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Q: Senator, you have a rich background in California community colleges, including Orange Coast Dean of Instruction (73-78), Cypress College President, (78-87) and President of PCC (87-95). How do community college issues look different from your position now as compared to when you were a campus President?
Scott: Chairing the Budget Committee on Education, my role is to look at all of education. Previously, I was obviously a very strong advocate of community colleges, and I remain an advocate of community colleges, but I have to look at the total picture. When you look at K-12 education, community colleges, the California State University, and the University of California, all of those issues came under my purvue as chair of the Budget Committee on Education so I had to take a broader view, but I remain very strong in my advocacy of what the community colleges contribute to the state of California. It remains the place where the vast majority of post-secondary students are enrolled. It is the most eclectic of all the segments of higher education, serving so many different roles. Whether it’s transfer, vocational, or lifelong learning, these are all things that the community college does and does well.
Q: One of the things that we hear creates a problem at the statewide policy level is that we have all these independent districts going directly to the legislature as opposed to a strong central voice like the California State University and the University of California. You’ve had both perspectives, as a local leader and as a legislature receiving all that input. Do you have an opinion about whether we’d do better on policy and budget issues if we had a stronger central voice?
Scott: Well, we could destroy the genius of the community colleges if we were to make them totally uniform. One of the reasons the community college is so great is that it can respond to the individual needs of varying communities. And it’s the most responsive of the segments in terms of creating curriculum and responding to local needs. I do feel that the community college chancellor’s office needs to be strengthened. In fact, I had a bill this year that I hope is signed by the governor, that will give the community colleges chancellor the right, through the Board of Governors, to pick his or her 6 vice chancellors. Now they can only pick those approved by the governor, but the CSU and UC leaders are not restricted in that way. I think the community college chancellor’s office should have greater independence and should be able to speak for the community college system. When our intramural quarrels are played up before the legislature, it often does weaken our overall voice. I have no desire to abolish local control. I think the fact that local colleges respond to local needs is the very strength of the community college, but it does have a secondary weakness in the sense that if we speak with too much variation and have too many disparate voices in the capital, then often legislators are confused about how to respond.
Q: What major differences have you seen over the years related to our mission or the governance structure or the role of the colleges?
Scott: Well, I haven’t seen significant changes over the 23 years, except maybe a little greater recognition of the role of the chancellor and the board of governors, which I think overall has been a positive thing. I’ve seen a lot of changes in the community colleges as they have responded to the needs of local communities. I think of something like contract education, where we saw the needs of local businesses, and we responded to those needs by creating specific classes and having contracts with these businesses to offer classes. I think that’s a positive trend. If anything, I think California community colleges could learn from some other state systems in this whole area of economic development. As I read about some of the community college systems, like in North Carolina and other places, they’ve responded a little more quickly to the needs of industry. I think we have maintained, despite the many other things we do, our role as a premier transfer institution, and frankly with economic pressures, I think we will do more and more of the transfer work of the state. We obviously do a great job of the first two years of college education, and we do it less expensively that the other two systems. As we have Tidal Wave II, I think there will be more and more students who choose to spend their first two years in the community college. Vocational programs are also very important. We probably could do a little bit better in maintaining ties to industry. I’ve always thought, for instance, instead of sabbaticals for our vocational instructors, it might be better to give them sabbaticals to spend time in the industry of their discipline.
Q: The California Performance Review has now been released. Are there recommendations there that you feel may have a chance of being implemented or shaping the future of our community colleges?
Scott: Well, I think some of the ideas, such as abolishing commissions that have outlived their usefulness and maybe even consolidating some departments, have some value. I think the recommendation to place the California community colleges under the Secretary of Education is frankly a very poor recommendation. I think, if anything, community colleges need greater independence. This seems to me to be a return to the idea that community colleges are a part of K-12, which we’re not. So I would say I’m very opposed to that recommendation and think it has very little chance of being implemented. I don’t know of any groundswell in the legislature that views that recommendation positively. One of the things I discovered when I came to the legislature in 1996, was that the community colleges are viewed positively by legislators. Nearly every legislator has one or more community colleges in their districts, and they’re very positive about them. In some cases they or their spouses or children may have gone to a community college. Certainly many of their constituents have attended those colleges, so I think overall the view of the legislature toward the community college is quite positive. You see the kind of changes that the community colleges have made in the lives of students. We have so many success stories, and those stories generally are personally known by legislators. So on both sides of the aisle, I have found a positive view toward community colleges.
Q: Are there some of the components of the CPR that you think are likely to take place that may only take an executive order as opposed to legislative action?
Scott: There may be some recommendations that can be carried out by executive order, but certainly this shift of the community colleges to the Department of Education isn’t one of them. My own past experience as a college president makes me realize that there is always a value in looking at the organization and finding out if perhaps through consolidation one can become more effective and save money. When you have a changing role, you may discover that certain commissions are no longer necessary, but that doesn’t mean that the change is going to be easy. Anytime you change the status quo, you cut across vested interests. I found that resistance to change when I was a president, but that didn’t keep me from instituting changes. When tough times came in community colleges, we did consolidate departments, and we did reduce personnel. It may be that certain departments are overstaffed, and perhaps some departments could be combined. I would always be open to reviewing organizations. As I believe about schools or hospitals or state government, they’re not primarily there for employees. They are there to serve the people. That doesn’t mean you treat employees cruelly, but you have to look very carefully and say the primary goal of a community college is to serve students, not to provide employment. You treat employees with dignity and respect, but you have to make changes sometime in the hours they work and consolidation of departments because you want to see greater effectiveness and the students served in a better fashion. The same is true of state government.
Q: One of the concerns in the field and one of the topics in the CPR is strengthening the transfer function. There have been several efforts to get agreement on lower division major requirements to improve transfer. These efforts have been unsuccessful because of faculty interests in determining their own degree programs for their own institutions. This seems like one of those problems that has only been solved in states where it has been mandated by the legislature. Is that something that’s been discussed or brought to the legislature?
Scott: I’m glad you asked that. I have a bill that’s before the governor right now that says in the California State University system the high demand majors will require a uniform transform curriculum for the major. I’ve worked with Charles Reid, the chancellor of the CSU system and Dave Spence, the provost of the system, and they’re both very much in favor of this. And so, in the future, you will have a standard history transfer curriculum that will be required whether you go to Humboldt State or San Diego State or Cal State LA. A CSU study a few years back found that the average community college student who transfers to CSU accrues 157 semester units, while most degrees require 120. So we’re wasting a lot of student time and a lot of student money. We seek to address this problem by directing CSU to establish a system-wide lower division transfer curriculum for each high demand major in their system, that all community college transfer students could follow to a baccalaureate degree. They would be required to establish a priority admission category for community college transfer students who complete this path. To the extent a student completes this path, they would be guaranteed admittance to their destination CSU campus. The Department of Finance has raised questions on it. They think it’s a mandate, and they might have to fund it. I disagree with their view and have responded to their concerns. I’ve worked very closely with Charles Reid on it, and they had it when he was in Florida. He and I are right on the same wavelength.
Q: Is there any discussion of any major changes in the master plan?
Scott: Not major change. My understanding is that the CPR had a hint of community colleges offering 4 year degrees. That would be a major change, but that seems unlikely to me. Maybe the CSU will offer classes on community college campuses. There are differences in qualifications for faculty. Normally the senior institutions require a Ph.D., while the community colleges do not. It seems to me there would be a lot of problems connected with offering baccalaureates. It’s a long way from an idea to the realization. Community colleges have felt they were not given enough growth money to keep up with demand from their own students, and this would place a new responsibility on them. We ought to look more aggressively at joint use. There may be unused classrooms at CSU or UC, or at city facilities. We still could be a little more imaginative and creative in joint use.
Q: Any national trends we should look at?
Scott: We should look more aggressively at the other states to see how they have formed partnerships with business, particularly holding classes at business sites and receiving contributions from industry. We could explore the whole area of economic development and look at some of the national trends in that regard. We’re doing a good job in terms of pumping the economy, and we are the most responsive to the needs of industry, but we could look at some of the national trends in this regard and learn from them.
Q: What do you feel students can expect from community colleges in the future? Do you see any major changes?
Scott: I would see a growth in the transfer function. There’s a growing population base, with 2% more high school graduates last year than the year before. That’s an inexorable trend. When you look at the economic implications, educating students at the UC system is so much more expensive than the community colleges. I think we’re going to be educating a higher percentage of high school graduates.
Q: Watching high school assessment scores, I believe more students will be graduating with better academic preparation to do college level work and more of them will want to attend college.
Scott: Yes, and the fact that in our economy the difference between the earnings of a high school graduate and college graduate are widening. So more and more people are recognizing the value of a college education.
Q: Looking specifically at student services, and you know student services very well, having been president of two colleges, do you have any specific recommendations or suggestions for the field?
Scott: No, I would say certainly in my experience in community colleges, I learned to deeply appreciate the contribution of student services, like counseling, financial aid, and special needs, like EOPS and DSPS. If anything, I see a growing need for student services. I think student services should always be open to the use of technology, where it’s appropriate, so that they can do the things that they do best. For instance, if we have technological resources that indicate what a student needs to take to transfer to certain institutions, that’s something that can be done with technology, and can therefore free up the counselor to do individual counseling. We need to find creative ways to use technology and other methodologies so that the student services people can do that intensive one on one work that is essential.
Web-based registration is a perfect illustration of how we can use technology. We know that one of the reasons that America’s productivity in the last 10 years has dramatically increased has been the use of computer technology. Those same lessons can apply to education and to student services. People often fear technology because they fear the loss of jobs. But since education is a growing field, we can do jobs more effectively, so we won’t be cutting back personnel, but using them in a more effective manner. We can have well-paid personnel, and we ought to be using them in an effective fashion. It is more fulfilling to them to be engaged in more demanding tasks.
Although I retired from the community college in 1995, I look on my role in the legislature as just another way I can be a friend of education. That’s one of the things that appealed to me, that education would be my number one priority, because that’s where I spent my life. So, I still remain a great believer in what the California community colleges do, and I think student services are an integral part of that. I have an appreciation for all aspects of the community colleges.
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