Re: “Pasadena City College: Why Union Leaders Are Wrong”
[Editor’s Note: As campus opposition deepens toward President Dr. Mark Rocha at Pasadena City College, here are two letters from PCC faculty members to a Pasadena Sun editorial this newspaper carried two days ago.]
This unattributed article sounds like it's been written by the President of PCC himself– or a journalist who goes exclusively to his private press conference on March 20 but fails to mention anything that was offered at the faculty-student press conference the week before. That was where faculty and students came together to share the 92 percent faculty vote of no-confidence and Associated Students government resolution of censure and no-confidence in the administration. (See video here: http://youtu.be/Ls9vGr00NsU; or PCC Board of Trustees minutes online).
What has been “tearing the campus apart” has hardly been a labor contract. Rather, it is mismanagement of college resources, lack of shared governance, a preponderance of unilateral decision-making that is now detrimental for students to transfer their courses to universities and an element… of fear at PCC for those 800-plus part-time faculty and all staff, whose jobs can be cut at any time for any reason (no job security).
The bottom line is, the Board of Trustees are accomplices in everything that has happened at PCC since Rocha got here. They were the ones to cancel the winter without looking at any data to inform their decision, and now PCC is struggling to recoup the lost students and Prop. 30 state funding.
The PCC Courier is much more attuned to what is going on at PCC, as is the Pasadena Weekly and even Pasadena Star. (http://www.pcccourier.com/2013/03/20/reaction-2/) The fact that today in all PCC faculty and staff emails was waiting this very editorial from the Pasadena Sun, courtesy of the PCC administration, is an indicator to me that the PCC administration and the Pasadena Sun are very much aligned. I recommend its readers also look to other sources for balanced reporting, which is precisely what I will be doing.
The second letter is from a member of the English Division.
Rocha’s 5 VPs at a Cool $1.5 Million
By Pat Rose
Dear Fellow PCC Faculty Members,
[img]1769|left|Dr. Mark Rocha||no_popup[/img]This email is in response to the Pasadena Sun’s editorial. Newspaper editors are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. The writer of this editorial asserts that Pasadena City College “students and union leaders need to act like adults” and accept President Rocha’s unilateral decision to cancel winter intersession permanently, despite the impact his decision has had on student access, success, and transfer.
For the record, PCC is the only community college in California to have canceled its winter session permanently.
The Pasadena Sun apparently accepted President Rocha’s original reason given for canceling winter session—that cancellation was necessary because of PCC’s financial crisis.
Yet PCC reported to Sacramento shortly before canceling winter intersession that PCC did not have a financial crisis. The writer also summarizes President Rocha’s claim that only “a mere handful of students have reported any issues with transfers, and all [have] been successfully assisted.” Did the editor investigate the truth of this assertion or even ask President Rocha to define what he means by “a mere handful”?
Did the editor inquire who “successfully assisted” these students? According to Associated Students President Simon Fraser, 48 students alone were initially rejected from Humboldt State because it would not accept 2013 summer school classes for transfer in the Fall.
Why? Because the UC’s and Cal States do not accept summer classes for fall transfer. These PCC students have now only been provisionally accepted because of the phone calls and emails initiated n-o-t by the PCC Administration but by the heroic and sustained efforts of the Associated Students Board. They convinced Humboldt State that these students were unable to complete the classes they needed for transfer fall 2013 because of PCC’s decision to cancel winter session last August. In fact, PCC only publicly announced on March 15 that UC’s and Cal States would now accept summer session classes for fall transfer because of PCC’s redefinition of summer as “Extended Spring” and, thus, enable PCC students to take summer session classes needed to transfer.
Not until Monday were PCC students informed that registration would begin for “Extended Spring” on 3/28. But even then only a “preliminary schedule of classes” would be made available. They would have to wait until 4/8 for the “full schedule” to be announced. Meanwhile “Extended Spring” session is scheduled to begin in seven weeks.
Let’s talk about teacher salaries. The editor claims that the faculty and union care only about “the impact of winter session’s removal of teacher paychecks,” and that “payment for teaching extra winter classes has helped many fulltime faculty with salaries of more than $100,000 per year earn tens of thousands more in extra pay.”
Did the editor inquire exactly how many instructors are earning these salaries or even how many years some of these instructors have taught fulltime at PCC?
I have taught fulltime at PCC for 23 years. I can assure the Pasadena Sun that my beginning salary was closer to half of $100,000. Also instructors who teach winter session and summer session are only paid for the hours spent in the classroom. They are not compensated for the hours spent outside the classroom for preparation, research, or evaluation of student work.
I am a writing instructor. I can assure the Pasadena Sun that I spend h-o-u-r-s and h-o-u-r-s outside the classroom reading and commenting on student writing to strengthen each student’s critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, not to mention the frequent on-line conversations I regularly have with students about their writing.
The Pasadena Sun also summarizes PCC’s General Counsel Gail Cooper ‘s report that “union leaders have asked for $1 million to replace winter earnings” lost by faculty who PCC had already contracted to teach winter session. Did the Pasadena Sun investigate the salary of the “General Counsel,” whose position, by the way, was created by President Rocha, despite the money PCC already spends on a law firm that it contracts to represent PCC?
President Rocha has also created five new administrative positions with the title of “Vice-President” at an annual cost of $1.5 million in salaries. At the same time, he cut classes at PCC and reduced the number of part-time faculty and classified staff.
Now let’s talk about President Rocha’s salary. Did the Pasadena Sun inquire about his salary and the hefty yearly pay raises recently awarded to him by the PCC Board of Trustees? Did the Pasadena Sun inquire about the Board of Trustees’ extension of his contract to six years without any evaluation from PCC stakeholders? Who, exactly, does the Pasadena Sun get its facts from?
PCC faculty and students are engaged in a courageous struggle to counteract this administration’s rash and irresponsible decision-making. What is ridiculous is the editor’s simplistic reduction of this very serious crisis to sandbox fisticuffs.
