Dear Pasadena City College Board of Trustees,

On March 9, 2018 you made a decision to do something that hasn’t happened on the PCC campus in over 2 decades – to deny tenure to Catherine Datko, one of, if not the first full-time faculty instructional designers in the California Community College system.

This petition is a call upon you to reconsider your vote and grant Catherine tenure. Catherine is an extremely accomplished faculty member who has contributed greatly to the PCC and California community college system. Her tenure denial is not only unjust, but it is illegal.

Catherine has worked full-time at PCC since 2012. Here are a few facts about her time at PCC:

• Catherine has presented at numerous conferences; helped other campuses with their transitions to the Canvas Learning Management system; and earned the President’s 10+1 Award from the Pasadena City College Academic Senate for Distance Education Program Development as well as the CATESOL Ron Lee Technology Award for her proposal to use technology in the development of an online Open Educational Resource. She was recently profiled in the PCC Courier for her work.
• As an instructional designer at PCC, she worked with faculty to create the successful online model course program and training. This training was noted in one of the few commendations by the district’s accrediting board, the ACCJC.
• As an interim Associate Dean, Catherine’s training courses and support materials earned the district the Quality Matters program certification for Online Teaching Support – the gold standard in the field of distance education. While an interim Associate Dean, Catherine also obtained a 70k equity grant for an online student success initiative.

For the past three years, however, the District has conducted her faculty evaluations in violation of the PCCFA contract and the California Education Code. Catherine, her peers and the PCCFA have all submitted ample documentation to the district detailing this. Her peer and student reviews are stellar and have been consistently and blatantly ignored in the process of her evaluation.

Finally, in 2015, the Board had voted on Catherine entering her third year contract, yet, without notice to Catherine, in 2016 they once again voted for her to enter her third year contract, essentially sweeping the 2015-2016 year from her time on tenure. Catherine was also transferred to work in the ESL Department without an official vote from the Board.

We call upon the Board to rectify this situation by granting Catherine tenure, restoring her time on service and ensuring that she is working in similar position for which she was originally hired.