The general consensus among Cuesta College faculty is that the administration is corrupt, uses a talk-down approach and doesn’t seem to trust that faculty can do their jobs.
The New Times San Luis Obispo released an article on March 13 addressing the recent campus climate survey given to faculty and staff. The survey addressed how faculty and staff felt about the campus, the administration and the overall feelings of the faculty and staff. To say the least, the general climate on campus among faculty and staff is very poor. The feelings of the faculty and staff were addressed in the New Times article.
In the fall 2024 semester, faculty received a campus climate survey to weigh-in on their opinions of student success, campus climate, college leadership, campus engagement and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
On March 20, the Cuesta College Federation of Teachers (CCFT) hosted an open forum for faculty. This forum allowed faculty to express their concerns about the campus climate and suggest actionable changes to be made. Overall, faculty expressed concerns that Cuesta College lacks communication, transparency and clarity.
“A lot of faculty were dismayed by the New Times article. It spoke to a lot of people in terms of ‘I’m experiencing something like this in my own daily life at Cuesta.’ And I think a lot of people were kind of sad to see that other people in other areas are going through such similar things as themselves,” said a faculty member who wished to remain anonymous. “Sometimes it seems kind of isolated, like, ‘oh it’s just me’ and that article made it seem like no it’s kind of everywhere.”
While transparency has been an issue at Cuesta College for a while, it seems that faculty feel it has only gotten worse after Jill Stearns became president of the college. Forum attendees were comparing previous President Gil Stork to the current president. They described how the previous president would have a true open-door, communicative process and attempt to address faculty concerns.
“We are having these forums because the faculty asked the union leadership to host them. The faculty wanted their voices to be heard, and their specific concerns to be listened to in response to the campus climate survey there,” the anonymous faculty member said. “There was a campus climate survey in the fall that the district sponsored, mostly through the Board of Trustees, but for various reasons, they did not allow open-ended comments on that survey, and a lot of faculty wanted to be heard and they didn’t get that opportunity just by clicking boxes in multiple-choice surveys.”
Looking forward, faculty and staff want Cuesta College administration to communicate better, have more transparency about safety and for the weekly emails from the president to have more substance.
As students, we feel disheartened that the people who support us don’t feel supported themselves. This shows that the administration doesn’t prioritize their employees as much as they should. The New Times article really painted the college administration in a bad light and maybe that was fair, but the faculty and staff that make the college really great are trying their best with the tools they are given. Cuesta College invests in programs and does not invest in people.
