During the period between accreditation self-studies, the college, with its fortunes tied to those of the district as a whole, responded to a series of challenges with ingenuity and persistence. Human resources were resilient and succeeded in responding to several crucial events: a sustained period of declining fiscal resources, persistent turnover in top administration, and the plunge into extremely advanced technology. Through it all the college pursued its mission and focused on its lifeblood, the students of the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Between 1995 and 1999, the district and college experienced a dangerous decline in revenues that reflected the statewide recession and seriously affected all of the college’s operations for much of the period. The recent recovery, due to both the district’s decentralization policy and the statewide economic upturn, has brought about remarkable progress in the availability of resources. At the same time, the coping mechanisms that allowed the college to survive, often in the form of top-down decision-making, have now become anachronisms that must be evaluated and converted to stable participatory governance processes.

The college has had three presidents and three vice presidents of academic affairs during the period. The variety of leadership and management styles, and ideas about the nature of the institution itself were often bewildering. It meant that those who remained had to step forward and maintain vigilance over the ongoing integrity of the college and guard its institutional memory. This year the college eagerly anticipated the arrival of its new permanent president, hoping it would herald renewed energy, clear vision, and executive ability. With the appointment of Dr. Adriana Barrera, the long sought stability seems to have arrived.

As thoroughly evaluated in Standard 6, the Library and Learning Resources Center, as it came online, presented the campus with a number of challenges and opportunities. The rapid infusion of technology promised faculty and students new ways of disseminating and acquiring knowledge and skills. However, it continues to take resourcefulness and determination for faculty and administration to be the masters of technology rather than to be mastered by it. As described in Standard 4, faculty and staff have responded with a complex and innovative program of learning resources, a highly advanced program in multimedia, an online teaching agenda, and an increasing reliance upon digital interaction in the classroom and offices. Maintaining the technology, training faculty and staff in its use, planning to fend off obsolescence, and ensuring that its use in education upholds integrity remain issues that must be addressed by all constituencies.

Looming in the background, however, has been one overriding concern that seems to permeate every aspect of the life of the college. Faculty and administration who had participated in the last self-study, and those who again were involved in the mid-term and interim reports, could not ignore the message from the visiting teams that something had to be done about master planning and its correlation to institutional effectiveness. It seemed to a core of faculty, staff, and administration that wherever one looked, the institution was operating in a reactive and an ad hoc manner to events, without clearly defined goals and objectives and the means to measure their outcomes. And it meant that the responses were to be merely stopgap measures, not durable solutions to problems. The enduring values of the institution were not guiding the day-to-day activities of faculty and staff in a way that was measurable and that would lead to improvement of effectiveness.

As described in Standards 1 and 3, however, in the 1999-2000 academic year, the convergence of three events caused a significant change in the college’s approach to outcomes assessment and planning: a number of faculty and administrators attended several California Assessment Institutes; the college hired an associate dean of research and college development with expertise in assessment and planning; and the district appointed a new permanent college president who has an interest in institutional effectiveness and quality assurance. These have come together to become the impetus for the founding of a new assessment and planning process at the college. Many believe that the assessment process will profoundly change the culture of the college and impel it toward systematically improving the institution in a unified manner.

Most of the planning agendas in the standards are infused with the new assessment process. For example, as planned in Standard 4, faculty will use the process to assess the effectiveness of degrees, certificates, disciplines, and courses. A major institutional change to be accommodated is a younger incoming student population that is less than prepared for college work. A new pre-transfer, degree-applicable interdisciplinary curriculum is proposed for students who are enrolled in developmental English and math courses.

As outlined in Standard 5, Student Services will use the process to develop new initiatives to increase the number and quality of campus climate events and student involvement in them. A much needed communication plan will be developed to ensure that all segments of the campus and those in the surrounding community will be able to interact based on timely and accurate information.

In Standard 6, the Library will use the process to revitalize budgetary support for its services and collection. A faculty committee will establish minimum standards for information competency. The process will also be used to create an agenda for implementing the use of all aspects of technology and related policies for infusing it into all aspects of the college.

Standard 7 evaluates personnel practices and, as a result, the assessment and planning process will be used to rationally support progress toward the Title 5 mandate for a ratio of 75 percent full-time to 25 percent part-time faculty. At the same time, the college has endorsed the Board of Trustee’s evaluation of the Personnel Commission and its practices.

For the first time a comprehensive facilities master plan will be tied to the college mission statement and goals as planned in Standard 8.

In Standard 9 the development of the entire college’s annual operational plan will be tied to measurable objectives and performance indicators. The allocation of resources will be based on priorities that are developed out of and inextricably linked with college goals. Finally, in Standard 10, governance itself, already reformed to support the assessment and planning process, will be evaluated annually for its effectiveness in sustaining the college mission.

The future, as of the writing of this abstract, seems encouraging for the campus. The district is sponsoring a remarkably ambitious bond issue that, if successful, will mean the eventual building out of the college. The new president has made a commitment to rapidly improving the full-time/part-time ratio on campus by an accelerated hiring schedule. The resulting addition of new faculty will bring a much-needed infusion of new ideas and energy with which to carry them out. The college remains highly advanced in terms of new technology and there are numerous ideas for expanding its use for the benefit of students. There is a new optimism and sense of purpose among all constituents that has augmented an already deep affection for the institution. And there seems to be an attendant realization that the college is maturing, that it has passed its adolescence and is comfortable with its new role as a source of ideas and leadership in the wider community of colleges in the state.