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Kathy Sproles |
Longtime CCA activist Kathy Sproles will resume teaching fulltime at Hartnell Colllege in the fall after serving two terms as president of the National Council for Higher Education, an independent organization within the National Education Association for higher education faculty and staff.
“My students miss me being on campus full-time, and I miss them,” said Sproles, who teaches language skills to non-English speaking students. “It’s time to pass the torch.”
Sproles has served two two-year terms as NCHE president and was vice president for six years before that. She was also president of the Community College Association for two terms and a longtime member of CTA’s State Council.
“Outstanding job”
“Kathy has done an outstanding job understanding and serving as our advocate on national and international issues from the Spellings Commission to the WTO’s General Agreement for Trade in Services,” said Ann Shadwick, NEA director from California representing higher education. “She was very effective on behalf of NEA’s higher education members in fighting for programs and services.”
The NCHE has been kept busy monitoring and providing testimony before the Commission on the Future of U.S. Higher Education, which produced a five-part action plan based on recommendations by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.
“Just as the Bush administration has advanced the idea of ‘No Child Left Behind’ it is also proposing that ‘no college be left behind.’ Both reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and the report of Secretary Spellings’ Commission on the Future of Higher Education have placed the issues of higher education squarely at the forefront of national debate,” Sproles said. “How this nation copes with college access and affordability for all students, how colleges will be accredited and funded in the future, by what standards faculty and colleges will be held accountable, and how academic freedoms are protected on our campuses — all of these things are up for grabs.”