Mission Statement

The Butte College English Department cultivates an appreciation for language and literature. We emphasize critical reading, writing, and thinking to prepare our students for success in college, work, and life.

Program Description

The English Department’s primary focus is teaching composition. We teach students to think about language, its implications, and its usages through English 118, developed in conjunction with the LEAD department. We recently moved to replace the English 119 course with a corequisite model which we're currently calling English 120 that would allow students who assess one level below transfer to complete their transfer requirement in one semester.  We're currently piloting the program as a fast track 119/2 but hope to have a separate course by 2018/19. We also provide rigorous transfer-focused instruction in writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking and communicating through our English 2 which is required for an AA or for transfer. Our English 11 meets the Critical Thinking (CSU A3) GE Requirement for transfer. Per semester, we offer: 
between 39 and 61 sections of English 2;
15-17 sections of English 11, Critical Thinking;
13-21 sections of English 118; 7-10 sections of 119 that will be replaced by 5 fast tracks each semester next year; and 12 literature and creative writing sections per semester.

We anticipate a 20% increase in students assessing at transfer level once we've fully instituted multiple measures placements we've decided on, so we may have to add more of those classes, including 4 new online sections each semester, for next year.

Fall 2017, we piloted an athletes-only section of English 2 in which every student passed, and we're hoping to pilot an athletes only English 119/2 in 2017/18 improve the success rates for athletes and students of color coming in one level below transfer.
 
As a supplement to the critical reading, thinking, and writing skills and practices students acquire in English 118, 119 and 2, we offer a wide range of literature classes, including courses in creative writing. 

We developed a two-year cycle for offering literature courses to reduce the number of elective class cancellations. In Fall 2011, we revised this cycle which is now based almost exclusively on articulated offerings and offerings that meet CSU, Chico's U.S. Diversity or Global Cultures requirements ("Native American Literature," "Cross-Cultural Film and Literature," and "Queer Film and Literature"), thus providing students and Counseling Services with a consistent schedule and helping to streamline the transfer process. We now offer "Queer Film and Literature" every year since currently this is the only Butte College course focused primarily on issues relevant to the LGBT*Q+ population.  We also have two "Introduction to Literature" courses offered at the Willows High Schools.  Looking toward a guided pathway through our programs and since CSU, Chico is in the process of revising their program, we intend to revisit our literature cycle this spring (2017) to work out a schedule that would be even more beneficial and clearer for our students and counselors.

In Fall 2012, we began offering an AA-T degree in English and were one of the first departments on campus to offer an AA-T. We also offer an AA-T in Journalism, and our courses are part of the Language Arts degree as well. College data show that our English and Language Arts degrees are among the college's most successful degrees.
 
Besides course offerings, the English Department supports and promotes the literary arts by making provocative, diverse, and renowned writers available to students and the community at least twice per year. Our creative writing conference, Word Spring, is the second largest campus event that brings community members together with Butte College students, faculty and staff, supporting the college's strategic initiative to reach out to the community. In 2016, over 20 high school students from five area high schools attended the event.

 
The Journalism program consists of a newswriting course that has a 35-student cap, along with a series of newspaper production courses responsible for producing the campus newspaper, The Roadrunner. We have seen enrollment steadily decline in our journalism courses, and we are working with the instructor to recruit more students and revive that program.  The student newspaper continues to be published and circulated three times per semester, however, empowering student voices on our campus.

Student Learning/Administrative Unit Outcomes

In Spring of 2016 we divided up the SLO brief reflections submitted by course, and in groups we came up with suggestions for making the reflections more useful in determining deep dives and required professional development and support for our instructors.  The recommendations were sent out via email to all English and Journalism instructors a week before finals week.
We also used our work with the brief reflections to determine that we needed to look more closely at our SLO J in English 2, "locate, evaluate, and integrate scholarly sources using proper documentation" and SLO F in English 11, "find, analyze, interpret, and evaluate primary and secondary sources, incorporating them into written essays using appropriate documentation format without plagiarism".  Our deep dive meeting, examining and discussing example essays from both courses showed us that students in all of the essays were meeting the respective objective appropriate to the expected level in that course, though we identified that we could still work on strategies to help them incorporate evidence more elegantly and consistently throughout the essay.  We had one of our associate instructors present on her specific strategy of identifying key stakeholders in an argument to help target and evaluate evidence from a greater variety of perspectives to better inform the student writer's overall argument. 
In Fall 2016 we again used the same method to review the brief reflections from the previous semester, and we noted much more specificity and focus in the reflections but we also noted that it was more helpful if instructors included the actual wording of the particular SLO they were referring to and not just the letter.  We also discussed higher and lower order priorities in terms of the SLOs for the various courses and questioned whether our entire department agreed on what those priorities should be.  We noted that many instructors were still prioritizing grammar and correctness when we have long been discussing this particular SLO as a lower-order priority in our composition and literature courses.  We also identified deficit language in many of the reflections that we felt was not reflecting a unified vision for composition instruction in our department.  This led to a deep-dive activity on SLO B, which is shared in all of our literature courses and asks students to "synthesize analyses of specific details in particular works of literature in support of a clear, overall point or thesis."  Again, we examined anonymous student essays from a variety of our literature courses and immediately recognized a lack of specificity and clarity in the wording of the SLO, particularly what we meant by "synthesizing analyses of specific details."  We suggested specific changes to the SLO wording as a result of this and discussed strategies for helping students better work with literary quotes to more consistently support and develop a thesis in their essays.  All essays did show a basic understanding of using evidence to support a point, but that point was not always consistent and focused as it could be, and the follow-up work with the quotes was sometimes lacking.  We talked about reading strategies and work in class with quotations that might better model and help students practice working more effectively with quotations.
In Spring 2017, based on a review of the brief reflections from the previous semester we again identified a lot of deficit language in references to student work and behaviors, so we designed a deep-dive activity for Institute Night, focusing on strength-building language in the classroom.  We invited the LEAD department to participate in this activity, which included a video put out by 3CSN on helping students identify particular strengths they use most outside of the classroom to enhance their success in the classroom.  The activity seemed to be quite successful and inspiring and helped combat deficit attitudes toward student performance.
 
 
 

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (OSLED Departments)

Indicator	Source	College			Program
		2014-2015	Standard	Six Year Goal	Fall 2011	Fall 2012	Fall 2013	Fall 2014	Fall 2015	Standard	Six Year Goal
Access
-          Unduplicated Headcount	PDR - ENGL	12,691			3,103	3,286	3,392	3,356	3,256
	PDR - JOUR	12,691			57	57	39	37	27
Course Success
-          Overall	PDR	70.6%	70.0%	73.0%
-          Transfer/GE	PDR - ENGL	71.7%		73.0%	71.0%	67.5%	66.2%	67.5%	66.3%	65.0%	70.0%
	PDR - JOUR	71.7%		73.0%	63.6%	75.4%	72.2%	61.7%	77.4%	60.0%	73.0%
-          CTE	PDR	75.3%		77.0%
-          Basic Skills	PDR	51.7%		55.0%
-          Distance Ed (all)	PDR	62.6%		64.0%
Persistence (Focused).  Note:  The Persistence (Focused) that is included in the PDR is a different indicator than the three-primary term persistence indicator, from the State Student Success Scorecard that is used to measure institutional persistence.  The Focused Persistence indicator measures the percentage of students that took a second course in a discipline within one year. There is no relationship between the college and program standards in this area.	PDR - ENGL	71.8%	67.0%	75.0%	40.8%	39.4%	39.2%	39.0%	40.2%	37.0%	40.0%
	PDR - JOUR	71.8%	67.0%	75.0%	13.2%	15.7%	13.9%	13.3%	22.7%	13.0%	20.0%
		(Three-Term) Scorecard	(Three-Term) Scorecard	(Three-Term) Scorecard
Degrees - annual	PDR AA/AS - ENGL	1,421		1,475	34	41	44	32	38	35	50
	PDR AA-T - ENGL	1,421		1,475		1		11	11
	PDR AA/AS - JOUR	1,421		1,475					2	1	5
Certificate of Achievement (CA) - annual	PDR	814		475
Developmental Strand Completion
-          English	State	43.7%		45.0%
-          Math	State	33.8%		35.0%
-          ESL	State	42.9%		45.0%
Licensure Pass Rates
-          Registered Nursing	SC
-          Licensed Vocational Nursing	SC
-          Respiratory Therapy	SC
-          Paramedic	SC
-          Cosmetology	SC
-          Welding	SC
Job Placement Rates	PIV

  Suggestions for dialogue:The ENGL and JOUR departments are in compliance with the standards.The success rate for English is at the mid-range of where it has been over the past five years (66.2%-71%). Success rates for Latinx (Hispanics), African Americans, American Indians, and Pacific Islanders are lower than for Whites. Foster youth and veteran success rates are significantly lower than the overall success rates (except for Fall 2014 for veterans which was significantly higher – small cohort – about 50 students). We are focusing several strategies on improving success rates for Latinx students as well as other dashboard student groups including veterans and foster youth.  Some of these strategies include providing consistent computer access in transfer-level and below transfer-level composition courses, inviting guest speakers and focusing on professional development that will enhance cultural awareness among our instructors and provide specific strategies for connecting with dashboard student populations personally, and creating classroom environments where they feel fully welcome, included, and safe. We are also using data on multiple measures placement, acceleration pedagogy and a co-requisite model for helping students one level below transfer complete their transfer-level English in one semester.  Research suggests that all of these strategies lead to improved success and completion, especially for Latinx, African American, Native American, Pacific Islander, veteran, students as well as students emerging from the foster system and students with disabilities.  We are also focusing on speakers, videos, and workshops that provide classroom management strategies (including universal design) that can help instructors resist traditional deficit models of evaluation that are especially destructive for at risk student populations. All of these strategies should help us not only maintain but improve our current success rates for all students but to most significantly improve success rates for our Latinx students and other at-risk groups. Changes to the program tend to reflect themselves in changes to the success rates. The changes in the success rates for ENGL-2 from 69.1% in Fall 2011 to 63.9% in Fall 2015 may be due to the adoption of COMPASS.  The success rate in ENGL-118 is on the upswing after some initial issues. The success rates in ENGL 119 have dropped from 68.3% to 58.5 in the five years range with the expansion of ENGL 118 but have not improved yet. More professional development to improve success rates for students coming in at one level below transfer and replacing our current 119 course with a more successful option for those students should help us better serve this group. The success rate for Journalism is at the high end of its five-year range (61.7%-77.4%). Success rates for Latinx (Hispanics) are significantly lower than for the overall cohort. We are focusing efforts on increasing enrollment and completion in our journalism courses, especially among Latinx students through our promotion of English and Journalism Majors Day in high schools and on our campus as well as classroom visits and posters promoting the program. Degree production is at the high end of its range over the past five years (34-49). The AA-T may be impacting these number in a positive way.  We are increasing our efforts to draw more students to our degree programs with better promotion for a more diverse and informative English Majors Day, which we hope to do through increased funding for organizers and speakers. The lower fill rates currently being experienced may provide room for more degree seeking students. Journalism program awarded its first AA-T in 2015-2016. Currently courses offerings in JOUR 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9 are not predictable and the fill rates are low. We have been working with the instructor on flyers and posters at key times for registration as well as classroom visits during those times to draw more students to better promote our Journalism AA-T and courses.     Focused Persistence is at the low end of the five-year range (39.1% - 40.8%). We feel that providing students with clearer pathways and more information about the diverse fields and careers they can access with English or Journalism degrees will help increase persistence.  We also hope to reach out to other departments to remind them of our course offerings that might be especially attractive or meaningful for students completing their programs, e.g. multicultural literature courses for economics or business majors. We have increased the number of online offerings of English 2 to 3 courses each semester, and in 2017/18, we hope to offer five sections to help us address the increased need for transfer level English due to multiple measures assessment.  We are also trying to work more closely with the LEAD department, especially through our acceleration trainings, to increase success in our DE courses – these are currently around 32%. Focused Persistence is at the high end of the five-year range (13.3% - 22.7%). The successful implementation of the AA-T should improve the number of students taking subsequent courses in this discipline. As an aside, 13 students currently have Journalism as their academic program. This would indicate that a level of interest is there.  We hope to reach out to these students is in the Reports Server under Institutional Research, Program Review, Students in an Academic Program and encourage them to work with Tom Gascoyne on their progress through the AA-T program and on to a transfer institution. We are working with the journalism instructor on a specific pathway for journalism students interested in transferring to CSU, Chico, specifically. Since our last unit plan, we now roll over journalism offerings each semester, and they are consistently available. We continue to focus on our Developmental Strand Completion rate for English. From the 2016 State Student Success Scorecard, this has ranged from 38.7 to 43.7% over the past five years. Since this is a six-year cohort rate the changes to the pathway and course selection has not yet impacted this rate in a significant way. We are already seeing semester increases in success rates and completion rates for students taking our accelerated courses at 2 and 1 level(s) below transfer. These increases were especially improved for dashboard students.    

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (All Other Departments)

Strategic Direction

The ENGL and JOUR departments support the college in meeting its Strategic Direction Priorities in the following ways among many:
Our department is working especially hard to meet the strategic direction toward "enhancing a culture of completion and academic achievement" by instituting multiple measures assessment and lowering cut scores and GPA requirements to increase student access to higher levels of composition and then focusing on providing professional development and the necessary resources to help these students successfully complete these courses.  We are also working on designing clear pathways to completing our AA-T programs that still leave room for students to explore and achieve educational depth and breadth.  We are working to create a more student-friendly schedule that would support the recommended pathways and ensure our students have the classes they need when they need them. We are working with local high schools, namely Paradise and Oroville high schools to better align our English curricula. We are focusing some department meeting time on doing in-depth and meaningful reflection on our stated SLOs, methods for scaffolding student processes toward their achievement and then effectively and consistently evaluating that achievement.  We are working on creating a larger community of practice (once we offer more sections) for online instructors to share strategies for retention and success in online instruction.  And we are revising our Chico and Glenn County schedules to be more student and instructor-friendly and encouraging and supporting our best instructors to teach at our off-campus centers.  We are also trying to schedule all of our composition courses in computer labs at Glenn Center and get a lap top cart for English 2 instructors at Chico Center who cannot get consistent lab access for their students. 
 
We are also doing especially well in our efforts to enhance "a culture of inclusiveness," which we see as equally supporting the strategic direction toward "faculty, student, and staff success."  Three of our department faculty members help facilitate the Cultural Awareness Community of Practice and at least four others have completed the program or are in the process of completing it.  This program delves deeply into the necessary levels of cultural awareness to effect deep change on campus when it comes to the way we judge success and excellence in our students as well as our colleagues and potential hires.  It also provides specific strategies for working through difficult conversations on race, sexuality, gender, and ability that can help instructors and staff connect more deeply across cultural differences with their students and colleagues.  Our department has also invited several diverse speakers to better connect with diverse students and help faculty and staff do so too, and we held a day-long workshop on non-racist writing assessment to help us examine our implicit biases and how they might be alienating at-risk student groups and how to work against this in our classroom management and evaluation practices.  We've also held professional development meeting sessions focusing on strength-building and community-building as an antidote to deficit approaches to instruction and evaluation.  All of these efforts and too many others to include here are dedicated to creating a safe and welcoming learning environment for all students, faculty, and staff on campus as a foundation for success.
 

Program Review

Recommendation #1: Hire more full-time instructors
At the time of our most recent program review, we had 36-41 associate instructors and 11 full-time instructors; this is a disproportionately high number of associate faculty, which creates substantial challenges for staffing, training, and maintaining consistency among sections and represents an unprecedented imbalance compared to other disciplines. It is the preeminent issue for the English and Journalism department. Our Program Review Team recommended at least three additional full-time hires over the next two years.

We’ve hired two new full-time instructors since then, but we were not granted hiring priority this year, and we have one instructor retiring and another just announced her resignation, which means that next Fall we will be down to 9 full-time instructors. We have 11 FT, 31 PT faculty currently and are just three sections shy of being the same size, in section counts, as the math and remedial math departments (math lists 15 FT, 26 PT). 65% of our sections are currently being taught by part-time instructors. We will also be expanding placement into English 2 and offering a co-requisite model, so we need the additional full-time support.

Recommendation #2: Offer more professional development for consistency.
The lack of alignment between English 119 and English 2 was noted by our Program Review team. Because associate faculty teach the majority of these courses, the team said that the department should continue to extend professional development that taps into and expands the expertise of associate instructors.

Our English 118 training program has produced good results, with methods that carry over into English 2. Our 118 success rates are the most consistent of any in our program (the least amount of variability in the success rates by instructor).
We are in the process of replacing a few 119 sections with 118s each semester.
We have funded or procured funding for associate faculty to attend conferences (CCCC, ECCTYC, NADE).
 We ran global studies curriculum development groups for ENGL 118 and ENGL 2.
We conducted two years of a composition pedagogy discussion series for full and part time faculty.
Ongoing SLO work is also targeting the inconsistencies. For example, we have developed a departmental best practices statement regarding assignment descriptions and a workshop on building community in the classroom and replacing deficit model pedagogy with strengths-building models.

Recommendation #3: Develop additional support strategies, particularly for students of color where data indicate lower achievement

We are developing a co-requisite course to provide support for students who are placed below college level but could succeed with the additional time and assistance. Five of our full-time instructors are developing a training program for those wishing to teach this course, as we did with English 118.  We believe this program could also help with the inconsistencies noted above. The co-requisite program could include training in culturally responsive curriculum and methods as well, which would make sense since the program’s goal is to increase equity in student completion of English 2.
We requested laptop carts to support digital literacy in E2—digital literacy has been identified as a barrier for OUHSD students in particular and would allow us to continue the kinds of pedagogical practices in English 2 that students in developmental courses have become accustomed to.
We hired instructional aides for all sections of English 118 beginning in Fall 2016.
We brought Asao Inoue, an expert in anti-racist writing assessment, for a full-day workshop in April, funded by Student Equity. We also distributed copies of Dr. Inoue’s book before the workshop. Several more instructors adopted contract grading and other practices as a result of this workshop that will help to increase success for students of color.
We piloted a section of English 2 for athletes only, and every student in that class passed.  We’re hoping to pilot a co-req model of the same class, since coaches have informed us that a more significant number of athletes, especially students of color, have been assessing at one level below transfer, and we need to better support those students.  We also plan to continue at least one section of athletes only English 2 each year.

Recommendation #4: Explore strategies to ensure optimal placement of students in composition

We piloted the state recommended decision rules for multiple measures placement into English courses; the pilot consisted of students from Oroville Union High School District and Paradise High School, for placement into courses in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017.  Initial data showed about a 20% increase in students assessing at transfer-level with little change in those students success rates.  Beginning this spring, multiple measures assessment will be used to place all new students.
We are still discussing the possibility of an open access English 118, which would help to correct for the under-placement shown in the multiple measures retrospective analysis. The English and LEAD department faculty who discussed this option felt that they needed more time to think about whether this would be a good thing to do or not.   

Recommendation #5 and Response: All composition instructors should emphasize the development of critical reading skills in their courses

We’ve conducted three semesters of SLO work on this topic.
We’ve added a composition and assessment expert to our FT faculty, who has already helped us tremendously in defining and clarifying methods of teaching and evaluating critical reading.  We will continue to develop professional development activities focused on critical reading practices and offer more incentives (if our budget allows) for more associate faculty to take part in these activities.
Another of our instructors has done work in Reading Apprenticeship. She continues to bring RA strategies to the Global Curriculum project, in department meetings, and cross-campus workshops for all faculty.
Our training program for English 118 includes some reading instruction, as will our co-requisite training program if implemented.
Our curriculum alignment project with Oroville Union High School District includes discussion of best practices in critical reading instruction.  

Recommendation #6: Share student work.

Students share their work in our literary journal Inky Squib, which is published by our on-again off-again student literary arts club under Jen White’s leadership.
Some of our instructors have their students share their work in the Rough Cut film festival put on by one of our associate faculty at Chico State. 
Another of our associate faculty is trying to get another publication off the ground, focused on academic writing, but is having some trouble getting submissions.  It’s similar to the obstacles she faces with the Inky Squib.
One of our faculty members did a poster project sharing with her students and invited all English faculty to attend last fall.
Another instructor held a Shakespearean feast and parade across campus as a final activity in her Shakespeare course.

Recommendation #7: More technology

Digital literacy has been identified as an issue for students from OUHSD in particular, through our curriculum alignment project. We are requesting lap top carts for use in English 2.  Our request last year was denied. Currently, our developmentally placed students have access to in-class use of computers but our college-placed students do not. We hope to rectify this gap with the purchase of more laptop carts.
We need to upgrade computers for two instructors, who are in year 8 of their current machines, and we will need to upgrade computers for two more instructors in 2017/18.  Their computers will be in year 9 and year 8 respectively next year.

Recommendation #8: Resources such as a full-time hire or a stipend for the newspaper advisor would aid the program in meeting longer-term expectations.  Of paramount need is for the Roadrunner to be published on a regular schedule.

The Journalism instructor is now receiving stipend.
The paper is being published regularly—four times per semester, with the exception of last fall due to extenuating circumstances.  This was the only time four issues haven’t been published in five years.
Several strategies to promote the program to all English classes are in progress, focusing on March and November, when students begin to register for courses
Journalism has been added to English Majors Day, which is now English and Journalism Majors Day, and we are asking for funding to bring more diverse speakers including journalists to participate in the event.

Recommendation #9: Completing all needed assessment cycles as planned over the course of the next six years

We are doing this and have had to adjust our deep dives a bit as determined by the SLO brief reflections, which we are also constantly updating and streamlining in terms of the suggestions we provide faculty before they write their reflections at the end of each semester.

Recommendation #10: The department should review the variety of courses within its curriculum and consider streamlining or combining courses where appropriate.

We are considering combining courses for ethnic literature into one or two courses, in particular, a muti-ethnic American literature course
We are reviewing our literature offerings and moving to offer courses with lower fill rates every other year instead of every year
We have considered an open access English 118 but were unable to come to consensus on that possibility, which could help to streamline options for students were it to be adopted.
We have mapped out a guided pathway for students transferring to CSU, Chico, which will help us better see which literature courses we need to add to and which we need to cut back on and the best semesters to offer each of these for student pathway options. 
We are waiting for CSU, Chico to review and update their major program, and we plan to adjust our pathways and offerings to better articulate with their lower division core courses, whatever those end up being as well as articulating upper division general education pathway courses where we can (we have one of those articulated already)

Recommendation #11: The department should pursue pedagogical cap adjustments where research demonstrates a need for such change.

We hope that we’ll be able to provide smaller sections for our co-requisite courses in a cost-sustainable way. Research demonstrates the benefits of small class sections for co-requisite models, including increased next-year persistence for models in which the sections are small (10-15 students). Of course we understand that it’s a balancing act between pedagogical benefits and cost effectiveness, so we will be sure to propose section sizes that are sustainable, given our resources, and we will only propose section sizes that make sense when FTES generation, instructor costs, and persistence increases are all factored into the equation.
We are discussing and trying to make it clear that especially in transfer-level composition, getting thirty students to meet the objectives for that course in one semester of a 3 unit course is not possible.  The recommended pedagogical cap for all composition courses, put forth by the WPA is 17.  Maintaining a cap of 30 sets students and teachers up for failure, even with the additional grading load, which might help us accommodate a third more or about 23 students, but not nearly double the recommended number for only a 3.33 percent increase in load, which doesn’t make sense.

Recommendation #12: Professional development opportunities are fundamental to many initiatives . . . . The department should pursue and the college should consider increased institutional support for the professional development of associate and full-time faculty

We are making good use of equity and BSI funds, and 90% of English budget goes to professional development and curriculum sharing work.
We have also been able to fund several professional development trainings and speakers through student equity

Recommendation #13: The English and journalism department secretary should be restored to a full 12-month contract

Done!

 
 
 
 

Department Goals

Our primary goals as a department for the following year will be the following:
1. To improve collegiality within the English Department and between our department and the LEAD Department and foster a culture of care and empathy among our colleagues
2. To streamline our literature and journalism course offerings to help us create basic pathway options for English and Journalism AA-T students.  We will be working with CSU, Chico to tailor a pathway to the changes they are making to their department as well as consider basic options for UC transfer students
3. To increase enrollments in our Journalism courses
4. To improve cultural awareness in the hope of better connecting with and retaining minority students in our courses
5. To work on strength-building and scaffolding in our courses to improve student success and completion in all courses, but especially in English 2
6. To increase incentives for associate faculty to attend department meetings in the hope of creating more consistent experiences for students, especially in English 2
7. To pilot a corequisite model for English 2, and if proven successful, to impliment this as an option for students who assess one level below transfer on an ongoing basis
8. To improve outreach with local high schools and on our campus in hope of attracting students to our AA-T programs and providing them the support they need to complete these programs successfully
9. To provide our students and instructors with consistent computer access in the classroom to support improved completion and success in our composition courses
10. To continue professional development in acceleration pedagogy and support for our 118 instructors
11. To ensure that our full-time instructors have the up-to-date equipment and resources they need to perform their various duties to the best of their abilities

Future Development Strategies

Requested Non-Financial Resources

Current Financial Resources

Augmentation Requests

Original Priority	Program, Unit, Area	Resource Type	Account Number	Object Code	One Time Augment	Ongoing Augment
Description	Supporting Rationale		Potential Alternative Funding Sources		Prioritization Criteria
1	Two full-time tenure track faculty hires	Personnel			$0.00	$219,754.00
Our department needs to hire at least two full-time faculty.	As explained in the strategy section, students are statistically about 10% more successful in English courses taught by full-time faculty. Likewise, increasing the consistency among the courses and the success rates, especially in our English 2 courses, requires ongoing dialogue and professional development that we simply cannot require of our associate faculty. Having so many associate faculty (always hovering around 35-40) who have to divide their time, energy, and focus between multiple institutions varying objectives makes a unified department and program impossible to achieve. Any steps we can take toward improving our current average of 20 to 25% full to 75-80% part time faculty would help us move toward this goal. Finally, English is looking at a particular increase in transfer-level composition courses due to our move to multiple measures assessment practices, and hiring associate faculty is getting harder to do since there are fewer folks completing CSU, Chico's rhetoric and writing graduate program. We also have one faculty member retiring. Finally, as a department, those who are interested in participating on the hiring committee have complete cultural awareness training in the Cultural Awareness Community of Practice and are committed to looking for and calling out potential implicit or overt bias in the hiring process, and we hope this will help us attract and support diverse candidates. We hope to one day have a full-time faculty that more or less reflects the diverse make-up of our student body. This is proven by many studies to contribute most significantly to increased success rates for minority students.				Maintaining core programs and services Addressing a shortfall identified during Student Learning (or administrative unit) Outcomes Assessment Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Supports Previous Program Review Recommendations Completing the implementation of Learning Outcomes (Course, Program, General Education, Administrative and Student Services) Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Make progress toward 75% full-time faculty Recruiting, hiring, and retaining a diverse workforce
2	2 Computer replacements for full-time faculty and two more computers for new hires	Equipment			$7,000.00	$0.00
We need to replace two more faculty computers in the 2017/18 academic year that our more than 8 years old, and we need two new computers for new hires and we cannot use our department budget for this again.	In the 2016/17 academic year, we needed to replace three computers for faculty. We were only able to cover one and a half of one, and this caused a severe lack of funding for incentives to get more associate faculty involvement in the department, which is crucial to improving our program consistency and for continued professional development for our instructors. If we continue to be forced to pay for computer replacement out of our department budget, student success and retention rates will start to fall even further. With so many associate faculty, we need all the money we can get to fully support them and their students and clarify and unify our department expectations.		Instructional Equipment		Maintaining core programs and services Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Supports Previous Program Review Recommendations Maintaining life-cycle replacement for computer labs, smart classrooms, and faculty and staff computers
3	English	Equipment			$97,884.00	$0.00
Four mobile carts and classroom set of lap tops	It's very difficult to imagine how we can effectively teach college composition and research without ongoing access to computers. The college has recognized and addressed this need at levels below transfer but not at the transfer level where it is just as crucial. Digital literacy is inextricably part of any literacy practice in 2017, and we can't teach reading, writing, critical thinking, and rhetorical strategy in a modern context without computer access. Lab space on campus and at Chico and Glenn Centers is very difficult to plan ahead for and request early. If you request it when you realize you most need it, it's usually too late to find a space. Many frustrated English 2 instructors are struggling (and far too often failing) to work around a lack of computer access in class, and it's a key obstacle to increased success rates and completion rates in English 2. Likewise increasing students' digital literacy and access enhances a culture of inclusiveness and works against the digital divide, since many students lack access to this technology in their homes. The curriculum alignment group has identified digital literacy as a barrier to the success of students from the Oroville Union High School District in particular. This project also models sustainability as it would help to reduce the use of paper in the classroom. Student learning and success are also helped by being able to use technology in the classroom, to support their research, reading, and writing. The budget also includes the costs of storing, securing, and maintaining the carts, which is $971 each.		Instructional Equipment		Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Supports Previous Program Review Recommendations Collaborating effectively with K-12 to set appropriate student expectations, align curriculum, and prepare students for college success Improving access, success, and completion of targeted student populations through the implementation of the Student Equity Plan Completing the implementation of Learning Outcomes (Course, Program, General Education, Administrative and Student Services) Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Addressing a shortfall identified during Student Learning (or administrative unit) Outcomes Assessment
4	English	Personnel			$10,342.00	$0.00
Office hours for associate faculty	Students need access to the faculty who teach their courses. Success rates in English 2 are 10 percentage points lower in sections taught by associate faculty than they are for sections taught by full-time instructors. We would like to request 10 paid office hours for each of our 37 associate faculty members, calculated at a rate of $25 per hour plus benefits of 11.809%.				Addressing a shortfall identified during Student Learning (or administrative unit) Outcomes Assessment Supports Previous Program Review Recommendations Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Improving access, success, and completion of targeted student populations through the implementation of the Student Equity Plan Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Using data, research and collaborative efforts among divisions and departments to develop appropriate course offerings, locations and modalities
5	English	Operating Expenses			$0.00	$10,000.00
WordSpring Creative Writing Conference	This conference serves as a recruitment tool for students from local high schools. It is also a way to support our English and Language Arts majors and includes information on our AA-T degrees and careers for English majors. It is also a method for supporting marginalized students by bringing in diverse writers who speak to their experiences.		Student Equity		Collaborating effectively with K-12 to set appropriate student expectations, align curriculum, and prepare students for college success Improving access, success, and completion of targeted student populations through the implementation of the Student Equity Plan Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Maintaining core programs and services
6	English	Personnel			$5,000.00	$0.00
Guest Speakers for Professional Development Focused on Cultural Awareness in English and Journalism Pedagogy	The English department has consistently invited diverse authors, poets and experts in the field of composition instruction. Last year we invited Michelle Tea (a lesbian poet and filmmaker), Blas Falconer (Latino-American gay poet), Kazim Ali (Indian, Muslim, gay poet), Brian Turner (Iraq War veteran poet), Asao Inoe (writer and proponent of anti-racist composition pedagogy), and we're working on inviting Camille Dungy this March (African American poet who incorporates slave narratives). In the current social and political climate on and off our campus, it has never been more important for students, faculty and staff to make these personal connections with authors and scholars with these backgrounds. Study after study is showing that historical awareness and data does little to counter racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry and discrimination. What does make a difference both to victims of micro and macroaggressions as well as perpetrators is a deep, personal connection with someone navigating these target identities. These speakers lay their hearts bare for our students and colleagues, and the impact they've had on our campus climate is profound and resonating. This work both helps our department improve access, success and retention for minority or otherwise targeted student identities, supports the strategic initiatives of "supporting student, faculty and staff success" and "enhancing a culture of inclusiveness" and addresses a lack of shared vision for our composition and literary pedagogy we've observed in our SLO work.		Student Equity		Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Completing the implementation of Learning Outcomes (Course, Program, General Education, Administrative and Student Services) Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Recruiting, hiring, and retaining a diverse workforce Improving access, success, and completion of targeted student populations through the implementation of the Student Equity Plan
7	English and Journalism Majors Day	Personnel			$0.00	$5,000.00
We would like to increase attendance at English and Journalism Majors Day, beginning by stipending volunteers who organize the event, and then by ensuring an ample budget for food, speakers, and advertising.	English and Journalism Majors Day, if we have the resources and time to do it well, could become a crucial part of our efforts to attract and retain more students in our English and Journalism AA-T programs, certificates, and classes. With the additional support, we could reach out to nearby high school English teachers and invite them and their students. We also want to reach out our diverse student population and present them with role models of particularly successful Latinx, African American, Native American, Pacific Islander, former Foster Youth, Veterans, and LGBTQ+ English scholars and journalists. We would like offer $500 stipends to two organizers as well as honoraria to two or three guest speakers from diverse backgrounds with very different English/Journalism educations stories. The remaining budget would be for food and advertising. We have applied to IEPI as a possible alternative funding source for this project, not listed among the alternative funding sources below.				Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Improving access, success, and completion of targeted student populations through the implementation of the Student Equity Plan Collaborating effectively with K-12 to set appropriate student expectations, align curriculum, and prepare students for college success Implementing a Guided Pathways Model that makes career and transfer pathways clear, easy to navigate, tailored to meet labor market needs, and promotes success after transfer
8	Instructional Assistants for English 118	Personnel			$0.00	$10,342.00
We would like the district to take over funding for English 118 IA program.	Though we're still in the process of collecting data, IAs, English 118 instructors, and CAS supervisors have seen evidence of this program's great success, especially in limiting equity gaps for students assessing two-levels below transfer.		Student Equity		Maintaining core programs and services Addressing a shortfall identified during Student Learning (or administrative unit) Outcomes Assessment Directly supporting meeting department standards/goals for student achievement and/or supporting the college in meeting its student achievement standards and/or goals Supports Previous Program Review Recommendations Completing the implementation of Learning Outcomes (Course, Program, General Education, Administrative and Student Services) Meeting standards and working to achieve goals for course success, retention, degree achievement, certificate completion, transfer, and credentialing Improving access, success, and completion of targeted student populations through the implementation of the Student Equity Plan