Faculty voiced concerns about Pierce Promise, highlighting issues involving students who are not meeting the 12-unit enrollment requirement and a lack of available counselors.
On Monday, Oct. 23, the Academic Senate discussed solutions to make the Los Angeles College Promise run smoothly at Pierce. The program was implemented at the start of fall semester for LAUSD graduates helping them attend community college tuition free for a year.
Academic Senate Secretary Susan Armenta said that to qualify, students must fulfill requirements, such as being an LAUSD graduate, complete a summer program and be enrolled at Pierce with at least 12 units.
However, faculty is unsure of what actions to take if students don’t meet enrollment requirements.
“Do we let them make up those units in spring? We’re still trying to figure out that piece because they do get priority registration,” Armenta said.
Another requirement students must complete is attend a peer-to-peer meeting twice during their first semester. With 800 students and only 16 counselors to execute this requirement, it’s become difficult for them to track who is attending.
Political science instructor Denise Robb said during the meeting that she had problems with Pacific Dining catering service for Day of Politics.
Robb said that since she began organizing Day of Politics, she never had an issue with catering services on campus until this year.
“Since 2011, I always used Ofir who was our regular guy. He had Falafelicious, and we always had so much food leftover that people in facilities would have some. We never had a problem with food,” Robb said. “I was required to use the food we have now because we have a contract with Pacific Dining. This was my first time using them, and we ran out of food.”
Robb said she wanted to know how to prevent this from happening again.
College Outcomes Committee Representative Jennifer Moses suggests that there’s a way around using Pacific Dining for future events.
“The key is telling them exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. Tell them this is what I had in the past, I’ve had this many falafels and this much salad at this price, can you do that?” she said. “And if the answer is no, have them get that in writing.”
After Robb commented on Pacific Dining catering services, members of the senate voted on the Student-Success Integrative Plan.
The Student Success Committee (SSC) and Support program (SSSP) worked on the plan prior to it being ratified. The state of California is pushing the Student Success Integrative Plan which involves three initiatives required by the state: the Student Equity plan, the Student-Success and Report plan, and the Basic Skills initiative.
According to Director of the Center for Academic Success Crystal Kiekel, Pierce College has had many years implementing the three initiatives.
“California when they started to accept these plans, modeled what to do off of Pierce College’s original plan because we were so far ahead in the game,” Kiekel said.
To view a video about Pacific Dining, click here.
***This story has been updated to include a link to a video on Pacific Dining***
