Sonya Christian on her ambitious goals as California’s new community colleges chief

Sonya Christian started in her role as chancellor of of the California Community Colleges on June 1.

Credit: Bakersfield College

Sonya Christian, the new chancellor for the California Community Colleges, has ambitious goals for the system of 116 colleges.

To tackle declining enrollment that she describes as a “crisis situation,” she wants to appeal to millions of low-income adults across the state who have never enrolled in college. She hopes to simplify the state’s complex transfer process, possibly by working with the 23-campus California State University to automatically admit students who complete an associate degree for transfer. And she’s already made it clear that she wants every ninth grader in the state to participate in dual enrollment and take classes at a community college.

Christian, the 11th permanent chancellor and first woman in the role, discussed those plans during a one-on-one conversation this week with EdSource, her first such interview since taking over as chancellor on June 1. She was previously the chancellor of the Kern Community College District and before that was president of Bakersfield College.

Christian also revealed during the interview that her plans and goals for the system will be further outlined in a new planning document that her office plans to publish next month, called Vision 2030: A Roadmap for California Community Colleges.

The interview came as Christian was visiting West Los Angeles College for a conference focused on the role of community colleges in helping tackle climate challenges.

The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

EdSource: The main initiative of your predecessor, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, was the Vision for Success, which detailed his goals for improving completion rates, transfer rates and other student outcomes. Do you plan to continue implementing that initiative?

Christian: Let me tell you about Vision 2030. You’re aware that our board of governors has adopted the Vision for Success. And then last year, the governor put out the Roadmap for California Community Colleges. When I was named chancellor in February, I went deeply into both of those documents and started thinking about the next five to seven years, because the governor’s goal for 2030 is to increase degree attainment to 70%. So that seeded the development of this document that we’re going to unveil in July, called Vision 2030: A Roadmap for California Community Colleges. So Vision 2030 not only is a synthesis of those two documents, but we add to that the current context.

So Vision 2030 is a new planning document that your office will be publishing?

Yes, but instead of using the word new, I would call it the next evolution of the Vision for Success, with the governor’s roadmap. So even the title was very carefully crafted. We want to retain the word vision, signaling that the core principle of our commitment to success with equity, that is a core principle of the Vision for Success. So all of that is preserved. The 2030 signals that we are looking at outcomes for 2030 because that’s aligning with the governor.

What do you see as the role of the community colleges in helping to deal with climate change?

It’s related to this idea of community colleges being assets to the community. You’ve got 116 community colleges all across California, and they get into hard-to-access communities. So our commitment to an equitable transition in the economy, from fossil fuel to renewables, for example, tapping into the community colleges I believe is the only way to bring the voices of those communities to the table. So that space of being an asset to the community, you will see community colleges getting deeper into the work.

One of the big priorities that you’ve discussed for the system is dual enrollment and your goal to enroll every ninth grader in dual enrollment. How do you plan to get local districts on board with that goal? 

The outcomes we’re looking at are 12 college credits by the time every high school student graduates.  Cooperation is going to be a big part of what the chancellor’s office is going to be promoting. Cooperation and collaboration, that’s the name of the game. I think we have an incredibly unique governance system. We have the board of governors, and we have local governance. I see it as an asset.

The work is really to have the board of governors and the local district trustees working together on the Vision 2030. We need to hang out in each other’s spaces. And it’s through simple old-fashioned relationships and conversations. The districts take the lead, but we are right there with them. So in every space we are together, one leads, the other supports.

The dual enrollment legislation was passed in 2015. So people like me who were presidents, we took it, and we started implementing. So in Kern and Bakersfield College, all of our high schools are doing dual enrollment. But when you look at the statewide data, after eight years, only 14% of high school seniors are involved with dual enrollment. When you get down to the ninth grade, it’s 6%. I’m looking at large-scale technology innovation and the relationships locally. So local implementation and systems development is where I feel a sense of confidence that we are going to come together like you’ve never seen before, and we will see those outcomes changing, so that 12 units in four years is not theoretical. We will see the movement on the dial with those outcomes by the end of 2024 and 2025. It’s not going to be eight years. We’re going to move fast.

Community colleges across the country have suffered big enrollment drops since the onset of the pandemic. What are your plans for addressing those declines in California?

It’s a crisis situation. And when you look at enrollments and those that actually got impacted, it is an equity issue because it has impacted our students of color and our low-income students the most. So there will be very focused strategies. Early College is one where you will see an uptick. And I am confident that when you look at the numbers at the end of December, we will see growth.

Another area that we are getting more intentional is to look at socioeconomic mobility for low-income adults. In California, we’ve got 6.8 million low-income adults, and that 6.8 million has not found college. Those who find college are those who are privileged. It is a moral obligation to bring college to them and to customize it for low-income adults. And the way to do it is through partnerships. Cooperation is essential, working with community-based organizations, industry partners. Community colleges are going to be engaging with organizations that have large numbers of low-income workers. For example, SEIU represents workers. By partnering with building trades unions, we can focus on apprenticeships actually having degrees and certificates attached to it. And looking at industries which have large employers, like our health care industries, and looking at those who are incumbent workers to see how we can get to those incumbent workers and provide them a short-term skill so then they can bump up in their wages. And then continue that relationship, so it’s not a one-and-done approach. The low-income adult learners is going to be an area that California is going to innovate. And it’s going to be a model, I believe, for the nation.

Since 2017, there have been two pieces of state legislation, AB 705 and AB 1705, that have made it easier for community college students to skip remedial classes and enroll directly in transfer-level classes. Is there anything more you want to see from colleges to make sure students don’t get stuck in remedial courses?

AB 1705 is the fine-tuning of 705. I see much work absolutely to be done, particularly when we are looking at pathways. Math is a little bit complicated. For English, you have that expository composition as a freshman-level English class. In math, you have different pathways. If you’re a STEM major or if you’re a business major, you have different math courses at that freshman level. So we have a lot of complexities to discuss and to continue to fine-tune, always with the student at the center.

I always tend to fall in the camp of putting a student in the upper-level course and providing the support services. I was having a debate with colleagues about dual enrollment, and they were saying, what happens if students are not successful? But I believe that all of our high school students can be successful in college classes. We just need to provide the right support services for the students. Academic support, counseling support, tutoring support. That same concept of support goes for English and math placement. So I will be intimately involved in the next iterations of work that is going to unfold with 1705.

Across California’s community colleges, there have been big expansions recently in the number of baccalaureate degrees that are offered, thanks to 2021 legislation that allows the system to approve up to 30 bachelor’s degree offerings annually. In your view, what is the value of community colleges being able to offer baccalaureate degrees?

I think they’re absolutely essential. I think California came late to it. But I believe that once we institutionalize the community college baccalaureate as a viable pathway, I think California will leapfrog the other states in its baccalaureate attainment because of it. I see the community college baccalaureate as an option to get, for example, place-bound students to their next job.

In Vision 2030, you will see that we have three directions, and the first direction is access to baccalaureate attainment. And there are two paths to baccalaureate attainment. One is transfer. I’m fully committed to the transfer agenda. And the second is the community college baccalaureate. I was shocked when I saw that from 2017, we increased our associate degree for transfers, our ADTs, by 48%. But when you look at the increase in our enrollments at our universities, it was only by 18%. There’s a serious capacity issue. We still have to go full throttle with our transfer agenda, expand the capacities at our public institutions, the CSU and UC. But there’s also the community college baccalaureate. So I’m a firm believer. And if you look at the demographics that a community college baccalaureate serves, it’s more of an adult learner population, racially diverse group, and they get jobs right as they graduate. It leads to socioeconomic mobility.

You brought up transfer and increasing transfer. How do you plan to make sure more students are successfully transferring to UC and CSU?

I’m optimistic. What you can expect to see in the Vision 2030 is the idea of letting the data flow. So I mentioned the ADTs. To me, the ADTs are information on each of these students. The CSU should have that information that shows the courses they’ve taken — that they’ve completed these general education courses, that they’ve completed these major courses. Imagine if the CSU gets the information of every ADT completed and turns around and says, for example, welcome, José, you’ve been automatically admitted into the CSU. And you may not be able to go to San Diego State, but you can go to, maybe Channel Islands. We have to do it. We have the technology capabilities to do it. So it is our obligation.