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“Amplifying Sanctuary Voices” Exhibit Gives Power to Migrant Voices

Instructor Patty Gallagher leads a group lesson in her 8:30 a.m. ESL Beginning Low 1 class at City College’s Mission campus. Photo by Ellen Yoshitsugu/The Guardsman.

Mission Campus Amplifying Sanctuary Voices, an exhibit at City College Rosenberg Library. A storytelling initiative led by East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC). Image of exhibit case featuring details about significant historical events in a timeline. 1951-1982. February, 7 2023. Photo by D. Eric Bean/The Guardsman.

By Beth Lederer bethlyn2020@gmail.com

mplifying Sanctuary Voices (ASV) is a community based oral history project that promotes empathy, healing and justice through storytelling. The “Amplifying Sanctuary Voices” exhibit is showcased at the Rosenberg Library, Ocean Campus at City College for the entire Spring 2023 semester. The exhibit offers a humanitarian and empathetic look at the migration problem plaguing the world today. This multimedia exhibit offers historical facts paired with beautiful artwork, posters, collages, and a looping video series showcasing migration stories. There are also posters amplifying the refugees’ voices, telling their unique stories. Librarian Michele Mckenzie and English Professor Steven Mayers emphasized the importance of students knowing there is a City College Amplifying Sanctuary Voices

exhibition research guide https:// library.ccsf.edu/asv/home which is an integral part of the exhibit. The resource guide is an online educational tool that offers vital information about the organizations involved in the exhibition’s creation. With links to numerous books, videos and topics like the sanctuary movement, Voice Of Witness (VOW) oral history series, migrant stories and climate change affecting world populations, the guide is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to learn more. According to Mayers, putting together the research guide was an extensive project and a collaboration of many different organizations including East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC), ASV, Voice of Witness (VOW), Voices UnMuted, and Mayers himself. A video presentation, “INTO THE LIGHT (Stories and Lived Experiences of Immigration)” is showcased at the exhibit and can also be accessed through the library’s

website. In this video, there are short presentations from the authors bringing power to their personal stories. Youth UnMuted, one of the collaborators in the exhibit, who seeks to elevate displaced youth voices through creative storytelling and art workshops, presented “Now You Hear Us Podcast - Episode 1Pavie’s story.” The co-founders are Daphne Morgen and Hannah Burnbaum who founded the program in response to the lack of programming for refugee youth in Greece. Morgen also participated in the opening day exhibit by bringing her middle school students from Brightworks SF. In Pavie’s story, the video showed a 16-year-old girl originally from Afghanistan appearing to be underwater blowing bubbles. In her podcast, she talked about the depth of her tragedy: “I want to find some Exhibit continued on page 2

Entry level ESL classes attract up to 70 students per class By Ellen Yoshitsugu egiese@mail.ccsf.edu Many beginning noncredit ESL classes at City College’s Mission campus are packed with students, from 40 to 70 students per class, making teaching and learning difficult. City College's mission to provide ESL instruction to San Franciscans who need it has been undermined by the college’s limited budgets in recent years. Morning classes in Room 106 at the Mission campus are packed every day. Teachers Patty Gallagher and Lori Admokom single-handedly each lead 50, 60, even 70 students in call and response rote lessons. Students share battered textbooks. It is the same in some, but not all, other Mission ESL classes. ESL department chair Jessica Buchsbaum said, “There is very strong enrollment and very strong attendance” at Mission campus, adding that at all the ESL program locations that remain open — Chinatown, Downtown and Ocean

— attendance is also strong, ranging from 20 to 50 per class. Online classes are also extremely impacted, some with 70 students on Zoom. “The English language is a lifeline to a new future, to help their families,” said Admokom. The lowest level ESL classes are seeing particularly high numbers of students who have just arrived in the Bay Area. Not Fair to Students Twenty to 25 students would be the optimal class size, said Buchsbaum. Beginning students should have frequent one to one interactions with the teacher but in large classes this is impossible. Admokom estimated that students will take twice as long to advance because they are “just repeating back, parroting, but that's not real life language use.” She said that the large classes are only doable because the students are great and want to learn, but that “this should not be the norm for education for anybody.” The students get it but “they don't like it.” ESL Continued on page 2

Faculty and Students Struggle to Recover from Last Year’s Layoffs Renée Bartlett-Webber rbartle8@mail.ccsf.edu

ity College’s Broadcast Electronic Media Arts (BEMA) is one of the 18 departments that had layoffs last year and its faculty are struggling to sustain certificate offerings. This challenge is not unique to BEMA but the department illustrates the extensive repercussions from the loss of educators. BEMA department Chair Dana Jae Labrecque voiced concerns about her ability to even continue the program in the Jan. 26th board meeting. Since then, she gained the bare minimum

requirements that will help push her programs forward, but her work is far from over. The Board of Trustees approved layoffs of 50 full-time equivalent faculty in February 2022 that

"I'm really stuck helping people for free for a long time" would take effect in May the same year. Before members voted, they discussed potential ramifications with Chancellor David Martin. “I do not believe that any of these layoffs

would directly impact the ability of any of our students to obtain or achieve their academic goals or certificates,” he said. He also said that there would be options to bring back faculty if there was an unforeseen windfall after the decision. Labrecque, like many other educators, continued scheduling her classes as budgeted. “But on the last day of school in spring 2022,” she said, “ the chancellor called an emergency meeting where he said that you will not be able to bring back your full-time faculty for 39 months.” She said that the chancellor formed this rule to avoid lawsuits

from laid-off faculty, as advised by his lawyer. “It’s like burning your house down to prevent thievery!” Labrecque is advocating that the board have a chance to vote on this 39-month hiring limitation. Chancellor Martin did not respond to The Guardsman’s request for comment before the deadline of this publication. With only four of eight faculty members remaining in her department, Labrecque “spent the whole summer” cutting her course offerings, slashing the certificate requirements, and petitioning the administration for more faculty

hours and teachers. Only one beginner studio class remains this semester and the studio is overcrowded with 1.5 times the ideal capacity. “I never thought I’d be sitting here cutting the programs I’ve been developing for 22 years.” BEMA student Casey Hudson had quit their job to start the live sound certificate program and they need the beginner livesound class as part of the requirement. “[Labrecque] taught it in spring of 2022 but I didn't have the prereqs yet. And then she's not able to teach it again until spring of 2024. Continued on page 2

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