Alyssa Wejebe
Headline: Jobs and Degrees in Meeting
Deck: Academic Senate discusses hiring, associate degrees and the Job Center
Pierce College may experience another cut if what Tom Rosdahl, president of the academic senate meeting, called a “doubled edged sword” slices through. That is, if the campus fails to hire enough full-time faculty members, the district will force the school to pay $65,000 in fines.
Rosdahl said it was cheaper to hire people and pay them, rather than pay the fine.
Diane Levine, Senate vice president of academic policy, said that Pierce currently is being asked to hire 19 more new full-time faculty members by fall 2010.
Levine said that they had to meet state requirements about the percentage of classes taught by full-time faculty by the “beginning of the fall semester.”
She said that the “state has never enforced [this requirement] before.”
But Levine commented that with the budget crisis, the state will probably enforce the fines for the first time.
“The irony is,” said Levine, “there’s all this unemployment, but we’ll be hiring.”
She said that applicants for vocational professors only need a bachelor’s degree, but professors in the “academic disciplines require a master’s degree.”
Noble Eisenlauer, academic senate member involved with the Professional Ethics Committee, said it was not a “good move” to make “hurried” hiring decisions.
He pointed out that these would be “colleagues” to work with for 20 years or so, making it not a decision to be made too quickly.
The A.A. and the Transfer Student
Articulation Officer Elizabeth Atondo said that prior to about 2006, associate degrees were handled differently. They could be given to students who had completed requirements for an upper-division transfer to a UC or CSU campus.
She then explained that the State Academic Senate decided that those degrees did not meet the intent of an associate degree. (It was a close vote.)
Atondo said that there are attempts to legislate the associate degree as it relates to UC and CSU transfer students.
She said that the removal of the associate degree meeting the needs of transfer students was not a good idea. Atondo said that the degree should be awarded based on the upper-division transfer requirements at universities.
According to Atondo, 18 units of major preparation coursework aren’t required for most transfer majors—but it is for an associate degree in many cases.
She said that while it made sense for Career Technical students, it didn’t meet the needs of transfer students.
Atondo calls that requirement “problematic,” since it costs students more time and money to take those extra units.
She said that in “my world of transfer and articulation,” the best way to meet the needs of transfer students who would like to earn an associate degree simultaneously is to have the upper-division transfer admission and associate degree requirements line up.
Atondo has written up a resolution to address associate degrees for transfer students. She said the California Community College Transfer Center Directors added a “friendly amendment” to it, which consisted of some language suggestions that broadened the resolution’s goal.
The Transfer Center Director, Sunday Salter, said that “everyone is in full support of Elizabeth’s” resolution on associate degrees.
Employment…or the lack of it
Richard Skidmore, director of the Job Placement Center, reported that an average of “8,400” people visit the office located in the Village. He said that 88 percent are students at Pierce, and that 12 percent are from the general community.
Skidmore insisted that the Job Center did not just serve the campus, but the whole community.
He announced that there would be a Job Fair on May 12.
Skidmore explained that they didn’t break even last year with the Job Fair. He said that they may or may not break even this year.
He said that past guests have called Pierce a “business-friendly college.”
“Everyone talks about internships,” said Skidmore. He explained that through bond development, 110 Pierce students have been placed in internships, with 30 in the process.
On the flipside, Skidmore reported that the internship program would be coming to an end soon.
And the discussion continues
The next Academic Senate meeting will take place on April 12 at 2:15 p.m. For more information, visit http://faculty.piercecollege.edu/senate/.