Students Show Out at the Board of Trustees Meeting

M.P. Hassel 

September 11, 2024 

On Thursday, September 5^th students joined members of Faculty & Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia (FSFCCP) at the Board of Trustees meeting to rally and give testimonies directly to the Trustees. Despite FSFCCP union demands, the administration and Board of Trustees allowed contracts for faculty and staff to expire on August 31. 

Over 1,500 students signed a petition for the board to approve SEPTA TransPasses, making public transportation free for students. The current price tag for a monthly TransPass is $96, and about 16,500 students are enrolled at CCP. SEPTA would very likely give the institution of CCP a healthy discount, but the summative price tag will likely still be hefty. 

FSFCCP, intending to encourage the college’s administrative leadership and governance to sign new contracts for full-time faculty, part-time faculty/visiting lecturer, and classified staff, has demanded for raises to counteract inflation, living wages for staff, better job security, increased support for students, smaller class sizes, on-campus childcare, and free transportation. 

According to Part-Time Faculty Co-Chair Noelle Egan, the College Administration has “persistently denied the Federation demands,” such as wages for classified staff and part-time faculty, and other details on health care benefits, staffing, and class sizes. 

The closed session of the meeting began at 2:30pm, and students and union members were allowed in at 3:00pm for public comment. Well over thirty members of FSFCCP and roughly the same number of students gathered in the Mint Building outside the Isadore A. Shrager Boardroom, named after a partner of the law firm Fox Rothschild, by the time an administrator said the meeting would be pushed back to 3:15pm. 

The Manager of Department of Public Safety Julien C. Fields hovered near the students as the energy escalated and whispered in Student Government Association President-Elect Frank Scales’ ear to quiet down, remaining distant from faculty until the crowd in the hallways could file into the boardroom. 

The table was surrounded by Trustees and Vice Presidents of the College and headed by Senior Advisor Harold T. Epps and President of the College Dr. Guy Generals. Fields now perched a few steps behind Generals, watching the gallery opposite the table. Administrators sat in front, closest to the table, while the rest of the faculty, staff, and students sat in tightly arranged rows of chairs or stood off to either side along the walls. 

Early into the meeting, Epps made a remark that “ninety-eight percent of the meetings” do not contain testimonies, signifying their discouragement of the Federation’s and students’ presence. Still, one by one, over twenty members of the union and students that signed up the day prior were called on to speak. Each speaker was strictly limited to two minutes, and College Counsel Carolyn Flynn promptly interrupted on every one-hundred-twenty-first second, graciously thanking them for their time. Exactly two minutes. 

Halfway through the testimonies, Flynn used high-corporate double-speak to say that to save time, speakers should not repeat subjects. When charts were used to detail each of the contract demands, they were quickly waved off. 

Contracts were brought directly to Dr. Generals during testimonies. Though encouraged by FSFCCP to sign, the college’s governance must work through by-laws to make an approval decision or not.