Issuu

The Associated Students Works to Reduce Barriers Ellen Yoshitsugu

Chancellor Martin explains how to “build the budget”

egiese@mail.ccsf.edu While riding on transit, Student Chancellor Heather Brandt responded to questions about the Associated Students’(AS) current work. The AS went in person to Sacramento on Jan 10, and will go again March 15. Brandt said, “We have meetings with legislators. We're going to continue to lobby and rally and I think we're going to attend a budget committee meeting and give public comment.” All students are welcome to join them. Contact Heather at studentchancellor@mail.ccsf.edu. Brandt is particularly concerned about the following bills in the state legislature. Assembly Bill 811 would modify existing laws to allow courses to be repeated five times, in some cases, up from the current three. “Why are we being punitive and why is it not okay to fail? I don't think anybody ever intends to fail,“ said Brandt. Last year’s Assembly Bill 1919 would have allocated money to colleges to provide free transit passes for students. Brandt said, “It had a lot of legislative support, made it all the way to [Gov. Newsom’s] desk, but didn't get signed into law because money was not set aside in the budget for it. And so, this year, we wanted to continue to push for it, but make sure that it gets worked into the budget.” AB 2449 ended the permission to conduct public meetings by teleconference. Brandt said they are looking for “some way around Assembly Bill 2449, which really, really impacts who is able to show up in meetings. I think one of the silver linings in the pandemic was being able to meet virtually or remotely meant that there were more non-traditional students able to access student leadership.” AB 2881, signed into law last year, gives priority registration to students who are parents, among other things. Brandt is watching to see how it is implemented at City College, because, “we do not have a process in place to collect data on who our student parent population is or how big it is.” Continue on page 2

NEWS BRIEF

Ellen Yoshitsugu egiese@mail.ccsf.edu

Photo Ellen Yoshitsugu for the Guardsman.

Rams Fail to Capture Second Straight State Title; Fullerton Hornets Shock Rams 83-73 Gracia Hernandez ghern140@mail.ccsf.edu After a season-long show of explosive offense, the City College Rams didn't have enough firepower against the No. 1 Southern California seed, the Fullerton College Hornets, who walked off with an 83-73 victory and the CCCAA state title. The tough loss to the Hornets on March 12 at the Golden Eagle Arena in West Hills-Lemoore College cost the team its second consecutive state championship title. A win would have given the Rams a sixth state title in men’s basketball, breaking a five-championship tie with Cerritos, Fresno City and Long Beach City. With a victory Justin Labagh, who has coached the Rams to four of those state titles, would have surpassed legendary coach Jerry Tarkanian, who also collected four state titles. Despite its five titles, City College has never won consecutive state championships. Only three schools have accomplished that feat: Long Beach (1958, 1959); Riverside City (1964, 1965, 1966); and Rancho Santiago–Santa Ana now–(1990, 1991). Continue on page 8

Using the 2021-2022 year as an example, Chancellor David Martin provided a well explained close-up of how the administration “builds” the college’s budget each spring in his two hour Zoom webinar on March 3, 2023. In addition Martin presented a draft look at next year’s budget, to be finally approved by the trustees in June, and the preliminary instructional allocations for next year, recently shared with department chairs. Able questioning by participants during the Q and A segment brought out substantive answers from Martin about various aspects of the college’s finances. See links in sidebar. AFT 2121 executive director Alayna Frederichs’ pointed questions led Martin to affirm that this year he has chosen to hold this forum instead of actually meeting with the union to work together on the budget. In 2021 during the pandemic, the faculty union agreed to a 10% pay cut in order to stave off further class reductions. This cut along with other staff reductions actually generated a surplus and the college received extra funding. Martin revealed that rather than abiding by the negotiated agreement with AFT2121 the extra funds were used for other purposes such as controversial transfers to the retiree health care trust fund. Fredericks said these financial choices represented “a really substantial breach of trust and good faith between your administration and both the 900 teachers who serve city college's students, and the public who elects a board to make critical decisions about the priorities and direction of their public institution.” Martin contended that these were necessary to remain accredited and were approved by the trustees when they approved the budget documents at the time.

Photo Courtesy of Adobe Stock Photos

Mardi Gras

Campus Native

Unity Day

Celebration

plants

on Campus

Page 2

Page 4

Page 2