Committee endorses departments in need of staff members FPPC recommends where next yearʼs hires should go

Seth Perlstein News Editor

With the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) set to hire 157 new faculty next year, current Pierce College faculty attempted to convince a room-full of peers about why their department needed new hires more than others.

The Faculty Position Priority Committee (FPPC) voted on 31 applications from 18 departments. Each department made its case for up to two of its disciplines. The votes were tallied, and the applications were ranked with cumulative scores that ranged from 27 to 52, with the high scores at the top of the list.

The committee will use the list to recommend to President Kathleen Burke for which departments the school should hire next year.

“Because we have shared governance here at Pierce, the faculty plays a critical role in the future of the college, and managing decisions with the President,” Committee Chair Constance Kocs said.

The Media Arts department lost one of its two full-time journalism teachers after last semester. Assistant Media Arts Professor Jeff Favre presented his case to add a second full-time journalism teacher to the department.

“Advising the Roundup is a twoperson job,” Favre said. “It truly takes two full-time people to make sure it’s working properly.”

Journalism scored 45.50 points and tied for eighth place with theater.

Favre also argued for a new fulltime cinema teacher. Cinema lost a full-time, tenured teacher three years ago, and finished in third place with 50.00 points. Cinema was automatically placed in the top-three because it lost a tenured employee.

Career Center Director Joanna Zimring Towne pointed out that the counseling department was not inline with Title IX’s recommended student-per-counselor ratio of 900-1, or the Academic Senate’s recommended ratio of 400-1. Pierce had approximately 2,000 students per counselor, Zimring Town said.

“We need some full-time faculty to help manage that program,” Zimring Towne said. “Just relying on adjuncts is not going to be enough.”

New-student counseling finished in fourth place with 50.00 points, but sat one spot below cinema because it didn’t lose a tenured employee. General-student counseling finished fifth with 47.00 points.

The committee’s list is just a recommendation. Burke will make the final hiring decisions, but will use the FPPC’s recommendations in her decision-making process.

[For the full story visit theroundupnews.com]

Graph: Seth Perlstein / Roundup