The SBCC Board of Trustees will meet Thursday to consider mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for all students, employees, and members of the public “present in any campus building or SBCC teaching location.”
Santa Barbara City College’s special meeting comes as COVID-19 cases are rising across the county, the state, and the country.
Santa Barbara County Public Health officials have raised concerns over the highly contagious Delta variant reported locally, and an indoor mask mandate goes into effect Friday for everyone, regardless of vaccination status. SBCC already had a mask policy in place for on-campus activities.
If approved by the board, SBCC would require all students and employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 “on or before Oct. 1, or upon the announcement of at least one COVID-19 vaccine that has received final FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) approval, whichever comes earlier, or have an approved exemption,” according to the proposed resolution.
SBCC is planning to offer about 40% of its courses in-person for the fall semester, which starts Aug. 23, according to the college.
The Board of Trustees meeting will be held virtually and starts at 4 p.m. Thursday.
As of Wednesday, COVID-19 vaccines are not required for SBCC employees or students before the upcoming semester.
In late May, the board approved a motion urging that all students and employees receive COVID-19 vaccinations, but have not mandated the vaccines.
The board decision against a mandate caused major pushback from the SBCC Academic Senate, which on Wednesday passed a no-confidence vote for five members of the board.
“Since that time, there has been a number of developments that impact our decision,” the agenda for Thursday’s meeting states. “In light of these changes, the board is revisiting its decision.”
The majority of SBCC staff members and SBCC employee organizations support the adoption of a COVID-19 vaccination requirement among all students, employees and the public using on-campus services, according to the proposed resolution.
Click here to view the proposed resolution.
Thursday’s agenda item states that it’s “the responsibility of the (SBCC) board to act based upon the recommendation of medical experts and sound science and in the best interests of the institution by protecting the health and safety of students, employees and the community in its efforts to provide learning opportunities during the current pandemic.”
The University of California system, including UC Santa Barbara, is implementing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the fall quarter, and so are schools in the California State University system, including Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and CSU Channel Islands.
Academic Senate Approves No-Confidence Vote in Board Members
After more than four hours of deliberation, the Santa Barbara City College Academic Senate this week supported a vote of no confidence against five members of the seven-member college Board of Trustees amid the majority of the board’s decision not to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations in the upcoming school year.
The college’s Academic Senate voted 13-2 on Tuesday to support a no-confidence vote for trustees Marsha Croninger, Veronica Gallardo, Peter Haslund, Robert Miller and Kate Parker.
Trustees Jonathan Abboud and Anna Everett were not included in the Academic Senate’s vote of no confidence.
“I’m proud of the hard work of the senate coming to a conclusion that represented the large majority of faculty’s wishes,” Academic Senate President Raeanne Napoleon said in a statement.
“We were focused on the campus, our faculty, and our students. And we deliberated at length to make sure we considered everything we could. It’s a heavy, but important decision. I look forward to moving forward.”
Croninger did not vote against the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in May or June, and she drafted the proposed vaccine mandate that was not adopted in May.
The senate is currently crafting a writ of particulars, a document detailing the grievances the Academic Senate has with the board and remediation steps they would like to see the board take.
Additionally, the senate is writing the language for the resolution, which they will accept at a special meeting next week, Napoleon told Noozhawk via email.
Members of the Academic Senate created a historical document to better inform faculty about the grievances many have against the Board of Trustees. The document outlines nearly 20 situations between 2012 to 2021.
Click here to view the document.
During the special meeting, one member of the Academic Senate abstained from voting and one member was absent.
The Academic Senate in July considered a vote of no confidence for former SBCC Superintendent/President Utpal Goswami, as well as Gallardo, Haslund, Miller and Parker, who opposed a proposal for a vaccine mandate for staff and students during a June 24 meeting.
Last month, the senate discussed a vote of no confidence for other board members, as the abrupt resignation of Goswami came immediately prior to the senate’s special meeting.
The members of the college’s Board of Trustees are elected by district voters on Santa Barbara County’s South Coast — from Goleta to Carpinteria.
Board members are elected by voters in the individual districts, and serve four-year terms.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
