The Contra Costa Community College district and Diablo Valley College have moved forward with their plans to cut a number of sections from the fall schedule. After the administration’s first round of proposed cuts, protests from faculty over the poorly thought-out choices of proposed cuts led to the creation of a joint task force of administrators and faculty for the second round.
While the overall 6.2 percent reduction of full time equivalent students was maintained, departments agreed to take an across the board 3 percent, with the remaining 3.2 percent being targeted at classes with low productivity.
Laurie Lema, President of Faculty Senate, indicated that keep complete classes from being killed was a high priority for the task force. “We attempted to preserve as much breadth and access as possible,” Lema said. Ultimately, even with more carefully targeted cuts, the 6.2% reduction left few departments untouched. “Nobody was happy,” said Keith Mikolavich, vice-president of Faculty Senate, “so we must have done something right.”