The Academic Senate finalized the rankings for faculty position requests during its meeting on Oct. 21.
Departments seeking new hires go through the process of having their requests viewed and ranked separately by the college’s deans and the Academic Senate, a consultative body representing the faculty in administrative matters.
“In our conversations and decisions we strive to represent our divisions while also being committed to the faculty body as a whole,” said Senate President Raeanne Napoleon, reciting and spotlighting one of the listed community values. “This is especially important today as we rank for future faculty position offerings.”
This past month consisted of the senate listening to proposals from 16 departments for 24 positions.
Interim Superintendent-President Kindred Murillo will then take both rankings into consideration before announcing the final approved positions at the upcoming College Planning Council meeting on Nov. 2. Napoleon told The Channels Murillo would commit to “at least or around” four positions but she also needs to assess the school’s financials and faculty obligation number before making her final decision on how many requests will be filled.
“When a position does not get replaced it can hobble a department so to speak because they are ‘down’ a full-time faculty member or worse eliminate the program in its entirety,” Napoleon said during the senate’s meeting on Sept. 29.
The senate used a randomized method while voting to ensure no bias. The voting process goes through three rounds of voting. The first round lists the top six and bottom six positions, the top three and bottom three positions in the second round of voting and the middle six positions filled in the third round.
The top four positions voted on by the senate go to nursing, physics & engineering, construction technology and computer science.
The position requests from DSPS and nursing are likely to be secured by external funding, affecting very little of the school’s general fund. 80% of DSPS’s financing comes from categorical funding, which is federal and state programs “designed to increase education resources for certain student populations in need of supplemental services,” according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital’s grant for the college will potentially be able to cover two of the three positions requested by nursing, according to the deans’ rankings.
Last year, four faculty positions were approved to be filled after pushback came from the senate when only two positions would have originally been replaced.
The senate will reconvene on Oct. 27.
