ZTC Award Program

In July 2022, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) announced its latest Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Program, which utilizes $115 million in one-time funding for the the California Community Colleges to establish ZTC Degrees. Since that time, the Chancellor’s Office has released a series of grants to support ZTC degree pathways at the 115 California Community Colleges. 

Funded by the CCCCO's grants, LAVC's ZTC Award Program seeks to establish several new ZTC degree pathways by 2027. Further, our program prioritizes strengthening our General Education ZTC pathway, which is critical to the sustainability of any ZTC degree.

We invite faculty across disciplines to apply for our ZTC Award Program. Faculty will be compensated for the professional development and curriculum development required to adopt, adapt, create, remix, and/or revise Open Educational Resources (OER) to replace their current texts. 

Funding is limited. Depending on the number of applications we receive, higher impact courses may be prioritized for funding. A high-impact course is defined as one that is required to complete a General Education and/or degree pathway for which 10 or more sections per semester are typically scheduled. 

Faculty currently using traditional textbooks are asked to adopt existing OER material or to adapt, remix, and/or create OER materials that are suitable for their course(s) and learning outcomes. You will have support from the ZTC program coordinator, Meghan Cason. 

Faculty who are already using OER are asked to review and revise/remix their material to ensure accessibility and culturally relevant content. 

Prospective participants have two options: our in-depth ZTC Award Program (best suited for faculty who are substantially revising, remixing, and/or creating original content) and our ZTC Fast Track (best for those adopting OER texts without significant revision). 

All awardees must use the OER materials associated with their awards in teaching assignments by 2027 and make a commitment to keep their course ZTC for at least the next three academic years. 

Award amounts of up to $5000 are available to all classroom faculty (adjuncts and full-time) at Los Angeles Valley College. Awards will be dispersed through goal completion milestones. Faculty are encouraged to work ahead of the stated deadlines. Awards may be split among faculty who wish to work in teams and divide the workload. 

Zero Textbook Cost courses help advance equity for our disproportionately impacted students, including Black and African American, Latinx/e, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Native American, and LGBTQIA+ students. Converting a course to ZTC can help promote equity at LAVC in two main ways: 

• DI students report that the cost of school fees and expenses are a barrier to reaching their academic goals. Adopting zero cost course materials such as OER is a powerful way to reduce college costs and increase educational access for our disproportionately impacted students.
• Another important part of equity-minded education is to ensure our curriculum and course materials are culturally responsive. In designing our own OER course materials, we have a unique opportunity to infuse equity and anti-racism throughout our lessons and readings. Therefore, workshops and training materials will be offered to support faculty who work on projects funded by the ZTC Award Program to approach their work with an equity lens.