On Sept. 7, Lisa Cardoza, American River College president, announced in an email to faculty and staff that Davies Hall needed to be closed the morning of Sept. 8, due to the possibility of it being a safety risk if there is a seismic event. A similar notice was also sent to students.
In February, the lower library at American River College flooded and had to be evacuated. The building is still closed, and now there is an asbestos problem. There haven’t been many updates on this situation since it has been closed, and it is uncertain when the area will be open again.
And, for the first two weeks of the fall 2023 semester, the parking meters were not working.
These are just a few of the many problematic issues that have been, or still are, going on around the ARC campus.
Students pay to come to the ARC campus and learn in a steady environment. Recently, this hasn’t been a possibility due to the constant interruptions every semester.
The Los Rios Community College District needs to do a better job of keeping up with the campus and making sure students, faculty and staff have a positive environment to learn and teach in.
Parking meters may seem like a smaller issue compared to buildings possibly being unsafe, but this still leads to uncertainty for students.
One day students are told parking is going to be enforced again, and the next there are signs saying parking meters aren’t working, so parking will be free until they are fixed.
The reason the college gave for charging for parking again was the fact that government funding is no longer available, but money doesn’t seem to be a pressing issue if parking meters weren’t fixed in time for the semester to start.
Buildings need to be updated or taken care of before they get to the point of needing to be immediately evacuated. And If there is an issue that needs to be addressed immediately, the district needs to do a better job of giving information to people in a timely manner.
They also need to do a better job of making sure to send emails and statements when they have concrete information, and not switch things around from one minute to the next. This only leads to more stress and confusion for students and professors.
Faculty and staff expect to be able to do their job without constant interruptions as well, and that hasn’t been the case.
Students, staff and faculty are being switched from classroom to classroom, and even back online. The original announcement from the college stated that classes would be moved online for two weeks, so that is what students and professors prepared for.
Not even 24 hours after that announcement, the plan had already switched, with new learning areas being assigned to classes.
Some of those new areas had time overlap, so some classes were once again on edge waiting to be assigned yet another new space.
Not only are the learning conditions not up to par, but now professors are being pulled in multiple directions trying to scramble to get lesson plans changed for online learning one day, and then being told to make do with whatever space was available for them the next.
These conditions don’t allow students to receive the proper education that they are paying to receive.
The ARC campus should be a place where students can come and focus solely on their work, and not anything else stressful going on in their lives. It shouldn’t be another place adding more stress to them.
Students aren’t the only ones feeling this stress. During the Academic Senate meeting on Sept. 14, many professors voiced their anger and concerns about the way the Davies Hall situation was handled. Many were even brought to tears and voiced the distrust that was growing because of this situation.
How can professors properly teach their students in this type of environment? How are students expected to deal with the constant change and uncertainty?
The point of a college campus is to have a place where students can come to get a higher education, but right now it seems like students and professors aren’t very high on the priority list.
The district needs to do a better job of including students, staff and faculty in their decision making, because with the way things are going now, everyone is being left in the dark and have to figure out how to make the best of decisions they had no say in.
