A request from a dedicated reader named “Rock’inthashoe:”
Hello The Harold guy!
I was anxiously expecting the Summer/Fall 2011 schedule to see how many mistakes were there (departing from the previous attempt to a common catalog . . .). The site was reading yesterday night:
“Go to my.ccc.edu for real-time course information on April 1st”
In the morning today, it read: “Go to my.ccc.edu for real-time course information on April 1st, after 4 pm.”[Sigh and some rolling eyes!]
After opening the site again around 4:20 pm., it read: “Go to my.ccc.edu for real-time course information on April 1st, after 5 pm.”
[Cynical smile and sigh!]
Now, I tried again around 5:30 pm. and . . . guess what?!, it reads: “Go to my.ccc.edu for real-time course information on April 4th”
Suggestion for The Harold: Can we do a contest on
Do you think the famous 300+ pages Su/Fall 2011 will finally come up on April 4th OR do you think it will be postponed again?
VOTE: Yes / No with ideas about why yes or no!
And I would add in a date and a time, too. Closest to the mark of when it goes live, wins.
The Harold Lounge 
April 4th is Monday, the start of Week 12. I think that they’ll have it up by Monday for the sake of students registering. I think that it will likely be full of errors though. As for a time, I’d say Mon. Apr. 4 at 7:47 a.m.
I realize that I may sound a bit negative here with my “full of errors” bit. I’m just imagining 7 documents becoming 1, each contributing its own unavoidable error into a motley stew of possible more errors due to the sheer magnitude of melding these documents. That’s all. Having it as a digital document makes sense.
Actually, ccc will publish the summer and fall schedules for each college seperately. District realized that it is not easy to have one schedule book.
Well, the pdf copies of the schedule is up, and I’ve already sent an email to my chair asking “Are these really the classes/times that we had agreed upon?” I’m not holding my breath on seeing any corrections to this schedule, but I think something fell through the cracks on somebody’s end (perhaps my own) if the schedule for the fall is as appears on the ccc.edu website.
And maybe I’m just nostalgic, but the pdfs of the schedule as about as visually appealing and user-friendly as a tax form. Actually, I should give the IRS credit. Even a tax form/instructions has some sense of appropriate formatting and whitespace. Check out page 286 of our own HWC schedule for an example.
One last gripe: why should the schedule have the abbreviated course names? Are we actively trying to make it harder to understand this thing?
“ENGLISH 276 Featr Wrtn for News & Mags”?
“HORTIC 106 Iden Woody Landscp I”
“HISTORY 216 Hist Of Lat Amer In The U S”?
“PHYSICS 236 Engr Phy II Elec & Magn”?
“MUSIC 182 Appl Music-Fres Lvl II”
“SPANISH 113 Spanish For Nr-Natv Spkrs I”? (I know what the other classes are; what’s this class? Non-native? If so, how do you get “Nr” from “Non”)
I guess when making the schedule means simply exporting to pdf from PeopleSoft you get results like this.
Some additional minor issues:
Let’s correct the above to “Well, the pdf copies of the schedule ARE up…” and “…the pdfs of the schedule ARE about as…”. If I’m going to be complaining about the schedule, I should at least acknowledge my own grammatical failings.
But back to complaining: if the electronic versions of the schedule on ccc.edu are the final versions (which I’m hoping they are not), would it be too much to ask the first and third pages of the HWC section of the catalog not have “Wilbur Wright College, One of the City Colleges of Chicago. • WRIGHT.CCC.EDU” on the bottom?
In looking at the Sunday morning pdf’s available, I’m seeing both complete errors and correct courses poorly organized. I’m going to be patient and wait until Monday morning.
It seems that someone read the posting because the CCC website home page read “available on April 1st;” even after entering in the link you were able to see “after April 4th.” Coincidence or not, and after this initial posting, someone deleted the remaining “April 1st” initial posting at the CCC home page. Interesting, no?
I hope whoever keeps reading “The Harold” from CCC can pass the info that we faculty and staff at HWC have always been committed to our students (never clients!), and to helping them move forward in their educational achievements. We have always have and always will consider ourselves educators and not businesspeople. That’s why we are so anxious about that famous schedule, aren’t you?
Any other departments have drastic revisions of their Prerequisites (without discussion and apparently imposed by “Course Catalog”)?
Humanities courses have had pre-reqs that varied by campus since at least 2003 or so, but they’ve all been revised down to the official syllabus pre-req (which for most classes means “Eligibility for English 101 or C in English 100”).
You are correct PhiloDave, the faculty prerequisites are gone. Ask your Dean of Instruction, this is something Academic Affairs decided… without your input… though your faculty council was aware of this a month ago.
Though, two weeks ago, it was suggested as something that was probably going to happen; not something that had. It had been my hope that there would be some discussion of the proposed change before it came out in print, at a minimum.
Bupkus.
Bottom line, who knew what ahead of time? It is time to stop all this absurd issue/gossiping about they knew that will happen before and you didn’t. This is simply a waste of time and energy. We need clear channels of communication for any kind of reinvention, non-invention or anything else related to academic matters at the CCC. It’s been said that educators aren’t good administrators (I will not enter in details about who insists on that including CPS and CCC), but I haven’t heard the opposite. It is time to return the ball to the other side of the court: who told whom that administrators are good educators?
One person, two weeks, constant misinformation from campuses, late edits and an impossible time line. I would love to see you do better. You are not attacking District, you are attacking those that support you and were put in a difficult situation. Shame on you.
Colleges. I just noticed that a key statement has been removed from both the CCC website and is not present in the CCC Academic Catalog.
Since I cannot find the official statement a paraphrase will have to do. “The City Colleges is made up of 7 separately accredited colleges with a central office.” They are not campuses, they are not “facilities” they are… C O L L E G E S. GET IT RIGHT.
The 7 City Colleges are not “Campuses” they are accredited as Colleges. Have a problem with that… take it up with the accreditation boards, the state, ICCB… whomever.
I don’t think anyone would suggest that the fault lies with the person(s) who had to try to put it together. Rather the problem lies with the nature of the project and the complications involved with it. Late edits are common, multiple waves of revision (three typically, which were reduced this time), and still errors sneak in when it’s done at individual colleges. But then to take those and pile them together into one gigantic document without a proofread…who would think that’s a good idea? And why? I still don’t understand. I don’t think anyone does. Nor have we been told any reasoning for it.
It’s the catalog fiasco redux. THAT’s our complaint, I would say–or at least mine. I don’t doubt the process was nightmarish for you (and you have my empathy for it); my ire is saved for whoever thought this would turn out differently.
No one is attacking anyone. Sorry “Disappointed,” but reacting this way doesn’t do anything. People are tired at the colleges of this non-sense game. We know why we were hired; we know what is our mission because we know our students. That’s why we STUDIED the functionality/non-functionality of the course requirements. It wasn’t a capricious decision without base, it came as years of finding students doing bad in some specific courses due to lack of important preparation from other courses. After addressing this and raise the requirement for some courses, we found that the rate of students’ success improved.
Now, with a simple decision behind the words “reinvention” and “unification of CCC programs and curricula”, we are putting behind some years of valuable assessment. Again, there is no attack to anyone, there is tremendous sadness about what we know is the politics and ignorance about education. Again, WE DON’T SELL EDUCATION, WE DON’T PRODUCE JOBS, WE VALUE THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION as a the most important tool for any individual in the process of building their own skills to improve their life style.