CHERIE DARGAN

As a teacher at Hawkeye Community College for the past 13 years, I am passionate about the role of community colleges in educating our children. As a parent, my daughter and daughter-in-law are both Hawkeye graduates, and as a professional educator, I am invested in the success of the college. However, the recent Courier editorial praising Hawkeye's "pragmatic and proactive approach" in dealing with state appropriation cuts by terminating 43 faculty and outsourcing the custodians was disheartening to read, and seemed to ignore the underlying problem.

The administration now knows that HCC will receive about $1.7 million in stimulus funding. Sadly, instead of recalling the terminated faculty, they plan to use the stimulus dollars to hire more adjuncts and keep tuition increases to a minimum of 3.2 percent. While I commend efforts to keep college affordable, it is more important to ensure that students have experienced instructors, and hiring more adjuncts will not benefit our students. Adjuncts may not be as experienced; they have not been required to hold office hours, teach one or two classes a semester, and often teach at several colleges, so they are not as available to help students one on one.

Of the 15 community colleges in the state - all of which received proportionately equal budget cuts from Gov. Chet Culver - approximately 70 faculty layoffs have been announced for this fall: 43 from Hawkeye, 15 from Iowa Western and only 11 more from the other 13 schools combined. Some of these schools offered early retirement incentives or eliminated nonteaching positions or low enrollment programs.

When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke at UNI in April, he stressed that the stimulus dollars are to "help save Iowa education jobs and balance the budget. It's critically important to keep our teachers teaching and our students learning." Locally, Denise Schares, associate superintendant for education and student services at Waterloo Community Schools, was quoted in The Courier, "The most critical factor in improving student achievement is an effective teacher." I agree. Hawkeye should have been more proactive in planning for budget cuts to protect those working directly with students: their teachers.

The faculty cuts of April 8 represent the tremendous disconnect that exists between the administrative and educational branches of HCC. Pragmatically, teachers generate revenue for the college. Full-time teachers work with five classes each semester: depending on department and class size, we have 200 to 400 students while generating from $72,000 to $145,000 of tuition per year. Regular part-time teachers (who were all laid off) had four sections a semester, so they taught 160 to 320 students and generated $60,000 to $116,000 in tuition, but earned under $20,000. Despite this, the administration stands firm in its intention to eliminate them.

Much has been said about the percentage of the budget devoted to salaries. However, discussion has not included the substantial increases in administrative salaries since 2005. In 2005 the president made $120,000 and no administrator earned over $80,000. Now, however, there are four administrators making over $100,000. Salaries are published annually; the president makes $194,560 while six more administrators make between $80,000 and $95,000.

Beyond these numbers, another layer of administration has been created in the past year resulting in three new positions. Two new administrators were hired since news of the impending budget cuts: the new hires occurred in January and March of 2009, with salaries totaling $210,000 for the three positions, which could have funded four FT teachers who were cut.

With record enrollments in the spring (up 4.19 percent) and expectations of increased enrollment this fall, this is not a good time to lose experienced instructors who know how to work with community college students.

Diverting money from our core mission of educating students, while protecting an expanding administration and their salaries, is not a proactive approach to the current crisis. It does not serve our community or our students, who deserve more. To solve the crisis by cutting teachers, and not administrators, is not pragmatic.