PCC Faculty Association Planning Protest

The Pasadena City College Faculty Association is calling on the PCC Board of Trustees to declare an emergency and return to remote instruction.

“In order to foster a safe environment and ensure a more efficacious return to normal, we demand that the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees declare an emergency,” the group wrote in a petition.

“We, the undersigned, are concerned about the safety of students, faculty, staff, and the community at large given the large number of face-to-face classes scheduled for the Fall 2021 semester at Pasadena City College,” the petition states.

The association is demanding that the board order the reinstatement of temporary Form Ds, which would enable a return to remote instruction, and that non-instructional faculty be given the opportunity to work remotely off-campus.

In the library and other workspaces, including but not limited to the success centers, the district shall employ additional resources such as cadets to monitor access to the library and compliance with all safety measures.

Form D allows classes to be taught online or by hybrid methods, but not all classes have valid Form Ds.

The group is also demanding all instructional and non-instructional faculty who opt to return face-to-face shall be able to do so following the parameters outlined in the MOU (memorandum of understanding) dated Aug. 3. The MOU lists the vaccinations as a “condition of employment or enrollment.”

Faculty who have exemptions and teach on campus or are unvaccinated must be tested on a weekly basis, the association demands.

“This is the first pandemic in 100 years in the United States, so no one expects the Board of Trustees to have all of the answers,” said Stacy Bradshaw, an adjunct speech instructor.

“What is expected is a willingness to examine their decision-making processes in light of serious anomalies. Spend one hour with faculty, adjunct faculty, staff, librarians, or counselors, some of whom have worked for PCC for more than two decades, and you will hear stories of people having to make impossible choices between staying alive and protecting their health and the health of their families or getting a paycheck by complying with unsafe requirements to return to the classroom in the absence of a plan to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, adjunct faculty staff, librarians and counselors,” Bradshaw wrote.

An on-campus protest is planned at 8:30 a.m. Friday near the reflecting pool.

In an email sent to Pasadena Now Wednesday, the college was described as an “outlier” compared to other campuses, including Chaffey College, Mt. San Antonio College, CSU campuses, and Citrus College, which one person said are moving forward with nearly all online courses.

The Board of Trustees on Wednesday was scheduled to vote on an MOU that would bar unvaccinated students, staff, and faculty from campus starting Sept. 30.
“Students who are not fully vaccinated by Sept. 30, 2021, will be dropped from all their face-to-face classes,” according to a Fall Semester 2021 Return to Campus Agreement.

“Faculty, who are not exempt and who choose not to be vaccinated, shall be placed on unpaid leave for the duration of the semester in which they are unvaccinated, not to exceed two semesters with board approval,” the agreement states.