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(Cartoon by: Mick Donovan, Paul Ochoa)
(Cartoon by: Mick Donovan, Paul Ochoa)

PCC students stand to lose nearly $3 million in grant money if Academic Senate President Eduardo Cairo doesn’t sign a document authorizing it.

The money would go toward the Student Success and Support Program (SSSP) plan, which is a plan that would allow for many improvements in Student Services, the most important being the hiring of more counselors.

As of right now the student to counselor ratio is 885 to one. The money would go to improving PCC’s atrocious counseling situation by hiring at least four new full-time and 12 adjunct counselors.

The funding would also give the Counseling Center the ability to text students and let them know when to return to the office to meet with a counselor. This much-needed feature would eliminate students having to devote an entire day to having to wait around the office waiting for a counselor.

These all seem like good things for students, right? Yet Cairo refuses to sign the document until the Academic Senate approves it. This is a document that only needed his signature, not the senate. His delays have put this money at risk of being lost.

Cairo is upset that he was only given 24 hours notice to sign the document. But Associate Vice President of Student Services Cynthia Olivo said that not only was Cairo notified about the report months ago, but that his input affected the final report.

Any funding that could help student success by giving more access to counseling services only helps students.

For the second time in three weeks, Cairo and the senate leadership have decided to hold students hostage until they get what they want. Situations like this have to stop happening.

Members of the Academic Senate don’t totally agree on the issue, with some members believing that the agreement should be signed as soon as possible. And Associated Students President Jordyn Orozco said that it would be “a tragedy if this document wasn’t signed.”

Clearly there are issues between the senate and the administration, but students should never have been pulled into this struggle for power. As of now, that’s what this seems like and if this document isn’t signed, students won’t care which side is to blame.

If there is a way this tragedy can be avoided, it should be. Students should always come first. Not petty disagreements.

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8 Replies to “Editorial: Cairo must sign agreement”

  1. I am inclined to also point out this is an editorial, which when it comes to the Courier means it might have been written by one to three people and probably edited by at least four people. Editorials from my experience were edited by the three student editors and at least one professor.

    I will say I am no where near an expert on these issue anymore, so please understand I am commenting from a historical perspective. Shared governance has been something the faculty and even students have been fighting for since Rocha. If Cairo is merely requiring that he not take unilateral action, but instead insuring senate participation. That working toward democratic decision making, which is good.

    In conclusion, I don’t agree with the Couriers editorial and that is okay. I think working toward the democratization of actions such as this is a good thing.

  2. these comments are great…

    the school is screwed up. it always has been and always will.

    that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the ability to teach and provide.

    Potential Target, Subversive Student, professor, Goofy Miller Stunt, Hanvey and Panella show?, and critical thinker… you are all correct. You are all wrong. Get out of the PCC system

    …this is an EDITORIAL article

  3. No big surprise that Minimum Miller staged the show for attention.
    He’s not getting his way, and he does not like it.
    Rocha was fired for what he did to the college. Miller has not undone Rocha’s mess, and it is yet not clear how much of the mess was actually Miller’s doing.
    (Charged with representing Faculty interests in academic and professional matters, previous Senates preferred to serve Admin schemes. Was it from flattery or bullying? )

  4. If life was so black and white as portrayed in this article, you probably would no benefit from the thought provoking discussions led by PCC faculty. Not only are your facts wrong but you are conveniently dismissing the fact that faculty have worked tirelessly to support students. Faculty have not received a raise in years. The cost of living from the state was not given to PCC. You need to collect the facts in order to make a constructive argument. That is the goal of attending college.

  5. Minimum Miller’s eyes have cartoon dollar signs in them! He wants that money!
    Last week, he could not afford to give students any more than 5 new professors, but this week, he’s come up with 6 million dollars out of thin air!
    Shame on him for trying to use students as a PR ploy. Did he pull out a Kleenex and dab at tears? Surprised he did not arrive in a Boy Scout getup.
    Minimum melodrama, please.

  6. Just by reading the title of this editorial it was clear how one sided this student-writer loves to be. Here’s an idea for this newspaper: how about including editorials that present the other side of the issue. These editorials are most entertaining!

    When the president of the entire college has to profusely apologize to the faculty at that Senate meeting for his associate vice president and upper-management’s lack of planning, foresight and respect to expect one person to first of all READ the 50 pages of documentation, consider it and then sign it, all within 24 hours – you KNOW something’s wrong here. I doubt students would appreciate that from their professors: “Here, read this in one day and be ready to discuss it – and you’ll be graded on it tomorrow. Good luck!!!”

    1. Don’t you understand what an editorial is meant to be? It’s an opinion story and should be one-sided. As a student run newspaper they have a right to advocate for a $3M grant. The counseling department is in serious need of this funding. If you want something that presents both sides than read the news article on the front page. If faculty wants to express their opinions I’m sure they could call up the Courier office and present their own one-sided argument or submit a letter to the editor if they choose to do so. And lastly, professors DO assign 50+ pages of reading, critical thinking responses due in MLA format, and expect active participation the next day and they most definitely don’t wish us good luck. Stop defending Cairo and his need to create contention. The Academic Senate functioned much better when Hanvey and Panella were heading the show.

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