The Academic Senate met on Thursday, Oct. 4, in the Student Center Conference
room to choose new committee members, create a Faculty Hiring Priority List to be
submitted to the college president, enact policies and receive status update reports.
Of these agenda items the most dynamic involvement from the audience was
the Faculty Hiring Priority List. With only 3-minute presentations, department
representatives provided 13 presentations of what full-time positions needed to be filled
and why.
One presentation was for the creation of a new job-creating program rather than a job
position. This program proposed to create a Musical Instrument Repair program.
An instrument repair program would create jobs not only across the entire west
coast region, but also for the Bay Area. Presently only two businesses try to meet
the overwhelming needs of high school music departments, marching bands, private
musicians, orchestras and professional organizations.
The second most original presentation was for a new Theatre Technical faculty
member. This position and subsequent classes would create marketable job skills
crucial to running conferences, conventions and theme parks in the Silicon Valley.
Skills absolutely necessary and used by hundreds of local corporations such as: Apple,
Google, Facebook and Steve Wozniak’s annual Comicons.
The most impassioned speech came in the form of a filibuster by the ESL program.
The most disquieting presentations were made for counselors across three programs:
Crisis Mental Health, mainly for suicide prevention; DSPS, right now the ratio is one
counselor per 800+ students and Veteran Affairs, a program that has jumped from 30 to
300 served per year.
The one that left everyone scratching their head was the Real Estate program existing
without a Full-time faculty. Everyone knows that Real Estate is a high commodity in
the valley.
Students must achieve broker and/or state occupational license within a two-year
period. Presently, SJCC has to send students to other colleges to finish their education.
SJCC’s participation in the Career Technical Education (CTE) program should be
paramount. The program has a 45 percent increase in student enrollment.
Probably the most concerning reality of the entire list is simply that more than half of
the 13 positions were not properly prepared for by HR and Administrators because they
are retirement vacancies not being refilled.
The next meeting is Nov. 1 in the Student Center room 204 at 2:10PM. Check the
SJCC website for more information.