The Academic Senate convened on Oct. 9, addressing the lack of chromebooks in City College’s Luria Library, leading faculty to question certain funds that the Board of Trustees have been holding since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Academic Senate President Joshua Ramirez presented his updated report with one of the topics being the library’s critical need for more chromebooks, as library administration has brought these concerns to the senate. Ramirez emphasized the importance of faculty involvement in this discussion.
The senate acknowledged the library’s essential role on campus, giving students access to resources as well as a quiet place to study. It was noted that the shortage of these chromebooks has a large impact on students’ ability to complete class work.
The senate discussed potential solutions and available fundings to increase the number of chromebooks at City College.
“It is a travesty that we cannot supply these resources for our students,” Accounting professor Laura Woyach said.
Ramirez explained that there are many chromebooks not in full use across campus that most faculty members are unaware of.
“We have a number of chromebooks that do not fulfill their design life,” Ramirez said. “We need to find out where we can find those [chromebooks] so students can have these as resources.”
The board acknowledged this is a positive direction.
Kathy O’Connor, chair of physical education, raised concerns in regard to the $1.5 million in funds that the board holds from recent grants, leading her to additionally bring up the legitimacy of the COVID-19 related funds.
According to O’Connor, these fundings have not been used efficiently by the board.
“Someone needs to take a hold of this,” O’Connor said. “This isn’t something we should just ignore.”
Faculty hopes to bring these issues to the College Planning Council, addressing these funds to advocate for student needs.
With further discussion, faculty discussed the corrections made to the near-finalized Facility Vision Plan presented at the previous academic senate meeting.
Danielle Swiontek, who is in the social studies division, brought up her concerns about the factually inaccurate statistics presented in this plan.
“It was labeled that the BC (Business/Communications) forum was used by students for a total of 12 minutes a week.” Swiontek said. “I did the math, it’s used 6 ½ hours a week. It’s so inaccurate it should be thrown out and redone completely.”
In response, Ramirez assured the senate that these corrections will be implemented before finalizing this draft, after speaking with Superintendent-President Erika Endrijonas on the matter.
The Measure P bond was quickly brought into this discussion. The senate came to the conclusion that almost every community college in the state relies on these bonds in order to receive any sort of funding for facility repairs.
O’Connor brought up the safety concerns that have been seen throughout most facilities on campus.
“If we don’t get this approved and we are stuck with these run down facilities, all that needs to happen is an earthquake.” O’Connor said.
Moving away from this vision plan, fraudulent bots were discussed by Assistant Superintendent/Vice President of Student Affairs Paloma Arnold.
“There is some good news as for these fraudulent enrollments,” Arnold said. “Since Sept. 26, applications have automatically been placed on hold if the applicant selects its return to SBCC.”
Arnold explained that these bots use this as a loophole to get out of the many steps it takes to enroll. Fraud is flagged immediately once the application indicates no prior academic history at City College.
According to Arnold’s reports, since Sept. 26, there have been a total of 1,000 holds placed, resulting in a significant decrease in fraudulent enrollments. This method has achieved a reported accuracy rate of 95%.
The next Academic Senate meeting will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 23.
Correction: Oct. 11, 2024
A previous version of this story misspelled Laura Woyach’s last name as “Wyoach.” The Channels regrets this error. In addition a few grammatical errors were fixed.
