Common Course Numbering: The Unsettled Issue

We posted the Common Course Numbering: Pros and Cons last November and received thirteen thoughtful comments on the topic. Since then, councils and faculty task forces have convened. The Instruction Commission will review the CCN Steering Committee's analysis and recommendations at their Feb. 15-16 meeting. Among the recommendations is that a "designator" be assigned to the common courses. If collisions occur, colleges needs to re-number their unique courses locally.

According to the Common Course Numbering page at the State Board Web site, some community and technical colleges will implement the CCN plan as soon as summer 2007, others by summer 2008. In the meantime, the opposition movement still rages on. An urgent call for faculty to take action was issued again today. Apparently the sentiments on both sides are still going strong. The major concerns of faculty who oppose the CCN plan are:

• The four-year universities are not participating in the CCN process.
• The actual system wide costs have not been realistically estimated.
• It will cause disruption not better efficiency.
• There may be better alternatives.
• Faculty at some colleges are not presented with viewpoints from both sides.
• There was very minimal faculty involvement at the initial planning stage, but the work and impact of the implementation may fall heavily on faculty.

However, some supporters of the CCN plan remain hopeful.

“I believe responsible, open minded people should be able to see the long term benefits of coordinating numbers for equivalent courses across the state. The four-year universities actually want us to do it because it makes their evaluations of our coursework easier.” (George Neal, Faculty, South Puget Sound Community College)

“The common course numbering project began more than three years ago. State committees comprised of representatives across our system researched many other state programs that are currently in existence. ... All of the issues ... were fully debated by groups such as ATC, IC and the college presidents and a decision was made to move ahead as the benefits to students strongly outweigh the costs of implementation." (Michael Lamka, Division Chair, Natural & Social Sciences, Pierce College, Puyallup)

What will this lead to? FACTC reps will discuss the CCN issue at the Feb. 9 meeting. As Robert Hobbs, a faculty member of Bellevue Community College, stated that faculty "need to become better informed than we really have time for and we need to state where we stand." If you want to weigh in, please post your comment or share it with your campus FACTC rep.

Jennifer Wu
North Seattle Community College