The College Planning Council discussed City College’s faculty hiring process and budget decisions at their meeting on Oct. 29.
Issues of transparency within the hiring process at City College were brought to Superintendent-President, Erika Endrijonas.
Endrijonas noted that when deciding to hire new faculty members, classified staff, including members of the council, are not included in the decision process.
“Classified staff don’t weigh in on faculty and while the deans might talk about the faculty positions and what they themselves might prioritize,” Endrijonas said. “Ultimately, that decision is communication between the Academic Senate to me as the president, they make a recommendation to me, and I look at that, and I evaluate the reasons for it.”
This process raised questions from Armando Ramos, Assistant Professor of Art, and Jamie Cambell, Associate Professor of Mathematics.
Cambell explained that this hiring process involves a meeting with Endrijonas that is closed to the public and other staff members.
Campbell asked if there was a difference in transparency between the two hiring processes. Endrijonas noted that transparency would only be a concern if she withheld information about the candidate.
“I won’t reveal who we selected; just visit the [City College] website to see for yourself,” Endrijonas said.
This then prompted Ramos to comment that he feels they are only “a few steps away” from just having to look on the website for new faculty members. Members of the council suggested selecting members from CPC to attend the meetings where staff are selected, but no decision was reached.
Endrijonas continued through the meeting by discussing the business services and information technology (IT) position.
Endrijonas will be holding final interviews for the Vice President of Business Services position next week, with two candidates left. As for the IT position, the announcement of the Executive Director of IT position will be coming within the next week.
Until this position is filled, Endrijonas explained that there will be no interim Executive Director of IT. Instead, Enjrijonas will be involving herself in the current IT team.
“What I’ll be doing is meeting with the three [current] IT managers probably every other week, just to check in on projects that are going on, and understand what’s going,” Endrijonas said.
The bulk of the meeting was concluded with a follow-up conversation from Cambell about the planning and resource budget.
The planning and resource budget consists of the needs of every department at City College. The total amount of need for this year’s planning and resources is around $383,000.
Campbell is trying to allocate money from the capital projects fund, which has funds that have not been earmarked for a specific project yet. As for allocating money from other places, Campbell inquired about using money from the COVID-19 fund, but will not get an answer until the next meeting.
The council will reconvene at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
