As we head into a period of prolonged scarcity we’re going to have to make some hard choices. Thus far, we are pleased that the Chancellor and the Board have been very clear about their desire to avoid take backs. However, two areas of concern that have surfaced recently in some (but certainly not all) quarters of the District are class caps and subject area cuts.
While some class caps are negotiated and cannot be raised by administrative fiat, others can be and it has come to our attention that some District managers have been floating the idea that negotiated class caps should be eliminated or that classes without negotiated caps should be matched notto what is a pedagogically sound number of students for a given course, but room capacity. Hence, if the room fits 100 students, then that should be the cap. Such specious arguments have been justified with references to the business model and the notion that we are competing with other places for students/customers and thus should pack as many of them in as possible.
This suggestion has gone along seamlessly with the questioning of the need for basic skills classes. While it should be clear that these arguments are contradictory on face, it is worth outlining some of the other faults with this line of reasoning:
1) We are not a business and our subject area expertise should not be set aside for a brain dead productivity model.
2) We are not competing for students! We haven’t been funded enough to serve the number of students who want classes now. Hence, destroying the quality of the educational experience we can provide for the students we are serving by cramming them in to classes as if we were operating a sausage grinder is utterly senseless and pedagogically bankrupt. This is not serving students; it is doing them a disservice.
3) Serving students with basic skills needs is a central part of our core values as a community college District.
Hence, your AFT Guild will remain vigilant and oppose turning our colleges into a sausage grinder designed to save money (by using fewer professors to crank out larger numbers of students) and failing those students who need us the most.
