In this issue:

• Early cancellations of classes & conversions of online classes to face-to-face resulted in loss of enrollments & hardships for faculty & students — How AFT fought back
  Between June 1st and July 27th, SMCCCD canceled 141 Fall 2021 course sections; AFT calls for adding classes and a more transparent and equitable process
• Academic Senate and AFT work to give faculty more input on setting class caps
  AFT reps and others advocate for improved communications and transparency
• College Health & Safety Committees play central role in plans for return to safe in-person work
  Faculty call for more consideration of discipline expertise in setting class size
• What Is CAT?  Check out our union’s Contract Action Team!
  Group has become an ongoing organizing body to actively address issues related to faculty working conditions
• Letter to the Advocate: We are still in a pandemic; District needs to take our public health more seriously
  Administrative decision-making must recognize that the virus remains in charge
• Meet Mandy Lucas, Promise Scholars Counselor at Skyline
  “Faculty Focus” highlights the important work of one our many hard-working counseling faculty across the district
• New AFT 1493 group working to challenge gender oppression in our colleges
  Goals are to expose gendered distribution of work and build systems of mutual support and safe space
• District to hire 43 new full-time faculty in 2021-22
  2021 state budget provides funds to increase districts’ percentage of full-time faculty
• 2021 AFT 1493 Scholarships awarded to Nigel Hawkins and Hannah Hersey
  Union recognizes social justice work of two 2021 graduates with $500 awards
• In memoriam: Remembering long-time Cañada College theater instructor and director Bob Curtis
  Bob directed eighty plays at Cañada alone, during the four decades and well over thirty years of his tenure