PENDLETON — Members of Blue Mountain Community College Faculty Association are challenging the BMCC Board of Education’s recent decision to retrench 17 members of BMCC’s staff working in the Oregon Department of Corrections education programs.

Faculty association members and others gathered May 3 at the college’s boardroom to voice their concerns via Zoom to the board during its meeting in Baker City. Members of the faculty association held up signs for the camera while wearing blue and yellow T-shirts displaying “Save BMCC” across the front.

“The prison education program is a proven success in reducing recidivism upon release,” said Doreen Matteson, a former teacher of 18 years at Blue Mountain. “We’re all here today because we believe that our federal and state governments have data that proves that. BMCC has been a consistent leader in the number of graduates from Oregon prisons for a long time. This program has been successfully administered for 37 years.”

Though most in the room were members of the faculty association, others who had been affected by BMCC’s education programs at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution and Two Rivers Correctional Institution called in to voice their support for maintaining the program.

“I was an inmate for 17-and-a-half years in the Oregon Department of Corrections, I came into the system with a GED and began working as a tutor,” Martin Lockett said. “I can say unequivocally that there is something magical happening within EOCI and its education department. I have seen men who have struggled all of their lives get the total knowledge, teaching, and nurturing that they need to graduate.”

Providing GEDs for inmates who might have never had an opportunity to re-engage with education can open the world for them, Lockett said. Possessing a GED can mean the difference between further collegiate education, or even entering trade schools after exiting prison.

“Somewhere around 75% of inmates in Oregon do not have a diploma or GED,” said faculty association President Sacha McKeon said.

“I’m not sure why we’re considering funding for degree programs when only about 15% of the population can pursue them.”

McKeon said she was concerned cutting a program that has been successful for 37 years was needless, and explained even though members of staff up for retrenchment offered to negotiate and accept lower wages, BMCC President Mark Browning never entertained as much as an offer from the Department of Corrections.

“We have faculty that are committed to taking cuts in order to continue to serve the community that they’re beholden to, their constituents, their people,” McKeon said. “It surprises me that President Browning is not open to that. We still don’t know what was offered, and as far as I know, neither does President Browning.”

Several speakers throughout the night shared McKeon’s perspective that the decision to cut the programs at EOCI was not out of financial concerns. Some speakers called into question whether or not Blue Mountain was honoring transparency agreements laid out in contracts.

“It was suggested that cutting the corrections program was purely a dollars-and-cents discussion,” BMCC adjunct faculty member Nick Nash said. “At the last board meeting, shutting the program down was justified because continuing the program would cost the college too much money. The problem is that this simply isn’t true. It is additionally supported by the fact that the college administration will not provide any financial information supporting the need for the retrenchment, as required by our contract.”