Ara Aguiar, who has been the Interim President at Pierce College for about two and a half years, was recommended by LACCD Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez for the permanent position, and the contract was approved until June 30, 2027 at the LACCD Board of Trustees meeting on June 12.
District Academic Senate (DAS) President Angela Echeverri gave a report on the recent vote of no confidence on the LACCD Board of Trustees and Chancellor by the DAS.
“This was not an action that we took lightly or in haste,” Echeverri said. “In fact, it was very difficult for us to reach this point. But after more than six months of deliberation, discussions at the local colleges, multiple resolutions, letters to the Board, audit requests and genuine attempts to implement meaningful reforms, we concluded that the only viable option was a vote of no confidence.”
James McKeever, a professor at Pierce who was recently reelected as AFT 1521 Faculty Guild President, brought up the impact of budget cuts.
“We’re entering a time when we may have to make some cuts,” McKeever said. “And those cuts are going to affect the most vulnerable among us. They’re going to affect our students. They’re going to affect our staff. And they’re going to affect our adjuncts. And when you affect our students, you affect our communities. You affect the ability for our communities to grow.”
McKeever also highlighted financial challenges for students.
“In the 1950s, when my professor from Cal State LA went to UCLA, he paid $12 a year to go to UCLA because the Education Code said the college shall be free, until you started letting in Black and brown students,” McKeever said. “And then, tuition started rising. Our students pay more in community college tuition than I paid at Cal State LA, and the Cal States are going to rise by 30 percent in the next five years.”
From 1921 to 1956, tuition in the UC system was free but California residents were required to pay an “incidental fee” of $25 per year and nonresidents paid $75, according to The Daily Californian.
In the Chancellor’s Monthly Report, Rodriguez recognized the 18 faculty across seven campuses who achieved tenure, which included Melissa Brisbois and Nishat Hamid at Pierce.
“It’s a rigorous four-year process, and thanks to all those who were a part of the tenure review, the committees, the administrators and to all those who served in mentoring roles for this,” Rodriguez said. “So we welcome each of these individuals into our academic community and wish them long, prosperous contributions to the academic profession.”
Captain Israel Renteria, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Community College Bureau, presented an update on campus safety and security and discussed some challenges of hiring and retaining student workers for the cadet program.
Currently, there are 12 students assigned to the nine campuses, four vacancies and two pending being hired, according to Renteria.
“Examples of duties might include locking and unlocking doors, foot patrols for high visibility, assisting students with directions on campus, providing escorts, arranging to get help for inoperable student or staff vehicles, answering phones in the office and assisting with campus desk and office duties,” said Renteria, explaining the foot patrols and escort service by cadets must be done while accompanied by a security officer or deputy sheriff.
Cadets make about $27 an hour and work 30 hours per week, according to Rodriguez.
A motion to authorize an amendment for year three of a five-year contract with the County of Los Angeles for safety and security services throughout the District failed and the Board motioned to table the item to be able to discuss it further at a special meeting on June 26. The approved cost for year two of the contract was $25.34 million and the new cost for year three that was introduced would be $26.35 million—$25.59 million plus $758,711 for the part-time cadet program.
New credit courses at Pierce that were approved included Equine Physiology and Exercise, three biology classes, a persuasion course and six Native American Studies classes. A new Associate of Science in Public Health (AS-T) for Transfer was also approved for Pierce.
Authorized leases and permits at Pierce included a car show’s use of parking lots and restrooms in the period of July 2024 to June 2025 for an income of $48,088, a carnival’s use of Lot 7 for an income of $11,480, Lot 7 being used as an overnight base camp and crew parking for an off-campus film shoot for an income of $9,600 and three civic center permits bringing in an income of $11,235.
Service agreements at Pierce ratified by the Board included audio and video services for the June 6 commencement ceremony at a cost of $60,000 and a year-long term of parking management services at a cost of $52,790.
Also ratified by the Board were two partnership agreements at Pierce—a summer day camp on campus for an estimated income of $60,000 and a science extension program for an income of $14,000.
In the fall, 40 faculty, staff and administrative delegates—of which four are from Pierce—from LACCD will travel to Ghana to participate in the All-African Diaspora Education Summit at an estimated cost of $200,000.
