News was spreading around San Diego City College that the sustainable agriculture program was shutting down and Abbie Ferrieri was among the first to find out.
A part-time agriculture professor at City, Ferrieri showed up with 10 like-minded stakeholders at the San Diego Community College District’s Sept. 12 board of trustees meeting to make their opposition known.
After Ferrieri and five others delivered their public comments to the trustees, the entire group, which consisted of City College faculty, students and affiliated community advocates, gathered outside the conference room while the board meeting continued.
The lobby elevator dinged and out walked City College President Ricky Shabazz, who addressed the group directly.
“Thank you all for speaking up about the Seeds program,” Shabazz said, referring to the agriculture program’s Seeds@City Urban Farm. “As the president of the college, I have never had a conversation about Seeds going away … I’ve invested a lot of financial resources into Seeds, and it is not going anywhere.”
Despite the president’s reassurances about the farm, however, at least three agriculture program meetings had already occurred where Ferrieri and the other faculty were informed of steps being taken to prepare for the agriculture program’s inevitable closure, according to Ferrieri and multiple sources.
As of Aug. 23, students interested in pursuing any of the agriculture program’s several pathway degrees and certificates were already being told to consider non-City agriculture programs, according to an email obtained by City Times.
Life Sciences Department Chair Kevin Jagnandan was among the sources who confirmed the pending decision. He was also involved in making it.
Jagnandan told City Times via email that his department made the move to end the program after the resignation of the sustainable agriculture program’s lone full-time associate professor, Erin McConnell, in early August.
According to McConnell, over her nine-year tenure, she and the Life Sciences Department made yearly requests to Shabazz, the Academic Senate and community organizations to find long-term funding for the program. This was confirmed by Shabazz, Jagnandan and other sources.
McConnell and Jagnandan said the funding requests were intended for the hiring of full-time staff to make the program workload equitable and to help manage the Seeds farm, but only sporadic temporary funding ever came through.
During McConnell’s tenure at City, Jagnandan said the former professor’s responsibilities, “far (exceeded) what is required of full-time contract faculty and what can reasonably be expected of any single employee.”
“The main reason for me leaving,” McConnell said in a phone interview with City Times, “was the impact of chronic stress from the job on my health and happiness.”
Understanding that the funding the department long requested would not materialize and that hiring another professor to experience what McConnell endured would be “unethical,” the life science faculty decided not to fill the vacancy, setting the program up to phase out, according to Jagnandan.
“It just goes to show,” Ferrieri said, “the program must have been held up by sticks. The fact that they allowed one person to leave, and then the whole thing just falls apart (two weeks later).”
Though the process to close the program hasn’t been formally initiated through the Academic Senate, Jagnandan confirmed he is working with Dean of Mathematics, Sciences and Nursing Education Leticia Lopez to develop a transition plan. Lopez was unavailable to comment for this story.
City College Academic Senate President Mona Alsoraimi-Espiritu acknowledged in a phone interview with City Times the concerns of the remaining part-time agriculture faculty that they were not in any of the Life Science department meetings or consulted in the department’s final decision.
“I want to make sure that the faculty in the discipline and the department, whether it’s part-time or full-time, will have a seat at the table,” the Academic Senate president said, “to make sure that the right people are at the table and that no decisions are made without them.”
For his part, Shabazz said City College is actively seeking grants as a way to “reimagine” Seeds@City and to tailor its structure to the department’s needs. The idea is to continue growing it through grants, similar to how City’s Basic Needs Center has expanded.
Shabazz said that due to the multi-staged and formal nature of the Instructional Program Discontinuance process, which ultimately goes through the board of trustees and the chancellor’s office for approval, it’s still premature for anyone to say the closure is final.
After Ferrieri’s September board meeting appearance, SDCCD Chancellor Greg Smith responded to the group’s concerns via email, stating that there is no interest from administration at any level in discontinuing the program or the farm.
Both Smith and Shabazz pointed to the farm being included as a facilities project in the SDCCD’s forthcoming bond measure in November’s election to demonstrate the importance of the agriculture program to the district’s long-term planning.
By the time City Times began reporting on the story, six students had individually approached the newsroom with concerns about the closure.
City Times interviewed another six current and former City agriculture students, all of whom expressed displeasure at hearing about the program’s intended closure.
Second-semester agriculture student Olive Marsh credited the program’s accessibility and comprehensive scope for her decision to pursue higher education.
“I just feel really blessed that I was able to find a program that really tackles all the issues that go into starting a farm and growing crops that will make you money, etc.,” Marsh said. “Instead they’re trying to make it … maybe be just a, you know, an attraction at City College, instead of it being the big program that it deserves to be.”
