I'd like to know why the administration is going to spend $750,000 to replace current Department chairs with Deans. Why spend the extra money when needed faculty positions are kept frozen and student assistants are laid off? The decision doesn't make financial sense. How will the Deans improve administrative matters? We've been there, and done that. We abandoned the concept because there was something wrong with it.
It seems like history repeating itself again. Can't anybody learn anything from history? Is administrative control of mid-level management more important than ensuring good service to students? What we need is, more people, not less people, to work with students, and all of the cheap assistance (student assistants) to provide students with good service, from the classroom to the registrar's office. Could you imagine how many faculty and student assistants we could hire for $750,000? Have board members seen what's going on on our campuses and centers? Why does the chairman of the Board feel that he can write a letter urging us to vote against the Union when he doesn't even know the people who work at our campuses and centers?
What kind of chairman does that? How can he be sure that he knows a coin when all he has seen is just one side of the coin?
The president of the Faculty Union must insist that Deans are not needed. Not at this time. We are financially strapped. The school must prioritize its needs. There are many areas that are in desperate need of help. I've come to conclude that only the people who are insensitive to FCCJ's actual needs would approve spending $750,000 for hiring Deans. Ignorance has always been expensive. It is obvious that, in this case, our Board of Directors has made a costly decision based on ignorance.
This is my opinion, but I know of many teaching faculty who feel the same way.
Hector Harima - Professor, Biology - Deerwood Center