Maintaining balance PCC Approves Sustainability Taskforce

The Pierce College Transfer Center held a workshop on March 23 to get students who were placed on academic probation back on track.

Pierce Tenure Track Counselor Diane Orellana said probation is not a disciplinary action, but rather a procedure.

“Probation is not a punishment,” Orellana said. “It is a process used to identify students who are experiencing academic difficulty.”

Orellana said she knows students who have all A’s and are in danger of being on probation.

“I’ve met a student once who had an exceptional GPA of 4.0 but had so many W’s that he was still at risk of getting dismissed,” Orellana said.

There is a difference between academic probation and progress probation.

Academic probation is when students attempt 12 units and their cumulative GPA is below 2.0.

Progress probation is when a student has attempted 12 units and the percentage of all units for which entries of ‘W’, ‘I’, ‘NP’ or 'NC’ exceeds 50%.

There are consequences for being on probation.

At level one probation, or first semester on probation, there are no consequences, but rather a warning.

At level two probation which is two consecutive semesters on probation, students lose priority registration and the CA Promise Grant (BOG).

At level three probation which is three consecutive semesters on probation, students are subject to dismissal.

If students are dismissed from Pierce, they cannot attend any Los Angeles Community College District campus for two semesters.

There are ways to help improve academic standing, including academic renewal.

“Academic Renewal removes up to 30 units of D’s and F’s

BY PETER POLYGALOV Reporter

In Action Item number 19, the Pierce College Council (PCC) approved a motion during the meeting on March 24 via Zoom to create a sustainability evaluation committee.

Pierce professor of architecture Beth Abels spoke to the rationale of why a committee focused on this specific issue is necessary.

“We have a climate challenge in front of us,” Abels said. “Our students are so concerned with student success and we want them to come out and have a planet to live on that embraces their success.”

Abels explained how the initiative came after rapid developments by the district to pass resolutions to focus on sustainability.

“It appeared to some of us that Pierce would be best off knowing what we wanted to have happen and what made sense for our particular local area,” Abels said. “It was a good time to make sure we had a committee that was spending some time thinking about that.”

After thanking Abels for her leadership in this committee, PCC Chair Brian Gendron spoke about the benefits of joining in on some of the task force meetings.

“What I think has been nice to see is that there's an effort to focus on local issues at Pierce in conjunction with the relationship we have with the district,” Gendron said. “We’re going to be receiving initiatives that are going to, in some ways, mandate how we approach sustainability efforts. If we can get ahead of that a little bit, we can perhaps maintain some of our own control or direction.”

Gendron also said that their approach and discussions toward the issue were not conventional.

“I also really appreciated the discussions surrounding, not just what we might traditionally think of when it comes to sustainability, which of course is important,” Gendron said. “Things like gleaning the curriculum, establishing certain baseline metrics that we’re going to reach for and have targets.”

Gendron went on to say that if this committee is established, he would reach out to the constituent groups for nominations to fill vacancies in the committee. This would include three student positions.

Vice President of Administrative Services Rolf Schleicher expressed his support for Abels and her participation in the committee while voicing some administrative requests.

“We just ask that we have a bulletin here for a budgeting perspective because again we have a lot of requests through the senate side and PCC side of the organization, yet we budget individually except for maybe where we have project-

Other ways to improve academic standing are course repetition, dropping courses and excused withdrawal.

Communication studies professor Robert Loy said that he would meet up with a student and set up a blueprint for the student to triumph.

“I will meet up with them separately in office hours, discuss their goals, review what went wrong last time, and lay out a game plan to ensure their success,” Loy said. “It’s important for students to know that we are proud of them when that happens.”

Loy also said that whenever a student is going through tough times, it is important for them to reach out.

“Be transparent and upfront about an issue you’re dealing with,” Loy said. “Always remember that your success is our success, so we are invested in helping you through this difficult time.”

Interim President Ara Aguiar said that faculty are willing to help students with academic improvement.

“Go to office hours with the faculty member,” Aguiar said. “Look at ways to maybe consider taking some non-credit courses that can help support studying skills and developing those skills that are necessary so that they can be successful.”

Aguiar said being on probation can be caused by not having the textbooks and many students struggle financially.

“So it’s our responsibility to make sure that the textbooks are available,” Aguiar said. “And that’s why I really support going for online educational resources to support courses because as you know, some students can’t afford it.” jrobles.roundupnews@gmail.com based things on grants, so again we need to make sure that we can leverage the district appropriately, “ Schleicher said. “We need to make sure that we talk about how we get things accomplished because the board will have initiatives, but a lot of times, there’s mandates towards the college without any funding.”

Schleicher went on to highlight the importance of aligning tasks with budgeting and district mandates in order to make sure Pierce is competitive while speaking to the importance of this action item.

“We have to be more successful in getting money dedicated and successfully invested and then get the return out of it because if we don’t do that, we are not going to compete against our sister colleges and the local colleges around here and we have to be very competitive,” Schleicher said.

“And sustainability is a critical thing.”

Ables spoke about some of the challenges and the choices Pierce has to make to align the budget with district mandates.

“We have seen unfunded resolutions coming from the district,” Abels said. “A sustainability officer would be one of those. They suggest each campus has one, but there’s no money for it.”

The decision was passed with 14 members voting in favor and one abstention.