California received $62.3 million in state funding to hire additional faculty for school campuses, and the money was put to good use at Fullerton College.

FC added 44 new full-time faculty members to its 2015-16 staff, the largest amount hired in over 30 years.

The 44 new faculty members are part of the 670 full-time faculty positions that Gov. Jerry Brown hopes will be created with the money the state was granted.

The new faculty members’ positions range from counselors to instructors in departments such as, music, religious studies, mathematics, fashion, history and arts.

While there are benefits to having part-time or adjunct faculty members, there are also various benefits to having full-time faculty members that an adjunct might not be able to offer.

“When there’s full-time faculty […] they have office hours, they invest in the curriculum, they’re working with the students, and so there’s a lot of benefits,” said Vice President of Administrative Services Richard Storti.

FC President Greg Schulz noted that when schools are able to give people full-time employment, they are able to invest a lot of their time with students. It strengthens the school’s investment in supporting students as well as helping students achieve degree completion, transfer, or certifications that will help them transfer into the work force.

Frank Guthrie is one such new-hire jumping in as a professor for FC’s Digital Arts Department.

Being an instructor is something new for Guthrie, who has over 20 years of experience working for companies like Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers and ABCmouse.com. He also has his own studio, Honeycombs and Clay, that specializes in creating 2D-Design, 3D-Models and 3D-Prototypes.

Guthrie feels that being a full-time instructor as opposed to an adjunct will allow him to help students in a way that an adjunct instructor might not be able to due to the inability to interact with students as much outside of class.

“If we had more full-time teachers, we would have people who would be part of the growth [of the departments], we would have more voices advocating for growth and for positive change,” he said.

He is currently working with instructors Phil Dimitriadis (digital arts) and Stephen Klippenstein (advertising and graphic design) in getting FC to become the first community college in California that offers a consumer product certificate. He hopes that they can help develop a stronger digital arts department that incorporates 3D printing, motion-capture and more technically advanced techniques.

Guthrie hopes that with his involvement in FC’s Graphic Arts Department they can get to the point where it is known to major entertainment studios like Disney, Warner Brothers and Dreamworks. These corporations get most of their employees from schools like Cal State Fullerton, Cal Arts or Art Center.

Guthrie’s enthusiasm and excitement as a new full-time faculty member is just one example of new full-time instructors that will help Fullerton College’s various departments grow in helping students achieve their goals.