Recommendation to improve the SSC student to counselor ratio

The Faculty Council recognizes that South Seattle College has a long history of Counseling Faculty providing comprehensive services to our diverse student population. With the retirement of Don Howard at the beginning of the 2020-21 academic year, we want to ensure that his position is replaced and an additional position added in order to move towards an appropriate ratio of counselors to students and to provide equitable services. The Faculty Council endorses the hiring of these FT Counselor positions to continue this strong institutional mission of supporting students. (Approved Feb. 2021)

64 faculty members participated in the vote, 94% of which approved the recommendation. This represents 50% of full-time faculty and 24 part time faculty from all divisions and all campuses at SSC.Here are a few faculty comments collected in support of the recommendation:
•    "We need student counselors more than ever right now. Two counselors is not enough to handle only the emergency counseling services needed during a pandemic. We need highly trained and qualified staff to help with career counseling and student support. 1250 to 1 student to counselor ratio is frankly despicable. Invest in our student's mental health!"
•    "This is fundamental to our anti-racist mission and our goal of retaining students."
•    "Two counselors seems way too little for all South Students!  It is one thing to claim "we're here to support you" and then not have enough counselors to do the job."

Resolution supporting the College Council on gender inclusive bathrooms

At our first all faculty meeting on Nov. 5th, the faculty voted to approve (95% of 65 voting faculty members) our first recommendation:
The faculty of South Seattle College support the SSC College Council's work to create gender inclusive bathrooms on campus.

How the Faculty Council Collects Feedback/Makes Recommendations

As an organization we will collect faculty feedback on campus issues and share that input with campus groups. We will do this in one of two ways:
1.    Once a quarter an all-faculty meeting will be held by the Faculty Council to facilitate discussion about issues that require faculty input. Faculty will then vote to make formal recommendations. These recommendations can only be made if a third of FT faculty, at least 20 PT faculty, and faculty from every area of campus participate in the vote and it is approved by a simple majority. These recommendations will be shared with the campus community.
2.    Faculty opinions will be collected at any time of the quarter through conversations and online surveys. These opinions will be shared with the campus groups involved in the initiatives or issue the opinions pertain to.

Professional Development Day All-Faculty Meetings and Workshops

The Faculty Council (FC) holds all-faculty meetings during SSC's faculty Professional Development Days. The first All-Faculty meeting was held Nov. 5, 2020, introducing the FC, presenting the proposed FC bylaws and a resolution to support the College Council's work on gender inclusive bathrooms on campus. The Feb. 11, 2021 meeting presented the proposed recommendation on student/counselor ratios.

The Faculty Council has also hosted workshops on PD Days to collect more in-depth feedback on faculty issues, including the Tenure Handbook, professional development, supporting anti-racist work on campus and accreditation policies. For more information on professional development, see the SSC Faculty Professional Development Canvas page.

Future Meetings

2021 Meetings: The Faculty Council will meet in week 3 and 7 of each quarter and hold an all-faculty meeting in week 5 of each quarter. Please reach out to us if you would like us to facilitate sharing information or collecting faculty input on an issue. We can be reached at SouthFC@seattlecolleges.edu and look forward to working with you in the future.