Gene

Gene Flores has always had an open-door policy. As the Division Dean of Art & Design, Gene oversees many faculty members at PCC, and he sees his role as supporting them in their work. Pre-pandemic, instructors would drop by his office to chat, “grieve, and just sort of lay it all out with me,” he says. He’d do what he could to help them figure things out.

In the pandemic, he’s missed that opportunity for connection. Working from home has had other advantages—Gene is a working artist and has had more time in his studio—but the open-door conversations don’t happen much these days.

In his position as Dean, Gene is acutely aware of the unique pressures facing his faculty right now. He’s worried that the college’s expectations for faculty have been unrealistic and unfair.

“We ask faculty and staff to adapt to our students going remote all of a sudden…adapt the way you teach, adapt the way you respond to your students. What I find interesting is that we as upper administrators don't reflect that kind equality to our faculty. We sort of expect you [faculty] to change, but we haven't figured out a way to support you,” he says.

The last two years have created immense changes in the way PCC delivers education. Faculty have learned new methods for hosting classes and creating community, teaching from their laptops at home in their living rooms. Students have scrambled for hot spots and learned to access online tutoring.

It’s important to give everyone a little grace in this time, Gene says. But while PCC encourages faculty to do this for students, he worries that the administration doesn’t do the same for instructors.

“We've asked faculty to understand the trouble students are going through and at the same time it's like, some faculty may fall behind or maybe they're a little more strict,” he says. “We have to understand that they're also learning something brand new.”

While the open-door policy may not be there, Gene’s sense of the larger community has grown in the pandemic. Technology has made that possible, he says. “It hasn’t gotten smaller; it’s gotten bigger,” he asserts. Whether exchanging art ideas over Instagram with artists in South America or communicating more with family in Texas, he is excited about what the COVID era has taught us about using technology to make connections.

This includes hybrid work possibilities. Gene is interested to see how it will shift again as many PCC students and staff return to campus in the fall.

“I think students and educators have found ways that work, whereas before we never thought it would ever work doing things remotely. And now we've discovered, Hey, this can actually work. Do we really need to be on campus for everything?”

Gene advocates for faculty who want to remain remote and for the instructors to have more flexibility in defining their work. If we offer such options for students, he says, we have to do the same for our teachers. Otherwise, PCC isn’t being true to its ideals:

“For me that's been the biggest eye opener, is how we contradict ourselves,” he says.