ONE FREE COPY
March 2015
By Isabel Catalano & Serena Rose Steele SACRAMENTO- MSJC students gathered with hundreds from other California Community Colleges on March 2, to advocate for an array of issues. MSJC’s Student Government Association voiced their support for the Dream Act and challenged the proposed University of California tuition increase. Meanwhile, in collaboration with the unions Faculty Association of California Community Colleges and University Professional & Technical Employees, MSJC’s Political Science Club members lobbied to provide adjunct professors with pay equity, job stabilization, and paid office hours. Adjunct instructor Robert Melsh accompanied the Political Science Club
OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER
VOL. II ISSUE V
MSJC student Evelyn Bengesa speaks to crowd of community college students at Lobby Day event held on March 2. Photo Credits: Renzy Reyes.
on a round-trip flight to Sacramento for legislative meetings and a FACCC convention. The event honored a variety of Assembly members, including Riverside’s Assemblyman Jose Medina. Medina recently introduced the Assembly Bill 1010, which seeks to raise the standards for the treatment of part-time faculty. AB 1010 will promote fair evaluation procedures, workload distribution, and seniority rights for adjunct professors within the California Community College system. “We [adjunct professors] are critical players in the education process. Depending on the campus, associate instructors teach between 50 and 70 percent of the classes,” Melsh states. “We currently lack defined due process and equal campus-wide seniority
rights. Until AB 1010, there has been no legislation that even addressed these concerns.” Once MSJC students arrived in Sacramento, they were provided with direct training guidelines and techniques to effectively lobby for the bill. They were then given the opportunity to meet with multiple Assembly members from both the Democratic and Republican parties. “The training I received at the FACCC conference taught me to be a more effective advocate for issues affecting my family, my community, and myself,” says Angela Mange, MSJC SGA Senator. “I have already begun to share the skills I learned with other students. Thank you to Professor Melsh and UPTE for the awesome opportunity to
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