Amid a remark of disapproval from the crowd during the first non-religious invocation at the first board of trustees meeting of the year 2016, the Cheryl A. Epple room was abuzz with discussion over faculty wages.

Invocation

The Wednesday, Jan. 22 meeting was home to a brief “[What if] we don’t believe in your lord?” remark that came from the audience as Steve De Ruse, pastor at First Baptist Church of Artesia led non-religious invocation.

The word “lord” was used by De Ruse in his petition, prompting the response from a member of the public.

Faculty Wages: “The Power of a Thank You”

Economics professor Solomon Namala, took to public comment to address faculty wages.

He expressed the disappointment felt after 15 members of the Cerritos College Faculty Federation expressed their wishes to the board but the “district’s response fell short of their expectations.”

Namala stated to the board, “You said no to adding steps to full-time faculty salary schedule, you said no to adding steps to partner and faculty partner schedule, you said no to deleting the first two steps of part-time faculty’s salary schedule, and you said all this in context on historical budget surpluses on this campus.”

According to the economics professor, for this year alone the projected surplus is $16 million.

He ended his presentation with one last message,”To us, it seems like we are second class citizens.

“I hope that you know that in light of these historical budget surpluses, that you will open your ears, open your hearts and listen to what we are saying and I hope you’ll do the right thing.”

Sociology professor Diane Pirtle stood in the audience and displayed outrage reminiscent of the Dec. 9 board meeting.

She held a white card board sign that read “Board disrespects faculty” as Namala spoke, audibly adding commentary to his speech.

Namala expressed, “You will see that those teachers who only have a masters or a bachelors, they stop here, they max out, every year they go up and after nine years they don’t get any more raises.

“For those who have PHDs, it keeps going every year. So the only way to get more money is if the board says ‘ok well give you a raise.’

Namala showed the trustees a chart mounted on a board which showed full-time faculty with a bachelor’s degree stopping at step nine with $73,059, faculty with a master’s stuck in level ten at $78,778, while faculty with a bachelors plus 50 units including master’s at $84,501.

Faculty Wages: Part-Timers

“Over the last eight years prices have gone up; inflation, and they are stuck, so their purchasing power has gone down 14 percent.

“All we’re asking the board is to add three more steps. The reasoning is through experience you also become a better teacher, so if that holds true for somebody with an MA and 90 graduate units or somebody with a PHD then the same reasoning applies here,” he concluded.

The economics professor went on to talk about part-time faculty and their struggle.

“Most have an MA, so if somebody has an MA and is teaching a math 40 class or econ, they would only earn $54 an hour. […]

“That means per class it comes up to about $2,900. So that means that for 18-weeks of teaching a class they make $2,900.”

He continued, ” Lets say they taught ten classes at different colleges, they’d be earning $29,000. Federal poverty level is $24,000, so basically they’re just above poverty level.”

The proposal was to delete the first two steps (step one and two starting at $54.49 and $54.52 respectively) so they’d start at the third tier (step three starts at $57.57 an hour for those with a bachelors degree).

“If someone else, El Camino or Rio Hondo offers a job, that’s the first place they’ll go […] there they start at $80 an hour, even our top tier doesn’t fit,” Namala expressed.

Board president Dr. Shin Liu agrees more should be done for the part-time faculty.

“I agree we should increase the part-time salary, our part-time faculty has office hours, it was one of the very very few colleges, but I agree that we should do more.”