Welcome Home

Welcome back to the online Faculty Voice! In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve migrated back to the nest—the CCFT homepage. From now on, you can catch your monthly Voice news along with regular Local 4400 updates all in the same place. Many thanks to John Govsky and Maya for providing technical and emotional support during the transition. Also, thanks and apologies to Sarah Henne from the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers and any other uncredited photographers in this month's news; my technical skills are still playing catch-up.

This month’s Faculty Voice news features a last-minute press towards Election Day with reports back from the October 18th voter registration rally and CCFT’s many other mobilizing efforts so far. IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO HELP with last-minute election preparations! See Maya’s piece on CCFT mobilization efforts to find out more.

We have two presidential reports in this month’s news. CCFT President Paul Harvell has written a typically informative piece about the recent discussions over what to do with Winter Session next school year. If you missed the debates in Faculty Senate and CCFT Council, you’ll appreciate his highlights. Additionally, it was my pleasure late last month to sit down with CCEU’s busy new president, Alta Northcutt, and find out what’s on the horizon for CCEU members.

by Diane Putnam

Alta’s many years of union experience, her practical nature, and her sense of humor were all in evidence throughout our conversation. Read the interview to find out how she and her team are approaching the challenges we all face and those that are unique to staff.

Also in this issue, I am very pleased to feature two more faculty stories that shine a light on how programs are faring in these tough times. Continuing our Faculty Voices series this month, Tera Martin reports on the struggle to serve students at the Watsonville Center with ever-dwindling resources, and she aptly illustrates why we all need to take Howard Zinn’s advice and creatively defy “all that is bad around us.” In another fantastic piece, Art Photography co-chairs Gordon Hammer and Susan Hoisington and their colleagues remind us in words and images of Art Photo's wide-ranging presence in our community. Perched as it is near the bottom of the draft program elimination list (which is currently shelved until after the election), Art Photo could find its very existence threatened if Prop. 30 doesn’t pass. Let’s do everything we can to avoid that conversation altogether.

Enjoy the news and hang in there until we can all celebrate next Wednesday.

As always, your feedback on news and future story ideas is welcome: diputnam@cabrillo.edu.