Changes

FourSee Faculty Post: Reinvention 5-Year Data

Posted on behalf of Michael Heathfield and FourSee Math Faculty:

 

Here is a very disturbing graphic that will not be appearing at a Board Meeting anytime soon.  It paints a dramatic picture of what Reinvention has delivered for some of our students, communities, colleges and colleagues. Does it look good to you?

FTE Change

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some wiser heads predict this picture will get even more disturbing once fall 2016 registrations are factored into the frame.  Campus Zero is quick to ascribe falling enrollment to a recovering economy and improved employment. Of course, it would be heresy at Campus Zero to refer them to solid statistical evidence that for the middle class, the working class, and the poor the “recovery” did not indeed lift them up to where they were before the Great Recession.  These R words cover a mass of complexity, which is an anathema to the political class. These are dangerous blanket words in the wrong hands: Recession, Recovery, Reinvention and, lest we forget at our peril, Recruitment and Retention.

 

FourSee

 

 

 

 

Mike Heathfield & Math FourSee faculty

No Need for Term Limits: And then there were 3

In case you’re keeping score at home, since the “Presidential Shake-up” of 2011, and the mass hiring that June (except for the KK President who was hired in November of that year), the lineup card of CCC Presidents looks like this:

HW: Don Laackman (2011-2013); search underway shortly;

DA: Jose Aybar (2009-Current);

KK: Joyce Ester (2011-2013); Arshelle Stevens (2013-Current–who has her critics);

MX: Anthony Munroe (2011-Current);

OH: Craig Follins (2011-2014); search underway;

TR: Reagan Romali (2011-Current–though she almost left last year);

WR: Jim Palos (2011-2012); Don Laackman (interim); David Potash (2013-Current);

At the press conference announcing their hiring, the Mayor said, ““With this leadership, CCC will be ready to realize its potential as the economic engine of our region and ensure Chicagoans are prepared with the skills to succeed in today’s competitive global economy.” I guess the job was one that didn’t take very long?

Mission Statement Differences

I was intrigued by a part of one of Mathissexy’s comments last week, so I did a little (and I do mean little) research.

In the comment, he asked if the HWC Mission Statement had changed, because it looked different to him. So, I compared the one on our Web site to the one in the catalogs, and they matched word for word. No change that I could see. The last time I looked at the District Mission Statement, though, I thought it looked different than I remembered it. I made a mental note to myself then to check it, but I guess I misplaced that one. Mathissexy’s question reminded me of it, though, so I did a little comparison.

In the catalog (the brand spanking new one that has all the colleges in it and just came out), it reads:

The City Colleges of Chicago delivers exceptional learning opportunities and educational services for diverse student populations in Chicago. We enhance knowledge, understanding, skills, collaboration, community service, and life-long learning by providing a broad range of quality, affordable courses, programs, and services to prepare students for success in a technologically advanced and increasingly interdependent global society. We work proactively to eliminate barriers to employment and to address and overcome casual [should be ‘causal’] factors underlying socio-economic disparities and inequities of access and graduation in higher education.

On the Website it now reads:

Through our seven colleges, we deliver exceptional learning opportunities and educational services for diverse student populations in Chicago.  We enhance knowledge, understanding, skills, collaboration, community service and life-long learning by providing a broad range of quality, affordable courses, programs, and services to prepare students for success in a technologically advanced and increasingly interdependent global society.  We work to eliminate barriers to employment and to address and overcome inequality of access and graduation in higher education.

See the differences? There are two. The one in the first line is a slight paraphrase that doesn’t really change anything. The one in the LAST line, though, seems to me to be a substantive change, changing the whole focus of the passage from a social justice mission (my reading, following what Wayne said about it when he came to visit campus), to an employment focus.

That’s a pretty big shift, I’d say. I remember being rather proud when the district office added that line about working to “address and overcome causal factors of socio-economic disparities and inequities of access and graduation in higher education.” You’d think we’d have heard something about it, no? Did I miss it?