Several departments at Los Medanos College are looking to hire new faculty this year.

The Box 2A Committee developed a list of faculty hiring priorities, and recommendations for filling existing vacancies and establishing new positions, according to an email sent to all LMC employees from President Bob Kratochvil.

The priority rankings submitted by the Box 2A Committee are as follow: Nursing Director, Nursing (OB emphasis),Business, Counselor ,Business 6. English/Math,(tie) Math (Brentwood campus) and Speech.

Kratochvil said that at the moment it is not anticipated that there will be sufficient funding for all these important faculty positions.

“At this point the assessment is that we have funds to recruit for those top three,” Kratochvil said. According to Kratochvil it costs about $100,000 a piece per new hire that covers pay and benefits.

“When we as an institution— our district budget we have to make sure that it’s not just the salary but also the employee benefits being considered,” Kratochvil said. Employee benefits are a significant amount of money, and health care benefits costs have gone up.

A timeline has been developed by LMC to process the interviews for these positions.

“We’re anticipating the interviews for the three faculty, the intent is to finish selection process…before faculty leave so that we can get these persons on board for the fall term,” Kratochvil said.

The Nursing department, which got first priority in faculty hiring, has been working without a director for two years, according to nursing faculty Elizabeth Shrieve. The last Nursing Director was Sandra Castillo, who retired from her position.  According to Shrieve the state regulatory agencies require a Nursing director for both the nursing programs.

The Nursing department has over 130 students that faculty needs to attend to not only inside the classrooms but outside as well. Students are not only in classrooms but also go to hospitals for eight hours, two days a week. According to nursing department chair Joanne Bent, LMC has contracts with hospitals such as John Muir, Sutter Delta, and Kaiser.

“The contracts are pretty big and detailed, the director needs to take care of these contracts,” said Bent. “That is kind of out of our role as teachers.”

Hiring a Nursing Director will help keep relationships with these hospitals, and helps keep the program going.

The Nursing department currently has divided the job of a Nursing Director into two people. “We’re trying to do it without a director, we’re doing our best,” said Bent.

According to Bent, the nursing faculty is working extra days, working overtime, and some are working seven days a week. Bent said that she’s really appreciative that the nursing department was ranked No. 1 in the faculty hiring priorities.

“If we get a director it will take a lot of pressure off of us so we can really focus,” said Bent.