Comments on Issues that are pertinent to governance of Santa Barbara City College

By Len Jarrott

A.

1. Teacher salaries and benefits: I believe that teachers are unfortunately the most under-paid professionals in our work force. In my previous tenure as a trustee and if elected as trustee I recognize that salaries and benefits to faculty and staff remain the most important item in the College's budget. I will always be willing to do what I can to help all SBCC employees receive salaries that are commensurate with their job skills and length of service, keeping in mind that prudent fiscal management of all of the components of the College must be addressed before a decision can be made for increases in salaries and benefits so that the main focus of the College will always be on how any decision can enhance student learning and success.

2. Housing assistance for school district employees: At the moment SBCC has an excellent faculty and staff. In the near future, a large number of talented individuals who bought homes years ago when prices were much more affordable will retire. I see the housing price crisis that is present in Santa Barbara as perhaps the next most serious problem to face SBCC after the State budget crisis.

It is imperative that the Board of Trustees at SBCC take this housing crisis more seriously than they have in the past. As a long term member of the College's Foundation, I recently formed an ad hoc committee composed of members of the Foundation's Executive Committee, of which I am a long standing member, to study the possibility of using Foundation money currently invested in the stock and bond market to start a program of low interest loans for new hired faculty and staff to help them acquire housing. In addition, I plan to work with the college's administration on the implementation of new affordable housing units to be built on several sites owned by the College District. I believe that it is possible to construct these improvements with a bonding program. I have had the experience of forming a partnership that built over 200 affordable homes in Lompoc in the 1980's. I can provide the leadership that the College needs at this time in its history to help solve this housing problem that will have enormous consequences in the College's ability to attract great teachers to replace the great teachers that will be retiring in the near future.

3. Standardized Testing: The College has implemented an excellent counseling center where students can go and be tested for help in picking majors and vocations. In addition, the College offers many programs to help students who might come to the campus with academic deficiencies. I have always been a strong supporter of these programs and can say that both of my children benefited from receiving help from these programs at SBCC.

4. Classroom size: SBCC has done an excellent job with the resources available to provide excellent classroom facilities. I will continue to support this important aspect of the College.

5. Availability of health services at school, including reproductive health: SBCC has excellent healthcare services and I believe that the continuation of these services is a priority. As a Trustee from 1989 to 1994, I was a Board member when the College implemented the practice of offering contraceptives to students on Campus. I will continue to support open discussions with students regarding all healthcare matters.

6. Home schooling opportunities: SBCC continues to implement courses that students can access from the internet. This has had the consequence of making more classes available to students who work and cannot attend classes at more traditional times. In addition, these classes have had the benefit of mitigating the parking problems on Campus.

7. Obligation to provide services and/or to mainstream to severely handicapped students: As a member of the Facilities Committee of the Board of Trustees, during the period of 1989 to 1994, I participated in overseeing the remodeling of the Student Services Building and the construction of the Business and Communications Building on campus. During that process, I became in acutely aware of how important it was to the College administration to identify barriers to access for handicapped students. We addressed these needs by the installation of automatic doors, widening hallways, lowering desks and counters, and by providing ergonomically designed furniture for students and employees. The Disabled Student Programs and Services Office have special ergonomic furniture request forms that are reviewed and submitted to the Facilities and Operations Office for consideration.

8. The importance of non-academic programs: The complete college experience should always include the opportunity for students to participate in student government, clubs and intra-mural sports. All of these programs are available at SBCC.

9. Approaches to student discipline. This sort of matter would only reach the Board of Trustees in a most unusual circumstance, but if it did, it would more than likely be dealt with the advice of legal counsel.

10. Prevention of violence and harassment, bullying and ostracism: Most of the issues are more prevalent in K-12. However, the facilities committee of which I was a member, has effectively seen that adequate lighting has been placed on all parts of the campus a deterrent to crime and for the protection of our faculty, staff and students.

B. If you have to make budget cuts, what services or programs would you most protect? What would you least protect?

There is no easy answer to cutting budgets and the answer must ultimately come from a process that takes into account the following issues:
1. The entire college community must be involved in the budgeting process and input has to be considered from all parts of the campus community before any decisions are made to eliminate any programs or services.
2. This process must always be done with the College's mission in mind, which is to do everything possible to enhance student learning and success.
3. Once a consensus is reached by the various departments of the college as to what the issues are and after hearing what possible programs or services should be most protected and which are to be seen as least protected, my goal as a trustee would be to once again look at the evidence in light of the mission of enhancing learning and success for our students.
4. Then the final decision in this process would rest with the Governing Board. As a Trustee, I would work very hard not to eliminate any program or service and opt instead to trim down rather than completely dismantle any program that we had, as a College Community, already decided was important to our core mission of student learning and success.