The first College Planning Council (CPC) meeting of the semester was held on Tuesday, Feb. 4 discussing the upcoming semester.
The council spoke about a plan regarding a year-long grant of $200,000 that was received in July 2024. City College is looking to focus on three areas using the grant: participatory governance, decision-making, and integrated planning. In this plan, there is a schedule for spending the money with objectives for each quarter.
This allows for transparency across campus as to where the money is going. With five months left to use the grant and $167,729 remaining, the question is if the budget committee will have time to plan the use of this grant before July 2025.
“Are we gonna have time to deal with both?” Jamie Campbell, mathematics associate professor and chair of the planning and resources committee said. “The budget committee also has a whole bunch of new work that we found out about at our last meeting in December, and we only meet an hour and a half every other week.”
Superintendent-President Erika Endrijonas focused on the abnormality of the fiscal situation City College faces this year.
“COVID made it easy to kick the can down the road because the federal government and state came through with a lot of funding,” Endrijonas said. “Now is the time to face it [budget crisis] because we’ve got to keep the college running.”
Cornelia Alsheimer-Barthel and Jamie Campbell made a public comment about two City College deans whose contracts were unexpectedly not extended. Campbell said the deans were in good standing because they had both received entirely satisfactory performance reviews.
“It looks as if there is a message sent to the remaining deans and employees in general, that we better all tread cautiously, creating a culture of fear in this institution,” Alsheimer-Barthel said.
Another public comment was made about the situation, highlighting the work the deans had done for City College. One of the deans had recently been celebrated for bringing City College’s first bachelor’s degree.
“I have worked with, agreed productively with, disagreed productively with, and respect both of them as assets to this institution,” Campbell said.
He emphasized the two messages that were felt by the faculty members.
“One, why go the extra mile and do the hard work, if you will just get fired. ‘Thank you for the monumental achievement now, get out’,” Campbell said. “Two, the job of anyone on this campus is at risk, better keep your head down . . . It makes me once again acknowledge my privilege in having tenure.”
The next CPC meeting will be held on Feb. 18.
