MiraCosta Calendar Project Update
by dara, FA Vice President
Last semester, work began on designing what would be a fruitful and positive vehicle to drive forward the conversation about the academic calendar, which included recruiting representatives from across the campus to work on a task force.
This semester, the MiraCosta Calendar Project Task Force has already met several times and has accomplished a great deal of work toward perhaps solving MiraCosta’s Chronic Calendar Conundrum (This description is dara’s and not sanctioned by The Task Force!). Academic Senate President-Elect and Letters Faculty member Curry Mitchell chairs and collaborates closely with Vice President of Instruction Denee Parscamona to lead this small but effective task force, which consists of diverse perspectives: a student; a representative from Classified; representatives from Administration including an academic dean; and representative faculty-- Associate and Full-Time faculty, credit and non-credit, as well as classroom and non-classroom. Ruth Gay and I are the Faculty Assembly representatives on the task force: I am a credit faculty member; Ruth teaches in non-credit.
Over the years, I have been part of conversations about the calendar, sometimes tangentially, and I can say this task force has done Herculean work, in just one semester, toward presenting proposals for change. Just this semester, we have met twice a month and have worked collaboratively to map out our responsibilities, to articulate our values as a committee, to create a robust FAQ page, to research and evaluate other local districts’ academic calendars, to read and discuss the “Values and Impact Survey” report, and to carefully consider how to best serve students and the college community. At times, we even incorporated fun illustrations on the white board…and math! This work has been collaborative and thoughtful, and it has been some of the most pleasant work I have engaged in at the college.
On November 30th, there was the first of several planned virtual town halls—the next will be Spring 2024—where we hosted an open Q&A about Ed Code regulations and other guidelines, about the results of the “Values and Impacts Survey,” and about the criteria the task force will apply as they model new calendar protypes. 80+ people attended and asked great questions and raised valid concerns. If you missed the townhall and/or if you would like to send us your thoughts, questions, and insights, you can find the recoding and a Google form on our Webinar Archives page on our website.
If you have not yet, please take some time to look through The MCC Calendar Project website. Here you will find important and informative information including introductions to “The Team & The Charge,” The Values and Impact Survey report, a thoughtful and detailed FAQ page, each meeting’s agenda, calendars from local districts, information about our guidelines, and other resources.
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