The recommendations for which departments will recieve either full-time or part-time faculty have been finalized and handed.

The so-called Box 2a committee is a group of four administrators assigned the task of researching and making these recommendations.

This committee has recommended that one full-time faculty position should be filled for the Alternate Energy Technologies/Electronics/Computer Technical Support, one position to Journalism and one to Broadcast Communications Art/Art Digital Media departments will be receiving full-time faculty support.

Walters has accepted the recommendations and the faculty will begin working January 2011.

There had initially been 12 vacant positions to fill with teachers earlier this year.

After extensive deliberation among the faculty and administration officials, Walters decided  to cut six of the full-time teaching positions as a means of balancing the school’s cost with the least amount of direct impact on students.

“It’s gotten to the point where we’re cutting off arms,” says Susan Lamb, vice president of instruction and one of the members of the committee, referring to the cuts to staffing and services that has been taking place. “It hurts. No matter what we do, it hurt.”

According to Glenn Appell, Box 2a committee member and vice president of the United Faculty, the problem with having mostly part-time faculty is the lack of support from teachers for other extra curricular activities.

Appel said, “Part-time teachers have no ties outside of the classroom.”

“They don’t get paid enough to be involved in other activities, like groups or committees,” said Appell. 

After retirements of a few faculty members and services were cut, the decision to fill the three remaining needed faculty positions made it so that only a few departments would be receiving the full-time help.

“We had to cut 15% of the budget,” said Walters, alluding to the severity of DVC’s budget shortfalls  adding that it was “the highest cut in recent history.”

Three other positions were filled earlier this year.

The president’s office issued a report regarding the Box 2a committee’s decision noted that the recommendations were made by weighing a multitude of factors, such as part-time to full-time faculty ratios and program size and growth.

Some of the other departments with teaching positions that will not be filled with full-time faculty include the departments of Physical Geography, Humanities, Administration of Justice, and Computer Science/Computer Network Technology.

When asked whether these positions have any chance of gaining full-time faculty in the near future, Walters made it clear that there is no way to know when these positions would be filled so long as there is no budget being passed by the state legislator.

Contact Jacob Park at [email protected]