ACCESS

By James P. Geraghty

We must commit, as a community to first consider the impact to students when making budget cuts. Board members must always ask for an analysis from staff before determining if a proposed budget is acceptable, and staff should always have an unbiased student based analysis ready to support their recommendations. If not, COM will continue to decline in enrollment.

We must commit, as a community to first consider the impact to students when making budget cuts. Board members must always ask for an analysis from staff before determining if a proposed budget is acceptable, and staff should always have an unbiased student based analysis ready to support their recommendations. If not, COM will continue to decline in enrollment.

Access is a broad term. The simplistic meaning in relation to College of Marin is being able to gain access into the school. It always has been the role of California community colleges to have open doors for all. In theory, this is still true, but state budget cuts have forced approximately 90,000 students away from community colleges this semester already because of class reductions, staff reductions and support service reductions. On a state level that is a lot of students. This will reflect on our ability as a state to rebound from the economic downturn, so we must pay close attention to avoid decisions that keep our population from higher education.

We have waiting lists for our students at COM, and in many cases we open another class to accommodate those students. In some cases we cannot open up classes for a variety of reasons. This becomes an issue of access. Students are counting on COM to have classes available, and when we don't, the student's educational progress is slowed considerably.

Couple this with recent decisions by UCs and CSUs to begin denying transfer students and limiting others entry into the system we find ourselves with limited access to higher education. While these recent announcements might not affect COM students immediately, there are strong possibilities that COM students might find themselves shut out or delaying their education in the near future.

As a community we need to assure that the students are the top priority when making decisions to achieve a balanced budget. We can no longer afford cost savings on the backs of student access. Budget reductions must be measured against the impact they have on students. This can no longer be a secondary consideration. Board members, administrators, staff and students must be included in the identification of areas that least affect student access when budget cuts are implemented.

Access can also be impacted by how we schedule our classes. The college needs to continue exploring the needs of prospective students through our marketing department. We have begun discussing possible alternatives of different types of semester timetables and expanding classes we offer on weekends. Working students need alternatives to our compacted four-day week (when most of our classes are offered). A continued effort exploring possibilities and identifying future direction can position the college to expand our offerings when we round the corner towards a stronger budget.

Access must be at the forefront of our decisions.