Full agenda for CCA Spring Council delegates.
Community college faculty delegates to the CCA's Spring Council received encouraging news that union leaders, the Governor and the state Legislature are hearing their concerns.
College Faculty Winners of W.H.O. Awards
CCA announced the winners of its annual W.H.O. (We Honor Ours) Awards during the Spring Council at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame. Twenty-two community college faculty received the awards after being nominated by their peers. Receiving the CCA/CTA State W.H.O. Award was CTA Board Member David Lebow, for his work assisting a CCA local chapter. Shown here are the winners, with NEA President Bob Chase, who was master of ceremonies for the event.
In the front row, from left: Diane Gunther, Long Beach City College;Bruce Williams, Mt. San Antonio College; Janet Chaniot, Mendocino College; Esther Pryor, Solano College; Brenda Borron, Irvine Valley College; Barbara Bennett, Cypress College; Judith Mandel, College of the Desert; Marie Van Vooren, Long Beach City College-CHI; Heather McColgan, Merced College; Corina Soto, Southwestern College; Bob Chase, NEA president. Back row, from left: CTA Board Member David Lebow; Tom Teegarden, Taft Community College; Henry Sauceda, Rio Hondo College, Joe Chirra, Mira Costa College; Tom Masulis, Shasta College; Jerry Pompa, College of the Siskiyous; Clifford Burns, Sierra College; Ralph Eavenson, Sierra College; Jay Lippman, College of the Desert, adjunct, and John Gerhold, Bakersfield College.
From Diana Fuentes-Michel, the Governor's undersecretary for Higher Education to CTA President Wayne Johnson and NEA President Bob Chase, the message was clear: more must be done to increase funding for community colleges.
"The governor is very clear that he wants stable resources for higher education," Fuentes-Michel, who noted that the community colleges last year saw the highest increase in funds since the 1970s. "But we need to continue to work and to focus on these issues. We need to provide more discretionary funds for colleges."
Fuentes-Michel observed that Gov. Davis has now appointed the majority of the Board of Governors for the Community Colleges - appointees that she feels have a greater understanding of higher education issues.
Why are these women smiling?
CCA President Dian Dolores Hasson and Judy Thomas, manager of CTA's Research and Finance department, both won special awards at the CCA Spring Council. Hasson was winner of the 2001 CTA State W.H.O. Award while Thomas received a 2001 CCA State Staff W.H.O. Award. Also winning special awards were former CCA Vice President Ron Reel who received the Theodore Bass Teacher in Politics Award and the Kern College Faculty Association, which also received the Theodore Bass chapter award.
The governor has also has promised $62 million to the community colleges to provide more funds for part-time instructors. It is money, however, that may go to pay the costs of the state's energy bill.
"The resource question is very real," Fuentes-Michel said. "There is tremendous pressure to cut the budget if the fiscal situation doesn't get better." She urged CCA members to write, e-mail and lobby their legislators regarding the importance of higher education funds. "It is very, very important for you to have a voice and to be involved in the process," she said.
Later in the weekend conference, CTA President Wayne Johnson reiterated to the Council that "the role of CTA is to fight for adequate funding."
Johnson observed that one of California's challenges is to recruit more minority educators and that the access point to higher education for many minority students is the community college."CTA has to make sure that the system is available to all of those who want to attend," Johnson said.
In addition to fighting for funding, Johnson pledged that CTA would do more to organize part-time instructors and to make sure they gain adequate compensation and benefits.
"CTA must do more organizing at the community colleges," he said. "The truth is, we have not always been there as we should have been in the last few years."
In his remarks later at the CCA's W.H.O. Awards banquet, NEA President Bob Chase also praised the work of California's community college instructors.
"You take 1 million students, immigrants and native born, young and not-so-young, high school valedictorians and high school drop-outs, many who balance jobs and studies just to be educated, and you inspire them. You give them confidence to succeed. You've made California colleges the nation's premiere system of education," Chase said.
Yet, Chase noted, with Tidal Wave II - the hundreds of thousands of sons and daughters of Baby Boomers - heading toward the community colleges, the battle for resources is as intense as it was in the early '90s, he said.
"You may be miracle workers, but there are limits to the miracles even you can perform," Chase said.
Still, Chase urged the faculty "not to get tired," but to join with the natural allies of community colleges - supportive legislators, working families, labor leaders and others - to fight for more funding.