The Guardsman

“Amplifying Sanctuary Voices” Exhibit Gives Power to Migrant Voices

By Beth Lederer bethlyn2020@gmail.com

Amplifying Sanctuary Voices

(ASV) is a community based oral history project that promotes empathy, healing and justice through storytelling. The “Amplifying Sanctuary Voices” exhibit is showcased at the Rosenberg Library, Ocean Campus at City College for the entire Spring 2023 semester. The exhibit offers a humanitarian and empathetic look at the migration problem plaguing the world today.

This multimedia exhibit offers historical facts paired with beautiful artwork, posters, collages, and a looping video series showcasing migration stories. There are also posters amplifying the refugees’ voices, telling their unique stories.

Librarian Michele Mckenzie and English Professor Steven Mayers emphasized the importance of students knowing there is a City College Amplifying Sanctuary Voices exhibition research guide https:// library.ccsf.edu/asv/home which is an integral part of the exhibit.

The resource guide is an online educational tool that offers vital information about the organizations involved in the exhibition’s creation. With links to numerous books, videos and topics like the sanctuary movement, Voice Of Witness (VOW) oral history series, migrant stories and climate change affecting world populations, the guide is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to learn more.

According to Mayers, putting together the research guide was an extensive project and a collaboration of many different organizations including East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC), ASV, Voice of Witness (VOW), Voices UnMuted, and Mayers himself. A video presentation, “INTO THE LIGHT (Stories and Lived Experiences of Immigration)” is showcased at the exhibit and can also be accessed through the library’s

Entry level ESL classes attract up to 70 students per class at Mission campus

website. In this video, there are short presentations from the authors bringing power to their personal stories.

Youth UnMuted, one of the collaborators in the exhibit, who seeks to elevate displaced youth voices through creative storytelling and art workshops, presented “Now You Hear Us Podcast - Episode 1Pavie’s story.”

The co-founders are Daphne Morgen and Hannah Burnbaum who founded the program in response to the lack of programming for refugee youth in Greece. Morgen also participated in the opening day exhibit by bringing her middle school students from Brightworks SF.

In Pavie’s story, the video showed a 16-year-old girl originally from Afghanistan appearing to be underwater blowing bubbles. In her podcast, she talked about the depth of her tragedy: “I want to find some

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By Ellen Yoshitsugu egiese@mail.ccsf.edu

Many beginning noncredit ESL classes at City College’s Mission campus are packed with students, from 40 to 70 students per class, making teaching and learning difficult. City College's mission to provide ESL instruction to San Franciscans who need it has been undermined by the college’s limited budgets in recent years.

Morning classes in Room 106 at the Mission campus are packed every day. Teachers Patty Gallagher and Lori Admokom single-handedly each lead 50, 60, even 70 students in call and response rote lessons. Students share battered textbooks. It is the same in some, but not all, other Mission ESL classes.

ESL department chair Jessica Buchsbaum said, “There is very strong enrollment and very strong attendance” at Mission campus, adding that at all the ESL program locations that remain open — Chinatown, Downtown and Ocean

— attendance is also strong, ranging from 20 to 50 per class. Online classes are also extremely impacted, some with 70 students on Zoom.

“The English language is a lifeline to a new future, to help their families,” said Admokom. The lowest level ESL classes are seeing particularly high numbers of students who have just arrived in the Bay Area. Not Fair to Students

Twenty to 25 students would be the optimal class size, said Buchsbaum. Beginning students should have frequent one to one interactions with the teacher but in large classes this is impossible. Admokom estimated that students will take twice as long to advance because they are “just repeating back, parroting, but that's not real life language use.”

She said that the large classes are only doable because the students are great and want to learn, but that “this should not be the norm for education for anybody.” The students get it but “they don't like it.”

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Faculty and Students Struggle to Recover from Last Year’s Layoffs

Renée Bartlett-Webber rbartle8@mail.ccsf.edu

City College’s Broadcast Electronic Media Arts (BEMA) is one of the 18 departments that had layoffs last year and its faculty are struggling to sustain certificate offerings. This challenge is not unique to BEMA but the department illustrates the extensive repercussions from the loss of educators. BEMA department Chair Dana Jae Labrecque voiced concerns about her ability to even continue the program in the Jan. 26th board meeting. Since then, she gained the bare minimum requirements that will help push her programs forward, but her work is far from over.

The Board of Trustees approved layoffs of 50 full-time equivalent faculty in February 2022 that would take effect in May the same year. Before members voted, they discussed potential ramifications with Chancellor David Martin. “I do not believe that any of these layoffs would directly impact the ability of any of our students to obtain or achieve their academic goals or certificates,” he said. He also said that there would be options to bring back faculty if there was an unforeseen windfall after the decision.

Labrecque, like many other educators, continued scheduling her classes as budgeted. “But on the last day of school in spring 2022,” she said, “ the chancellor called an emergency meeting where he said that you will not be able to bring back your full-time faculty for 39 months.” She said that the chancellor formed this rule to avoid lawsuits from laid-off faculty, as advised by his lawyer. “It’s like burning your house down to prevent thievery!”

Labrecque is advocating that the board have a chance to vote on this 39-month hiring limitation.

Chancellor Martin did not respond to The Guardsman’s request for comment before the deadline of this publication.

With only four of eight faculty members remaining in her department, Labrecque “spent the whole summer” cutting her course offerings, slashing the certificate requirements, and petitioning the administration for more faculty hours and teachers. Only one beginner studio class remains this semester and the studio is overcrowded with 1.5 times the ideal capacity. “I never thought I’d be sitting here cutting the programs I’ve been developing for 22 years.”

BEMA student Casey Hudson had quit their job to start the live sound certificate program and they need the beginner livesound class as part of the requirement. “[Labrecque] taught it in spring of 2022 but I didn't have the prereqs yet. And then she's not able to teach it again until spring of 2024. Continued on page 2

Continued from page 1 - Mission ESL

Student Sandra Lopez said she wants to learn English to get a better job and Ricardo Miranda said that City College's support for the Latin community is very important.

“As long as there are seats we don’t turn them away,” said Admokom.

But actually the Mission campus has had to close enrollment in some classes when they reached the enrollment cap of 100 students, according to Buchsbaum. The cap is set very high because in non credit classes with open enrollment, not all students attend class every day.

ESL Department Funds are Limited

Classes are huge because no more sections can be opened. Buchsbaum explained that they are allocated a certain amount of money by the City College Office of Instruction with which to offer classes while balancing the needs of different communities. This is the case for all City College departments.

In previous years, when demand for ESL grew, the college opened new sections until they ran out of classrooms, sometimes even holding classes in the cafeteria, said Carolyn Cox, a 42 year veteran ESL teacher. She said currently there are empty classrooms and recently laid off teachers ready to teach.

Buchsbaum said they have added some sections at Mission this semester, but it's still very full. “When the college was doing better financially they had the flexibility to augment the budget for a particular program.” and College Preparation (CDCP).

“So how are we going to increase our enrollment if we don't actually increase the number of class sections?” Buchsbaum asked.

There is also extra funding through a California Adult Education Project (CAEP) grant. Cox said that the students are tested twice in the semester and the school gets money based on their improved scores.

This year the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) test was completely online for the first time. Some students were never tested because with the large classes there were not enough computers at Mission campus to test them all.

Need for Local Programs it really has to be close to them,” she continued.

Only about 20 of the 120 regularly attending students from the abruptly closed John Adams ESL program are now attending at Mission, according to Kevin Cross, a teacher newly reassigned to Mission.

“Mission demand is Mission demand,” said Buchsbaum.

Cross and colleague Diane Wallis have experienced two ESL program closures, first the Civic Center location in 2015, and then the John Adams program in December. They and some of their students have protested, made public comments, and met with Chancellor David Martin, Trustee Alan Wong, and Supervisor Dean Preston, arguing for the re-opening of the John Adams ESL program.

Trustee Solomon Responds

“We need to get the data. We need to present the data to show that it's in fact true that students who would be taking classes are being turned away. And students who would be going to John Adams are now not showing up,” said Trustee Susan Solomon.

Additional Funding

California funds City College’s non credit programs based mainly on student attendance.

There is extra funding for some noncredit ESL classes designated Career Development

Student Thanh Nguyen and her husband used to walk 30 minutes to their ESL classes at John Adams; now they have an hour-long bus ride to reach the Mission campus.

Immigrants usually work two to three jobs and sometimes can’t afford transportation, said Admokom. “So if they're going to take a class,

Lost students mean lost revenue for the college, she continued, “which creates the potential for a downward spiral.”

“What happened to those students who were in school? [Did] they find another place to go to school or did they simply stop trying?” said Solomon.

Continued from page 1 - Students Struggle

Without experience I don't feel like I can really get a live sound job. So, I'm really stuck helping people for free for a long time.”

“We could sign up for our classes like normal, and then over the summer, all of a sudden most of my classes were dropped,” said student Maura Cotter. Some courses were added back after she sent a letter to the board, but she had to stay an extra semester to finish her certificate.

Labrecque has fought for concessions on behalf of her program and as of Feb. 17, the BEMA department had granted her minimum request of three additional weekly teaching hours. But this is only the first of many administrative steps required to bring back the classes she believes her students need. “I do see a little light at the end of the tunnel because I got the minimum I asked for. Now I have to figure out how to step down as chair.”

BEMA is one example of a department that has had to severely cut class offerings and as a result, left students struggling to complete their certificates. Hudson said that whoever is making the decisions at the college “doesn't realize what an asset they have in the BEMA department and Dana. She has made this incredible program and it wouldn't be that program without her, but they're burning her out!”