Benjamin Rizzo
Pierce butters up facultyBy: Ben Rizzo
Follow the pleasant aroma of freshly-popped buttery popcorn downstairs from the Pierce College library and you will find the Faculty Staff Resource Center (FSRC). Opened in July, the center provides staff and faculty, both part time and full time, a place to complete classroom preparations, hang out with other faculty members or just enjoy some peace, quiet and popcorn. “There are more than 550 part-time instructors without offices,” said Faculty Staff Coordinator Kathy Oborn. “A lot of them were doing prep in their car on the road.” Oborn, who also instructs criminal justice at Pierce, is in her third year as coordinator and said there was a “need to provide adjunct faculty a place to prepare for their classes and use the technology that’s in here to check e-mail and type up lectures.”In addition to the beckoning popcorn machine, the FSRC is complete with many facilities at staff disposal that were absent in previous years at Pierce. Resources include a 27-inch color TV with VCR/DVD player, two leather sofas, refrigerator, a microwave oven, fax machine, laser printer, Scantron machine, telephones and more than 15 computers with Internet access, some of which have special multimedia capabilities.”This couldn’t have been done without the help of Mark Henderson from Information Technology and Mike Cooperman from Title III,” said Oborn. “Between the three of us, I think we’ve provided a great service for faculty and staff on our campus.”The room also serves as a studio for various video productions where instructors may videotape themselves for Web site content by appointment. There have even been shoots on selected Fridays where instructors sign entire textbooks onto video for deaf people.According to Oborn, 75 percent of the staff at Pierce is part time. The FSRC helps these “freeway flyers,” as she calls them, in areas of efficiency, ease of life and grade posting.One of these “freeway flyers” is Ken Windrum, an adjunct instructor of media arts at Pierce and instructor of cinema at California State University at Long Beach. Windrum splits his time between each campus, driving from his residence in downtown Los Angeles.”I’m very happy they’ve built it,” said Windrum, who uses the center to score tests and check e-mail. “It’s nice. I think it was long overdue.”Students in Windrum’s Thursday evening Broadcasting 1 class receive the kind of efficiency the FSRC can provide. On the evening of a midterm, Windrum takes the completed exams, walks 75 feet out the door of his Business 3200 classroom, runs the exams through the Scantron machine at the FSRC and returns the graded exams minutes after students completed them.”It’s very convenient, actually,” said Trevor Cooper, 18, a first-year student attending the Broadcasting 1 class. “There’s no wait in suspense.”Windrum’s students aren’t the only ones who get a little satisfaction on some Thursday evenings.”I have used it occasionally to have a nice box of popcorn,” said Windrum.Located down the hall from the Information Technology Center, the FSRC is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Editor’s Note (do not print this note): Why do the teachers need to make videos of them signing enitre textbooks? Deaf people can still read…