There is no doubt that Santa Barbara City College is a truly treasured local asset, a crown jewel of California’s community college system, and, at least for the time being, a campus very much divided.
With a heavy cuts-requiring budget process underway and the school’s president, Andreea Serban, still in the midst of a performance evaluation delivered by the Board of Trustees that has lasted 10 hours and counting (spread out over two separate closed door meetings with a third scheduled late next week), a standing-room-only crowd of concerned stakeholders attended the trustees’ regular board meeting Thursday afternoon to lobby hard for a divergent spectrum of interests that were often in direct conflict.
Speakers — many of them toting signs and most of them applauding loudly when they heard something they liked — inundated the public comment portion of the hearing with opinions and pleas that included everything from ringing endorsements to harsh criticism of Serban, along with passionate arguments for insulating both the school’s Continuing Education program and traditional credit class offerings from the unavoidable approaching cuts. After the last speaker was finished, Trustee President Peter Haslund perfectly summed up the situation he and his fellow decision-makers currently face. “I wish I could say you have made our job easier,” he said, “but you have all made sense, yet you don’t agree.”
The root of Thursday’s hullabaloo was twofold:
First, is the trustees’ ongoing evaluation of Serban. After meeting on Monday for five hours and again on Wednesday for another five, the board — which features four new members, all of whom gained their seats last November via a wave of public dissatisfaction with the way last year’s budget cuts were handled and, in part, Serban’s role in that — have scheduled yet another round of private talks with the school president for next Friday, June 3. With all parties involved required by law to remain mum about what exactly is going down behind closed doors, it is impossible to know the true nature of the dialogue.
However, based on the solid turnout of pro-Serban people — many of whom are either faculty or staff — during public comment sessions on Monday and Thursday, it is safe to say that there is fear out there that the president is being unfairly dragged across the coals of criticism by her board. That being said, there was also a definite camp of commenters decidedly hopeful that criticism is what is happening during the historically protracted evaluation.
The second and ultimately more pressing cause for Thursday’s scene was the school’s unresolved budget process and the cuts that are coming. Needing to make anywhere from $6.8 million to $10.5 million in reductions (currently, all signs point to the lesser amount), the trustees have endorsed an approach that will, after three years, cut some 440 sections of credit classes and convert roughly 252 previously free Continuing Ed courses to a fee-based model. Nothing is final yet though and, as such, no one knows what specifically will be cut.
The debate has a rift in that some people feel that the credit side is being too aggressively impacted while others are worried that the beloved Continuing Education side of things will suffer too much. With this in mind, many of the speakers on Thursday toed their respective lines and made the case for whichever camp they pledge allegiance to, be it credit or noncredit.
There was also a section of speakers who spoke to the need of compromise and realizing that times are economically horrid and things are going to have to be cut and converted no matter what. For this minority population, the message was simple: We need to quit the fighting and name-calling and work together to keep this school special. As SBCC English professor Kim Monda put it, “It is time to move past [the accusations] and for things to become constructive. There is no one person responsible for this situation. There is something much bigger to blame … It is time to work with [Serban and the trustees].”
Ultimately, in the end, the outcry was, as the saying goes, sound and fury signifying nothing. At least not yet. The board had no action items on its agenda related to the budget, and a critical Continuing Education-related item — a proposal to create a trustee-appointed community task force to develop a plan to sustain and even enhance the Adult Ed offerings over the next five years via a variety of funding options including fundraising — was tabled for a future agenda after Trustee Luis Villegas expressed his upset that the entire board was not going to be present to discuss it. (Trustee Joan Livingston, who is on the record as being opposed to the idea of the task force, was absent on Thursday.)
The trustees’ next meeting, when the budget is slated for formal discussion and possible action, is scheduled for June 9.
Comments
Yes, it's a long and arduous process to unravel, but for Ms Moda to patronize was laughable. it's taken this long to peal back the less than tactful policy choices of Dr. Serban and the previous rubber stamp BofT.
We'll move forward now with accountability on the table.
easternpacific (anonymous profile)
May 27, 2011 at 9:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
also, whether Dr Serban has her contract renewed or not, we move on with accountability and transparency. She works for them.
S.B.Community College. Love it!
easternpacific (anonymous profile)
May 27, 2011 at 10:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
5-27-11 SBCC draft
Luis Villegas showed poor leadership by postponing the formation of a task force to research options for funding Continuing Education. This is not controversial. Everyone agrees that some fair formula for combining State funds, donations and student fees is overdue. His fumbled motion is another example of the old Board's way of creating disfunction and divisiveness. And avoiding real issues.
As for English Professor Monda. Clearly you are not reading the ARCC submission regarding your own department. The Chancellor's Office report identified an area of concern for the past three years in the low numbers of students progressing from basic skills courses and transitioning into college level work. In the past SBCC has been in the high ranks of its peer institutions. But not since Serban's arrival. These past three years for example, on average, it takes a student three years to get from their entry level skills to the college level course which is ENG 110.
Three years? To get ENG 110? How is a student supposed to get prepared for transfer? For a next level writing class? Or a business writing class?
If this is your evidence of success "working with Dr. Serban" I ask the English Department to "first take the plank out of your own eye."
The longer Serban stays, the more SBCC's hard-won status will plummet. A vote for Serban is a vote for bloated bureaucracy. I do not want my tax dollars supporting mediocracy when I know we have and can do better.
artfarm (anonymous profile)
May 27, 2011 at 12:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If a student begins in a basic skills English class which is near equivalent to an 8th grade reading level, how can you expect them to be college ready in less than 3 years? It's true, there are wonderful professors in the English department at SBCC and great tutors in the Writing Center, but you are asking for miracles.
Chato (anonymous profile)
May 27, 2011 at 5:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I found the BoT meeting interesting and informative. It seems the board is actually doing some work now, and they are working together, with some disagreements, yes, but working together to do what's best for the college and community in difficulat times. It appears that it's some of the credit side faculty and staff that are creating division in the college and community. The rabid supporters of Dr. Serban appear to be a mean-spirited, pessimist bunch of people who fear losing control. Many of them tell the community "times have changed, live with it." Yet when it comes to making a changes on the board of trustees, they are fighting it tooth and nail.
I agree with easternpacific: Ms Monda may not have meant to do this, but she was very condescending to the audience. I thought it was disrespectful to address the community members in such a way and use the platform of a board meeting to preach to "the adult ed people." If anything, she should have been directing her comments to some of her fellow credit instructors, who, along with Dr. Serban, have been behind the fracturing of the college campus.
More than one speaker made the observation that the SBCC campus is very divided right now and has been for 2 years. It was pointed out that a good teacher/leader/president brings people together. Need I say more?
1wahine (anonymous profile)
May 28, 2011 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
She has to go, and she's trying hard to do so.
GregMohr (anonymous profile)
May 30, 2011 at 11:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think I remember hearing that Adult Ed courses were about10% of the entire SBCC program. Does anyone know if this is correct?
I think this is important to the overall discussion.
OldSB (anonymous profile)
May 30, 2011 at 7:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Chato, if there are those in city college with only 8th grade reading, how did they graduate from high school? Is this what the SB high schools are producing?
I have read so much about guaranteed transfer to UCSB and now wonder. I had no idea that the English classes were on low high school levels. Watching the recording, I, too, thought Monda was condescending and found absurd the disagreements over the Minutes which by name are minutes not hours. Ridiculous to have apparently 15 or more pages of Minutes!
at_large (anonymous profile)
May 31, 2011 at 9:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)