Chaparral 2023-2024: Asking (and Answering) the Hard Questions with Cameron Hastings

Since joining the Academic Senate in 2009, I have had the pleasure of serving with five different presidents, each had their own style of “presidenting” but all were able to effectively use the position to assert the role of faculty in making important campus decisions.

From watching one president, I learned how to slow things down and not rush into making decisions. In all honesty, I am still trying to figure out how to do this better and think through all of the unintended consequences of saying yes or no to something, but the legacy of that president was to always ask questions. Why should we make this change? Who will benefit from the policy? Can we do something better? Conversely, another president taught me to look at proposals, problems, and ideas and figure out how the Senate could make it happen. While quite at odds, both of these perspectives have provided me with guidance on how to approach challenges or issues that come to the Senate and try to make the best decisions for our campus.

Another president taught me to not sweat the small stuff and keep it all in perspective. Working on senate tasks can make everything seem very important at that moment but pulling back and taking a 30,000 foot view has helped to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed. Recently, I went to the statewide plenary and left feeling like there are so many changes and mandates coming our way - common course numbering, new transfer pathways, changes to what courses we can offer, the conversation about AI, requirements to process credit for prior learning and on and on - but stepping back and reminding myself that I am surrounded by capable, committed colleagues that will all be working collectively to get this done eases that concern.

And that takes me to the last impact of the legacy of previous presidents, and something I have mentioned before: delegation and broadening participation in the senate. One of my predecessors always said that “finding a successor” was the first job of the president. While this could be minimized to just making sure there is someone in the pipeline to be president, I also took it to mean we always need to be bringing new colleagues, and by extension, fresh perspectives into the senate. Yes, I need someone to step in as president next, but I also need faculty to volunteer to be their division representative, run at large, or volunteer to be on senate committees and taskforces so that we have more people learning about the senate and what it does. This also helps us respond more effectively to those aforementioned changes and mandates in a way that best reflects the GCC faculty perspective.

I still have a year in this role and I haven’t thought much about my legacy so I will just say that I hope Senate, under my watch, retains its primacy over campus decisions related to our 10+1 (areas of jurisdiction) and works productively with college leadership to do what is in the best interests of both faculty and students. This is what each of my presidential role models did during their tenure and I hope to continue doing so.