Copyright© 2000 by School Services of California, Inc.

October 13, 2000

AB 420 Study (Part-Time Faculty)

The California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) is moving forward with its study of part-time faculty in the California community colleges. Since receiving $150,000 in the 2000 State Budget, CPEC has hired several staff including a project manager and MGT of America as contract consultants. MGT is responsible for collecting data critical to the AB 420 study.

MGT will be collecting data based on the following methodology:

• Regional information-isolating regional labor markets
  
• Area populations-classifying types of areas within California described by population density
  
• District types-recognizing different administrative structures and administrative requirements of districts based on the number of campuses
  
• District sizes-recognizing economies of scales that are present at districts of different size and type
  
• Responsiveness-selecting community college districts that will be most likely to provide assistance with survey distribution and collection

MGT has selected 21 districts that are representative of the above clusters, and expects that CPEC will coordinate with district/campuses to distribute and collect surveys in a timely manner. The districts that CPEC would like to have participate in the survey include: Feather River, Medocino-Lake, San Mateo, Kern, West Kern, Napa, Allan Hancock, Santa Barbara, Monterey Peninsula, Coast, Desert, Los Rios, Merced, Sonoma, San Francisco, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Riverside, Fremont-Newark, Santa Monica, and Shasta.

The consultants plan to prepare a preliminary report by December 15, 2000 to "inform the budget process." Part-time faculty advocates hope that the CPEC report can be used to support the $75 million community college 2001-02 budget request for part-time faculty. An information item will be on the CPEC agenda in February 2001, with Commission action expected by April 2001. The consultants and CPC also will be meeting regularly with its Advisory Committee, composed of representatives of community college faculty and administrative organizations.

--Arnold Bray