The California Community Colleges Board of Governors questioned chancellor’s office staff on November 18 about how rapidly common course numbering and competency‑based education pilots can be rolled out and how the system will preserve transferability.

Board member Tom Epstein asked officials for a clearer sense of scale and timing, saying he was “curious, how many courses are being renumbered by January 2025,” and pressed for a plan to avoid delays once local colleges finish their revisions.

Chancellor Christian and Academic Senate leadership described a phased approach. Academic Senate President Cheryl Aschenbach said the initiative includes testing templates and seeking system‑level articulation so that “when any of our colleges then revise their local course outlines to align with that template, which has intentional identical language in it, [it] will support articulation on the system level rather than the individual college level.” She told the board that UC and CSU reviews are not yet fully aligned with the templates, and that intersegmental conversations must continue.

Staff described an early contract with UC Berkeley to pilot use of AI tools to analyze curriculum patterns and accelerate articulation reviews. Chancellor Christian said the AI work is “still in its infancy” but could help identify relationships between existing courses and university requirements.

Board members voiced urgency about speed and student impact. Several members urged the chancellor’s office to prioritize the work and to use advocacy and technology to persuade UC and CSU partners to speed their reviews, noting that delays in articulation can stall students’ transfer paths.

The discussion occurred during an action item on contracts and grants; board members asked staff to return with additional implementation details in subsequent reports so trustees can judge whether timelines and resources are sufficient.

Next steps: staff said phase‑one templates are due from participating colleges this fall and that they will continue to convene articulation partners and the Academic Senate to pursue system‑level reviews and to test AI assistance in the process.