The College Planning Council (CPC) reconvened on Tuesday, April 15 discussing topics happening around campus.
Joshua Ramirez, President of the Academic Senate started the meeting off with a year in review of the Senate.
Ramirez brought a presentation highlighting the most important topics that have occurred in the school year until now.
One of the major bullet points was the Senate’s resolution for the non-renewal of contracts for two of the deans.
Earlier this year Dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Elizabeth Imhof and Dean of Health and Human Services and Career Technology, Alan Price had their contracts not renewed by the administration. Faculty members who had them as deans had many questions regarding the decision as they had no issue in terms of satisfactory standings.
Earlier this year in a council meeting in February, math professor Jamie Campbell voiced his concerns on the topic.
“I have worked with, agreed productively with, disagreed productively with and respect both of them as assets to this institution,” Campbell said.
In the most recent council meeting Ramirez elaborated on the decisions made by the senate regarding the deans.
“The Senate approved a resolution co-drafted with the faculty association and subsequently endorsed by our colleagues among the classified staff supporting deans Elizabeth Imhof and Alan Price urging the rescinding of their contract non-renewal,” Ramirez said.
He led on to discuss the “Dear Colleague” letter that was sent by the Department of Education on Feb. 14, demanding schools remove diversity, equity and inclusion programs immediately.
Ramirez had discussed that City College will continue to provide education to all students. With the support of numerous senate bills and education codes, he firmly states schools are responsible for creating a multicultural learning environment.
“We’ll continue to do what we do,” Ramirez said. “We have a number of Senate bills and we also have ed codes that very firmly say you are responsible for creating a multicultural learning environment for historically Black serving and Hispanic serving institutes.”
The meeting transitioned to Emma Hornic, director of marine diving technology at City College who discussed the upcoming Ocean Collective Project that will reside at City College.
The project is a collaboration between City College and Santa Barbara Fisheries Department in order to better utilize the ocean that is right in front of City College.
This project looks to create a creative workforce pipeline that leads straight into the blue economy of Santa Barbara. The blue economy refers to all work that is related to the ocean, from fishing to working on the harbor. The community of Santa Barbara has numerous opportunities for blue economy work.
The next CPC meeting will take place on Tuesday, May 6.
