USA Funds-Sponsored California Community-Colleges Conference Tackles Key Issues

More than 200 people from California community colleges attended the conference “Bridges to the Heart of Student Success” in San Francisco on March 21-23. USA Funds^® was a co-sponsor of the conference.

The conference was one of several initiatives under a $103,000 grant to help bolster student success and the academic preparedness of students attending California community colleges. USA Funds awarded the grant to the Foundation for California Community Colleges, which serves as the fiscal agent for the California Community College system.

“We are pleased to be a part of this conference and support the California Community Colleges system as they take active steps to increase student success and retention,” said Carl Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. “The California Community Colleges have taken great strides to determine how best to meet the needs of their students, and we are proud to be a partner as they pursue changes to ensure student success.”

“Bridges to the Heart of Student Success” is one of three planned conferences that focus on the critical issues confronting community colleges in California. The conference featured keynote speakers John Roueche and Watson Scott Swail. Roueche is a professor and director of the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin and is a nationally recognized authority in community college education. Swail serves as president of the Educational Policy Institute, an international organization dedicated to the study of education opportunity. Swail is known for his development of a research-based framework for student retention, which was presented at the conference.

The conference featured breakout sessions focused on many issues related to California community colleges, including the following:

• Basic skills and best-practices research.
• Student retention.
• Student-learning outcomes.
• Understanding the millennium student.
• Curriculum issues.
• Leadership, assessment and learning.

Research findings presented
A highlight of the conference was the presentation of findings from a review of literature and best practices for basic-skills education for students. The research team led the panel of the literature review that focused on the following four areas:

• Organization and administrative practices.
• Program components.
• Staff development.
• Instructional practices.

Included with the review are an assessment tool for effective practices in basic skills and a tool to estimate costs and downstream revenue. Conference officials encouraged attendees to take these tools back to their own schools to evaluate their schools’ effectiveness in meeting student needs in basic-skills education.

“Our goal is to transform California’s community-college system and how we serve incoming students,” said Carole Bogue-Feinour, vice chancellor for academic affairs for the California Community Colleges. “We are very excited about this project and have a great start toward making a change in the California Community Colleges.”