Community College Articles

Article Strike
Collective Bargaining

San Francisco faculty struck for a day and won

Local unity gains good contract, overdue pay raises

The faculty union at City College of San Francisco pulled off a one-day strike on April 27, despite the administration’s claim that the strike was illegal. To avert another strike, the college agreed to a union contract with substantial raises by July.

Article Labor Solidarity Rank & Files
Labor History

Honoring “letter carrier who sings” turned teacher

Old school troubadour and modern Joe Hill among top labor artists and activists

Jimmy Kelly comes from a union family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his grandfather, father and two brothers were all union members. “I grew up in a different era, in a town that traced the origin of its labor movement to the great strikes in the steel mills,” he recalls. “We learned labor terms in fourth grade.”

Article Strike ACCJC Accreditation
Standing Together

San Francisco City College faculty calls one-day strike

April 27 action protests college administration stonewalling

Rain, wind, and a four-hour round trip from her home could not keep English teacher Jessica Nelson away from City College of San Francisco to join a one-day strike on April 27, the first strike in the school’s history.

“I wanted to support my fellow faculty,” she said. “There’s a lack of respect for faculty here. That’s what led to this strike and all the time, energy and effort the union has put into it.”

Article Free College California Master Plan for Higher Education
Education Funding

San Diego piloting move to make community college free

​​Can the goals of California’s Master Plan for Higher Education be fulfilled again?

The San Diego Community College District has joined the states of Tennessee and Oregon in implementing free community college. In February Chancellor Constance Carroll announced that 200 students would have their course fees waived for the 2016-17 academic year.

Article ACCJC Accreditation
Education Issues

Faculty protest class cancellations caused by ACCJC sanctions

Two lawsuits and a trial move forward; governor signs CFT transparency bill

The trial to determine if the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges acted unfairly when it pulled City College of San Francisco’s accreditation will go ahead on October 27. In the meantime, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera won a victory when the trial judge ruled on September 19 that accreditors “violated controlling federal regulations” by having an unbalanced evaluation team, with only one academic representative to evaluate the college in 2013.

Article
Education Issues

Course repeatability rules restrict student access, learning

Cabrillo College faculty lead effort to expose failings in new regulations

The new course repeatability regulations, passed by the Community College Board of Governors in July 2012, mean, in most cases, that if students pass a class with a ‘C’ or higher, they can’t take the class again. Many community college teachers see this negatively impacting students who want to study, for example, journalism, creative writing, foreign languages or visual arts.