CSSIA Linux Professional Institute Train-the-Trainer Session

Announcement from CSSIA.ORG for LPI Academy Train-the-Trainer Session 

CSSIA.ORG is pleased to announce a new program now available from the Linux Professional Institute, the LPI Academy. Over the next few months CSSIA.ORG will be working with the LPI Academy to plan instructor training workshops. If you are interested in learning more about the LPI Academy, you can register to attend a one hour Train-the-Trainer workshop on August 21st at 10 AM or 2 PM Pacific Daylight Time.

Please register for LPI Academy Linux Essentials Train-the-Trainer on Aug 21, 2013 10:00 AM PDT at: 

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1749560846514180096

Please register for LPI Academy Linux+ powered by LPI Train-the-Trainer on Aug 21, 2013 2:00 PM PDT at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6447693767652217088

This session is for LPI Academy instructor Candidates and is designed to give a deep overview of the Linux+ powered by LPI/LPIC-1 offering from the LPI Academy North America.

Participants will get an idea of the course scope, hear explanations of typical problem areas for students and in general hear how the course is taught from an experienced Instructor.

Attendees will also hear about good course ware recommendations, learn about lab options and get answers to their questions about this exciting new course.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Read about the latest of CSSIA in the Summer Newsletter:

CSSIA Newsletter 2013

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Mouse Squad of California

 

Ensure That Your Students Receive

21st Century Technology Learning

 

MOUSE Squad of California (MSCA), began with 5 Silicon Valley middle schools in 2004, and is now in 105 schools and agencies throughout California. It can be an after-school program or an in-school elective.

The core elements of the nonprofit MSCA program include:

100-hour online curriculum with technology and workplace modules

Hands-on activities and service learning projects

Tech focus areas and/or student-run help desk with ticket management systems

Volunteers to assist with curriculum, help desk, mentoring; field trips for students; internships for high school youth.

Prerequisites for successful implementation include:

• 5 - 25 students interested in learning about computer technologies
• Computing devices with Internet access
• Instructors interested in teaching online technology and workplace curriculum
• An administrator supportive of students assisting teachers with tech projects
• Parents who champion student tech leaders
• Funding from sources such as After-School, Career Tech Ed, 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) grants, site or district magnet program allocations, local businesses, foundations, or service organizations, i.e. Lions Club or Rotary.

​Schools and agencies that apply by September 16, 2013 for 2013 program implementation:

Have preference for a MSCA mini-grant

May attend September 2013 training for MSCA instructors/coordinators

What students say about MOUSE Squad: "I like helping my teachers figure out tech problems. It actually makes me feel happier than I usually am. MOUSE Squad has helped me improve my grades in science and math and that makes my parents happy, too."



What parents say about MOUSE Squad:  “MOUSE Squad Student Tech is a uniquely valuable program because it gives my daughters real-world job experiences and the technical knowledge, critical thinking skills and confidence to pursue technology education and careers. At our school, MOUSESquad has made it cool to know about technology.”

To learn more about what’s happening at MOUSE Squad, visit the MSCA website.

MSCA is a program of Aspiranet, a non-profit organization that provides after-school, youth development, and community technology programs, as well as children and family services in California. MSCA is in partnership with MOUSE, a New York City-based non- profit.

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California Career Briefs: Get Acquainted

       

California Career Briefs

“Getting to know your students and establishing a positive classroom environment can greatly increase student success.”

- League for Innovation: Creating a Community of Learners

Get Acquainted

Did You Know?

When students make early, strong connections with their instructors and peers they  are more likely  to persevere and succeed in their classes. One of the best ways to build a relationship with your students is to learn more about them and how they learn best. With this knowledge, you will be able to relate and appreciate what they bring to the class. Today’s activity will give students an opportunity to share their information and get them out of their seats  to get acquainted.

Here’s how…

• Set the tone by energetically and enthusiastically welcoming students to class.
• Explain that to get to know them, you want them to answer a few questions.
• Distribute the Student Activity and give students a few minutes to respond.
• Using concentric circles have students meet/share their responses.

Instruct students to form two circles with participants facing each other in an inner circle and an outer circle.

Give participants about 1 minute to introduce themselves to their partners and share their response to question #3.

Invite the inner circle to form new partners by moving four spaces to the left, greeting participants as they pass.

Ask the new partners to introduce themselves, and share their responses to question #7.

Continue activity alternating partners and questions.

• Share some of your own responses to the Get Acquainted questions.

Above and Beyond!

A learning community does not just happen; it is created intentionally. Set up an informal time to meet for coffee before or after class or suggest “the class” attend a campus event together.

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LabSim Courseware Instructor Access Opportunity

Do you need better tools and up-to-date course content to prepare your students for industry certifications? Meet TestOut's LabSim courseware.

LabSim has helped IT instructors increase student pass rates in thousands of schools. Could it do the same for you? Request free instructor access and try any of the courses below for yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LabSim gives your students the experience they need with hands-on simulations and videos, and empowers you to:

• Measure student progress and course outcomes
• Build and administer advanced custom exams
• Eliminate or reduce the costs of running a physical lab
• Run a traditional, hybrid, or online program

Request free instructor access now and start seeing what LabSim can do for you and your students.

Regards,

Noel Vallejo
CEO/President

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Free CyberWatch West CAE Meeting at CSU San Bernardino 8-29-13

Aug 16, 2013




Center of Excellence Information Meeting Registration Now Open!

Follow this link to Register!

What: Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity/Information
Assurance Meeting

When: Thursday, Aug 29th, 9:00 AM to Noon

Where: California State University San Bernardino, Jack Brown Hall, Room #280

Presenters: The NSA CAEIA/CS Team

Is your university or community college seeking to certify your institution as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity? The National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jointly sponsor the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity/IA Education (CAE/IAE), IA 2-year Education and Training (CAE/2Y) and IA Research (CAE/R) programs. The goal of these programs is to reduce vulnerability in our national information infrastructure by promoting higher education and research in IA and producing a growing number of professionals with IA expertise in various disciplines. The schools that receive this designation become nationally recognized and enhance their access to grant opportunities.

What will be covered: The new Knowledge Unit criteria for evaluating an institution's Cybersecurity programs as well as the procedure for applying.

Who should attend: Anyone who has an established Information Technology, Computer Science, or Cybersecurity program.

Cost: Free

Join the more than 140 schools nationwide in earning this important designation.

Registered attendees will be issued parking permits that will be available for pickup at the campus entrance

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Google outage across search, Gmail and Talk causes 40 percent drop in web activity

by Alastair Stevenson v3.co.uk 19 Aug 2013
More from this author


A five-minute Google service outage late last week nearly halved global web traffic, according to internet analytics firm GoSquared.

The outage occurred on 16 August, affecting numerous Google services including Search, Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Talk. GoSquared reported that, despite only lasting a few minutes, the outage caused a 40 percent decline in global web traffic.

"Google.com was down for a few minutes between 23:52 and 23:57 BST on 16 August 2013. This had a huge effect on the number of page views coming into GoSquared's real-time tracking – around a 40 percent drop," read the post. "That's huge. As internet users, our reliance on Google.com being up is huge. It's also of note that page views spiked shortly afterwards, as users managed to get to their destination."

The reason for the outage remains unknown and Google declined V3's request for comment. Google has publicly acknowledged the outage occurred and issued a public apology on its status page.

"Between 15:51 and 15:52 PDT, 50 percent to 70 percent of requests to Google received errors; service was mostly restored one minute later, and entirely restored after 4 minutes," read the statement. "We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better."

Despite the short time frame of the outage, many web users have taken the event as troubling, showcasing just how reliant people are on Google services. Silent Circle chief executive officer Mike Janke recently cited reliance on insecure services like Gmail as a key reason the US National Security Agency (NSA) was able to run its PRISM campaign.

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National Cyber League (NCL) Fall 2013 Schedule Announcement

The National Cyber League – Where Cybersecurity is a Passion

 

The National Cyber League (NCL) is pleased to announce its 2013 Fall Season Schedule!

General information, the event schedule and rules are available at: www.nationalcyberleague.org/fall13.shtml

The NCL mission is to offer engaging, entertaining, measurable, and scalable methods of learning to enlist a new generation of cybersecurity professionals.  Toward this end, the 2013 NCL Fall Season is designed to provide hands-on experiences and challenges that will enable players to practice and improve their cybersecurity skills - while having fun.

2013 Fall Season Highlights: 

·       Preparatory lab exercises and games to help prepare students for CompTIA Security+ and EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification exams

·        16 CompTIA Security+ and 19 CEH preparatory lab exercises based on these certifications’ performance-based exam objectives, which students can access remotely from anywhere, anytime, to develop knowledge and skills

·        Instructor syllabi to help integrate NCL labs and games into security classes

·        Games conducted 100% using cloud­‐based services, accessible from anywhere

·        Opportunities to follow the games as spectators

·        3 NCL Conferences (Eastern, Midwestern, and Western)

·        3 brackets to engage novice (Bronze), intermediate (Silver) and experienced players (Gold bracket)

·        Pre-season assessment to identify players with similar skill levels; players will be placed in one of three brackets based on skill level (Bronze, Silver, Gold)

·        Regular Season with 2 games optimized for individuals

·        Post-Season with two 5-10 player team-based games: NCL Conference and National championships

·        “Player Cards” and player/team statistics

·        Scenario-based, real-world games appealing to broad audiences (including men, women and non-dominant populations) to encourage engagement and passion

·        A strict Honor Code

Individual Award Certificateswill be presented for Regular Season game play to recognize players who are Top 10 in their conference and national brackets.

Team Award Certificates will be presented to Top 10 teams in their conference and national brackets.   

Students:

·       All Players who complete the regular season games and associated evaluations will receive Certificates of Participationto add to their professional portfolios and resumes.

·       To advance event sustainability, there will be a registration fee of $20 per playerto participate in the regular season and $25 per team for post-season play (via PayPal).

·       Registration opens August 17^th, 2013 and closes September 30, 2013 at events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=pvd9yudab&oeidk=a07e7yev4b40d6f89d4. (There is also a link to the registration page from the NCL website.

·       Remotely accessible labs for CompTIA Security+ and EC Counsel Certified Ethical Hacker will be available August 24 through December 14, 2013.

·       Go to www.nationalcyberleague.org/fall13.shtml for additional information

·       You will need a faculty coach/mentor to register.

Faculty/Coaches:

·       To make it easier for you to integrate NCL activities into your classes, please see instructor syllabi for:

o   CompTIA Security+

o   EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)

·       Students participating in the 2013 NCL Fall regular season get access to hands-on labs to develop Security+ and CEH skills, 24x7, during the event period.

·       Students are required to have a faculty mentor/coach.  To serve as a faculty mentor/coach you will need to provide your students with your contact information, which they will submit in the registration process.  You will receive regular communications from the NCL, keeping you abreast of the latest developments.  Students should be able to contact you for counsel about these lab exercises. You will have opportunities to observe the NCL games in a virtual environment.  In reality, there is little actually required of you.

·       NCL participation is a great way to create enthusiasm and passion for cybersecurity education, to create student and school pride, and to develop and demonstrate knowledge and skills. It adds value to your classes, and it often improves student outcomes.

·       Please share this opportunity with your peers and students!

This is going to be really fun!

Thank you,

Dan Manson

NCL Commissioner

To join the NCL email list, please provide your name, email address, and college affiliation via email to info@nationalcyberleague.org.

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CCC JSPAC Conference - December 3-4, 2013

Promoting Equity & Student Success Through Career Technical Education

CA Perkins 
Nontraditional & Special Populations 
(JSPAC) Conference 2013

How Do I… …Special Populations?

Focus:  Learn strategies to ensure students from Special Populations, including those that are nontraditional (by gender), succeed in school & in the changing workforce. Join us as we explore ways to increase student and program success & completion!

When:  Dec 3, 2013 (10AM) — Dec 4, 2013, General Conference
            Dec 2, 2012, 1-4 PM, 3-hour Pre-Conference Intensives
Where:  Sheraton Grand Hotel, Sacramento, CA (to make a reservation, click here)
Who:  K-12, adult & community college administrators, deans, faculty, counselors, program coordinators, student service coordinators, NGO directors/staff, business partners, SB70 Directors, WIB Directors, ELL/ESL Practitioners, DSPS educators, etc.
                      
Teams from schools, districts, or collaboratives encouraged to attend. Team registration discounts available! Every 3rd attendee from the same team is FREE!
Discounted registration fees for teams of 2 or more!
REGISTER HERE

Why:  Improve Your Perkins Core Indicators, Better Serve Your Students, Improve Your CTE Programs, Network, Participate in Legislatively Mandated Professional Development, and Share Your Knowledge. Join us to learn strategies to make this happen! 

Keynote Speakers: Michael C. Poindexter, Gina Lujan, and Chris Roe
Pre-Conference (Dec 2^nd):

1.    How to Develop Effective Advocacy and Activism at the Local, State, and Federal Level for Special Populations

2.    How to Affect and Create for Your Students from Special Populations 101

3.    How to Understand & Implement Policy, Practice, & the Nexus of Perkins, WIA, Common Core Standards, and the Blue Print, etc.

Sessions (Dec 3-4^th)*: How To: Serve Veterans in Your CTE Classroom; Help Single Parents; Understand and Recruit into STEM Careers; Teach Self-Advocacy; Reach ESL Students; Find and Apply for Grants; Perkins and Other Legislation; Use Micro-messages Effectively in your CTE Classroom; Advocate for CTE and Your Students; Incorporate Green Careers into your CTE Program; Help Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Students Find Their Way; Understand and Avoid Bias, Stereotype Threat; and Other Internal Barriers; Host a STE Summer Camp; and your Program?


REGISTRATION and Call for Proposal (CFP) available now at:
www.jspac.org

Tammy Montgomery
JSPAC Program Coordinator
GCCCD Auxiliary
PO Box 191583
Sacramento, CA 95819
(916)900-8288
(916)900-8289 fax
www.jspac.org

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President Barack Obama Recognizes DVC and DVC Student for Winning the USCC National Cyber Competition

 Doug Spindler’s CNT student Jason Reinstedler just won the USCC National Cyber competition. Just to put this into perspective winning the USCC National Cyber competition is winning the “Super Bowl” or “World Series” of cyber security competitions.

Jason on Right

Jason winnings include a trophy, $1,000, a letter of recognition signed by President Barack Obama, paid tuition for the CISSP exam, and job interviews with federal and state agencies and with industry. Jason and Doug have already been congratulated by representatives from the White House, Department of Homeland Security, the F.B.I. and other event sponsors.

Jason was just one member of Team DVC, which Doug Spindler formed from members of the Bits “N” Bytes computer club. Team DVC competed against teams from two and four year colleges and universities nationwide, as well as a team from South Korea. Doug’s DVC team was also recognized for comprising the most diverse membership compared to all other teams.

Students are already contacting Doug asking to register for his CNT classes in order to prepare for next years’ completion.

The White House and USCC are preparing a press release regarding Jason’s win and Doug’s efforts to prepare DVC students for the competition.

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Infographic: The Greatest Security Breaches In Internet History

Infographic of the Day  fastcodesign

Hundreds of millions of people have lost their data to hackers, and it’s all big business’s fault.

Living Social gets hacked, and 50 million people have their name, address, and date of birth stolen. Credit-card information is safe, we’re assured, but it’s of little comfort. Plastic can be replaced. Identity? Not so much.

Yet Living Social is but one of many mega data breaches suffered in the Internet age, a point driven home by World’s Biggest Data Breaches, the latest infographic from David McCandless / Information Is Beautiful. The graphic visualizes all of those vaguely disconcerting security headlines from the past nine years into a tangible timeline of bubbles. So you can quickly spot the biggest breaches--like when Sony lost 77,000,000 user accounts over PSN, or when payment processor Heartland lost 130,000,000 accounts (which subsequently cost them about $140,000,000 in fines and settlements).

Aside from its sheer interest quotient, McCandless and co. added several small touches to keep the information interactive. Hovering over each bubble enlarges it for easy reading, and a click exposes a short story behind the unsettling figures. It’s just a pile of circles, but it’s tactile and explorable, tempting you to dig beneath the surface.

As for what one might learn from the graphic, I cannot say. Video game companies are the worst offenders, while banks seem to have staved off hackers (relatively) respectably. But is anyone going to change their lifestyle--give up Call of Duty or shove money in the mattress because their data may be stolen along with the faceless masses? Of course not.

Security breaches have become the power outage of the information age. They’re inevitable, devastating, and totally worth it for the convenience and pleasure we derive from the services that come under attack. Which is why, if you scroll below, you’ll find my social security number, blood type, mother’s maiden name, and everywhere I’ve ever lived. I’ve also enclosed a few semiclad selfies in case you haven’t checked my Instagram lately.
See more here.
[Hat tip: Mashable]

Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson is a writer who started Philanthroper.com, a simple way to give back every day. His work has also appeared at Gizmodo, Kotaku, PopMech, PopSci

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Wadhwani Foundation Educational Technology ICT Delivery Pilot Opportunity

The Wadhwani Foundation was founded by Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and businessman. We have been working on a series of initiatives in India for the past decade, including the National Entrepreneurship Network and the Skills Development Network. This year, we have launched our first major U.S. initiative entitled, Race to a Job. We will enhance online courses in American community colleges in career and technical education, by leveraging new kinds of technology such as gaming and simulation.

We are about to launch a pilot this fall with a group of community colleges from around the country and a subsequent larger pilot in the spring of 2014 with other major U.S. foundations to test these new technologies with cohorts of students. Our ultimate goal is to increase job placements and to help fill the skills gap in the United States. We are interested in occupational programs such as health care, IT, manufacturing and automotive repair. In the area of ICT, we are looking at occupational programs such as computer support specialist and networking engineer.

We invite you to submit a RFP (attached). We will launch our first pilot this fall and our second pilot next spring. Our goal is to create hybrid online courses in a more standardized, nationally scalable and portable manner. Each pilot will last 4-6 months. We will fund a portion of the technology enhancements, will provide our project manager, our technology partners and will explore co-funding opportunities as well with other major foundations. Our foundation will work with employers and trade associations in this initiative as well. We would like to request a meeting with you to discuss potential participation in one of our upcoming pilots. Please find attached our:

• RFI,
• RFP, and
• presentation.  

Thank you.

Rishi Chopra

Program Coordinator-Skill Development Network

Wadhwani Foundation

2475 Hanover Street, Palo Alto CA 94304 USA

Office Phone: 650-935-9532

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Resistance greets pumped-up effort to streamline community college, CSU transfer

August 6th, 2013 | EdSource

By Kathryn Baron More Sharing Servs

Foothill College biology majors Hiba Dada, left, and Jannah Bashar. Credit: Kathryn Baron, EdSource Today.

When a long-awaited and much-needed bill to streamline transfer from community colleges to California State University passed the state Legislature three years ago, it had sweeping support: unanimous approval among lawmakers and a list of backers more than 80 deep. All is not so harmonious for its younger sibling, Senate Bill 440,which would compel campuses to move faster to develop transfer degrees. 

Despite a spate of amendments in recent weeks, including several just released Monday, prominent community college and CSU officials and organizations have voted to oppose the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, when it comes up for a hearing Tuesday in the Assembly Higher Education Committee.

“In its current form, SB 440 will undermine the extensive progress in establishing transfer pathways from California Community Colleges to the CSU,” wrote the Cal State Academic Senate in its May 2013 resolution against the bill.

Sen. Padilla introduced SB 440 as a follow-up to his earlier bill, SB 1440, after a 2012 report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office found that although there has been progress in developing the transfer degrees, implementation is uneven from campus to campus.

SB 1440, called the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act, passed in 2010 and seeks to accomplish what California’s Master Plan for Higher Education recommended half a century ago: a clear and smooth pathway for community college graduates to transfer into CSU and receive full credit for all of theirundergraduate courses. Under the bill, community colleges and CSU have to collaborate on developing 60-unit transferable associate degrees that guarantee students who complete them will be admitted to California State University as juniors and will need only another 60 credits to graduate with a bachelor’s degree.

For each transferable major, faculties from both systems have to develop a model curriculum and approve the content of each course. There are currently associate degrees of transfer in 23 majors, including anthropology, computer science, physics, English and psychology. But some campuses have been slower than others to implement them. That’s where SB 440 comes in.

Stagnant or stymied

Using figures from March 2012, the LAO found that “60 percent of community colleges have four or fewer associate degrees for transfer” out of a possible 16 approved for transfer at that time. It didn’t seem likely that the colleges would meet the goal set by the Community College Chancellor’s Office for 80 percent participation this fall, and 100 percent a year from now.

“We’ve had some community colleges really embrace the spirit of the bill and not limit themselves to two (majors),” Sen. Padilla told the Fresno Bee last week. “But some are still more resistant and slower to come along, so we needed to put more teeth in the bill.”

A year after the LAO report, however, implementation had picked up considerably. As of the end of June, just 11 percent of community colleges had four or fewer associate degrees for transfer, according to themonthly update on SB 1440. Deputy Chancellor Erik Skinner said they’ve approved 805 transfer degrees at the state’s 112 campuses and another 850 are in progress.

“We’re actually quite pleased at the rate of implementation,” said Skinner, acknowledging that there was a backlog at the chancellor’s office early on when they were

inundated with applications from the colleges seeking approval of the transferable degrees. However, at the time, the community college system was just beginning to recover from more than $800 million in cuts. “There are aspects of implementation that have been slowed because of lack of resources,” Skinner said.

It also takes time to write new curricula, said Kimberlee Messina, vice president of instruction at Foothill College, just north of San Jose. Foothill is one of the colleges cited for being slow to comply.  It had just two transfer degrees, psychology and sociology, in place by the end of June, according to the monthly update. What that report doesn’t show, Messina said, is that Foothill has 11 degrees in the pipeline and four others awaiting approval by the state chancellor’s office.

Messina said there’s a “lack of understanding” of the lengthy process required to approve a new or revised curriculum. Faculty develops a program and brings it to a curriculum committee. If the committee signs off, then it goes to the chancellor’s office. At any point in the process there is likely to be some back and forth before it’s approved.

“For us, a year is not dragging our feet; it takes that long,” Messina said.

Is broader better?

One of the biggest issues with the bill is around what are called areas of emphasis. SB 440 would require transfer degrees in more general subjects such as natural sciences, humanities or social sciences. Faculty said those topics were too broad and wouldn’t adequately prepare students for upper division work at CSU or a job if they decided not to continue on after earning an associate degree.

“The broad categories do not serve us very well with these particular pathways to CSU,” said Beth Smith, president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges.

Smith said these degrees would undermine the purpose of SB 1440. “The point of 1440 was the students knew exactly what they had to do at community colleges and they knew exactly what they had to do at CSUs,” she said.

In the latest version of SB 440, Sen. Padilla has removed the specific areas of emphasis included in the earlier bill and leaves it up to the colleges to decide on the subjects instead of the Legislature. The measure does still contain timelines for those degrees, giving colleges until fall 2015 to implement two areas of emphasis and until fall 2016 for another two.

Those changes aren’t enough to convince opponents to change their positions.

The language in the bill on this issue is still problematic, said Lizette Navarette, a legislative advocate for theCommunity College League of California. “Areas of emphasis will be difficult to align to the pathways and clear parameters created by SB 1440.”

“I think we fundamentally disagree with that argument,” countered Audrey Dow, community affairs director for the Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit organization that seeks to make college affordable and accessible. The Campaign was a key sponsor of SB 1440 and has been corralling support for SB 440. Dow added that community colleges and CSU already agreed to develop area-of-emphasis degrees because they were included in the original bill.

Getting students on board

Some 50,000 students a year transfer from California community colleges to Cal State. Since SB 1440 took effect in the 2011-12 academic year, about 1,300 of them have taken the transfer degree path. Some officials say the low number may just be a factor of how new the program is, but Dow said marketing is not what it should be.

“You always want to look at your options,” said Foothill College student Gurjeet Ghuman. Credit: Kathryn Baron, EdSource Today

Another provision of SB 440 calls for colleges to mount an advertising campaign to inform students of the transfer degrees, although the bill doesn’t provide any funding to help schools pull that together.

The Campaign for College Opportunity interviewed about 200 community college students across the state and found that 90 percent of them had never heard of the program.

“These are students who are actively engaged in their campuses,” Dow said. “Whether they’re in student government or they’re in some sort of leadership group, they have no idea that the degree is available.”

A casual sampling of students studying in the grassy courtyard of the math and science buildings at Foothill College came up with similar results.

“I never heard about the transfer AA degree. I visit my counselor often and never heard about it,” said 20-year-old Jannah Bashar, a biology major who’s headed to the University of Toronto this fall.  “I’m not sure if it would have been helpful because I don’t have enough information.”

A fellow biology major sitting next to her, Hiba Dada, 19, said she remembers hearing about the program at the beginning of the year. “I think I saw it once on the school website,” Dada said. It wouldn’t have interested her anyway, said Dada, because she planned on transferring to the University of California. She’s on her way to UC Davis, which is accepting her biology units.

At a nearby table, 21-year-old Gurjeet Ghuman initially demurred, saying he wouldn’t have considered the program because he never intended to earn an associate degree. Ghuman, also a biology major, is transferring to San Francisco State in the fall and eventually wants to become a veterinarian.

“There’s not really a specific degree for my major,” he said. But after a moment’s consideration he added, “I definitely would have considered it; you always want to look at your options.”

Going deeper

Senate Bill 440, amended version as of Aug. 5, 2013

A Degree with a Guarantee, official website of SB 1440

Transfer Model Curriculum website

Letter from CSU Academic Senate to Sen. Padilla, May 6, 2013

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