It’s a meeting room just like any other meeting room on campus. An unused flat panel TV on the wall. Refreshments at the table near the window. And several big tables arranged around the middle of the room. Except this committee is a little different.
The College Council met on Wednesday Feb. 21 in order to discuss issues amongst it’s members in accordance with Skyline College’s shared governance principle. On the fourth Wednesday of every month the council gets together in order to advise the president of the college what to do, with the opinions of the students, the faculty, and the staff of Skyline College. Each section of the council comprises several members of each section. For example Adolfo Leiva the program services coordinator, Regina Stroud the vice-president of instruction for Skyline College, and Anastasia Kuzina the president of the ASSC, were all at the meeting representing staff, faculty, and students respectively.
The meeting started with the council discussing what is being done about the 506 million dollar budget cuts affecting the kindergarten through UC systems. 31 million dollars of that will hit community colleges. The school has mainly been looking at unused money at cutting the possible waste in order to avoid mid year cuts.
In addition to possible budget problems, the College Council dealt with new developments in the ongoing design and construction project. A new building was going to be given to the physical education department, but they declined and are going to wait for the next bond before they will try for a new building.
“What they wanted to do was what was right for the college and not just their area” Stroud said. In the meantime the physical education department is requesting some smaller things, “some as simple as two spinning bikes. The result of this is that the new building will include a multicultural center.”
The new building will be going to the west of the library and the north of the current Physical Education building, and is intended for the Cosmetology department.The College Council was also considering improving the lives of students by instituting something called college hour.
College hour would be a time during the day when no classes are scheduled, and would give the various clubs and committees around campus a time to meet, in addition to giving the students a time for activities.
Proposals for a college hour were brought up last semester at various ASSC meetings and a committee was formed but “our committee fell through” according to Wendy Smith. “They were unaware of what college hour had to offer”.
The last issue the college council covered concerned the new two term parking permits, which will be offered next fall. “It’s a question of whether they can put out that big chunk to save $10” Linda Ghio,,said.
The college council also dealt with the issue of students possibly short changing the financial office through an abuse of replacement permits.
“It doesn’t look like an abuse of replacement permits based on the number we have” Stroud said. Only .5 percent of students even asked for replacements.”We want to give them the benefit of the doubt” Ray Hernandez, academic senate said.
That’s what the college council does, it conforms to Skyline College’s principle of shared governance in which all segments of the college are allowed to represent themselves.
