Conflict in hiring process

Disconnect between president and faculty

Recruitment of new hires for the fall of 2016 have been approved by Pierce College President Kathleen Burke which has caused some conflict among faculty.

There are 50 positions available and 11 were already recruited in the fall of 2015, According to an email from Burke. One incentive for approving new employees is to make progress in improving the school’s full-time to part-time ratios. She believes most disciplines should attain 60-70 percent fulltime staff before any one discipline exceeds 75 percent.

“A balanced and fair distribution of full-time positions is critical to ensure that, even in times of reduced resources, the college is able to maintain a comprehensive program of services and disciplines for students,” Burke wrote.

inclusive of the typical audiovisual maintenance contract and therefore, the servicing vendor, A+ Interactive, did not appropriately service the equipment at the required maintenance intervals,” Schleicher wrote.

The majority of the malfunctions involve projectors and SMART Boards, which are devices that allow you to project images from a computer onto the board and interact with them. Chemistry Professor Izzy Goodman says the equipment was cutting edge when it was purchased and the instructors have become accustomed to using it.

“I think most of the people in this building, if not all of them, walk into the classroom expecting to be able to have a projected image from a computer in front of the classroom,” Goodman said. “And if we don’t, then we’ve got to go to a whiteboard, which is a dramatic difference from what we have planned in terms of visuals.“

All six rooms used by the which includes up to six hours of free one-on-one mental health counseling, according to Beth Benne, director of the Student Health Center Benne says your funds pay for everyone working at the Student Health Center including the medical doctors (or nurse practitioners), the office managers, some of the student workers, and all of the mental work providers. The resources are limited and needs more funding.

“Last fall, we had a waiting list by the end of October, so we weren’t able to meet [students] needs,” Benne said. “You can see the needs are growing every year. We need more psychologists.”

The Spring of 2014 was the last semester Pierce College had three licensed clinical psychologists working a total of 27 hours per week, according to Benne. Due to lack of funding, Clinical Psychologist Niaz Khani, wrote a proposal to eliminate

Physics and Planetary Sciences departments have equipment that does not work. In addition, the Planetarium has a broken projector that has not been fixed for two years, according to Fields.

Fields says Pierce is the premiere science school in the district, but the teachers are not able to instruct to their potential and the students are not having as enriching an experience as they should.

“When the system works it is magnificent. It is beautiful,” Fields said. I love using this system when it works, but for instance, the astronomy lab room room has been dead for about a year. It doesn’t have technology functioning in it, period. There is no way to do any kind of presentation.”

There is currently a contract in place with Collaboration Solutions Inc. to repair malfunctioning audiovisual equipment, but the work orders must first be submitted to Information Technology (IT) who have a disturbing pattern of not responding, according to Laurence

Thouin, department chair of Life Sciences.

“Work orders fall into a black hole and nothing happens, and you cannot do that with faculty members who do not have projection capabilities,” Thouin said. “One room is really particularly troublesome because there is no projection at all and we have had work orders in for months. Why it could not have been fixed during break or last semester is beyond me.”

Information Technology Manager Mark Henderson says there is only one employee to fix audiovisual equipment on campus and he does not have the expertise to troubleshoot the complex Creston systems that were installed. The most he can do is change bulbs in projectors. Almost everything else needs to be outsourced.

“I give all the work orders to the one person and he methodically goes through them,” Henderson said.

The Faculty Position Priority Committee (FPPC) is a group made up of some of the school’s faculty and is responsible for making suggestions regarding hiring. They prioritize the disciplines which they believe are in the most need of faculty. However, Burke has the power to override any suggestion given by the committee.

“The purpose of the committee is to make recommendations, not to set policy which is, from a faculty standpoint, very frustrating,” said David Schamus, FPPC member and computer science information technology professor. “[The FPPC is] upset a bit because the objective guidelines that [Burke] selected don’t take into account some of the things that we did.”

As the school’s president, Burke reviews the committee’s suggestions and makes the ultimate decisions as to which departments hire more staff and which do not. Burke has prioritized the hiring keeping in mind the Faculty Obligation Number (FON), a statewide goal of 75 percent full-time faculty in the psychologists who were not working as many hours and up her hours to 20 hours a week.

“Then we hired two post doc interns and paid them somehow,” Benne said. These are two psych degree interns who have to do 1,500 hours of internship of clinical time before they can sit for their license.

So you got these very well educated mental health professionals who aren’t licensed but can work under Dr. Khani’s supervision. It’s a teaching ground for them as well as a benefit to our students.”

The school does not prescribe antidepressants. If a student has serious mental health issues, such as serious depression, suicidality or if they have a psychosis (bipolar disease, schizophrenia, paranoia, etc.) then the Student Health Center has to refer out.

Khani says she assesses students to see how severe the student is and how severe the symptoms are. If it is not community colleges.

The disparity between the viewpoints of Burke and the FPPC have caused some professors at Pierce to believe the administration is more concerned with the numbers than they are about the quality of the staff they are hiring.

Constance Kocs, FPPC chair, submitted a document to Academic Senate on Feb. 8 acknowledging that President Burke did remove some positions from departments who had stated reasons for not hiring.

“Ultimately the committee feels responsible for developing and maintaining a transparent and streamlined process that places realistic and well considered requirements on department chairs who seek to hire (or not to hire),” Kocs wrote.

“I think the issue is the pacing and the timing,” said Sheri Lehavi, department chair of Mathematics. “We don’t want to be pushed into hiring and then end up with faculty that we don’t think are really qualified or fit in our department and I think there’s a certain timing of growth that’s going to make it better for the department as a whole.” severe enough, they talk about it and give the student some coping skills to get through it. However, if needed she connects the student to a hospital and make sure they are feeling safe.

Burke’s email recommends hiring in disciplines that have not asked for positions, in order to improve the full time numbers. She presents a chart with Mathematics, Counseling, Child Development and ELS and the positions available in those departments.

“Please note that the departments in the following chart did not request positions; however, in light of overall goals related to completion and offering a balanced and comprehensive program, an investment of time and effort to review the full-time to part time ratios in these disciplines is warranted before considering any other positions currently recommended by the FPPC.

The case of objective versus subjective, and the imbalance between those involved, has raised some concerns regarding the communication between Burke and the committee.

“Perhaps what the process needs is more points at which the committee and Kathleen interact,” Schamus said.

“Ultimately it’s [Kathleen’s] call and I respect that as well, but I think it’s going to create a not pleasant environment both ways if we’re not both mutually respecting each other’s decisions, so I don’t like the idea of her just overriding,” Lehavi said.

“Everybody is different,” Khani said. “Not everybody depressed feels sadness. We spend a lot of time trying to learn about each student and see what they need. And again, if we can do something for them we will see them up to six sessions, sometimes more, but if it’s severe enough and they need more attention, more medication, or if they need other people to be part of that team, then we will help them find a referral.”

BEAT

Whatʼs one thing youʼd change about Pierce?

“Iwouldliketoseethecafeteria openandIwouldliketoseethis newbuildingunderconstruction opentoo,becauseIhatewalking aroundit.Beforethesemester ends,Iwouldliketoseeitdone.”

-Abraham Cortez, 19 Freshman, Criminal Justice

“Theconvenienceofaddingand registeringforclasses.Ithink itʼswaytoocongested.Ifeellike itʼswaytooinconvenientand bothersomeforsomestudents.”

-Luis Solano, 20 Sophomore, Economics

“Theparkinglot.Theparkingis awful.Youalwayshavetolook forparkingsometimesfor20-30 minutes.Thefirstweekiscrazy. Theydonʼtreallyhaveanyother spacetoadd.”

-Shahab Amini

Second semester, CNC programming

“Iwouldliketoseemore parking.Parkingisreallyhard tofind.Ihave8amclassesand theparkinglotisfull.Iwould liketoseetheparkingchange quickly.”

-Kristal Thomas, 23 Sophomore/Kinesiology

“Longerhoursatthelibrary.Alot oftimesifyoutakenightclasses, thelibraryisnotopen.Iwould likethelibrarytobeopenuntilat leastthelastclassends.”

-Richard Bamuharia, 28 Sophomore, Film

“ThebathroomsbecauseIcanʼt reachthesinks.Theonlybathroom [sinks]thatIcanreachareinthe mathdepartment,andthelibrary. TherestIcanʼtreach.Ihavetouse handsanitizer.”

Quotes gathered by Randi Love | Photos by Lauren Chen

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