Berkeley City College Guided Pathways Overview
Guided Pathways at Berkeley City College is grounded in the college’s vision and core values: student-centeredness; a focus on academic excellence; commitment to diversity, equity and social justice; and promotion of innovative thinking.
Guided Pathways initiatives are faculty and staff-led, student-focused activities supported by a Design Team representing instructional and service areas across the college.
This 2020-21 academic year, our work has focused on two major initiatives. The first is to establish Academic and Career Pathways (“meta majors”). The second initiative is to select, fund and implement four innovative, campus-wide Transformational Projects.
BCC Academic and Career Pathways Initiative
Academic and Career Pathways organize individual majors under a broader “meta-major” to provide students with a clear pathway to credentials, transfer, and careers. Flex day college activities, Guided Pathways Design Team efforts, and student focus groups have led to a preliminary set of Academic and Career Pathways that will assist students in navigating BCC programs and provide support to students who are exploring or uncertain of their academic or career prospects. Meta-major work continues in Spring ’21 with the Design Team, Counseling faculty, and student groups.
BCC Transformational Projects Initiative
- Praxis and Pedagogy Reading Group- Alejandro Wolbert Perez, Ethnic Studies and Jenny Yap, Librarian. The goal of the project is to engage in conversation and community with thinkers and theorists around race, coloniality, and abolition, and use these discussions to guide, challenge, and transform our own work as counselors, librarians, and educators at Berkeley City College. Ultimately this work will support equitable classroom practice, curriculum, and anti-racist hiring committee practices. Participating faculty will critically examine their role in advancing equity- minded teaching and share strategies developed within the community of practice with the larger college community.
Sample selections from Spring ’21 reading list:
- Lorgia García-Peña, Lorgia. “Decolonizing the University,”
- McNair, Tia Brown, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux. From Equity Talk
- to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education.
- Tuck, Eve and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization is not a metaphor.”
- Selections from Robinson, Cedric J., Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical
- Tradition (2nd or 3rd ed.)
- Kelley, Robin. “Births of a Nation, Redux.”
- BCC Alumni Network - Andrea Williams, Career and Transfer Center, Jennifer Lenahan, Veteran’s Center, Natalie Newman, MMART, Randy Yang, Biology, Charlotte Lee, Political Science, and Melina Bersamin, Psychology. This project aims to develop a networking process for students, alumni, faculty and staff in order to 1) create a legacy program whereby BCC alumni can mentor current students in areas of career or transfer; 2) build student career networks; and 3) maintain connections with graduating students. The Alumni Network will provide ongoing non-academic and co-curricular supports to our students as they move along their path.
- Increasing Student Services Utilization Rates- Melina Winterton, Health and Human Services and Janine Greer, Mental Health and Wellness Center. This project will create sustainable infrastructure and an information repository within Canvas, a system
that most students have access to, can navigate, and is optimized for mobile phones. Sample resources may include administrative deadline reminders from financial aid and A&R, access to mental health support services, and requesting loaner laptops/tech support.
A preliminary needs assessment was conducted by 5 student researchers who analyzed policy statement language, links to resources, and structure of the BCC Website. Preliminary results found that:
- Resource access is an equity issue
- Equity is misrepresented; lots of inclusion statements, but many barriers to getting the actual help.
- Students without resource access may drop out, give up, or fail classes
- Current access is for folks who already know how to navigate complex systems
- Resource access on our website is suboptimal
- Overwhelmingly complex navigation
- Inaccurate and missing information
- Not optimized for mobile
- No native-language access support (Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, etc.)
)Program and Success Mapping- Denise Jones, Skyler Barton, and Adriana Regalado, Counseling. The purpose of this transformative project is to create academic pathways (course sequences) and success maps (resources and support) for three BCC programs: Psychology AA-T, Liberal Arts AA: Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Social Work and Human Services Paraprofessional Certificate of Achievement. The results of this pilot program will serve as a template for mapping additional college programs.
Berkeley City College Cafécito with the President
You’re invited to join Dr. Garcia in the next Cafécito with the President on Thursday, May 6, 2021, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.. Bring your questions, comments, and suggestions on how to strengthen Berkeley City College, especially as we launch Institutional Planning/Effectiveness work. It is time to review and revise our Education Master Plan, College Strategic Plan, Integrated Student Enrollment Management Plan, and our overall process for institutional effectiveness.
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/99634372404.
This article is taken from the President’s Report, written by Dr. Angélica Garcia, Berkeley City College President, that was presented to the PCCD Board of Trustees during their regular meeting on Tuesday, April 13, 2021.
