The latest Academic Senate Meeting was held Monday, Sep. 8, in the Administration building with an agenda full of updates. Discussions regarding a specific presentation on the results of on-campus visitation by the Accrediting Commission for Community & Junior Colleges along with the standards they set for Solano along with conversations entailing enrollment, student-to-student outreach, and support took place.
English instructor and Puente coordinator Isabel Anderson displayed a presentation examining the advisings and recommendations of the Accrediting Commission for Community & Junior Colleges.
According to the letter sent to Solano Community College by the ACCJC in January, which reaffirmed the college’s accreditation, the first requirement “requires the College defines and assesses student learning outcomes for all instructional programs and student-learning support services, communicate the results of student learning, and use them as the basis for improvement.”
The second requirement calls for Solano to take the proper steps in “ensuring that there is regular and substantive interaction between the students and instructor(s) for fully online courses.”
In order to form these requirements for the college, the commission sent a peer review team to visit and inspect the main campus in Fairfield. The Peer Review Team Report took place on both the 24th and 25th of September last year. This visit, alongside the Institutional Self-Evaluation Report which is conducted by Solano College itself, were used to form the requirements that Solano must meet by Mar. 1, 2026 in order to re-confirm the college’s accreditation from the Commission.
This team included administrators from different community colleges across the state, such as the superintendent of Southwestern College, Dr. Mark Sanchez and the Vice President of Instruction at Mt. San Antonio College, Ms. Kelly Fowler along with numerous others.
The Peer Review Team Report highlights multiple findings of the team and the evidence to go along with it.
One of these findings includes “the team found the College does not engage in substantive and sustained dialog focused on the continuous improvement of student learning and achievement,”
They stated that they reviewed various course outlines to determine whether or not student academic quality, achievement, and learning were all being improved and guided by Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) and couldn’t find evidence that this was happening.
With the first requirement of the ACCJC reaffirmation letter, along with the findings and evidence of the Peer Review Team both mentioning the under usage of SLOs, instructors present at the Academic Senate meeting had some comments regarding their intended use.
“One thing that I have been doing lately is in all of my classes, I stop at midpoint, and again at the end, and I go over the SLOs and I ask them to tell me if we’re meeting them,” Photography instructor Sarah Barsness explained.
“We need to make sure we’re having those conversations,” Academic Senate President Joshua Scott added.
Further into the meeting the Vice President of Academic Affairs David Williams presented information to the senate regarding specific drop dates for instructors and improvements in both Vallejo and Vacaville center enrollment.
“Our center enrollment is actually looking good this year. Both of the centers are above what they have been in the past,” Williams exclaimed.
Williams then went on to mention that in order for the college to receive certain funds, Solano must retain 1,000 Full-Time Equivalent Students (FTES) at the Vallejo and Vacaville centers.
“Our unduplicated headcount for this fall is 1% over last year,” he noted.
He went on to announce a steady pace in enrollment at the college this semester overall.
“The duplicated is down, meaning even though we have more students, they’re not taking as many sections,” he admitted.
“There was a lot of fear and talk about enrollment being down, ours is pretty stable,”
After completing his presentation, the Senate moved their focus to the Vice President of Student Services Lisa M. Neely. She began by mentioning the annual Student Club Promo day that occurred earlier that Monday, congratulating the Associated Students of Solano Community College and the Inter-Club Council, which is headed by the Vice President of the ASSC, Angelika Gallego Duculan.
Neely then commended the new Director of Student Development & Engagement, Dr. Gabriela Ballesteros, as it was her first event in the role.
“It’s great to see so many student clubs and so many interests being served,” she remarked.
Neely also mentioned the return of Free Soup for Students, a project where Solano gives out a free bowl of soup between 11 a.m and 2 p.m Monday – Thursday in the cafeteria. Both the Vallejo and Vacaville centers will also provide the same service, however at different times and locations on campus than the main campus service.
You can find more information on the Free Soup program for both centers on the Solano Community College website.
