Save Non-Credit ESL

By Eric Roth
The news spread quickly on March 12, 2003. Dr. Lupita Tannatt, the director of the non-credit ESL program, informed instructors that the program was closing in June. Many instructors were puzzled since she had shown blueprints for our new building at the last staff meeting in January.

The instructors, all part-timers, had many questions. Was the decision final? How was the decision made? What should instructors tell 2,400 students, mostly refugees and immigrants? What was the department's budget anyway? Could anything be done to save the program? Where were the 2,400 students supposed to go?

Time passed and silence reigned. The Faculty Concerns Committee composed of non-credit instructors in the ESL program asked Dr. Tannatt for a teachers’ meeting. She declined in an email written by an assistant.

Many longtime instructors also discovered to their dismay that the administration's failure to have evaluations done might affect their status as Associate Faculty members. Could instructors now be made to suffer because they were not evaluated? How was that fair?

Two weeks later, seventeen instructors sent a letter to Dr. Tannatt requesting another meeting. Again we have received no response.

Meanwhile, several instructors contacted the Faculty Association for advice and help. The FA quickly took the issue to the administration, and secured verbal assurances that qualified instructors would be grandfathered into Associate Faculty status. A small, yet significant, victory - and proof of the FA’s effectiveness and the administration's desire to do the right thing.

As of March 29, there has still been no responded to the teachers’ request for a staff meeting. The program's status, like so many other vital SMC departments, remains unclear, and may be silently eliminated without anyone ever noticing.

Back to top