Times are tough for community colleges and the students who attend them, and there does not appear to be any change to this situation any time soon. Already for next year roughly 80 course selections are getting taken away from students in each semester (both Spring and Fall, for a total of 160). In addition, 50 percent of the Summer classes may be left by the wayside in 2010.

However, no matter how dismal the future may seem, not all hope is lost for students. A group of teachers at Skyline known as the Concerned Faculty (see sidebar for the names of the teachers who are a part of this group), are organizing against this crisis. It is important to note that this is not a petition, but instead an open letter addressing the faculty, and encouraging them to participate in discussions concerning the budget.

The Concerned Faculty was established on Oct. 30 of this year at a meeting of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union. A group of the staff who attended felt compelled to continue discussing the budget crisis, and that was where it began.

“Our first step was to address the campus,” said Masao Suzuki, Professor of Economics at Skyline. “We got very positive responses to the letter.”

“It is important for faculty to make a public statement to raise awareness of the fact that in the last academic year six full-time faculty and seventeen staff positions were defunded at Skyline, and well over a million dollars in cuts are being planned for next year,” said Eric Brenner, Professor/Instructional Librarian at Skyline and also one of the people who helped draft the open letter.

The College Budget Committee is a group that advises the administration on what actions should be taken as far as the budget is concerned, but they do not make the final decisions.

A major problem comes from California establishing a cap for how many students a college should have and be paid for. When people started losing their jobs due to these bad economic times, they turned to community colleges, such as Skyline, to get the education they need to get back into the workforce. But, because of this cap, enrollment became too high.

Right now, Suzuki says that he is very interested in what the budget committee comes out with at their next meeting.

According to George Wright, a history teacher at Skyline, the administration is not facing the crisis in the same proportion as the students and faculty are, and he does not feel as though this is right. Of the proposed cuts, 70.4 percent come from cutting classes and yet another 16.2 percent are in student support services, such as counseling and childcare. However, only 6.4 percent of the total budget cuts have an effect on the administration.

Wright feels that, for some reason, the college has a tendency to slash classes and student services first. By doing this, argues Wright, the college is neglecting its primary function.

“Community colleges are supposed to be there to serve the community” Wright said.