By Nita Gandhi / News Editor
Ready, set, approved (Nita Gandhi / News Editor)
By Nita Gandhi / News Editor
On May 18, The Board of Trustees approved the reorganization plan to make the Norco, Moreno Valley and Riverside campus’ three separate accredited community colleges and to reorganize administration.
In April, a draft of the administration reorganization plan was sent back because many faculty and students did not like the class cuts and part-time instructors being laid-off due to the class cuts.
At the meeting, there were graphs of how the administration will be reorganized at each college.
“We are three different colleges now, so some of the things administratively that will take place and are different,” said Chancellor Gregory Gray.
Gray explained how the new plan will effect operations at the three colleges.
“One is we are building these new buildings and we have several people who work in facilities construction. Starting July 1 we will take those individuals and change their job description somewhat and they will report to each college,” he said.
Several departments will undergo changes in order to service three separate colleges.
“We are not hiring anybody new; these are people with expertise but now we are going to have a go to guy in facilities issued to the colleges. And that will hold true for an HR (Human Resources) person and a budget analyst at each college,” Gray said. “We are not hiring anyone new we are just asking the individuals hired in those areas to take special responsibility and focus for each of the colleges.”
Another thing that starts July 1 is financial aid will be at all three colleges.
Now that Norco and Moreno Valley are accredited each can have financial aid personnel to give students help.
Also there will be a sergeant in charge at all three colleges. Chief Jim Miyashiro will stay at the district to coordinate officers.
At the meeting Dariush Haghighat, associate professor and president of the California Teacher’s Association thanked Gray for listening to what the faculty and students had to say to come up with a better reorganization plan.
Before Gray changed the reorganization plan he met with representatives from the CTA, Confidential Employees Association, Management Association, Civil Service of America, Academic Senate leaders, and the Student Trustee Stephen Bishop.
“We had a four-hour meeting at the CTA office. I invited all the representatives of all the stakeholders and we had a four-hour honest discussion of what our concerns were,” Haghighat said.
The chancellor listened to all their concerns and went back to the plan and reorganized the whole thing.
“The Chancellor accepted the recommendations and the chancellor went back to the drawing board and embraced our recommendations,” Haghighat said.
What it means for students is that there will be no more class cuts. Also they will be looking to hire more full-time faculty.
“Students will be able to have more counseling, students will be able to have a financial aid person there, I’d like to say they are going to feel more safe because of the security and hopefully their entire collegiate experience will improve,” Gray said. “We are not cutting any more classes.”