TCCTA Blog

Emotional Intelligence Forum and Certification Offered

The Institute for Emotional Intelligence invites all TCCTA members to participate in a one-day certification forum on developing emotionally intelligent students, employees, and organizations.

"Building Healthy People, Organizations, and Communities," will be held Thursday, February 19, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., in conjunction with the TCCTA annual convention at the Renaissance Austin Hotel.

Established in 2004, the annual Institute for Emotional Intelligence provides opportunities for educators, researchers, practitioners, and leaders to share research and practical applications in emotional intelligence (EI) for primary-secondary education, higher education, and business, government, or organizational settings. This one day pre-conference EI Certification opportunity is also offered to study the Education and Transformational Theory of EI with its authors, Darwin Nelson and Gary Low.

TCCTA Legislative Program Adopted

On December 6, the TCCTA Executive Committee approved the Legislative Program for the 2009 Regular Session. The brief statements, reflecting prior recommendations of the Legislative Committee, represent the official published positions of the association. 

For a more complete discussion of issues important to community and technical college educators, please review the "Talking Points," which may be more appropriate in communicating with individual lawmakers. These are located on the Legislative Resources Page, along with other useful information, including the Guide to Political Participation.

The Legislative Committee is chaired by Mark Jordan, Odessa College.

Below is the Legislative Program for 2009:

(1) Support the funding goals of the Texas Association of Community Colleges, including the New Community College Compact with Texas.

(2) Support approaches to incentive funding that are based upon valid measures, recognize the primary role of faculty in upholding academic standards, and do not diminish base formula appropriations or penalize workforce training. 

(3) Support the Legislature’s historical commitment to full participation of community college educators in the Group Benefits Program for state and higher education employees under the Employees Retirement System of Texas, including adjustments for rising costs.

(4) Support efforts to improve funding and benefits for community and technical college employees and retirees in TRS and ORP.

(5) Support institution-based funding for developmental education while encouraging review and implementation of successful programs.

(6) Support efforts to address the cost of textbooks that do not restrict the professional judgment of faculty in selecting academically appropriate materials for students.

 

Predicting State Budget a "Nightmare"

Normally at this time of year, prognosticators and policy makers take a hard look at projected state revenue for the next biennium.

Forget it this time. 

According to numerous media reports, the national financial crisis is now reaching deeply into the Texas economy, affecting tax dollars to be collected prospectively by state and local governments. At the state level, sales taxes provide the meat and potatoes of the budget, while locally (with community college districts for instance), property taxes pay the bills. Both sources of revenue are demonstrating some troubling problems.

For a while, state officials were arguing that Texas was somewhat immune from the national downturn. In fact, Gov. Rick Perry's office distributed a press release decrying the "bailout" mentality of the federal government. Recent comments by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Susan Combs, as well as others, may damper such comments for the near future. Ms. Combs is responsible for estimating the available revenue for the next legislative biennium. At the very least this will mean very conservative budget estimates—which will likely spawn pointed instructions from top policy makers for agency heads to dial down their budget requests.

Here are some choice passages from the Austin American Statesman (registration), which called the attempt at estimation a "nightmare" in its headline:

The Texas economy, which had been avoiding the national tumult, has now joined the rest of the country in feeling the effects of the financial crisis and the crisis of confidence that followed, said Keith Phillips, a senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
On Wednesday, the Dallas Fed released a survey of businesses, mostly from Texas, that showed broad-based weakening in October and November with declining production, sharp cuts in manufacturing jobs and strong demand for bankruptcy and litigation services.
The business outlook for the near-term is gloomy and deteriorating, Phillips said, with improvement not expected for four months to a year.

Also:

"You're basically standing on top of a hill looking down into the darkness trying to figure out where the bottom is," said Dale Craymer, chief economist for the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a nonpartisan business group.

National "Report Card" Released

A new national "report card" found that high tuition is one of the biggest barriers to higher education in Texas and elsewhere.

Texas and 48 other states received an F for college affordability on the report issued by an influential think tank. Only California passed—and then only because the state's community colleges are relatively inexpensive. And, of course, California is in the midst of a major financial crisis and currently considering tuition hikes statewide.

The report, Measuring Up 2008: The National Report Card on Higher Education, is the fifth released since 2000 by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a nonpartisan organization covered widely in the media. Individual states are rated in five categories, based on their public and private colleges: affordability, preparing students for college, college participation rates, college completion rates and the economic benefit derived from the educational level of residents.

Here are the results pertaining to Texas, as summarized nicely by the Houston Chronicle (registration):

Affordability: F — Texas families spend 26 percent of income for one year at a four-year public college, even after financial aid. (One state scored higher.)

Preparation: B — 85 percent of Texans earn a high school diploma or GED by age 24; more than half of high school students take upper-level math and science classes. (Seven states scored higher.)

Participation: D- — 30 percent of Texans ages 19-24 are in college. (44 states scored higher.)

Completion: C- — Half of college students earn a bachelor's degree within six years. (43 states scored higher.)

Benefits: C+ — Too few Texans have college degrees to provide more than a modest benefit to the economy. (20 states scored higher.)

Source: National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education

Here's a link to the full report.

Professor Offers Course as Online Game

Online gaming as pedagogy is a controversial topic on campus. Some argue that turning course content into a game simply enables students to embrace their bliss, when they can't (or won't) focus on "real" material—hence aggravating a lack of discipline.

Others maintain that the intellectual rigor of a well-constructed digital game is superior to traditional books-and-lecture techniques.

Professor David Wiley of Brigham Young University is clearly in the latter category. Although his course has to do with online teaching techniques (as opposed to, say, English) he argues that course material and learning by students in competitive teams using digital avatars and role-playing truly works. The BYU professor is profiled in a recent "Wired Campus" feature of the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription).

From the piece:

Although he’s using a game metaphor, Mr. Wiley says that dividing students up into teams and asking them to work on group projects are time-tested teaching techniques — ones that the best video games happen to make use of. “If you reverse-engineer a popular multiplayer game, they’ve somehow encoded all these things about what good learning ought to look like,” he argues. “Instead of just learning how to kill orcs, we can use these really effective techniques for honest-to-goodness educational content.”

Now here's a comment from a subscriber:

Interesting theory but how do you put together a course using a online game and how will students be graded since some students work very hard in groups were others just skate by.

Section Programs Now Online

The list grows daily for over 100 discipline-specific section programs at the TCCTA annual convention in Austin. These sessions are the backbone of the convention for faculty members—offering valuable professional development at a fraction of the cost of similar programs nationwide. Educators in every subject can find sessions that are suitable to their needs. Teachers are also encouraged to attend meetings in other disciplines during any "free" time at the convention.

The list of meetings finalized so far is available here. If your discipline is not yet posted, please return frequently for updates!

Surveys Measure College Professional Climate

The National Initiative for Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness (NILIE) has developed surveys utilizing a new approach to measure the effectiveness of college leadership on campus.

According to their Web site:

The National Initiative for Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness (NILIE) assessment program is grounded in theories of collaborative and transformational leadership in which the quality of influence that a leader exerts with followers has a direct impact on the performance of a college’s divisions, department units, teams, and the organization as a whole. We believe that campus climate assessments are valuable indicators of college leaders’ styles and the institution’s overall capacity to fulfill its mission and goals and ensure student success.

NILIE is the source of the Personal Assessment of College Environment (PACE) and Student Assessment of College Environment (SACE) surveys. The PACE and SACE surveys are designed to assess satisfaction with the college climate, including identifying the areas of greatest satisfaction and the priorities for change. According to their published material, "these surveys have been tested for validity and reliability, are normed on a national database, and are proven as tools for accountability and benchmarking of institutional effectiveness."

Here's the site for more information.