California Community Colleges Podcast

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Oakley goes one-on-one with a revolving expert guest, in a focused discussion of specific issues in higher education. Oakley's laid-back interview style places an emphasis on the guest expert and the topic at hand, in this fascinating (if infrequent) look at the evolving issues in two-year college education.

Just listened to the interview with Julie Su. I didn’t learn much. She said buzzwords like “equity,” “pathways,” etc. but mostly didn’t provide concrete examples of what the she or the gov’t was doing on those fronts—just said things like “equity is so important,” which is true but, what are you gonna do about it? The host asked her questions she didn’t really answer, but he didn’t follow up. At the beginning and ending of the podcast, the guest and host just congratulated each other and told each other how great they are. Tried to listen to a previous episode, but couldn’t make it through because of all the jargon. Conclusion: this podcast is mostly a vanity project, and the intended audience is... not sure but definitely not community college students or the general public, even though I assume we’re paying the production costs.

What a wonderful description of how Community Colleges work in California. It reminded me how much I enjoyed my experience in 1971 at College of Marin. It was a time of joy where I was encouraged to and did take many classes in all disciplines. It helped me define which direction I wanted to go when I went on tocomplete my BA at Sonoma State leading to a teaching credential and a wonderful 33 year career in the classroom. I have always remembered that time with great joy and excitement in an atmosphere that opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me. Keep up the good work.