The NOCCCD Curriculum Coordinating Committee did not vote May 9 on the new Title 5 requirements recommended by the Fullerton College Faculty Senate because the committee did not receive the required documents in time to comply with public meeting laws.

The DCCC determined there would not be enough time to go through the approval process in time to roll out curriculum revisions by fall 2024, as recommended by the Fullerton College Curriculum Committee. They ultimately decided to take up the issue later in the fall 2024 semester, pushing the roll out of the new curriculum back to fall 2025.

The agenda for the DCCC meeting was being typed at the same time the Fullerton College Faculty Senate was deliberating the Title 5 decision on May 2. This was cause for a postponement in the decision from the district.

According to an email from Fullerton College Curriculum Committee chair John Ison to other faculty members, obtained by The Hornet: “The curriculum committee’s recommended Associate degree GE pattern should have been placed on Fullerton College’s curriculum agenda, along with the course and program proposals, when we sent the May 2024 agenda to DCCC on April 25, 2024 to meet the agenda deadline of April 29.”

According to the email, DCCC chair Cherry Li-Bugg, who is also NOCCCD Vice Chancellor of Educational Services and Technology, told Ison it would be a Brown Act violation to distribute a revised document outside of the official, published agenda.

The Faculty Senate was rushing to vote on May 2 to have the new curriculum be considered at the May 9 DCCC meeting in order for it to be implemented in fall 2024. But, according to the guidelines of the Brown Act, a vote at that meeting could not have been completed in time to have the new curriculum out by fall 2024.

“I had a hope, but no expectation, that Faculty Senate would approve the curriculum committee’s recommendation on May 2, so I had not thought to place the actual recommended ‘Title 5 only’ pattern on the May 2024 DCCC agenda,” Ison wrote in the email. “Instead, I requested a more general description of ‘Fullerton College’s Associate degree GE revision update’ to be placed on the agenda.”

The rush to implement the changes by fall 2024 was so that the college could roll out the new ethnic studies requirement that semester as well, to comply with state laws. With this curriculum revision decision pushed back, the roll out of ethnic studies requirements will also be pushed back to fall 2025. However, colleges have a grace period until August 2025 to implement the ethnic studies requirement.

According to Ison’s email, he hoped to implement the new curriculum requirements in spring 2025, as the ethnic studies department is fully ready to offer students courses to fulfill the new state ethnic studies requirement. But a mid-year change would require an amendment to the 2024-2025 catalog. Li-Bugg said at the DCCC meeting and an email with The Hornet, that it would be better to roll out the new requirements in fall 2025, to align with Cypress College along with being less disruptive than a mid-year change.

Ison’s email was in response to an email with concerns about parliamentary procedure at the May 2 Faculty Senate meeting, sent to him by Faculty Senate member and Fullerton College golf coach Naveen Kanal. Kanal cc’d multiple P.E. and counseling faculty members who are also members of Faculty Senate on the email. Ison then replied, adding additional members of the Senate and other faculty and staff on the email.

There were 17 attendees at the May 9 DCCC meeting, and only one guest spoke during the public comments segment. Jennifer Combs, past president of Faculty Senate, said she came ready to discuss the Title 5 requirements, but realized that the associate degree revision would not be discussed during the meeting.

The implementation of a new curriculum will be discussed in the December 2024 meeting of the DCCC. Li-Bugg told all attendees that the board can’t speculate what will happen next with the curriculum changes.

In the past, according to Li-Bugg, the DCCC traditionally accepted curriculum revisions made by the Faculty Senate and rarely voted against them.

The Fullerton College associate degree GE requirements was initially supposed to be the ninth item on the agenda for the DCCC meeting, but was then voted to be moved to the first item discussed for the day. Li-Bugg told the committee that the matter up for discussion was the postponement of the vote.

Cypress College, Fullerton College’s sister institution that must also comply with the state’s new guidelines, plans to implement their new curriculum revision in fall 2025. Representatives at the DCCC meeting from Cypress stated they are waiting to vote on new associate degree requirements until November or early December to align with the state’s deadline of August 2025.