SECTION 1.
(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(1) Approximately 1,500,000 students in California depend upon the public community colleges for all or part of their college education. Community colleges also play a vital role in educating California’s minority populations, reflecting California’s growing workforce, with a student body that is 12 percent Asian, 7.4 percent African-American, 3.2 percent Filipino, 24.4 percent Latino, and 1 percent American Indian.
(2) California depends upon the graduates of community colleges to fill critically important jobs in the economy. Community colleges are the avenue for the realization of educational aspirations vital to meeting California’s future workforce needs.
(3) The campuses of the California Community Colleges are a precious asset for the entire state, with a unique focus for each of the 107 communities served. The community colleges cannot do their job without a sufficient number of skilled faculty and administrators.
(4) Simply to accommodate anticipated enrollment growth, California Community Colleges must hire 16,000 more faculty and 1,000 more administrators in this decade. The necessity of replacing retiring faculty and administrators will increase these hiring requirements substantially. Additionally, key administrative positions now attract smaller numbers of well-qualified candidates than in earlier years, and high turnover rates are being experienced.
(5) It is essential that innovative and cost-effective means be established to strengthen the preparation of both faculty and administration for their vital roles in the community college system. These programs should ensure access, at a reasonable cost, to necessary preparation at both master’s and doctoral levels and access to other forms of advanced preparation.
(6) Most leadership programs for community college administrators are inaccessible to these leaders. Approximately 40 percent of all doctoral degrees granted to the chief executive officers (CEOs) of community colleges were granted by institutions outside of California and, among the doctoral degrees awarded to community college CEOs in California, 80 percent were granted by private institutions.
(7) It is in the best interests of the State of California to address the faculty, administrative, and leadership needs of the state’s community colleges, and to ensure that these needs are met.
(8) In order to strengthen community college leadership, a variety of initiatives should be undertaken to prepare and assist leaders in many different roles and at different levels of seniority. These efforts should include, but not necessarily be limited to, doctoral and master’s degree programs tailored to community college leadership needs, certificate programs at the university level to help prepare individuals beginning in leadership roles, intensive short-term programs (typically in the summer) to provide advanced leadership training, structured mentorship programs that draw upon the experience of incumbent community college leaders, and programs readily accessible in the various geographical regions of the state to provide ongoing professional development opportunities for community college faculty, administrators, and trustees.
(b) It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to accomplish all of the following:
(1) To strengthen the leadership of the California Community Colleges in their role of providing effective instruction and institutional support for a larger and more diverse student body. For purposes of this act, leadership is broadly defined, and includes leadership as exercised in faculty, administrative, and trustee roles.
(2) To establish a Community College Leadership Institute, which shall operate as part of a doctoral level university in California.
(3) To vest state responsibility for the institute in the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, working closely with an advisory committee of faculty, administrative, and trustee leaders designated by the chancellor for this purpose.