Goleta resident Lois Rosen supports the Academic Senate’s vote of no confidence on some Santa Barbara City College trustees for their failure to impose a vaccine mandate.
I read the article on the “vote of no confidence” that the SBCC Academic Senate voted, naming five members of the Santa Barbara City College trustees who refused to impose a vaccine mandate for the fall semester (“Academic Senate votes ‘no confidence’ in some Board of Trustees members,” News-Press, Aug. 4.)
I support the faculty.
The COVID-19 virus has demonstrated its ability to change and become ever more dangerous, infecting and killing people.
In effect the Board of Trustees majority has become the equivalent of a vaccine denier.
Veronica Gallardo, a Santa Barbara City College trustee, voted no on the mandate. She said the vaccine mandate “prevents a population of students from accessing SBCC’s diverse learning environment and opportunities to enrich their lives.”
Students work in close contact with each other and their instructors in each class. That close proximity fosters the possibility of infection.
Anyone who has been vaccinated knows the ease with which it is administered. The vaccine is safe with more than 150,000,000 persons who have received doses with little or no adverse effect. The vaccine is free.
The only persons who may be creating a barrier to the fundamental principle of City College education are the students themselves.
It seems to me that the Board of Trustees majority got the vote wrong in its balancing of interests. Should the college refuse to provide a safe environment for its diverse population of students or should it bear the risk of those students becoming infected or dying from a deadly covid virus?
There are too many stories in the news about people who refused to receive the vaccine who got sick and then requested a dose, only to be told that was “too late.”
Lois Rosen
Goleta
Editor’s note: After Lois Rosen submitted this letter to the News-Press, City College trustees voted to impose a vaccine mandate for the fall semester, with some exemptions that include medical reasons.
