Accrediting Team Strongly Rebukes Leadership at College District
By ROBERT OURLIAN - LA Times
JAN. 26, 1999
Citing a “sad, sad state of affairs” at South Orange County Community College District, a national accrediting panel is demanding top-to-bottom reforms—especially within the board of trustees—before renewing accreditation for the district’s two colleges.
In a pair of scathing reports, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges denounced the way Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College have been governed for the last two years.
Bluntly rebuking trustees, the reports demanded that the board immediately begin stepping back from day-to-day operations.
“Some members of the board of trustees do not understand the extent of the climate crisis in their colleges,” the team wrote.
“Furthermore, they do not accept responsibility for their role in contributing to the situation. . . . Some trustees are in a state of denial in that they said they would not do anything differently if they had it to do all over again.”
The reports stated that “Irvine Valley College and its district . . . are organizations in crisis—primarily a governance crisis. . . . A multiplicity of deep and bitter divisions characterize virtually all entities and relationships. . . . The district had become wracked by malfunction and misfortune.”
Both campuses remain accredited for the moment, but district officials had hoped for reaffirmed accreditation, though with some conditions.
The reports released Monday were “less than we wanted,” said Cedric A. Sampson, the district’s new chancellor, who took over last year and has the daunting task of dealing with the problems.
Formal notification about actual accreditation status and terms for winning reaffirmation are expected any day, he said.
College trustee David Lang said at Monday night’s board meeting, “I hope we will accept their input in a renewed spirit of cooperation and commitment.”
He proposed that the seven trustees immediately begin putting some of the accreditation panel’s recommendations into effect.
Specifically, Lang said, he hoped the board would relinquish control over executive hiring, delegate non-policy district matters to the chancellor and rededicate itself to “shared governance” with the two campuses’ faculty, staff and students.
But trustee Steven J. Frogue took a less conciliatory tone.
“I’m always led back to the question, ‘Who evaluates the evaluators?’ ” he said.
The accreditation team’s reports said that trustees have taken actions that violated their own policies and procedures. It said also that some trustees may be in a “state of denial” regarding their responsibility for problems at the two colleges.
“Although . . . these trustees think they are doing what is best for the colleges, they have failed to evaluate their performance and accurately assess the consequences of their behavior,” said the report on Saddleback College. “Our assessment is there is a need for immediate, extensive intervention and change.”
The reports cite contention at all levels, including faculty groups vs. the faculty union and one college against another.
But they focus more on the bloc of four—Board President Dorothy Fortune, former President John S. Williams, Frogue and former trustee Teddi Lorch—that has dominated the campuses for the past two years.
That “high-profile, often controversial group of trustees felt obliged to involve itself actively in the day-to-day operations of the district and of the colleges far beyond the traditional roles for trustees,” the Irvine Valley report stated.
The result was the development of two factions on the board—the one led by Fortune and Williams and another that unsuccessfully tried to block what it called “micromanaging.”
The reports noted that Raghu Mathur was chosen president of Irvine Valley in 1997 on a 4-3 board vote after a stormy selection process run completely by the trustees. The accrediting team found the effects of split votes on that and on other issues to be unacceptable.
“The board itself interviewed all 19 presidential applicants!” the team wrote.
“This policy brings the board totally out of compliance” with standards, it said.
While the team members did not question Mathur’s qualifications to be president, they wrote that the controversy over his appointment could threaten the college’s ability to comply with accreditation requirements.
The reports also criticized a controversial 1997 administrative overhaul on both campuses.
The commission is expected to give the district until June to show how it will comply with detailed recommendations—or face serious consequences for its accreditation status.
Colleges need accreditation so students can transfer credits to other schools and to attract federal grants and foundation support.
The release of the reports came a week after Orange County Superior Court Judge Tully H. Seymour slammed the trustees in a court ruling for “persistent and defiant misconduct” in disobeying the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act, which governs open meetings. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit against trustees filed by a faculty member at Irvine Valley.
The presidents of the two colleges on Monday noted that the accrediting teams found the educational structures—classes, programs and facilities—to be in good shape.
“They did talk about our excellent programs, which is gratifying,” said Dixie Bullock, president of Saddleback College.
Mathur, of Irvine Valley, said the reports underscore the need for the campuses to pull together.
“We have to focus on things that unite us, and that is: we are here to serve the students.”
But trustee Steven J. Frogue took a less conciliatory tone.
“I’m always led back to the question, ‘Who evaluates the evaluators?’ ” he said.
The accreditation team’s reports said that trustees have taken actions that violated their own policies and procedures. It said also that some trustees may be in a “state of denial” regarding their responsibility for problems at the two colleges.
“Although . . . these trustees think they are doing what is best for the colleges, they have failed to evaluate their performance and accurately assess the consequences of their behavior,” said the report on Saddleback College. “Our assessment is there is a need for immediate, extensive intervention and change.”
The reports cite contention at all levels, including faculty groups vs. the faculty union and one college against another.
But they focus more on the bloc of four—Board President Dorothy Fortune, former President John S. Williams, Frogue and former trustee Teddi Lorch—that has dominated the campuses for the past two years.
That “high-profile, often controversial group of trustees felt obliged to involve itself actively in the day-to-day operations of the district and of the colleges far beyond the traditional roles for trustees,” the Irvine Valley report stated.
The result was the development of two factions on the board—the one led by Fortune and Williams and another that unsuccessfully tried to block what it called “micromanaging.”
The reports noted that Raghu Mathur was chosen president of Irvine Valley in 1997 on a 4-3 board vote after a stormy selection process run completely by the trustees. The accrediting team found the effects of split votes on that and on other issues to be unacceptable.
“The board itself interviewed all 19 presidential applicants!” the team wrote.
“This policy brings the board totally out of compliance” with standards, it said.
While the team members did not question Mathur’s qualifications to be president, they wrote that the controversy over his appointment could threaten the college’s ability to comply with accreditation requirements.
The reports also criticized a controversial 1997 administrative overhaul on both campuses.
The commission is expected to give the district until June to show how it will comply with detailed recommendations—or face serious consequences for its accreditation status.
Colleges need accreditation so students can transfer credits to other schools and to attract federal grants and foundation support.
The release of the reports came a week after Orange County Superior Court Judge Tully H. Seymour slammed the trustees in a court ruling for “persistent and defiant misconduct” in disobeying the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act, which governs open meetings. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit against trustees filed by a faculty member at Irvine Valley.
The presidents of the two colleges on Monday noted that the accrediting teams found the educational structures—classes, programs and facilities—to be in good shape.
“They did talk about our excellent programs, which is gratifying,” said Dixie Bullock, president of Saddleback College.
Mathur, of Irvine Valley, said the reports underscore the need for the campuses to pull together.
“We have to focus on things that unite us, and that is: we are here to serve the students.”
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