California Strong Workforce Grant:
Curriculum Redesign for San Bernardino Valley College
challenge
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How does a community college increase access to higher wage jobs in graphic design and the arts?
San Bernardino Valley College (SBVC), a Hispanic Serving Institution, is a community college that provides six career pathways, including arts, communication and design. The challenge for this project was to increase application and acceptance to 4-year California State Colleges by Graphic Design and Multimedia certificate holders from San Bernardino Valley College. This project is in alignment with the California Strong Workforce Program mission. |
by the numbers21Transferable credits from SBVC to Cal State 4 year programs
2022-2023Academic year launch year
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“To develop more workforce opportunity and lift low-wage workers into living-wage jobs, California took a bold step in 2016 to create one million more middle-skill workers. Grouped into seven areas targeting student success, career pathways, workforce data and outcomes, curriculum, CTE faculty, regional coordination and funding, this leading-edge state economic development program is driven by “more and better” CTE. The “more” is increasing the number of students enrolled in programs leading to high-demand, high-wage jobs. The “better” is improving program quality, as evidenced by more students completing or transferring programs, getting employed or improving their earnings.”
California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
the solution
Through the California Strong Workforce grant, we assesed issues with the exiting graphic design and multi-media certificate curriculum in transfer credit alignment with four Cal State University programs: Fullerton, Long Beach, San Bernadino and San Jose. The curriculum was then optimized for maximum transferability including the addition of two new courses and more flexibility in course offerings.
impact
- The proposed SBVC Graphic Design Certificate Program was submitted to the SBVC Curriculum Committee in Spring of 2021 and the was accepted by the Curriculum Committee in October of 2021. The new curriculum will be implemented for Fall of 2022.
- Due to the changes to the certificate programs, transferable credits from SBVC to the targeted CSU's increased.
- CSU-San Bernardino: 21 transferable credits (an increase of 3 credits over existing curriculum)
- CSU-State Fullerton: 21 transferable credits (an increase of 9 credits over existing curriculum)
- CSU-State Long Beach: 15 transferable credits (an increase of 6 credits over existing curriculum)
- Updated existing courses ART 148, ART 149 and Art 180
- Created a new course ART 1XX Typography and Visual Communication
team
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The team included a close collaboration with Mandi Batalo, Ed.D., Department Chair/Professor of the Art Department at San Bernardino Valley College, and members of the department advisory board over a two year period from 2019 - 2021 in the development of the two-phase curriculum alignment and redesign.
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process
The project scope of work was to create two deliverables of the Graphic Design and Web and Multi-Media Design Certificate curriculum redesign.
- Phase 1: A comparison and alignment analysis report of the Graphic Design and Multi-Media Design Certificate curriculum with the California Community Colleges Model Curriculum Pathways for Graphic Design and at other California State Universities existing Graphic Communication and Design Bachelor’s programs.
- Phase 2: A new Graphic Design and Web and Multi-Media Certificate program outline to be used for development of new curriculum in alignment with California State Universities at San Bernardino, Fullerton and Long Beach.
CSU Curriculum Research
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CSU-SBVC
Program Crosswalk
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Proposed New Curriculum
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New Curriculum Course Changes
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Proposed New Course Descriptions
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research
phase 1: curriculum comparison and analysis
The Phase 1 of this project researched California's Transfer Model Curriculum (TMC) and established how the current SBVC graphic design program was in alignment. The TMC is used to support students who are looking to transfer credits from CTE and community college certificate programs into four-year baccalaureate programs within the California State University system.
The worksheet below establishes a common curriculum guideline across community colleges in California for Graphic Design.
The Assist system, the official course transfer and articulation system for California's public colleges and universities, was referenced to establish a baseline for which courses in SBVC's 2018 graphic design and multimedia curriculum were transferable to four regional Cal State Universities:
- Cal State San Bernardino
- Cal State San Jose
- Cal State Fullerton
- Cal State Long Beach
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csu-sbvc program crosswalk
A crosswalk was established to understand how the current offerings at SBVC aligned with TCM's Graphic Design, Experience Design, Web Development and Basic Animation with the 4-year programs at regional Cal State Universities.
Findings
- The existing SBVC Graphic Design Certificate Program provides 25 credits. The crosswalk revealed that three California State University (CSU) Graphic Design programs had the closest alignment with the most credits transferable from SBVC.
- CSU-San Bernardino: 18 credits transferable
- CSU-State Fullerton: 12 credits transferable
- CSU-State Long Beach: 9 credits transferable
- SBVC lacked a typography course which was required at all three CSU programs
- SBVC included a business class which was not part of any of the CSU programs at the 100 and 200 level
- CSU-San Bernardino had added a design thinking and UX courses as part of their curriculum redesign that SBVC only partially met through the current ART 149 Intermediate Computer Graphic Design
- SBVC existing course Art 145 and Art 148 course title and content required updating to be in better alignment with course offerings at the three CSU programs.
proposed new curriculum
As part of the deliverables for this project a curriculum alignment document was created to compare the existing programs with the proposed curriculum changes.
The proposed curriculum was then aligned with the TCM and the curriculum offerings of the three CSU programs.
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phase 2: new curriculum course changes
Phase 2 of the project proposed new and revised course names and descriptions were created for the SBVC programs.
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The following changes were proposed for better alignment with the CSU offerings:
- ART 148 proposed a new name
- ART 149 and Art 180 proposed a new name and course description
- ART 1XX Typography and Visual Communication proposed as a new course
proposed new course descriptions
Based on a zoom meeting held with members of the SBVC Art Department Advisory Council in August 2020, the go-ahead was given to commence writing new course descriptions before submission to the curriculum committee in Spring of 2021. Course descriptions included changes to courses ART 148, ART 149 and ART 180 as well as the development to the new ART 1XX in Typography and Visual Communications (example of pages 1 and 2 below).
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As part of revising course descriptions, I was tasked with writing the department's Statement of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. After conversations with faculty the following statement was crafted:
"The graphic design program is committed to providing an atmosphere of learning that is representative of a variety of perspectives, while creating an environment that welcomes, celebrates, and promotes respect for the entire variety of human experience. We recognize that cultural diversity goes beyond language, ethnicity, race and religion, to include
crosscutting characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, range of ability and age, as well as other factors that shape
creative perspectives.
In this class you will experience a variety of projects in graphic communication that address diverse audiences as well as opportunities to express your ideas and identity through individual assignments and group work. We recognize that the majority
of graphic design history has been centered around a white western perspective. Although, this will be referenced in various lectures and readings, we will explore the practice of image making and graphic communication from a multi-cultural lens with
an emphasis on the inclusion of underrepresented voices in graphic design."
"The graphic design program is committed to providing an atmosphere of learning that is representative of a variety of perspectives, while creating an environment that welcomes, celebrates, and promotes respect for the entire variety of human experience. We recognize that cultural diversity goes beyond language, ethnicity, race and religion, to include
crosscutting characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, range of ability and age, as well as other factors that shape
creative perspectives.
In this class you will experience a variety of projects in graphic communication that address diverse audiences as well as opportunities to express your ideas and identity through individual assignments and group work. We recognize that the majority
of graphic design history has been centered around a white western perspective. Although, this will be referenced in various lectures and readings, we will explore the practice of image making and graphic communication from a multi-cultural lens with
an emphasis on the inclusion of underrepresented voices in graphic design."