Many of SWC's marquee programs took major hits in the latest round of budget cuts, further diminishing programs already trimmed last year. Programs with national and international status will be hurt this spring and for the foreseeable future, according to faculty members.
SWC's internationally renowned mariachi and nationally-ranked debate, MESA and journalism programs that have brought luster to Chula Vista lost teacher hours, travel and supply budgets, and other financial support.
All departments received a 26 percent budget cut. Class sections were severelycut for SWC's spring and summer sessions, while extracurricular programs will receive much smaller funding. Two successful sports teams were completely eliminated.
SWC's School of Math, Science and Engineering planned drastic cuts for the number of class sections offered for the upcoming spring session. Gradual cuts of class sections were already implemented this fall, but spring will be devastating, said Shery Medler, department chair of biological sciences.
"Significant cuts" to their supply budgets, specifically for laboratory classes for human anatomy and microbiology, will hurt science instruction, she said. Weekend programs for anatomy and biology will be cancelled next semester.
"It's going to be very tense because there is going to be extreme competition to get into classes," Medler said.
SWC's men's and women's tennis teams were forced to the sidelines.
Dean of Health, Excersise Science & Athletics Terry Davis said he based the elimination of tennis on the low number of participants, the minimal impact on student-athletes and the low cost to bring the sport back.
"We just tried to be as fair as possible," he said. "I mean, that's all you can do. When you try to be fair, it's still not going to be fair for others."
Tennis players were informed at the beginning of last summer, giving the athletes enough notice to transfer to another school in time to participate in the sport, Davis said. Losing student-athletes takes away from the community and hurts the institution, he said.
"One of the things that people don't see here is that athletics is a little different than the rest of the student population," he said. "The students come here for education, of course, but they're recruited for athletics, which means we're in competition with all the schools."
SWC's nationally-ranked debate team also suffered major cutbacks this year, receiving less than half of last year's budget.
Last year, the team had a budget of $17,000. They were given only $8,000 this season, and its first tournament cost about $2,000 alone. Without the money, the team will not be able compete in enough tournaments to be nationally ranked this season, said Eric Maag, co-director of the debate team.
SWC's debate team were ranked third in the country for community colleges last year and has produced national individual champions.
Budget cuts have forced the team to realize that with less money, comes less tournaments and less opportunities for more teams to travel. Those who were once eager to join the team, were no longer motivated this year, Maag said.
"That's a big loss of prestige, personally," he said. "But it also hurts us when recruiting students from classes, because it's harder to say we are a competitive team now."
Budget cuts forced Dr. Jeff Nevin, chair of the performing arts department and director of SWC's internationally-respected mariachi band, to minimize the spring and summer sessions for theater, dance and music.
No mariachi classes will be offered this summer and the department also cut 28 sections for spring, despite enrollment of 100 percent. Only 93 sections were offered in the fall. SWC's dance classes were already over-enrolled this semester, with an average enrollment of 117 percent.
In order to meet the required 25 percent cut of FTEs, Nevin had to cut more than 25 percent of the department's sections. Performing arts, paired with the school's visual arts and communications classes, accounted for 13 percent of the school's FTE.
Funds for art supplies, concerts, choir accompanists and music field trips were chopped nearly 50 percent, although the school budget "wasn't much to begin with," Nevin said.
While the cuts have drastically impacted the programs, the most affected on campus will be the students.
"For America to have a prosperous future, students need the opportunity to obtain a strong background in sciences," Medler said. "To take that opportunity away from students would be tragic."
Manny Hernandez, a 20-year-old biology student said he will be personally impacted by the budget changes.
"The amount and quality of supplies we have right now aren't that great already," he said. "These cuts will affect me through time, money and stress."
Hernandez said that he will not be the only student to feel the results.
"More supplies will have to be provided through the pockets of students," said Hernandez. "And the cuts could extend everyone's stay at the junior college level."
Current students may have to endure a prolonged experience at SWC, with two-year pgroams taking 4-5 years to complete. Section cuts could turn away prospective Jaguars.
"A whole lot of students are going to come to the school and be turned away (at the classroom door)," Nevin said.
Full-time faculty members will also be affected. Less sections will result in pay cuts for many professors who were previously teaching more than a full load of classes.
Nevin, who on average teaches an extra class every semester, could receive more than a 30 percent cut in his pay if there are no additional classes available to teach, he said.
His potential salary cut is just one individual example of how faculty will be affected, Nevin said.
Students and full-time professors will not be the only ones who will suffer from the slashes. The budget cuts will also lay pressure on adjunct faculty.
"The worst thing of all is students won't get the classes they need and they may be significantly delayed in their progression towards a degree or career," Medler said. "And there are also many people out there who are going to lose their livelihood."
Due to specialized courses, many performing arts classes are taught by part-time faculty. Section cuts will limit the number of classes available for adjunct professors.
"I estimate that 20 of the people that work in performing arts won't have a class to teach," Nevin said. "So what I said was, I just fired 20 people."
SWC's drastic cuts have been accompanied by a strained relationship between administration and faculty. Departments and program leaders were informed of the budget cuts without being given the opportunity to suggest alternative solutions, Maag said.
"I really just don't feel like there was ever a chance for me to figure out if they were the best decisions or not," he said. "I was just told this was the decision."
While the administration told departments what numbers to reduce their budgets by, department chairs were given the unpleasant job of to deciding how to execute the cuts.
"That's like saying, we're living in a house where somebody just blew a hole in the roof, but they allowed us to pick any place in the house that we wanted to live in," Nevin said. "So I'm standing in the corner so the rain doesn't hit me on the head."
Viable suggestions from caring faculty have been presented but have not been considered by SWC's administration, he said.
"(Faculty members have) not been consulted, they've been ignored," Nevin said. "When we've brought up ideas, the administration has taken the tactic of choosing first to find out how to counter a suggestion, rather than taking it to heart."
SWC already made 10 percent and five percent cuts prior to the 26 percent on tap for spring semester. The previous budgets cuts were intended to improve the school's efficiency and to reduce the number of classes that did not have full enrollment.
Early attempts made by the school should have allowed the school to delay extreme cuts for spring, Maag said.
"We kinda got ourselves in a position where we were a little ahead of the game," he said. "We had some money, we were doing good. It seems to me because of our previous efficiency, we should have been able to buy ourselves some time to have this discussion where everybody's involved."
While those cuts did improve efficiency, the recent slashes will now cut whole classes, Nevin said.
"If anyone says we're trying to improve efficiency now, that's a bald-faced lie," he said.
Could a continued effort to keep progressing on campus issues, however, be overshadowed by the budget cuts?
"Who would want to hurt their own job?" Davis said. "I just think it's unusual to think that. Nobody wants to hurt the institution, nobody wants to hurt the staff."
Despite the slashes, Davis said that SWC has continued to make efforts to secure grants and improve student success, facts that are overlooked due to pressing financial times.
"Even though we're not in the best of times, we're still trying to do positive things," he said. "And actually, sometimes when you're in this situation, you may do more positive things than you think."
While budget cuts have resulted in smaller programs, it may have sparked the motivation and creativity needed to recover. Faculty remained confident that the budget cuts were not here to stay.
History at California community colleges has proved it, Davis said.
"We are resilient and we always bounce back," he said. "And usually when we bounce back, we bounce back greater because of what we do as an institution."
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