Our Mission
The mission of College of Alameda is to serve the educational needs of its diverse community by providing comprehensive and flexible programs and resources that empower students to achieve their goals.
Our Vision
The Vision of College of Alameda is that we are a diverse, supportive, empowering learning community for seekers of knowledge. We are committed to providing a creative, ethical and inclusive environment in which students develop their abilities as thinkers, workers and citizens of the world.
We use this vision to choreograph three central themes in our quest for “learning excellence” and services to students.
These three themes are:
- Academic Excellence
- Budgetary Competence, and
- Community Engagement
We call these “our ABCs” emphasizing crucial success indicators for our students in achieving an enhanced capacity to pursue their dreams! Noting the Community College Movement all over the world emerged out of the American focus upon “community” and “citizenship” in higher education; we draw the meaning of a community college degree as defined for us by California Education Code: Title 5. From this, what you should be able to do with what you learn here is outlined in three general areas that define a comprehensive community college education that prepares students in terms of:
- Foundational Knowledge and Learning – college courses that prepare people for transfer to higher levels of education or simply to understand our place in the world and the world in and of itself
- Critical Thinking and Applied Skills – an overall set of life “survival” skills necessary to be a productive, employed, and effective citizen including applied learning in the areas of Career and Technical Education (CTE)
- Personal Enrichment and Efficacy – college courses that develop the life skill sets for pursuing well being and an enhanced quality of life
At College of Alameda, “ABCs” means we integrate our core values in all we do to help students in their efforts to realize their dreams. How are these crucial success indicators emphasized in service to our learning community?
Our Vision
Academic Excellence means we validate our work based on the assessment of our students’ success as defined by our Institutional Learning Outcomes. We seek to meet these goals with a commitment to innovative and integrated curriculum built upon collaborative partnerships within our organization between student services & academic instruction, seeking to create opportunities for applied learning (such as service learning, civic engagement and cross-discipline learning communities), all within in the context of a psychologically and intellectually safe environment that encourages risk-taking and celebrates our successes.
Budgetary Competence means all our services need to be offered creatively within the real-world constraints of our budget. We are all a part of this process of being responsible stewards for the resources entrusted to us by the community we serve. We strive to not bring ideas to the table without first asking how this fits within our resource limits, seeking to find creative ways to supplement our budget. In this we also seek to find creative ways to do what we want to do within the context of our vision of success – not merely a shrunken vision of what we have always done. We also seek to serve our students with convenient and creative scheduling allowing us to offer courses that are productive, creative & experimental. We look for holistic offerings that complement our existing programs, our sister colleges within the Peralta Community College District, and that play to the unique strengths of College of Alameda.
Community Engagement means we seek to embody a Spirit of Collegiality, actively working towards a student-centered philosophy that embodies a community of scholar practitioners committed to serving our students with professional and collegial competence. We aspire to hold one another accountable to clear standards of success and excellence – as defined by our Institutional Learning Outcomes – utilizing a process of evaluation and assessment, leading to improvement of college programs & services. In this we
use tried and tested models of academic excellence that work! COA’s Learning Communities (Adelante, APASS, Amandla, Community Leadership and Public Service) are all examples of successful programs that exemplify our commitment to students. We focus on a holistic collaborative approach to learning; one in which learning happens both in- and out- of the classroom. We recognize our frontline staff members are no less important than our administration and our faculty cannot function without either. We actively
promote and support students as equal partners in shared governance through the Associated Students of College of Alameda (ASCOA) and our Campus Life Council. This one team approach, comprised of students, staff and faculty, seeks to de-emphasize distinctions between the stakeholders; we are all learners, each working towards a common goal: student success!
In line with our definition of crucial student success indicators, “Learning at College of Alameda” follows the notion that an Associate’s degree from a comprehensive community college should embody, “a coherent and integrated pattern of learning experiences (to) prepare students (as) educated persons with a broad range of knowledge to evaluate and appreciate the physical environment, the culture, and the society in which they live; to be able to examine the values inherent in proposed solutions to major social problems; and to be able to participate effectively in their resolution.” Title 5 emphasizes the role of education in preparing “citizens with a broad educational foundation, to develop a populace that can participate effectively in all domains of society: civically, economically, and politically.”
Therefore, it is the Mission of College of Alameda to serve the educational needs of its diverse community by providing comprehensive and flexible programs and resources that empower students to achieve their goals.
Following Title 5, the faculty, staff, and administration at College of Alameda strive to accomplish our mission in a more complex world with challenges unique to living in the 21st Century. We meet these challenges offering courses in three areas of focus: career technical education, liberal arts and sciences, and personal enrichment. It is by being “comprehensive” in this way that College of Alameda offers students critical life skills and tools to live more effectively in the world.