President's Office
May 14, 2025
(1) Evaluation of Mission Informed Planning Committee
The Mission Informed Planning Council (MIPC) is the college’s multi-constituent governance group that meets every first and third Friday of the month in room 1901 and online. The council is chaired by the President and facilitated by the steering committee members–the academic, classified and student senate presidents. MIPC advises the President on college governance and planning to ensure decisions reflect the College’s mission, vision, and values. It oversees and aligns strategic plans with institutional goals. And, it develops and implements guiding principles for resource allocation and effectiveness measures. MIPC now has four subcommittees: Professional Learning, Buildings, Grounds, and Sustainability, Technology, and Institutional Effectiveness.
At our last MIPC meeting on May 2nd, the Institutional Effectiveness committee passed
a recommendation to evaluate this governance council. A focused survey is being adminstarted evaluating campus familiarity with MIPC, communication, and
decision-making. It hit your mailbox this morning and closes May 23rd. MIPC would
greatly appreciate your assistance in our continuous growth by completing the survey.
The next MIPC meeting is May 16th. On the agenda are growth projections for the college, including what the State’s Chancellor’s SCFF
calculator tells us about how quickly we will be off hold harmless (Spoiler alert:
pretty soon!), and we will be reviewing the draft goals for Foothill 2030: The Blueprint
for Success, our new strategic educational plan.
Everyone is welcome to attend MIPC and/or submit an agenda items for consideration.
(2) Attend Graduation
Be sure to RSVP your attendance at graduation. Volunteers are needed too! The sun will (hopefully) be out but you will be shielded from its punishing effects under our big new tent. Exciting pre-show, families thrilled for their graduates. June 27th at 10 am.
(3) Updates on EOs and Collective Action
Executive Orders impacting higher education continue apace. Over the last couple of weeks, one of the most alarming is the Executive Order on Accreditation. Called, “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education” it does the following:
- Directs the Department of Education to overhaul the higher education accreditation system. The order emphasizes holding accreditors accountable for poor performance or violations of federal civil rights law, including perceived ideological overreach or discrimination. The Secretary of Education is now empowered to deny, monitor, suspend, or terminate recognition of accreditors on these grounds.
- Allows colleges and universities to more freely change accreditors, lifting the previous moratorium on reviewing new accreditor applications, and streamlining the process for accreditor recognition.
- Institutions must now use program-level student outcome data to improve results, but are prohibited from referencing race, ethnicity, or sex in these analyses. There is also a new mandate to prioritize intellectual diversity among faculty and to launch experimental sites for "innovative" quality assurance pathways.
As you can read, this EO has the potential to lower the rigor and standards for higher education. See the response from the ACCJC.
Meanwhile, our district has been leading the Bay Area in defense of students, free
speech, and in continued commitment to equity and inclusion. At the May 5th Board
meeting, the Board of Trustees passed resolution 2025-25: In Support of Mutual Academic
Defense. In sum, it pledges to actively participate in the formation of a mutual academic
defense compact, pledging collaboration with faculty leaders across the state to uphold
the values of academic freedom, shared governance, and institutional integrity. Moreover,
the Chancellor along with the two Presidents are working with Bay Area CEOs to organize
collective action and provide mutual aid. The Area 4 CEO representative, our very
own Dr. Omar Torres, is circulating a petition of advocacy for the formation of a
block grant that could be deployed should California Community Colleges see sudden
funding shifts. Given the recent poor state budget news it is a long shot, but every
avenue should be explored. Just last week, De Anza College received the news that
the last year of funding for a Title III grant was yanked.
Finally, Chancellor Lambert, as well as myself and Dr. Torres, were all early signatories
to the AAC&U Call for Constructive Engagement. It has now amassed ~660 signatures.
(4) Advancements on Sustainability for the Campus and Aquatic complex.
At the May 5th Board meeting, the Board approved the use of the Design-Build delivery method for designing and constructing a capital improvement solution that supports, replaces or augments the heating and cooling circulation loops at the main campus of Foothill College and at the Pool and PE Complex with the intent of constructing a more sustainable, long-term heating and cooling system. That was a long sentence but very good news. It greenlights the proposal for a design proposal for the Athletic/Aquatic Complex. The innovative design uses air source heat pumps (ASHPs), which are highly efficient systems providing both heating and cooling for structures (and pools!) by transferring heat between indoor and outdoor air. The system will use a coil system that can serve as a model for our advancing sustainability goals campus-wide, and it can link into the central loop of campus and use the output of the heat pumps to cool other buildings on campus.
(5) Some changes to the President’s Office to support our emerging Blueprint for Success
Changes in Senior-level Workforce and CTE leadership
The May Board of Trustees agenda approved a position that is part of a cabinet-level
restructure in workforce at both colleges. Foothill and De Anza have created a Vice
President of Workforce Innovation and Economic Development, with plans to eliminate
lower-level administrative positions. This reorganization would move Teresa Ong, pending Board approval, into the new position and eliminate the Associate Vice President
position. The new VP will also assume new responsibilities. At Foothill, the position
description increases the responsibilities by adding the division of Health Sciences
and Horticulture to the portfolio of responsibilities. While this move will not have
much direct impact on faculty and staff operations, it does have strategic benefits.
This restructure is motivated by year-long discussions about the population of students
we will be increasingly serving in the near future. It tasks the position with the
creation of a thriving Career Center, and leading but collaborating with others on
the development of workforce noncredit opportunities and credit for prior learning
linked to industry recognized credentials. The new structure provides the following
other benefits:
- More direct connection to strategy discussions in the President’s & Chancellor’s Office.
- The ability to marry high level leadership with strategic capital investments in facilities, like the Sunnyvale Education Center, by creating direct reporting lines for the majority of programming there starting Fall 2026: Allied Health, Adult Education, and Apprenticeship programs.
- Creating senior level capacity by reducing the Vice President of Instruction’s direct reports from eleven to nine.
- Creating clear lines of responsibilities for initiatives that support returning learners, skill builders, and other adult populations.
Changes to Office Equity & Inclusion Office reporting lines
Starting July 1st, the Office will report to the Vice President of Student Services.
Dr. Laurie Scolari will become the senior leader responsible for programming college-wide
equity work. As the Strategic Vision for Equity sunsets in 2025 and the new plan is
written, Dr. Scolari will work closely with Dr. Ajani Byrd to envision the next phase
of strategic planning. As we reflect and recommit to equity work, this new chapter
will need to align with the 2024 Accreditation Standards and foreground equitable student outcomes (mentioned 13 times in the standards),
doing so in measurable ways.
This change for the Office of Equity has many benefits:
- It invites greater collaboration between the areas of the college where programming for equity work lives and places the Office of Equity in enhanced proximity to student voice and feedback.
- It provides greater connection to the Vision Aligned Reporting, most of which intersects with equity and resides predominantly in student services areas.
- It is responsive to campus feedback requesting more clarity on the lines of responsiblities for various aspects of equity problem-solving and programming. They are all now working together.
While the reporting lines are changing and the collaboration increasing, the Office of Equity will remain intact. No matter where the programming and strategic work for equity reports, we are all tasked with bringing our value of equity-mindedness to our work. Equity is a whole college effort. That remains unchanged.
With Dr. Scolari and Dr. Byrd working together, aided by the team of Carolyn Holcroft,
and Christopher Yang, I'm sure you will all agree that the leadership for equity and
inclusion is in expert hands.
Yours in service,
Kristina
Dr. Kristina Whalen
President