# data[].attributes.body
work towards a funding model that does not solely rely on tuition, so that the tuition amount can be lowered, making CCA more accessible/attractive.

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incorporate/advertise more connections/relationships with our local communities/employers/artists

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proud of the way so many staff and faculty and students step up to make the changes they want to see at CCA

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How might we celebrate and talk about the achievements of faculty and alumni more?

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How might we celebrate and talk about the achievements of faculty and alumni more?

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I am most proud of the way that our students have proven to be resilient and committed to their creative growth.   And if I could change one thing it would be to foster trust and solidarity amongst our faculty 

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I am most proud of the way that our students have proven to be resilient and committed to their creative growth.   And if I could change one thing it would be to foster trust and solidarity amongst our faculty 

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I am proud of the people and collaborative spirit of CCA and the resiliency of our collective community in the face of many challenges. As a staff member this makes me proud because as an individual I can make a big impact but I always need to work with other people to accomplish things big and small. 

# data[].attributes.subject
I am proud of the people and collaborative spirit of CCA and the resiliency of our collective community in the face of many challenges. As a staff member this makes me proud because as an individual I can make a big impact but I always need to work with other people to accomplish things big and small. 

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If I could change one thing about CCA to make it better it would be more rotating/permanent student and faculty artwork on display for everyone to see when they come to campus.  There are too many white walls at CCA :).

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If I could change one thing about CCA to make it better it would be more rotating/permanent student and faculty artwork on display for everyone to see when they come to campus.  There are too many white walls at CCA :).

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I am proud of our resilience: while other colleges have not been able to survive COVID and the changes in the economy we are still fighting the good fight.

CCA needs to pay more attention to its faculty. We lack support for professional travel and research, we don't have proper offices and work spaces, and we are isolated and lonely in a campus that lacks human warmth.

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For Moving Forward with our new President, David Howse

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For Moving Forward with our new President, David Howse

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Q1: What are you most proud of about CCA? Why?

CCA is a community where we, active cultural practitioners, meet, share, support and work together for shaping the future of human culture.

Q2: If you could change one thing about CCA to make it better, what would you do?

Changing the decision making structure by fostering and clearly defining the idea of shared governance.

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Q1: I am so proud of the working environment that my close colleagues have created. I genuinely feel supported by my supervisor and my teammates. We have a great and fun working relationship. I am most proud of the culture and art makers that I get to work alongside with: the faculty, staff, and students. When I visit museums or galleries and I see a name I know, I get to say "I work with them!" "That's one of my faculty members", "I remember when they were a student at CCA" ,etc. It makes my heart so happy.

Q2: I would change the sparseness among the campus; I feel like there is a lack of connection between many intersections (both physically and relationally). It can be because Double ground isn't finished yet, but I constantly feel like I don't know many other folks from various offices, divisions, or programs.

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PROUD:

Our long history of excellence and creativity, our collaborative culture of support among colleagues. We saw during COVID how well we can all come together to creatively solve the many challenges we faced.

CHANGE:

We teach design thinking to our students but don't have a common language or professional development opportunity for staff. It would be great for staff to have the opportunity to tap into the knowledge that already exists - CCA courses specifically for CCA Staff.

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Proud of my colleagues, especially in Fine Arts, who devote themselves to our students despite ever-dwindling resources and respect. Proud of our students for their bravery and resilience. What I'd change: I want so much more faculty leadership/decision-making ability: we're immediately in touch with the students, but our insights get marginalized by admin who seem to distrust our wisdom. I want a college that's visually messier, more vibrant & spontaneous!

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Proud of my colleagues, especially in Fine Arts, who devote themselves to our students despite ever-dwindling resources and respect. Proud of our students for their bravery and resilience. What I'd change: I want so much more faculty leadership/decision-making ability: we're immediately in touch with the students, but our insights get marginalized by admin who seem to distrust our wisdom. I want a college that's visually messier, more vibrant & spontaneous!

# data[].attributes.body
CCA is a creative space for multi sensory learning and creative pedagogical experimentation. Lots of opportunities for faculty to try implimenting new things.

There is a real climate of fear and precarity for many many demographics on campus in a multitude of ways, mostly related directly and literally to survival economically and otherwise. Rotating leadership positions for set periods, with more electing of peers and less back door nomination might help faculty take more ownership at the school through self-governance. We want to thrive.

Too many forms. Not enough support staff for individual departments. Forms are not people. Creative Practitioners need both support of other people, and reasonable work loads that support their own practice whether staff or faculty. Less automation, more interaction.

Faculty minimum wage needs to match staff minimum wage per year, for all faculty ranked or unranked otherwise it is imposible to get by with current inflation. There are many many adjunct faculty on this campus currently making significantly less than $37k/year in the Bay Area. We need a bottom floor that is livable for faculty salaries that reflect our expertise and training.

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Q1: What are you most proud of about CCA? Why?

We are surrounded by radiant beings in our CCA Community. My pride rests in seeing our communal vibrance - in working to amplify it, uncover more of it and simply in being with it together. This is clearly a heart-centered group, passionate and dedicated to problem solving what I call our "juicy challenges" (trust-building, improving collective mindset and in finding/ operating in flow-state). I love this work, the determined practice of meeting our obstacles with charm. It is a delight to work with such an excellent caliber of students and colleagues. During the years I've devoted to CCA, I see the challenges continually growing exponentially. This is certainly not a boring environment! The challenges make the work ever more rewarding, the wins are sweeter somehow. Despite our current obstacles, I see many collective wins in our future and it excites me.

- Ingrid V. Wells (Assistant Director, Fine Arts)

The attachment is a piece I made for the recent CCA staff exhibition. I am attaching something in order to break the ice a bit and perhaps encourage others to freely express themselves using visuals (in case it helps). The oil painting is entitled "Radiant Beings All Around" and it is how I feel about all of you, my treasured fellow artists and colleagues.

For the answer to the second question (Q2: If you could change one thing about CCA to make it better, what would you do?):

We need to be kinder, to ourselves and to each other, with a sense of urgency in that work. When reviewing our communications, methods, our procedures and systems - we should keep the question of "is this kind?" in our minds. Then perhaps stretch ourselves to be even more kind and generous than perhaps we once believed possible.

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I am most proud of the faculty and staff community at CCA. We work together, have each other's backs, collaborate from time to time, and care deeply about the student experience and learning outcomes.

For improving our institution, I would augment the number of qualified and diversified students who apply to CCA and become more selective in terms of who we admit. CCA is a learning environment for all of us and it is important to achieve excellence in all members of our community. We want to encourage the best art and design minds in the world to come here and collaborate while we create a new world. Again, excellence, and nothing less...

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Q1: Most proud of / Q2: What would I change?

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Q1: Most proud of / Q2: What would I change?

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Q1: Colleagues are supportive and students are a joy to watch as they develop their creative voices and work.

Q2: The environment at CCA is so intertwined with the economic health of the school. If only an endowment could ease that pain...it's systemic, and administrative changes in response to this have led to absolute undeniable emergencies and disasters. We lost our dear colleague Peter Simensky to suicide and the faculty in Fine Arts need an incredible amount of love and support right now rather than defensiveness or skirting the issue.

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Proud of my CCA colleagues, the caliber of their professional practices, their dedication to their students and the outcomes they achieve.

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Proud of my CCA colleagues, the caliber of their professional practices, their dedication to their students and the outcomes they achieve.

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I would like to change 'the culture of poverty', as it clips our vision and capacities.... I would make a Bay Area living wage the baseline and invest in faculty housing and/or a low interest mortgage system, like the UC schools.

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I'm proud of the first in family to go to college page on CCA's website. I LOVE seeing all the faculty, staff and student faces and reading their stories.

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I'm proud of the first in family to go to college page on CCA's website. I LOVE seeing all the faculty, staff and student faces and reading their stories.

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One (relatively easy) thing I would change is the dollar amount allocated to our students' print accounts each semester. It's currently $15 and I'd make it $200. This would align students print accounts more closely to the printing demands in their classes and would help our low income students in particular.

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Q1. Something I like about CCA?

The community of students and faculty, and being able to work with students in other majors

Q2. What can we do better?

Maybe not suppress talk about the genocide happening in Palestine?

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I am most proud of hiring increasingly diverse faculty to mirror the diversity of students in our program <3

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I am most proud of hiring increasingly diverse faculty to mirror the diversity of students in our program <3

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The recent reorg was not thought through before implementation. There was no service design lens applied to how to get things done. It’s been frustrating for RRs and returning adjuncts to adjust to the new workflows. But it’s been absolutely astounding what it’s done to put pressure on Chairs to hold things in imbalance AND to make connections on behalf of administrative factions that do not communicate with each other. It’s irresponsible to have not thought through this beforehand.

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The recent reorg was not thought through before implementation. There was no service design lens applied to how to get things done. It’s been frustrating for RRs and returning adjuncts to adjust to the new workflows. But it’s been absolutely astounding what it’s done to put pressure on Chairs to hold things in imbalance AND to make connections on behalf of administrative factions that do not communicate with each other. It’s irresponsible to have not thought through this beforehand.

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Q1: That we are able to operate in the most expensive city in America and are unifying our campus in a brand new facility. Let’s get it done and bring every department back to one location for our communities health!

Q2: Stop the devisive tactics. I am not a legal expert, but in many jurisdictions, offering grants or any form of financial assistance based solely on the color of someone’s skin may be considered discriminatory and could raise legal concerns.

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Constantly proud of the talent but also the attitude, humility, and rootedness of our students and our faculty community

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We need to change the austerity attitude towards our own future.

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We need to change the austerity attitude towards our own future.

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The scarcity mentality--stripping down the bare minimum--is not a way to build the momentum, spirit, and community (of students or of faculty) for the future. It does not draw people to CCA. Faculty are struggling to make ends meet, and students are getting asked to give so much to come to CCA. I'd like to see the school building new models of funding that help us stay financially nimble, help faculty stay active in their practices, and draw in students making exciting work.

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I would like to see more cross-over between the Divisions. 

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I would like to see more cross-over between the Divisions. 

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I'd like to see more opportunities from courses, faculty, events, and spaces of gathering that bring the Divisions and programs together.

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A1: I’m a first year student and this is my 2nd semester, coming into CCA I really appreciate all the professor that I got to work with! I think they really do try and put all their effort into incorporate their way of teaching, while still following the guidelines.

Even for my 2nd semester, I heard a lot and tried so many new programs already!

A2: Movement helps us all think creatively!

I want to advocate for the potential of a gym for the possible future! One of the many ways one can de-stress is through exercising, I think having a gym would be great to increase serotonin and facilitate creative thinking!

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Proud of and energized by CCA's incredible, talented students, who fearlessly and intelligently push themselves to create and connect.

I would like to see an option for students during their first two years to explore the history of Enlightenment thought and the stories of the Western canon so they may be exposed to and engage with alternatives to the strictly postmodernist, postcolonial & activist pedagogy.

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Q1: What are you most proud of? Q2: What could change?

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Q1: What are you most proud of? Q2: What could change?

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I am proud that we are the last art school standing in the SF Bay Area, which says something about the resilience and perseverance of our faculty, staff, administration and students. As a community, we have enlivened and made an indelible mark on the history of the area and the shape of things to come. Whether Fine Arts, Design or Writing, it is exciting to see our community's reach across generations, continents and cross-disciplinary collaborative engagements. We continue to uphold the original inspirations of Fred Meyer to maintain pedagogies that uphold craft, concept, design and industry.

If we could change one thing, I would like to see less division between Design, Fine Arts and Humanities. We all share multiple concerns, philosophies and approaches and could benefit from modeling a more integrated approach to education for our students.

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Give us more gender neutral bathrooms in the main building and stop making us fight to keep the only one we have. It's not fair to place only one set of gender neutral bathrooms at the darkest, farthest, least populated corner of the entire school.

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I'd like to see an end to censorship attempts on students who want to engage in political topics and current events. Students who have been vocal about the genocide in Palestine have consistently been told to stop or tone it down, and have even been harassed on some occasions. That is unacceptable. Colleges have historically been places that spark social change. Our new president even quoted Paul Robeson in his video interview, saying he believes that artists are the gatekeepers of truth and civilization's radical voice. So why is CCA so determined to stop us from standing up for what we believe in?

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I am most proud of the reputation of CCA and being an alum of CCAC.

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I am most proud of the reputation of CCA and being an alum of CCAC.

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I continue to hope for more faculty/leadership diversity (particularly Black and Latino). Better qualified faculty with the education/experience/historical knowledge to help Black students fully articulate (work that focus on identity/first-person narratives.

I think a lot more needs to be done to better integrate (or admit) international students into the larger CCA student community. A majority of international students (particularly from China) are (self) segregated from the CCA collegiate experience.

In general the pedagogical rigor and student expectations have fallen. I've seen a lot of average work in recent years. Accomodations for students, as to not hurt feelings, or a misplaced understanding of inclusion has replaced personal responsibility.

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I would like to change CCA's attitude when it comes to the discussion and collaboration on real-world issues. CCA claims it stands for community betterment, responsibility to one another, free thinking, and making an impact, yet silences students who are trying to do just that. How can we as artists and community members make any real change to our world if we are told not to rock the boat? If social justice is a true core value at CCA, students should be allowed to voice their concerns surrounding social, cultural, economic, and global issues and participate in actions reflecting as such. We cannot do our job as artists if we are limited to palatable and uncontroversial methods of thought, discussion, and action.

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It would be great to see more respect for our campus and buildings. For example, more people cleaning up after themselves, returning furniture after moving it, painting + patching walls after installing art on them, not leaving food around. We all need to do our part.

Also, it would be amazing for CCA community members to get discounts on art museum admission (especially students). Other colleges in the city do this, and it would be of great value to our community.

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Q1 : I am most proud of CCA's community of faculty and students! Working together to create a better world is fulfilling and meaningful.

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Q1 : I am most proud of CCA's community of faculty and students! Working together to create a better world is fulfilling and meaningful.

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Q2: Restore the matching retirement funds to the faculty. This benefit cut in addition to our low salaries in a place with such a high cost of living is forcing faculty to look for other careers. Please listen to a faculty in crisis!

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Increase opportunities for spontaneous connection & collaboration

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Increase opportunities for spontaneous connection & collaboration

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My hope is that the public space at double ground will be a hub for people to interact more with each other and the environment, creating magical chance happenings

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I love the community and support at CCA. It feels like a family.

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With very few exceptions, I've found that pretty much everyone I work with is intelligent, empathetic, and deeply committed to making CCA a generative environment. Even in the face of furloughs and layoffs, staff are putting in work and imagination to make this school function, and I do have some, perhaps naive hope that we will be able to change things for the better under new leadership in a new space.

Unfortunately, pretty much every staff person I work with is also burn out and on their last legs. It's a shame that often it feels like administration is taking advantage of this dedication. It's going to take a lot of work, transparency, and open dialogue to build a sense of trust across the org chart. Often it feels like the paper thin staffing and scarcity of space and resources is presented as an inevitable collateral, rather than something that has real solutions that are worth prioritizing. Communications about financial and staffing cuts also come across as condescending.

The cognitive dissonance of wanting an organization to succeed when that organization has also screwed you over takes a toll on the mind, spirit, and body that is hard to justify when you're also hyper-aware that you could be laid off despite the years of work you put in. I hope that, with new leadership, staff will be viewed with respect and as the valuable resources that we are.

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 I am proud of the sense of community and care among the faculty, staff, and students. If I could change one thing about CCA to make it better, I would provide more support for our CCA faculty and staff. It is not at all reasonable or fair to ask them to take on upwards of triple the work to make up for budget cuts. The recent restructuring has had a horrible impact on our community and I am not happy benefitting from an institution that is not taking care of the people who keep it running. 

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 I am proud of the sense of community and care among the faculty, staff, and students. If I could change one thing about CCA to make it better, I would provide more support for our CCA faculty and staff. It is not at all reasonable or fair to ask them to take on upwards of triple the work to make up for budget cuts. The recent restructuring has had a horrible impact on our community and I am not happy benefitting from an institution that is not taking care of the people who keep it running. 

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I’m proud to work at unionized school. Solidarity is a light we shine on each other.

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If I could change one thing about CCA, I would make it affordable for more people.

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I’m proud to work with so many remarkably talented students.

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Most proud of?

I feel proud to be working amongst so many committed and talented artists and designers. Being here lifts the aspirations I have for myself.

If I could change one thing?

I see a lack of strategic foresight. Other art + design schools foresaw the longer-term impacts of the pandemic. They invested in the work needed to create shorter courses, utilizing their existing resources to expand their market beyond a dwindling pool of international students. We should be developing lower-cost, lower-commitment classes that provide everything from executive training to mid-career pivots, to career-booster classes.

So many of our woes seem to stem from our current financial problems. That’s a business management and strategic foresight issue. I hope CCA has the business mindset needed to put us back on track. We have the intellectual, creative, and technical resources. I wish we could be smarter with what we have.

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If I could change one thing, I would narrow the gap between CCA’s highest and lowest level salaries and ensure that everyone at CCA can make a Bay Area living wage and has access to quality healthcare. What kind of community are we otherwise?

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Somewhat more connection to the outside world, more opportunities to collaborate with companies/Bay Area brands on projects. An opportunity for us Cca students to contribute to the city or San Francisco, maybe even collaborate with a non profit organization fighting the housing crisis or working towards building shelters that will help people on the streets. Anyway to feel more connected and give back to the people of sf and not just feel like we are visitors taking space.

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The diverse faculty, although not diverse enough in race, I have experienced diversity in teaching, background, experience, etc. In my experience I have been most impacted to become a better version of myself by professors who had come to America as a refugees, as an immigrant or with immigrant families, and also professors who have stories to tell and share about their family internment camp experiences. Stories and histories I have not been exposed to in the past, even if it was done to my own people. Bonding experiences to these professors have influenced me so much as a person and designer. I would love to see cca value these professors and staff and protect them. They bring community and humanity into a society that often turns hardship into cruelty. I truly believe people building is as important as the art and design education we are receiving.

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More transparency from CCA leadership and Board of Trustees

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More transparency from CCA leadership and Board of Trustees

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Q1: The resilience of the faculty, staff, and students at CCA has always impressed me. My students have always produced creative, thoughtful work despite the administration's efforts to defund classrooms and make student learning conditions worse and worse.

Q2: More transparency from CCA leadership and Board of Trustees about the school's budgets, finances, and debt. For every dollar CCA spent on compensating front-line staff and faculty before the pandemic, the school is now spending only $0.90. Conversely for every dollar CCA spent on compensating management before the pandemic, the school is now spending $1.25. This is upside-down and wrong. If CCA has to balance it's budget it should chop from the top. Staff and faculty are not disposable line-items. Quit treating the CCA community like mushrooms (feeding us crap and keeping us in the dark.)

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It's tough to choose only one--there is so much that needs to change to make CCA the institution it could and should be. Here are three suggestions:

-Pay your faculty a living wage--many are struggling to make ends meet in this very expensive place.

-Bring back the program managers. The enormous amount of administrative work they all did now falls largely to the overburdened Chairs and the considerable student support they provided is gone. The elimination of those positions has served the College poorly, in my opinion.

-Allow more Adjunct faculty to serve on the faculty committees. Adjuncts are more than 50% of the faculty but are woefully underrepresented on EC, CurCom, and APT.

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If I could change one thing: Stop The gaslighting culture that has seeped into a once-candid, playful community. We used to value care: Candid is care. Over the last 6 years leadership has gaslit so many faculty. Now we have a faculty union so this will be curtailed. But all the admin from deans to directors to provost need to know they are well discussed through their work decisions as gaslighters. 

# data[].attributes.subject
If I could change one thing: Stop The gaslighting culture that has seeped into a once-candid, playful community. We used to value care: Candid is care. Over the last 6 years leadership has gaslit so many faculty. Now we have a faculty union so this will be curtailed. But all the admin from deans to directors to provost need to know they are well discussed through their work decisions as gaslighters. 

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I would change the culture of philanthropy and shift to fundraising goals that are community focused rather building/monument focused. We need to start endowing educational positions and securing the future of our most unique programs by securing faculty positions supported to grow and strengthen them. We need to educate donors. Buildings do not make a school. Students and the people who support them make a school.

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Q1: I am so proud of CCA's students: their enthusiasm, their tenacity, their creativity, and their energy!

Q2: Make it a degree requirement at CCA that all non-fine arts major students take at least 2 or 3 fine arts classes to graduate, such as print making, sculpture, painting, drawing, ceramics, photography, etc., and likewise a fine arts student degree requirement to take 2 or 3 design classes like furniture making, or fashion design, or architecture, or animation, or film making, etc.

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Q1: I'm pretty free to develop my courses in a manner that I see fit without my chair or Dean micromanaging my course content. I can adjust or change my syllabi as I see fit; I can create lectures when it's necessary. At other institutions that I was at, I had to adhere to a disciplinary core. At this institution, I have incredible latitude and it's promoted.

Q2: Student affairs needs 100% funding, resources, and personnel (and then some) to do their jobs. I worked in Student Affairs before I joined faculty decades ago. Student affairs are the ones who work and support students 24/7. Faculty get to see one facet of student life, but student affairs provides life support and security for our students on a daily basis that the faculty do not.

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I am proud of the faculty that has helped my Son not only learn and adapt but to find a home away from home. They have helped guide and critique him in a way that I believe he wouldn't have been able to find elsewhere.

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I am proud of the faculty that has helped my Son not only learn and adapt but to find a home away from home. They have helped guide and critique him in a way that I believe he wouldn't have been able to find elsewhere.

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I think that CCA needs to show the world what its students do. There should be numerous representation of their bodies of work made available online and in the student store in the form of tees, post cards, magnets etc. It is a school of the arts and we cannot even find a single thing with even the mascot on it. Let's show off our students creativity as much as possible. They deserve it and I cannot wait to represent it!

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Q1: I suppose as an art school is has a lot of alumni/faculty in industries students want to work in. So there is a sense of community.

Q2: I'll say the same thing other answers wrote down: dramatically lower tuition costs (don't think we haven't forgotten about the campus blackout/walkout last year) pay ALL faculty a living wage, and stop tone policing/suppressing those talking about Palestine. We're an art school; protest and politics are inevitable. Also, stop forcing students to pay through the nose for supplies.