Matriculation Committee Meeting

September 16, 2003

M I N U T E S

Those Present:

Mary Sue Allred, Annette Barfield, Myra Borg, Carol Golec, Lisa Gunderson, Chris Iwata, Sandi Kawamura, Kris Kays, Beth King, Michael Sachau

1. The Least You Need to Know About Matriculation: brief presentation on the

purpose and history of matriculation and the Matriculation Committee.

Matriculation (established in 1986) is a process that enhances student access to the community colleges and promotes and sustains the efforts of students to be successful in their educational endeavors. The goals of matriculation are to ensure that all students complete their college courses; persist to the next academic term; and achieve their educational objectives.

Title 5, Section 55520, establishes mandatory minimum required student matriculation services: Admissions, Orientation, Assessment, Advising/Counseling, Student Follow Up, and Coordination and Training for the campus. Reporting data on these services is also required.

In 1988 MALDEF filed a lawsuit against the Chancellor’s Office and the California Community colleges. The lawsuit contended that testing practices were illegally excluding Latino applicants from transferable college-level courses, thus denying them opportunity to full access within the community college system. The settlement between the State and MALDEF was predicated on the implementation of the matriculation process. The primary results being that students cannot be forced to participate in the components if they choose not to; students would not be placed based on a single test, but rather would be evaluated as a whole person using a system of multiple measures to form a “portrait” of the student. At SCC, multiple measures questions are built into the online assessment system. Students, however, are encouraged to meet with a counselor for advising, which is a more comprehensive multiple measure process.

Prerequisite regulations were adopted in 1993 and 1998 with an expectation that their enforcement was part of the matriculation process. Prerequisites are addressed on our campus in Admissions, Orientation, Assessment, and Advising. Establishing prerequisites for the curriculum is the responsibility of the faculty. In addition, because we do not have automatic prerequisite blocking, the faculty has to check for prerequisite verification once students are in class.

There was a lot of interest on this topic. Myra is giving a presentation on prerequisites to the Prerequisite Subcommittee of the Curriculum Committee. She will bring this information to the members of the Matriculation Committee as well.

The SCC Matriculation Committee charge is: Review the Matriculation Plan and the component standards. Set goals for fully implementing matriculation at Sacramento City College. Identifies needs in the matriculation process and initiates innovative programs that will address these needs.

  1. Discussion and Action Items for 2003-2004

·  Update Matriculation Plan: The plan is updated each year. There will be changes to review later in the semester. The plan is available in the public folder under Matriculation Committee.

·  Update Content of Online Orientation: We will devote time to reviewing and updating the online orientation. We should begin this process for the next meeting.

·  Review Current Practices and Make Recommendations: The group participated in an activity that simulated “worst case scenarios” for beginning students. Some of the issues that make the initial matriculation process difficult are:

  1. Limited services in alternate languages.
  2. The services are spread out, and students often have to wait in line and visit the service more than one time during their first experience here.
  3. Computers are not always conveniently available.
  4. The initial steps and services are not intuitive (Application, Assessment, Orientation, Advising). It is not clear where students should start, then go next, or where to resolve problems or ask questions in the process.
  5. There have been new challenges with Peoplesoft.
  6. Prerequisite procedures are confusing to students and faculty. More information will be shared on prerequisites at the next meeting.

·  District Matriculation Committee

Mary Sue Allred is the faculty chair of the District Matriculation Committee. Mary Sue made a brief report that the committee discussed specific features of the Peoplesoft system with Mick Holsclaw. The budget was discussed briefly as well.