Karl Ewald, CCFT President
It is truly an honor to have been elected president and to have this chance to serve the faculty through CCFT. The last few weeks have given me a completely new view of Cabrillo. Partially because I’ve been spending about half my time working from the CCFT office on lower campus, but also because I’ve been participating in so many more meetings. There are so many things going on at the college.
During Flex week I had the chance to speak at All College Day, meet with adjunct faculty at the Part-Timers’ Solidarity Luncheon, hosted a session on the conceptual model behind a DC Matrix redesign we’ll continue to work on with the district through much of this year, the DC Meeting hosted by Denise Lim, Eric Hoffmann’s session on the new evaluation system, and the CCFT Luncheon and General Council Meeting. Through the fall, I’ll be a member of the College Planning Council (CPC) and I’ll be trying to attend all the Faculty Senate meetings as a guest.
I’m feeling energized and optimistic about the coming year. While the failure of Measure Q could have left us largely demoralized, I’ve seen ample evidence that is has galvanized the college with a new sense of unity and collaboration. I think losing the bond was a hiccup. Certainly one we will survive.
We are excited that the Governing Board passed a resolution in favor of Proposition 55 which extends the income tax elements of Proposition 30. These taxes provide about 15% of Cabrillo’s budget. CCFT will certainly be working on efforts to pass Prop 55 this fall. We hope you can help!
Last spring, the Governing Board asked CCFT to postpone negotiations on compensation while they focused on community efforts in relation to Measure Q. As I reported at our Flex week events, the board discussed our proposal at their August meeting but requested additional budget information from the district and plan to revisit the proposal at their meeting on September 12th. We have negotiations scheduled for September 14th. It is important to realize that we are not at an impasse. Even though there has been significant time since we first gave the district our proposal, I’m careful to avoid letting time alone color things in a positive or a negative light. We just haven’t heard anything yet. For a complete update on negotiations, including the various side letters we’ve signed during the spring and summer, see Maya Bendotoff’s article in this issue of Faculty Voice.
As an individual faculty member, I’m a big proponent of the Guided Pathways efforts. I realize there is a difference between my personal support and CCFT’s support. I encourage you all to attend the LFM brown bag lunches or do some reading and research on your own. Either way, make sure you find some time to explore the ideas behind Guided Pathways because it is very likely both Faculty Senate and CCFT will be asking for your opinion on whether Cabrillo should move forward with a comprehensive Guided Pathways implementation.
As the CCFT president, I believe that Cabrillo’s budgetary and enrollment challenges are the most significant obstacles to a significant increase in faculty compensation. I’ve recently met with several board members and I feel there is a commitment to address the low relative standing of full-time faculty salaries. The challenge for everyone is how to balance that effort against various others. CCFT will continue to advocate for prioritizing faculty compensation, but a better budget through increased enrollment will make things a lot easier for all of us.
I’ll be trying to explore the effects of Guided Pathways reforms on enrollment and budgets at other colleges this fall. There are plenty of reasons to believe Guided Pathways will increase our enrollment in addition to its potential to increase student success and equity. I also have some personal experience from the engineering department. Through several grants over the last five years, we’ve been able to implement several Guided Pathways style ideas and the results are very encouraging. If you look at enrollment in NAS over the last 5 years, you will find it has been relatively stable when compared to Cabrillo as a whole. I’m hopeful these reforms could positively impact our budget and enrollment. As I said, I’ll be searching for evidence of this and will share any I can find.
For those that would like to know a bit more about me and haven’t heard me already introduce myself, I’m going to share the introduction I sent to faculty during the election:
I’m an engineer. As I like to tell students, engineers make change for a living. Engineers can sometimes be a little pushy with change. It can be nearly impossible to resist tinkering with a system after spending a little time with it. After three years on the E-Board as treasurer, I feel like I’ve had that time and I’m enthused and optimistic that there are positive changes to make.
Science is made up of many ideas. All of which, within their prescribed limitations, are true. Working in these fields one becomes practiced in keeping an open mind. There is a profound acceptance of a vast body of knowledge that none of us can completely encompass. Scientists share ideas with an expectation of learning new things and finding new connections. I’m not going to suggest that our participatory governance model has the same connection to external validation that science has, but if one accepts that people make decisions within their own frame of reference, then entering conversations with an open mind still makes sense. I believe deeply good ideas will make sense within multiple thought systems and building consensus often involves translating ideas into the thought frameworks of other people so they can grasp their value.
Finally, let me just say that it has been and continues to be an honor to serve in the union. After a decade working in the tech industry I can tell you that having a seat at the table and having a chance to provide guidance and feedback is by no means the norm. Despite the flaws in our participatory governance model and the inherent short-term inefficiencies of involving so many people that have so many thoughts and motivations, its promise is that an organization will make better decisions and will gain efficiencies in the long-run. I’m not sure it’s possible to prove this, but I still believe it’s true.