City College Struggles with Inadequate Heating; Leaving Faculty and Students in the Cold

City College is facing cold classroom conditions due to broken boilers causing discomfort and hindering learning conditions with temperatures in the rooms as low as the 50s.

By Ann Marie Galvan agalvan1@mail.ccsf.edu

City College has endured cold classroom conditions since at least October 2022, according to an AFT 2121 blog documenting the problem. Classroom temperatures can be as low as the 50s on the Mission, Ocean, and John Adams campuses. To combat the cold, the administration has proposed two solutions: using space heaters or moving to different classrooms. Both suggestionsare “inadequate half-measures,” said the union.

A known problem

Heating has been an issue for “years”, Mary Bravewoman, AFT 2121 faculty union president, told The San Francisco Standard in December 2022.

The boilers on the Mission and John Adams campuses are broken and the district “is in the process of getting bids to have them replaced,” said Chancellor David Martin, in a Feb. 1 briefing with AFT 2121. However he did not offer a clear and definite schedule of when this would happen.

cold. It’s hard to concentrate. You can’t stay there very long. Your hands start getting numb,

Currently, there are several known issues with the heating for buildings on Ocean Campus. The “high-pressure steam piping” in the Science Hall needs to be replaced and will require external assistance. The heating system in the Arts Extension is “obsolete” and needs a new boiler and a “full reconfiguration.” This “$1 million plus project” is currently being designed. Finally, the “geothermal well system” in the Multi-Use Building has been replaced, but some of the equipment is not working properly, causing inconsistent temperatures.

Martin said, on City College’s Jan. 13 Flex Day, that the Visual Arts building on Ocean Campus should have heat by fall 2023, according to the AFT 2121 blog. Campus Heating Problems Impact Faculty

Monique Comacchio, a Visual Media Design Department instructor on the Ocean Campus, said that after six hours of teaching the eight space heaters in her room can help with the cold, but they are not sufficient.

“Everybody’s cold. It’s hard to concentrate. You can’t stay there very long. Your hands start getting numb,” she said. “It’s hard to write. It’s hard to punch on the computer.”

Comacchio is concerned for her students’ ability to learn. The frigid conditions are hard for the students, who can spend hours sitting in classrooms. “What can I say?” Comacchio said. “It’s not like we’re doing calisthenics. It’s not like we’re a P.E. class. Have you ever spent time in a cold room for hours on end?”

The cold facilities also impact how Comacchio can teach, and she has had to cut down some of her curriculum. She also wears layers to try to keep warm. “I’m wearing long underwear. I’m wearing a couple of shirts. I’m wearing a sweater, wool socks — a couple pairs of wool socks.”

Hindered Learning

Comacchio has been trying to get the broken heat addressed with little success, and said that the lack of communication about a “serious and profound problem with our facilities” is frustrating. “I just don’t understand how this is even possible, legally, to force people to work in environments that are in these conditions,” she said. After repeated attempts to contact the chancellor’s office, she was eventually contacted by a representative who offered to provide jackets for her students as a solution for the cold. “I was really frustrated and angry,” Comacchio said.

Inadequate Heating Causes Discomfort and Hinders Learning for Students

The frigid conditions make it hard for students to learn. Juliana Izquierdo, a student in an ESL class on Mission Campus that meets Monday-Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:20 a.m., said that she finds it difficult to concentrate because of the cold and she can’t do as well as she wants in class, although she does the best that she can.

Izquierdo is taking three classes and can spend up to nine hours on the Mission Campus. She added that all her classrooms are cold, and often it is colder inside than it is outside. even provide heat in a public room?”

'I’m wearing long underwear. I’m wearing a couple of shirts. I’m wearing a sweater, wool socks — a couple pairs of wool socks.'

City College’s Office of Facilities and Capital Planning did not offer comment for this story.

Health Impacts

She was wearing a flannel long-sleeve shirt and a thick sherpa jean jacket over a warm base layer, as well as insulated pants and boots as she spoke to The Guardsman in class on a Friday morning in February,

Viktoriia Serohina, another student in the same class, said that she also wears layers to keep warm. Serohina was wearing a heavy yellow parka and a fleece sweater, and she said that she wished the room had heat. The classroom had one small space heater in the back of the room, but it was insufficient to heat the entire space.

Instructor Benjamin Finateri said there are no more available space heaters on Mission Campus to check out for the classroom, and that the space heater they had was the last that was available.

Student Guisela Kaisen said that she has complicated health problems that are made worse by the room’s low temperatures. She always dresses warmly and brings a scarf, she said, but she still often suffers from a runny nose.

Responsibility of the Administration

Comacchio said that AFT 2121 wants to make adequate heating in the buildings a bargaining issue, but she thinks that the administration should handle it without negotiation because “it is the job of an administrator to provide a functioning work environment.”

Comacchio questioned the delay in updating the facilities at City College and believes the college should prioritize students and faculty and evaluate where its values lie. “Do we not live in San Francisco?

What kind of economy do we live under that they can’t

Black History Month at City College Highlights “Black Resistance”

Gracia Hernandez Rovelo ghern140@mail.ccsf.edu

In honor of Black History month, City College will host special events throughout February, as it has done for many years prior.

Starting Feb. 1st, the college community is invited to partake in the yearly remembrance of Black History. During the first week of the month, there will be a series of highquality film screenings, presented by the Rosenberg library, that speak to the resistance and emancipation of Black people in the Americas.

“Quilombo,” an independent film that takes place in northeast Brazil, narrates the journey of a group of enslaved black Brazilians from Palmares led by their Chief Ganga Zumba to form self-governing communities. Michele Mckenzie, a media librarian at City College, explains, “this film brings in the stories of black Brazilians and the experience of black people in Latin America. I included a few books that give more information about the struggle of Afro Brazilians and Black Brazilians that tell a little bit more of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is important for people to understand that connection,” said Mckenzie.

Among other great picks, the library will be showing “How it feels

To Be Free” which features six African American women who are artists and performers.

“This was a film that was made by a Black woman and it's looking at the intersection of art and Black women entertainers and how they used their art for activism. It’s an interesting way to look at Black resistance through these women and their art,” said Mckenzie.

The opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is indifference

Another film put on by the Rosenberg library related to the Black arts movement in the 60’s is “BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez.” This is a month this year at City College is “Black Resistence,” which explains the choice in avaliable film screenings. “Films and programs are taking you through this journey through African American history and giving you samples of different types of resistance from the arts, through intellectual and actual physical fighting of colonists,” said Mckenzie. film presented in seventeen segments, showcasing the life and work of the poet, educator and activist, Sonia Sanchez.

Dorian A. Brown, Chair of the African American Studies Department, said City College’s Black History month events help us “look at things from different perspectives,” he said.

“I am excited about all the events and films in the calendar, they all have something to contribute, they involve a lot of different subjects in chronological order, including the history of African American music and culture, and women in hip-hop,” said Brown.

“W.E.B Dubois: A Biography in Four Voices” will also be shown in honor of the life of Dr. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B) Dubois, who lived from 1868 to 1963. The film highlights his contributions to the empowerment of African Americans as well as his legacy.

The theme for Black History

“The opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is indifference,” said American actress and activist, Beah Richards in “Beah: A Black Woman Speaks (2004)”.

City College encourages participation in the events put together to inspire, honor and celebrate Black History. Watch films presented by the Rosenberg library via Zoom, here: https://library.ccsf.edu/aahm/ streaming

The calendar also provides a selection of hybrid events and offcampus community events involving