An "epic battle" at the North Orange County Community College District

     In this morning’s OC Watchdog (OC Reg), Teri Sforza reports on a controversy at the North Orange County Community College District. Check it out:

Irate professors rally to block new administrator

     Essentially, the issue is this: the district determined that it would pursue an eleven-month replacement of Kathy Hodge, Vice Chancellor of Instruction, now that she is retiring. (Hodge was an important player at the SOCCCD in the tumultuous years of the first “board majority,” ten or twelve years ago.)
     The district decided to find someone internal to the organization.
     But faculty, viewing the move as a continuation of a permanent VCI position, opposed this, arguing that the position is unnecessary and expensive:

     “In my twenty years at the District, this position has been used as a parking spot for College Presidents that had been relieved of their duties,” wrote Fullerton College business professor Marcus Wilson in a protest letter. “I understood the contractual obligations that required the District to use the position for Kathy Hodge, but to fill the position now in the middle of a budget crisis is difficult to understand. Last year numerous full time faculty positions were eliminated to balance the budget and an additional $4.6 million was cut from the extended day budget resulting in over 1000 classes being cancelled.
     “Dedicated faculty spoke at every Board meeting to share with you the impact these cuts were having on the students and asked that you would make students your number one priority. This year, Fullerton alone is cutting an additional $1 million of classes to stay within the budget limits. That is over 300 sections of additional classes being cut. What is the District’s priority?…Fullerton has done pretty well for almost one hundred years without a Vice Chancellor of Instruction at the District. I would think that we could go at least a few more.”

     Sforza says that this is an “epic battle” between professors and administrators and that it will continue. Probably so.
     But, for now at least, faculty have prevailed. Recently, NOCCCD Chancellor Ned Doffoney—as President of Saddleback College in the mid-90s, he was a casualty of the ruthless and lawless Frogue/Williams board majority—met with the faculty union president. Then things seemed to change. The hiring process seemed to be put on hold.
     Nevertheless, faculty went ahead with a protest at the district BOT meeting on Tuesday night.
     Doffoney backed down. On Tuesday, he made a statement:

“Due to the sudden resignation of Vice Chancellor Kathleen Hodge, the District advertised the position, Interim Vice Chancellor, Instruction, as an assignment for a period of eleven months. … [The] purpose [of this hire] was not made clear in the announcement or in subsequent communications and that lack of clarity has created uproar in the District. There is significant concern in the District about unjustified expansion of administration. While this was never the intent of the interim announcement in that the position was already filled by Dr. Hodge, this intent has been lost in confused communication for which I accept full responsibility. ¶ … The Board did not authorize, nor did the administration request the hiring of a permanent Vice Chancellor….”

     If I understand him correctly, Doffoney was suggesting that someone was needed to complete work on the “Educational Master Plan,” and the interim VCI was supposed to be that person. In his Tuesday statement, he declared that, in the “charged” atmosphere, hiring an internal candidate for the position was a bad idea. And so he withdrew his request for an interim VC of Instruction.
     Is this the end of the struggle? It’s hard to say.
     No doubt SOCCCD trustee Tom Fuentes and his minions will cite this controversy to support their apparent efforts to prevent the creation of a dean position at Irvine Valley College—a position that had been abolished in the early days of that nasty old Board Majority in the late 90s. (See earlier post, which reviews the case in favor of the position.)
     At Monday's meeting of the SOCCCD board, board president Don Wagner alluded to dark motives on the part of Fuentes and crew. He warned that, if the minority prevails, the district could face serious "legal challenges."
     On Monday, advocates of the new position, which would be housed in the Office of Instruction, made a strong case that the addition of the new administrator is needed because IVC is seriously under-administered and, further, recently, an administrative position has been abolished, its responsibilities having been effectively absorbed by an existing dean (the Dean of Fine Arts).
     My own observations over the years have long inclined me to believe that the "under-administered" assertion is manifestly true. I've made that assertion in DtB, going back many years, even before the current VPI (under whom the proposed dean would serve) was hired.
     (Yet another issue in the minds of some observers at the college is whether IVC administration is, or will be, proceeding with a particular candidate in mind. [Note that such proceeding admits of degrees.] Many of us feel strongly that all search processes ought to be as honest and professional as possible. I completely agree [an understatement!], and I share these concerns to some extent, but it seems to me that that issue is independent of whether IVC administration should be allowed this dean position.)