Editor's note: Tracy Sherman, CSN Faculty Senate Chair, made the following statement to the Board of Regents on behalf of the NSHE Council of Faculty Senate Chairs.

Faculty senate chairs across the state have serious concerns about the "Fresh Look at Community College" Task Force report as it was presented to the Board of Regents  Friday Sept. 9.

Our faculties will take a great interest in this report and, we are certain, will want to verify the data it contains and to vet the recommendations. Our community college faculty share common goals with the task force and are working hard to achieve the goals outlined in the report: to meaningfully address the problem of remediation, to increase the number of degree holders in Nevada, to focus on student outcomes, and to provide Nevada students the educational pathways they deserve.

At the same time, we as chairs would like to express skepticism regarding some of the recommendations' means to achieving these common ends. The concept of outsourcing education to entities that have a terrible track record of student success is, frankly, alarming to faculty across the state. We respectfully submit that as this report stands, despite the common goals among faculty and the task force, and despite several ideas worthy of investigation, many of the recommendations as they stand will not be acceptable to the vast majority of our faculty in Nevada, and we look forward to working with the Board of Regents to cull through the recommendations in order to determine the best course of action to achieve our common goals for the benefit of Nevada students, the state of Nevada, and the Nevada System of Higher Education/