CampusGuides: Chaparral 2019-2020: 28.4 Adjunct Junction

Adjunct Junction

by Brian Reff
2nd Vice President, Glendale College Guild

Normally, my first column of the Spring Semester would be welcoming you all back and telling you that I hoped you had had a great Winter Break! Well this one isn’t that one!

This one instead is talking about the positive things that have happened at Glendale College since the semester started. Some of these may seem trivial at this time, but they were important when they happened.

On Friday, March 6, 2020, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank’s Mobile Food Pantry visited the Garfield Campus, where over 300 people received groceries. I would like to recognize the hard-working volunteers and staff who made it possible. I would like to also recognize Tzoler Oukayan, Andre Manukyan and Dr. Alfred Ramirez for overcoming the obstacles which had prevented earlier visits to the Garfield Campus.

On Saturday, March 7, 2020, the Spring Adjunct Guild Meeting was held. There was a very good turnout. Three great speakers gave presentations! They were Piper Rooney, Juliann Wolfgram and Ken Taira.

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, St. Patrick’s Day, we had our Guild Membership Meeting for March! For many of us this was our last visit to campus.

Now for the really important things:

I would like to thank all of our hard-working colleagues who went above and beyond the call of duty to help their colleagues comes to terms with teaching their classes in a remote setting through the use of Canvas. I would like to recognize Rachel Ridgeway and Tim Papienski! There are others of you I know who helped many of our other colleagues.

Our Governance Process continues and must continue! Shared Governance is very important! Please take your governance responsibilities seriously. That means attend your meetings and contribute. With that I would like to give a special thanks to Frankie Strong for consistently reminding us of our duties.

Now for the not so nice stuff! Yes, we are very busy dealing with the COVID- 19 virus and the resulting pandemic. But we must not lose track of issues that were facing the college before the pandemic, such as: the college’s precarious financial situation due to the $10 Million plus in reserves that weren’t there; the lack of a clear, coherent and transparent marketing plan to attract students to Glendale College; and the Metro U-Pass Program. Ideally we won’t lose sight of these important issues.

A nice thing now!

Special thanks to Andre Manukyan and all of the volunteers who came to the college on Tuesday, April 7, 2020, to help with the visit of the L.A. Regional Food Bank’s Mobile Food Pantry.

In closing, I would like to thank all of you for the hard work that you are doing to continue teaching our students in this time of extreme adversity! I would also like to tell you to be careful and to stay healthy!

I personally am looking forward to coming back to campus to see everyone and to teaching in a classroom full of students! I suspect that many of you are also!

Thanks for reading this and stay healthy!

Brian Reff
Second Vice President
Glendale College Guild