Scc Can’T Meet Computer Class Demand Students Seeking Programming Courses Turned Away; Funds Lacking For Needed Positions, Official Says

Sat., Jan. 9, 1999

Grayden Jones Staff writer

Classes for more than 100 computer programming students at Spokane Community College were canceled this week because officials could not find enough teachers.

But courses in English and other liberal arts studies were cut or combined for lack of students.

Tony Embrey, vice president of instruction, said it’s common for the college to add or cut classes at the beginning of each quarter, depending on student enrollment. Winter quarter began Monday at SCC, with about 6,000 students.

“When we see a class closing, we try to find alternatives for the students,” Embrey said. “It’s not like we dump them out in the cold.”

Some under-enrolled classes were combined, but for about 125 students hoping to learn popular, cutting-edge computer languages, there were few alternatives.

Roberto Gutierrez, SCC dean of instruction for business and hospitality careers, said classes in Java Script, HTML, CGI and other languages were dropped after part-time teacher Bret Dickey found a permanent, full-time job elsewhere and the college failed to recruit a second instructor.

Students were forced to scramble for a handful of remaining classes, but many put their names on a waiting list for spring quarter classes.

Gutierrez said he’s frustrated that the college does not have enough money to lure qualified full-time teachers from industry.

“This could have a domino effect,” Gutierrez said. “If we can’t get enough people trained in these technology fields, technology industries won’t be attracted to our community, which in turn means a loss of jobs and a decline in our socioeconomic level.”

Embrey said the college has begun to review how to fill 20 full-time positions that academic deans across campus claim to need this year because of retirements and resignations, or a greater number of students. However, he said SCC has only enough state money to hire half that many instructors.

Lack of money is one reason SCC and Spokane Falls Community College have grown dependent on adjunct instructors. Some adjuncts moonlight from full-time jobs, but others attempt to live on the $1,762 that’s paid for teaching a five-credit class per quarter.

Part-time instructors, who work on a quarter-by-quarter basis, are the first to lose their classes when courses are combined or cut.

“You have to love teaching, because it’s not for the money,” said Gutierrez, who employs six full-time and 14 part-time teachers in business computing.

SCC liberal arts dean Robert Hauck said 10 to 15 classes in the departments of English, math, science, social sciences and humanities and speech communications were canceled this week for lack of students. That’s a typical number of cancellations, he said.

Full-time equivalent student enrollment - a measure for gauging SCC’s course load and state funding - dropped slightly in the fall. Winter quarter figures won’t be available until after Jan. 15.

WHAT’S NEXT Spokane members of the Association for Higher Education will deliver hundreds of petition signatures to Gov. Gary Locke on Jan. 18, calling for “an end to wage discrimination” against part-time teachers. Locke’s budget seeks $4 million from the Legislature to help close the pay gap between full- and part-time instructors.

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