After serving in the Disabled Students Programs and Services department at Bakersfield College for the last 10 years, DSPS counselor John “Skip” Hill will be losing his position due to budgetary cuts in the department. Hill will now be located in the counseling department where he will still continue to serve disabled students, but with more focus toward the general student population.
“One of the areas that they felt that they could cut was in disabled student services,” said Hill as he described the situation.
“And so, they decided to eliminate one counseling position in our program, which was mine, and then also change the way things were going to be done so that the disability services would focus on just those services to help people with disabilities in classes with extra time or whatever the types of things are that are helpful to succeed and separate out as much as possible the academic counseling part, such as helping with schedules and determining classes and things like that.”
Along with Hill, DSPS counselor Diana Kelly and department director Angelica Gomez are the only ones serving the needs of students who qualify for disabled students services. Together, according to Hill, they serve over 1,200 students each semester with students’ needs varying by the individual.
There will not be a replacement for Hill because the position is being eliminated. However, there will be a part-time counselor added to the staff.
When the situation came up that he would be losing his position, discussions with administration were that Hill, who has a masters degree in education, would move into the Academic Development department, but talks with the DSPS staff and BC’s need for more counselors pushed for Hill to stay connected with DSPS while serving a new position in the counseling department.
“The decision was, and it was really pretty good, that, there was a lot of other people on campus, aside from my own situation, that were advocating for counseling to be given more consideration in all this because there hasn’t been a new counseling position for a number of years now, even though we’ve had people leave and retire.
“So, even though it didn’t look like they were going to include counseling as one of the places to have a new position for next year, instead of just eliminating me from counseling and DSPS and sending me to academic development, they decided to transfer me into the counseling department. So actually, they’re adding one more counselor to counseling. So, that’s one really good thing is that I can still do the academic counseling I’ve been doing for so long, but I won’t be specializing with people with disabilities anymore,” said Hill.
Starting in the fall, Hill will also be teaching student development classes in addition to working in the counseling department. However, he will still be involved with assisting DSPS and disabled students with his new job duties.
“As they considered the points that Diana Kelly and I had put forth and the efforts of Angelica, our director, and others, that, ‘Well maybe it would be helpful if we left Skip at least part-time in disabled student services.’ They decided that I would be 20 percent disabled student services, 80 percent counsel.
“The way that will work out is that I will teach Student Development 1 – four sections of that -which is two units a semester. And, those will be classes that will be closed classes you might say or special classes designed specifically for people in disabled student services. So yes, everybody could enroll in that, but the priority goes to [qualifying disabled students] because we’re going to do some things that are going to be helpful for our students. So, they’ll have to have a signature from me in order to get in,” he said.
Hill feels fortunate that he will be able to stay at BC and continue contributing to disabled student services. He also understands that the economic conditions surrounding California colleges is serious and affecting many other departments, too.
“It works out well for me; as well as it could in light of the situation. I don’t think any of us felt that, you know, reducing the services to students with disabilities was going to be the right thing to do, but it’s not just us, it’s happening statewide. Every single college around the state is hit with about a 40 percent reduction or more in their services for students with disabilities. So, it’s going to be a challenge,” he said.
“The majority of our people right now are coming to us not only for their accommodations and services, like, for extra time on tests and things, but they also come to us for academic counseling, advice and assistance with educational plans and things like that. So, by having me out of here it is going to put the entire load of disabilities related counseling primarily on Diana Kelly.”
Hill will still be a full-time employee come the start of the fall semester, and though he stays optimistic for DSPS, he knows that they will be facing tough challenges and is concerned for the students.
“We anticipate it’s going to be quite an adjustment for our students.”