Courtesy of Unsplash

The Academic Senate met on Oct. 12 via Zoom.

The Academic Senate discussed their concerns over the district’s lack of information on retirements and other vacancies from professors changing schools or leaving due to the pandemic in a meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 12.

“If the people who have access to that information don’t have it, that worries me,” Evergreen Valley College Academic Senate President Garry Johnson said.

The San Jose Evergreen Community College District announced that each school would receive six more faculty positions.

Both presidents for the Academic Senate spoke on their attempts to speak with different departments on receiving the number of faculty vacancies and retirements, but have not received much information.

“I’m not sure what the deal is with the retirement thing … I don’t know if it’s confidential,” San Jose City College Academic Senate President Judith Bell said.

Johnson said it took three weeks to get a real response about retirement numbers and had many sleepless nights over the lack of communication. He said that he still has yet to receive the retirement numbers but EVC President Tammeil Gilkerson said he would receive them soon.

After tackling their concerns on vacant positions, the Academic Senate discussed Distance Education.

SJCC offers three kinds of distance ed courses: asynchronous courses, online hybrid courses and
synchronous (real time) online courses.

Bell spoke on ensuring faculty gets recertified to teach online or they will not be able to teach in the spring. She said that the school will not lower its standards of education just because it is moved online.

Bell also said it was her personal opinion that the Board of Trustees is having a “nostalgic feeling” of face-to-face education, but it is not realistic. She wants to assure the board is making decisions based on the best intent of the students and not because the board remembers what it was like to be in school themselves.

The Academic Senate showed a survey done in February 2021 that indicates 43% of students would be uncomfortable returning to campus, 36% are neutral and 31% are comfortable with it. Also, 53% of students said they prefer mostly online formats, 31% said they prefer a mix of online and in-person and 16% said they prefer in-person.

The Academic Senate will meet again on Oct. 19 via Zoom.