape architects, two licensed landscape contractors, two licensed arborists, two APLD Certified Designers, one International Professional Propagator’s Society member, two former nursery owners, one Master Florist, two Bay Friendly Certified designers, one Certified Pest Applicator, and more. This pool of certification contributes directly to our students’ ability to obtain basic and advanced skills, whether they are moving from school into professional work, or coming for continuing education. While our classes serve the needs of entry-level students, many practicing professionals come to our department to obtain specialized training in irrigation, construction, CAD, freehand drawing, plant ID, soil chemistry, and more. It is not uncommon to have licensed architects, civil engineers, landscape architects, contractors, arborists, and nurserymen(sic) in our classes.

VI.  Strategic Planning Goals

Check all that apply.
Advance Student Access, Success & Equity
Engage our Communities & Partners
Build Programs of Distinction
Create a Culture of Innovation & Collaboration
Develop Resources to Advance & Sustain Mission / Describe how goal applies to your program.
STUDENT ACCESS: As a CTE program we focus our curriculm on reaching out to students in or interested in the landscape profession, in teaching state of the art professional practices, and supporting students in all walks of life in their educational and career pursuits.
ENGAGE COMMUNITIES: Our department reaches out to the community through helping under-funded institutions and organizations with landscape projects, hosting community-based seminars (such as the Permaculture Convergence, the Master Gardeners, and the Associaiton of Professional Landscape Designers) at our facility, and assiting in job placement with public and private firms. Our Permacuture and vegetable areas grow food which we donate to under-served community groups.
BUILD PROGRAMS: We currently offer one AS Degree and four Certificates of Achievement, and are in the final stages of developing an AA degree in Landscape Architecture.
CREATE CULTURE: All of our instructors are practicing landscape professionals, and well versed in state of the art practices and laws surrounding water conservation, regional and recycled materials, green roofs, food production, and sustainable maintenance practices.
DEVELOP RESOURCES: We regularly update course outlines, develop new curriculum paths, and hire new instructors to stay current with emerging professional trends in landscape horticulture. We have developed data bases and email lists to monitor our student's needs and requests, and send out information about new courses, symposiums, and training. We offer a wide variety of fee classes to supplement our regular curriculum. We have upgraded our IT equipment to allow teachers to use the internet in class, and make the best use of digital presentations and infomration dissemination. We offer internships allowing students to specialize in particular types of training. We are regulalry replanting our grounds to develop eco-systems, demostrate new plant cultivars, and grow food.

VII.  College Strategic Plan Relevance

Check all that apply
New program under development
Program that is integral to your college’s overall strategy
Program that is essential for transfer
Program that serves a community niche
Programs where student enrollment or success has been demonstrably affected by extraordinary external factors, such as barriers due to housing, employment, childcare etc.
Other

VIII.  Action Plan

Please describe your plan for responding to the above data. Consider curriculum, pedagogy/instructional, scheduling, and marketing strategies. Also, please reference any cross district collaboration with the same discipline at other Peralta colleges.
Include overall plans/goals and specific action steps.
q  The Landscape Horticulture Department is the only one of its type in the Peralta Community College District, and offers perhaps the greatest range of classes among all similar programs in the greater Bay Area. Our goal is to serve the widest possible community. We have one AS degree, and four Certificates of Achievement, the most recent one being in Permaculture. We are also in the final stages of creating an AA Degree in Landscape Architecture. Each of our certificate and degree programs is highly successful. We currently have nearly 900 enrollments, and classes regularly reach their maximum before the semester even begins. As a result we are finding it harder and harder to schedule all of our courses due to limited classroom space.
To meet our educational goals, to accommodate our facility and staffing needs, and to encourage future growth, we are seeking College support in several ways. To upgrade our facility we need: new classroom space; a student center with a library, computer and Internet access, and a kitchen; new desks and drafting tables; increased storage and shelving; better classroom and outdoor lighting; more parking; improved paths and walkways; new growing grounds.
To upgrade our faculty and staff we need one to two new full-time instructors (one to replace the instructor who just retired, and one to teach new design and emerging technologies classes); a part-time clerical assistant to mange fee-based classes, the library; another full-time grounds keeper to help manage our 7.5+ acre facility; a part-time greenhouse technician to manage our 5,000 s.f. glass house..
To insure future growth we need funding to help realize our departmental master landscape and facilities plan. This document, which we have recently updated, includes plans for two new classroom buildings, enlarged growing grounds, a public gathering area, a student center and gathering space, and general infrastructure improvements.
The two areas where we are seeing the greatest growth are in Landscape Design, and Permaculture. Our Landscape Design curriculum is one of the broadest of any community college in the state. We are steadily adding new courses to cover the wide scope of this fast-growing profession (several studies show a 16% growth of this field in the next ten years, a rate nearly 50% above average for all professions in California). Our Permaculture program is also expanding, especially in the area of edible landscapes and community food sourcing. These two programs will attract numerous students in the next decade, and we need to be ready to serve them.
We are continually upgrading our curriculum by revising course outlines, adding SLOs and assessments, creating new classes in emerging technologies, and converting older classes and specially classes to fee-based formats. We are currently reworking our Nursery Management Certificate to better reflect and serve the needs to students and the industry. We have submitted a Measure A request to support the construction of a tissue culture lab, and are seeking funding for curriculum development to support this effort. We are also seeking funding for a modern outdoor propagation area.
Two of our faculty, with the help of volunteers, are upgrading our Native Hill near the entry to our grounds; this area will serve as a demonstration area for new species and eco-systems, and affirm the importance of regional identity and sensitivity in the field of landscape horticulture. We will soon begin creating an Australian Hillside, and then create additional gardens based on Mediterranean climates throughout the world. We are requesting curriculum development funding to implement and complete this need as well as funding for plants and irrigation.
To insure program visibility and respect, we are constantly striving for comprehensive and effective community outreach. We are currently reconstituting our advisory committee to reflect state-of the art industry representation and practices. This committee will have representatives from the design, contracting, nursery, maintenance, and permaculture industries. We have several community programs and partnerships that have proved rewarding to all parties involved; such groups get the benefit of our services, and our students get “real-world” experience. Our plant sales have brought tens of thousands of people to our facility since we started them in the 1980s. We host symposiums and conferences at our facility, and most local nurseries know about our program, recommend us to their customers, send staff to us to take classes, and employ our graduates. We help place our students in jobs at design and contracting firms, nurseries, park departments, maintenance companies, public agencies, and with homeowners seeking specialized help on their home grounds. We have had numerous students transfer to university BA and MA programs. The University of California Landscape Architecture Department regularly sends students to us to take irrigation, construction, and plant ID classes, and solicits our recommendations of promising graduate students.
Another of our goals is to attain national recognition and status as an educational Arboretum. We already serve as a living laboratory for students, staff, faculty, and the Bay Area community, and such elevated status would increase our visibility. To achieve this goal we will need the above described funding for additional staff, curriculum development, maintenance, and expansion.