Colleagues:
This is the first of several updates that I will be sending out as our very unusual semester comes to a close. I decided to send out several updates rather than a very long update which many of you just don’t have the time to read.
I hope that this update finds that all of you are healthy and are doing well under the current circumstances. This has been quite a stressful semester for all of us, especially for our students. We have all had to deal with so many different personal issues while at the same time fulfilling our responsibilities to our students and our committee assignments. Tim Kirkner and I sit in on Sanjay Rai’s weekly Senior Leadership Team meetings and it has been mentioned many times that the Administration is very pleased with how we have worked to move to a remote teaching environment with such short notice. Our efforts are very much appreciated.
Please make sure that you take some time to take care of yourself and your family.
Nominations:
The Chapter’s Constitution requires that the membership vote on who will be the elected officers of the Executive Committee at our annual end-of-year meeting. The elected members of the Executive Committee consists of a President, three Vice Presidents (one from each campus), a Secretary, and a Treasurer. Members of the Executive Committee serve a one-year term and are elected by simple majority of the votes cast by dues paying members of the Chapter. Faculty in the bargaining unit who are paying a voluntary collective bargaining service fee are not members of the Chapter and therefore, are not eligible to vote in this election.
If you would like to nominate someone to serve in one of these positions, or if you are interested in serving in one of these positions, please send your nomination to Julie Levinson, Counselor Takoma Park/Silver Spring. The nominations period will close at the close of business on Wednesday May 15.
All current elected members of the Executive Committee have indicated that they are interested in continuing to serve in their current positions next year. Please see the Chapter’s webpage, mcaaup.org. for a list of the current Executive Committee Members.
End of Year Meeting:
The Chapter’s Constitution also requires us to hold an annual meeting which we have typically done at the end of each academic year in May. Due to the current situation, we have decided to hold a Zoom end-of- year meeting at our usual meeting time of 11:00am on Wednesday May 20. A link to participate in this meeting will be sent to you at a later date. During that meeting we will announce the results of the election, hear a Treasurer’s report, discuss several important issues that we have been working on this year, and respond to any of your questions. We hope that many of you will join in and participate in this meeting.
My Testimony:
Annually the President of the College submits a proposed operating budget to the County Executive in mid-February. Shortly after that, the County Executive makes a recommendation to the County Council to either fully fund our request or to reduce the County contribution to our operating budget. Following this request, the College continues to lobby the full Council by meeting with individual County Council members and by having members of the College community testify at the County Council operating budget hearing. This year we were allowed to submit video or written testimony. On behalf of our membership, I submitted written testimony in support of our operating budget request. A copy of the testimony I submitted is below.
Harry N. Zarin, President
American Association of University Professors
Montgomery College Chapter
Operating Budget Testimony
April 16, 2020
My name is Harry Zarin, and I have been a counselor/professor at the Germantown Campus of Montgomery College for almost 27 years. I am submitting this testimony today in my role as the President of the full-time faculty union, the AAUP.
I want to start my testimony by stating that I would have preferred to be sitting in the County Council Building giving this testimony in person as I have done numerous times. Considering the circumstances with the pandemic, I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to submit this testimony in writing.
When the spring semester started, I looked forward to life as usual at Montgomery College where I have worked for almost 27 years. Life as usual means seeing students individually or in groups on a regular basis, attending some important and not so important meetings, attending faculty meetings, attending the terrific nursing pinning ceremony, and finally attending graduation. Unfortunately, a virus got in the way and life as we all know it changed for everyone.
Two days before the start of our spring break, an appropriate decision was made by the Administration to shut down the campuses in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. The faculty were told that all teaching would be done on a remote basis after our return from spring break. We had two days to prepare, along with the time we were off for the break, and create all that was needed in order teach remotely. This was a daunting task for the majority of the faculty who had never taught a distance learning class before.
We quickly had to become experts in using a combination of technical options that would enable us to remotely teach, counsel, and advise our students. Blackboard Collaborate, Zoom, Google Voice, Face time, establishing VPN lines so that we could remote into our desktop computers, etc. became the order of the day. Imagine how difficult it was for our faculty to try to create an on-line chemistry, biology, or biotech lab with a few days notice. How do you teach a studio art class or an auto tech class remotely? These were just a few of the hurdles our faculty had to overcome in order to teach for the remainder of the semester. The efforts being made by the faculty to teach remotely this semester under stressful and ever changing circumstances has been tremendous.
If you think this has been a stressful time for our staff and faculty, imagine how stressful this has been for our students. Many of our students have suffered academically, financially, and mentally during this difficult and unusual time. Numerous students and their families have lost their jobs or had their hours at work severely reduced. Finding the money to pay their bills and deal with having to learn remotely has caused tremendous increases in anxiety and mental health issues for many of our students and their families. How do you work, if you even have a job, if you have no day care options for your children?
Imagine that you are a student who has never taken an on-line class and you are suddenly told that you have to learn remotely. How do you accomplish this task if you have no computer in your residence or access to the internet? How do you continue being a successful student with a disability when you can’t see or you are deaf? As a student with a learning disability how do you learn remotely if your learning disability is a hindrance to your ability to learn via a computer? All of our students, especially those with disabilities, have had to adapt very quickly to this new learning environment and we have had to respond by modifying and adjusting our student support services everyday.
Our Administration and Foundation have done a wonderful job of providing for the needs of many of our students by providing them with additional financial recourses and/or vouchers so that they could receive a laptop computer. However, there is no way we can meet the financial needs of all of our students and this is where we need the assistance of the County Council.
Our hope and request is that you approve the College’s requested operating budget. We want our students to return in the fall, with a budget that does not require us to increase tuition during this difficult time and so that they will have optimal resources in place to make their return successful. We support our students and your continued support will help us help them achieve their hopes and dreams during these most difficult times.
Thank you.
In Closing:
Towards the end of next week, I will send out another update that will focus on a variety of topics. I will announce our slate of nominees for the Executive Committee and describe how voting will be done in this remote environment. I will describe some of the very important issues that we have been working on as we advocate for our contract and your rights, and will mention several other topics that I believe will be of interest to all of you.
Please take care of yourself and try to be as flexible as you can when working with your students who have struggled to get through this remote learning environment.
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