CT Cafe

Hi all,

Don't know if you noticed the following news item:

"California community college ranked among fastest-growing in the U.S."

California's Sacramento Bee (12/14, Yost) reports, "Folsom Lake College(FLC) has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing community colleges in" the U.S., according to a report by the Community College Week. FLC has an enrollment of approximately 8,500 students "at the main Folsom campus, the El Dorado Center in Placerville and the Rancho Cordova Center." The report by Community College Week ranked FLC as the "10th fastest-growing community college among schools with 5,000 to 9,999 students." From fall 2005 to fall 2006, the school showed an enrollment increase of 12.3 percent. The Bee adds, "Enrollment surged this fall at all four Los Rios campuses, including Sacramento City College, American River College and Cosumnes River College. Folsom Lake College led the way with a 20 percent gain in enrollment over last fall.

Du Zhang

Plan to be at the next CPATH Advisory Board Meeting:

The complete minutes of the meeting on 10.26.07 are available under "Meeting Notes." The group discussed two methods for providing direction for the group and the previous two posts contain information about two tools to consider.

Actions Required:
· Work on revising the vision statement
· Discuss whom to invite to the Symposium

CPATH participants:

Please see the link to the right entitled "Success Matrix Revision 10.26.07" for the complete version of the original Success Matrix. It will also be emailed to everyone on the CPATH distribution list, along with the diagram shown in the previous post. Please enter your ideas as comments to the posts on the blog. A brief summary of the Advisory Board meeting is also under Meeting Notes.

Let's keep the dialogue going!

The Folsom Lake College (FLC) Geography Program and the City of Folsom will be partnering to host another GIS Day event at FLC on November 14th from 9 am to 1 pm in the Community Room. Last year’s event was very successful and proved to be a great way for participants to network with other GIS users and to show off their hard work to the general public. This year’s theme is Careers in Geospatial Technologies and will feature several organizations from our community such as the City of Folsom, El Dorado Hills Fire, El Dorado Irrigation District, El Dorado County Surveyors Office, El Dorado National Forest, and others. I hope to see you all there!

http://gis.esri.com/gisday/detail.cfm?id=9099

Jason Pittman
Geoscience Instructor

Hi CPATH friends!

We are looking forward to seeing our Advisory Board friends this Friday at 10AM at Folsom Lake College, in the conference room right next door to Gary's office.

Coffee and cookies will be waiting.

See you Friday!

Gary Hartley

Hi all,

Here is the information on the second presentation of:
Fall Semester Sacramento State STEM Public Lectures Series:

- When: Tuesday, November 6th at 7:30pm
- Where: the University Union Redwood Room, CSUS campus
- Title of the talk: "The Science of Computer Games"
- Speaker: Dr. John Clevenger, Department of Computer Science, CSUS

Dr. Clevenger has over 30 years of experience teaching a wide variety of computer science related subjects and has earned numerous teaching awards. He is responsible for the development of a new course in computer game architecture and implementation at Sacramento State. He is also the Director of Contest Systems for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

His talk will provide attendees with an overview of the internal architecture common to most computer games followed by a look at the wide variety of core computer science topics comprising a game including application examples. For more information, please visit the Center for STEM Excellence website at www.csus.edu/stem.

Thanks,
Du Zhang

This is the third "CPATH Milestone" from the success matrix. Please consider the questions and post your answers here. If you prefer to see the original document as a grid see the "Success Matrix #3" link on the right side of the blog under "Meeting Notes."

CPATH Milestones:
Recognize the changes in student demographic

ICER Strategic Initiatives: Improve the quality of computing education; Attract more people to the field; Improve retention in the major; Strengthen interdisciplinary connections; Meet human and infrastructure needs

Success Indicators:
What are the 3-4 indicators that show we understand the ICER initiatives and are in a better position to address them?

Key Action Steps:
What are the steps needed to enable us to align with our success indicators?

Responsibility: Group, Subgroup, or Individual

This is the second "CPATH Milestone" from the success matrix. Please consider the questions and post your answers here. This section of the original document grid can be viewed by clicking the link "Success Matrix-Part 2" on the right side of the blog under "Meeting Notes."

CPATH Milestones:
Recognizing the pervasive role that computing plays in an increasing number of fields

ICER Strategic Initiatives: Improve the quality of computing education; Attract more people to the field; Improve retention in the major; Strengthen interdisciplinary connections; Meet human and infrastructure needs

Success Indicators:
What are the 3-4 indicators that show we understand the ICER initiatives and are in a better position to address them?

Key Action Steps:
What are the steps needed to enable us to align with our success indicators?

Responsibility: Group, Subgroup, or Individual?

Following is the Blog version of the Success Matrix that Bernard introduced to the Seminar Group today. Please consider the questions and post your answers here. We encourage dialogue on these prompts. If you prefer to see the original document as a grid see the "Success Matrix" link on the right side of the blog under "Meeting Notes."

CPATH Milestones: Transformational change at the national level

ICER Strategic Initiatives: 1. Improve the quality of computing education; 2. Attract more people to the field; 3. Improve retention in the major; 4. Strengthen interdisciplinary connections; and 5.Meet human and infrastructure needs

Success Indicators: What are the 3-4 indicators that show we understand the ICER initiatives and are in a better position to address them? ………Questions: What are 3-4 characteristics of ICER transformational changes in this area? ……Are we able to articulate what a transformed CIS program would look like? …….What does it mean to not have transformational change?

Key Action Steps: What are the steps needed to enable us to align with our success indicators?

Responsibility: Group, Subgroup, or Individual

The CPATH blog has been live for a few weeks now but we’ve noticed that very few of you are participating in discussions there. Your participation in blog discussions will to allow us to make progress outside of the scheduled meetings, increasing our speed and output quality.
To help you get started, we’ve prepared a few notes on what you need to do. Let us know if you encounter issues or questions. Use the comment link provided below to request help or info.
1. Get a blogger.com user id

• Can be an existing gmail (Google mail) account or create a free Google account. To make your life saner, it's OK to use your standard email address (your.name@work.com) as your id.
  
• You will need the id and password that you create each time you want to comment on a blog post. You may scan, view, graze, the blog without logging in, though.
  
• If you are interested in being a regular blogger, let me know and I will provide that access.
  
• Notes & Clarifications:
  - Once you’ve created your id and password, you will be redirected to the blogger dashboard where you can navigate into the cpath blog and participate.
  

• By clicking on the Comments link for any particular posting. You must be signed in to comment.
  

• Internet Explorer 7 and Outlook 2007 support blog subscriptions
• Google Reader, Firefox WIZZ RSS reader and NewsGator are also good choices
• You may also subscribe in an rss container with many popular home pages like MyYahoo or Google News.
  
• Subscribe to the CPATH Blog…this keeps your reader current with all new posts (paste this link into your reader)
  http://cpathgrant.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• Subscribe to CPATH Blog comments…this keeps your reader current with all new comments (paste this link into your reader)
  http://cpathgrant.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

• Themes and owners to be assigned by Advisory Board
• Theme owners will initiate discussions by making pithy, thought-provoking posts
• Your response will be to comment on the posts and on others’ comments

Please don't miss the Seminar Meeting this week!

We will kick off at 10AM sharp in FL1-8, next door to Gary's office at Folsom Lake College. Start with coffee and cookies and participate in a discussion of strategic initiatives and action planning.

Thanks to all who attended the first seminar meeting for the CPATH project on 9-21-07. We started to attack the ICER report’s five strategic initiatives, with a fairly full treatment of the first one (“improving the quality of computing education”). Minutes are available here on the blog in the "Meeting Notes" as a link.

In the next meeting, we will move on to some quite interesting topics, including how to attract students and get them to persist in getting degreed. With some new members of the group from Sac City USD and perhaps some students from FLC, it should be great fun!

Please feel free to post comments to this message or others to keep the dialogue going!

Gary for the CPATH Grant

Introduction

1) (Von joined the team today)
2) Introduction to all team members

Main Focus:

1) Seminar Group Structure – times, dates and objectives of the next sessions
2) Potential Topics of Discussion
a. Student Preparation: 1) Accelerate the learning process 2) Have business partner input
b. Enrollment Prevention: 1) What is keeping students from enrolling in CIS? 2) How are we marketing the programs?
c. Instructor Needs: 1) From the industry 2) In general
3)What is taught, how it is taught, who is teaching it?
d. Multigenerational Learning Styles: 1) How do they differ?
e. Transferability: 1)Education vs. Training 2) Minimum Qual Issues
3)How do we make it appealing? Early on?
f. Enrollment & Scheduling
g. Interdisciplinary Interaction: 1) Boundaries becoming blurred
2) Creation of new opportunities 3) New "niche" areas
h. Partnerships: 1) Between segments 2) How do we produce more grads?
i. Pathways: 1) How does this work? 2) What do students need to complete?
3) How do young students fit in?
j. Definition of “technology”: 1) “Shifting the thought process” of students
k. Work Force Ready: 1) How to service the industry?
3) Friday Session
a. Large Group facilitation – Stu
b. “ICER” Champions potentially chosen for the sub-groups in the next session

1. What is the optimal size of this group? I assume these are answers for about the seminars...20-30 would be ideal.
2. Who should be represented? Academics, hiring managers, technical leads, academic counselors.No recruiters.
3. How should attendees be recruited? Some ideas:* Our own personal industry contacts* Contacts that our on-campus career office has. After all, they help get students hired.
4. How should the seminar be structured? I pictured it being a roundtable discussion, with points to be discussed.
5. What are the critical issues for discussion? These are questions I'd address to industry reps:* Are our students prepared for the types of jobs you are hiring for?* In which areas are they deficient?* What kinds of jobs are staying here locally?* Which kinds of jobs are being outsourced?* Would you outsource to other countries if the talent supply was ample enough?* Is it sufficient to have a CS degree? Do your candidates possess other desirable skills?* What are your minimum degree requirements? AS? BS? MS?For academics:* How have your curriculums changed to meet the fast-paced computing industry?* Are community colleges delivering well-trained students to the 4-year institutions?* Is the AS degree in CS still relevant?
6. What are some relevant goal statements for this activity? Not sure what this means...

This takes a few minutes to watch, but it's well worth it given our discussion at the CPATH meeting.

Dan Francisco

http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift

OPTIMAL SIZE OF GROUP?
The size may not matter as much as how the sub-groups are organized and who can handle them effectively. You will need to use all resources available if the groups (combined) have more than 50 people. How are the groups going to be divided for maximum effectiveness?

WHO SHOULD BE REPRESENTED?
Categories:
1) Large firms
2) Small to medium corporations
3) Local and state government
4) Education
5) Entrepreneurs
6) Chamber of Commerce or entity

HOW SHOULD BE ATTENDEES BE RECRUITED?
Flyer
Personal invitation
Forum
Interview Process – through a “Chamber” – like group

SEMINAR STRUCTURE?
The current method appears to be effective, to be seen as to staying power and sustainability
Also may include a monthly teleconference or CCCConfer Call

CRITICAL ISSUES?
Strategic Initiatives
Tactical Execution
How in-depth do we need to go
Definition of terms
Community College – Community – Business – how do we pull these resources together - quickly

RELEVANT GOAL STATEMENTS FOR THE GROUP?
Exactly what we are going to deliver upon
A successful instructional model for multi-institution, multi-sector and multi-disciplinary collaboration and strategies to revitalize undergraduate computing education in the Sacramento region. (from the project summary)

What is the optimal size of this group?
Here’s a guess: A core of maybe around 20 with maybe an “extended group” of maybe up to 100. My biggest concern is that the agenda not be dominated by “offhand” or “casual observations” or “the latest anecdotal evidence”, or the person who talks the loudest.

Who should be represented?
Most people work for small to medium sized companies. So they should be represented. The problem here is that it is often that many of these companies are unwilling to participate due many issues such as:

1) Limited resources – they don’t have the man-hours to spend on this – the one or two people who could come to these kinds of things tend to be busy running the company.
2) They tend to be focused on much shorter-term goals – like shipping their product before next Tuesday, not building a pipeline years out.
3) The “what’s in it for me” factor can be lacking. Sometimes these individuals in their capacity within their organizations have less to gain personally from these types of meetings.
4) Even if we do get more varied representation, is will still be a small sample. So maybe what is important here is to have awareness within the group that there are stakeholders that are not present, and get them to consider this.


What are the critical issues for discussion?
Potential issue 1: The ICER report
The ICER Northwest report makes some excellent comments. Maybe we could devote blocks of time to discussing each one of their 5 recommendations (aka “Strategic Initiatives”). Some may warrant more time than others, for example, ICER Recommendation 1c may be particularly relevant to this exercise. Maybe doing this first may help the group decide how to spend the rest of the time.

Potential issue 2: Dissecting the term “computing”.
The grant may use this term deliberately so as to not limit scope or predefine any particular outcome. However, “computing” is a vast and varied field of study, which means different things to different people. Thus, it may promote better communication if some time was spent on a taxonomy of terms related to computing subdisciplines, and/or professions/skills.

Potential issue 3: The role of the community college.
1) 2-years is not a long time to teach something in-depth. Should we try to develop or influence 4 year curriculum of which we would teach the first 2 years as community colleges have traditionally done?

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  LRCCD: general downtrend on all campus locations.
  
  
  
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  Networking classes are well enrolled but programming classes start with one hundred and then finish much lower. Web courses are relatively strong, but down to 1/3 the enrollment of prior strong years. Applications courses: interest remains high. 40% of students leave after initial start
  
  
  
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  Sierra College has ½ to 1/3 enrollment today compared to 2002. CIS area down in enrollment, online classes fill, not on ground. High attrition rate in upper level courses.
  
  
  
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  In 2001 there were 6 fulltime instructors at FLC, but now 3 FT; database certificate losing interest.
  
  
  
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  Nationwide there is a dip in enrollment in CIS classes. An ACM study regarding offshore jobs casts a negative light on the job situation.
  
  
  
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  New jobs are being created in the area of computer games, animation, and security, which cannot easily be filled off shore.
  
  
  
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  Height of CSUS enrollment was 1000, but currently is 500, of which 140 are graduate level
  
  
  
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  Today’s high school students are not interested in STEM disciplines
  
  
  
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  No celebrity as a spokesperson for the Computer Science industry. Nationwide study commissioned by NSF “Rising above the Gathering Storm”. (see link)
  
  
  
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  Need to get elementary and secondary faculty to join this group.
  Real Estate programs are doing well. Students can do their own web sites.
  
  
  

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  Intel, Micron and other companies are all involved to get students interested in STEM.
  
  
  
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  Game industry is bigger than movies and music combined.
  
  
  
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  Schools should partner with the industry for successful outreach to students
  
  
  
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  Intel and others go offshore because the US is not producing enough workers.
  
  
  
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  Factories are not built here because it costs too much.
  
  
  
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  USA not producing enough competent workers.
  
  
  
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  Industry needs to tell Community Colleges what their needs are.
  
  
  

Hello, and welcome to the Folsom Lake College/Sacramento State University CPATH project BLOG. This medium of communication is intended for project participants to share their thoughts and ideas among the community of other participants, with a view to furthering the networking and building of intellectual capital for which the project exists.

Here you will find links to relevant documents, including meeting minutes, responses from other participants, and the grant itself. Please feel free to comment on these, as well as to upload your own contributions (e.g., original pieces, web links, research articles). Have fun here, and be sure to send us your feedback!

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0722172. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”