The Ranger
Opinion
Keep VP here, or you pay him The college should not pay for a part-time vice president. Dr. Robert Vela, vice president of student affairs, is transferring to the new center for student information. He will spend as many as four days a week more than 16 miles away monitoring that facility. So when will he deal with student affairs? It must be exciting to be part of an emerging new entity, but, if district wants our VP, then they should pay his salary. There’s no doubt that the center will need management, but there are vice chancellors and assistant vice chancellors who could run this sort of project. Why can’t district administrators handle this? The almost 22,000-student body needs their go-to guy, not to mention the faculty and staff who report
to Vela. There is no dean under Vela. He is in charge of overseeing student life, the assessment center, admissions and records, disability support services, enrollment management, counseling and the empowerment center. There is no way he can oversee these departments effectively in just one day a week. This is a bad idea. District thinks of consolidation, efficiency and cost-saving measures and leaves its students highand-dry in the process. The college is already strained financially, and paying for someone who won’t be available to us is unreasonable. You wouldn’t pay a Northwest Vista College adjunct’s salary from our budget would you? Wait, that’s already happening.
Feb. 26, 2010 • 19
Fix Banner now When adjunct faculty do not receive paychecks on time, it says a lot about what the district is doing to make Banner run smoothly. More should have been done. It is great that supplemental checks were distributed, but it does not seem that the district did enough to react swiftly and proactively. Waiting in long lines is unacceptable, unnecessary and nonproductive, not to mention what it does for morale. And if this is the way Banner is going to run for adjunct faculty, imagine how the student module will work? Should students fear not receiving financial aid? Get it fixed and make sure before the student module of Banner is implemented next fall, that it is complete and ready to go so we don’t have lines of angry students who won’t be as polite or as patient as our employees have been.