Meyers and Faculty Disagree
About Transcript Investigation
By Mike Imlay and Mike White
Staff Writers •
The faculty senate voted 9-6 with one
abstention Monday to hold faculty
meetings with Dr. Meyers concerning
his decision to release faculty tran¬
scripts to the district attorney's office
for investigation.
Dr. Richard S. Meyers, super¬
intendent-president, said he would not
hold exclusive faculty meetings, and
the classified staff would have to be
included in any such meetings.
The original suggestion for a com¬
bined Certificated and Classified Staff
meeting came from Dr. Meyers in
response to the investigation of college
credits earned by faculty members
which he gave to the Los Angeles
district attorney’s office last month.
The senate indicated that it was upset
with Dr. Meyers for going to the
district attorney without consulting or
involving the faculty.
Dr. Meyers suggested he could in¬
form the faculty of his action by
holding meetings with the faculty and
classified staff, but the senate’s plan
called for small faculty meetings of
only 30 to 40 persons at a time.
“The faculty has very strong feel¬
ings about what is going on. This
faculty is not prepared for another
snow job,” said Maria DiMassa, facul¬
ty senate member. “We have to have
some straightforward questions with
answers.”
Kay Dabelow, faculty senate presi¬
dent, said the concern was not that Dr.
Meyers went to the district attorney
but how he did it.
“The feeling of some of the faculty is
that he has not been as open as he could
have been, that what he did was not
necessarily wrong, but the faculty
should have been involved,” she said.
Dr. Meyers said, “The Board (of
Trustees) directed me to investigate
this area no matter where it went, no
matter who was involved.” *
The transfer credits involved are
earned by teachers through extension
courses which give extra units beyond
a teacher’s B.A. degree. These units
can help to place a teacher in a higher
pay scale. The investigation is con¬
cerned with credits which may have
been fraudulently obtained by some
PCC faculty members.
Dr. Meyers took the school’s findings
to the district attorney’s office last
month for further investigation and
possible prosecution if any fraudulent
transfer credits are found. Dr. Meyers
said that he expected to have handed
over all pertinent information to that
office by the end of this week.
A representative from the district
attorney’s office who asked not to be
named said that prosecution would be
on grounds of theft if bogus credits are
found, but there may also be elements
of forgery involved.
Dr. Meyers said only the records of 2
percent of the faculty are under in¬
vestigation and 98 percent of the
teaching staff is being “dragged into
the mud” by the publicity given the
investigation.
One issue being debated between the
faculty and the administration is who is
responsible for approving extension
course credits.
Before the teachers take the ex¬
tension classes they have to go through
the PCC personnel office for credit
approval, said Mrs. Dabelow.
“It is not the personnel office’s
problem,” said Dr. Meyers, referring
to the office. “They accept credit from
accredited colleges.’.’
The district attorney’s represent¬
ative said that many of the accredited
schools to which Dr. Meyers referred
have been implicated in the athletic
transcript scandal. He singled out Ot¬
tawa University in Kansas as one
example of the 20 or more schools
under investigation. He said that the
Kansas school offers extension courses
in the Los Angeles area and that these
courses are in question.
He also said that not all the colleges
under investigation are out-of-state
schools.
Last February Dr. Meyers in¬
structed the personnel office to sift
through the school’s records for faculty
members who may have received cred¬
its through extension courses from any
of the schools under investigation, in¬
dicated John Madden, dean of per¬
sonnel services, on March 17. Dr.
Meyers received the report on March
15, but the information he turned over
to the district attorney did not include
any names of the staff, he said.
A recent report issued by Elaine
Canty, an attorney hired by the college
for its investigation of the. athletic
scandal, referred briefly to the subject
of “instructor involvement,” but it did
not delve deeply into the subject.
The report was termed “pre¬
liminary” even though the attorney
will issue no further reports. Dr.
Meyers said the report is considered
preliminary because the investigation
by PCC is not over. He said that the
office of instruction headed by Stanley
E. Gunstream will take over the on-
campus investigation.
Drama Students Petition
For Retention of Teachers
By Brad Lehman
Editor-in-Chief
Approximately 20-30 theater arts stu¬
dents packed into the Board of
Trustees meeting April 17 to present a
petition with 1,118 signatures request¬
ing that two teachers hired as tem¬
porary employees be retained.
“We realize there’s a drastic need
for tax cuts,” said one theater arts
student acting as a spokeswoman for
the group. “We’re willing to pay lab
fees.”
The students also said they could
earn money from additional fun¬
draisers and by raising ticket prices
for dramatic events from $2 to $3.
However, the college will face a
Cinco de Mayo Festivities
M.E.Ch.A. Plans Activities
By Marie-Antoinette Rizk
Contributing Writer
A coronation ball will highlight Cinco
de Mayo week festivities to take place
from April 30 to May 5 at PCC. Or¬
ganized by PCC’s Mexican club,
M.E.Ch.A., the week is dedicated to
the memory of the French army’s
surrender to the Mexicans during the
battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
Maclovio Perez, weather reporter on
the KNXT News, will act &s master of
ceremonies at the coronation ball on
Saturday, May 3 in the Campus Center
Lounge at 8 p.m.
The 1980 Cinco de Mayo Queen will
be selected at the ball, on the basis of
how many tickets she sells.
Blair, Pasadena and Muir high
schools will join PCC in the introduc¬
tion of their respective courts.
PCC’s princesses are Alla Rosa
Aguirre, Yevonn Teran, Linda and
Julie Martinez, Belinda Trujillo, Liz
Arevalo, Maria Limon, Rocio Godoi
and Teresa Cardenas.
Mariachi, a Mexican orchestra, will
provide the entertainment, and a disco
dance will close the evening.
Tickets for the ball are $5 per couple
and $3.50 per person. Proceeds will go
to the M.E.Ch.A scholarship program.
Dance and musical groups will per¬
form during the week also. On Wednes¬
day, April 3 Juvenil Del Este, a chil¬
dren’s group under the direction of
Jouquin Soto and Los Gavilanes Del
Rosal, will dance in the Free Speech
Area from noon to 2 p.m.
Two PCC dance groups will perform
in the Free Speech Area from noon to 2
p.m. on Thursday. One group under the
direction of Miquel Delgado, PCC
dance instructor, will do a short revue
of the movie “Zoot Suit.”
Folklorico de las Rosas, accom¬
panied by the instrumental group, Las
Tres Huastecas, will end the activities.
On Friday The Day of the Children
(Dia de los Ninds) will be devoted to
Pasadena’s school children, ages 4 to 6.
A puppet show and a magician are
scheduled as well as artifacts, which
will be displayed on the Campus Center
porch. Mexican food and baked goods
will be on sale.
The week's activities will close on
Monday, May 5 with a re-enactment of
the battle of Puebla danced by PCC’s
Folklorico classes at noon in the free
speech area. Food will be sold by
м.
E.Ch. A. and Folklorico de las
Rosas.
financial problem in retaining the
“real professional” teachers— Larry
Kulp and Jim Hatch, said Dr. Richard
S. Meyers, superintendent-president,
in an interview Monday.
“Theater Arts has a very difficult
problem in a very budget-conscious
year," said Dr. Meyers. "They are
asking for additions. Those two teach¬
ers are temporary instructors for peo¬
ple on leave. The normal procedure is
to let them go.
“I have no doubt they're (Kulp and
Hatch) that great," continued Dr.
Meyers. “But the issue is, can we keep
them when the others are returning?"
In other action the Trustees dis¬
cussed tightening and toughening the
college's grading and attendance poli¬
cies, but they did not reach a decision.
They did, however, direct the adminis¬
tration to work out a new policy togeth¬
er with the faculty senate.
The Trustees differed about how
they wanted the policies changed.
Trustees David S. Hannah and Warren
L. Weber both favored tougher policies
—both were especially concerned
about grade changes after the end of
the semester.
Meanwhile, Trustees Gary Adams
and Richard H. Green both wanted to
see written course outlines by teachers
telling students everything required for
the course.
Kathryn Dabelow, * faculty senate
(Continued on Page 6)
— Courier photo by Steve Franklin
"MOVIN' RIGHT ALONG" — The Sandpipers. PCC's popular musical
theater group, rehearses for their singing/dancing performance, featuring
music from the 1920s through the 1970s. The show opens tonight in
Harbeson Hall at 8; 1 5. Tickets are $3, $2 for students and senior citizens.
Negotiations Move Into
Fact-Finding Hearings
A fact-finding panel will investigate
the PCC district’s ability to pay higher
salaries to faculty members. The panel
Art Gallery's 'Directions in Wood' Will Be Redirected May 2
Wooden Art Forms Will Stay on Display One More Week
DIRECTIONS IN WOOD — This walnut floor lamp
and maple coffee table behind it are examples of the
handmade wood objects on display in the PCC Art
Gallery until May 2. Craftsmen from the Los Angeles
area sculptured the pieces, many of which are
bentwood. Gallery hours are 10 a m. to 4 p.m.,
Mondays through Thursdays, and 6:30 p.m. to 9 p m,
Tuesdays and Wednesdays. — Courier photo by Rick Green
Over 50 objects and furniture pieces
made of various woods by members of
the Guild of Wood Craftsmen in North-
ridge and works from the Del Mano
Gallery, 492 S. Lake Ave., Pasadena
will be on display in the PCC Gallery
until May 20.
The theme of the exhibit is “Direc¬
tions in Wood.” Gallery hours are
Monday and Wednesday, 11 a.m: to 4
p.m., Tuesday and Thursday, 9 a.m. to
4 p.m., and Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Also on display are wood patterns
from John McCord in Burbank and a
sand casting display from the Corey
Casting Company, Burbank.
“We, in the art department— main¬
ly, Charles Lewis and I— thought it
would be interesting to show people a
lot of different kinds of wood and a lot
of things that are made from wood,”
said John E. Dickerhoff, PCC pro¬
fessor. Dickerhoff teaches crafts, jew¬
elry and three dimensional design
classes.
The wooden pieces include a large
wooden zipper, a girder structure, a
music stand made of rosewood, a mir¬
ror with walnut drawers, a sculpture of
African shedua'and a walnut chest of
drawers.
Represented is everything “from
very tiny little boxes, an inch to two
inches long to large sculptural pieces,”
said Dickerhoff. It is “‘interesting that
both men and women are involved in
making these pieces of sculpture,” he
said.
In a tree, said Dickerhoff, the sap
wood, the outer part, is light in color
and the inner wood, the heart, is a
darker color. As a tree grows, the
inside turns dark and the new growth
remains light colored. Older wood is
always dark, he said.
There is an object in the exhibit that
looks like it was stained black in the
center or made of two different materi¬
als, but it is all wood, Dickerhoff said.
“People just don’t believe that wood
looks that way, but it does,” he added.
Other objects on display include a
dining table with benches made of oak
and koa, chairs of embuia and white
oak, floor lamps of walnut, cherry and
rosewood and tools from a variety of
woods. Some of the more unusual items
include a rosewood dulcimer, a heart
box of paldao, an alligator and a
wooden whale from birch and
mahogany, a hand mirror of koa and a
lidded bowl of embuia and ebony.
Also on display is the sand mold and
a description of how wooden patterns
are made.
All pieces may be purchased. For
purchasing arrangements or com¬
missioning of wooden objects from
artists in this show, contact Tess A.
Blake, art department secretary, R118.
is scheduled to convene on April 30 and
May 1.
The PCC branch of the California
Teachers Association, which is repre¬
senting the faculty in negotiations,
requested a fact-finding panel after the
faculty overwhelmingly rejected the
district’s final contract offer March 18.
A 5 percent across-the-board salary
adjustment (i.e. from base wage to the
highest seniority level.) was included
in the district’s' final offer.
The panel will have the power to
subpoena school records during the
course of the hearings.
Although there is no legal time limit
to complete the report, it is expected to
be finished in May, said Ralph Arnold,
а СТА
consultant.
“They always try to get the fact¬
finding report back to the parties usu¬
ally in two to three weeks,” said
Arnold.
After the report is finished, the
district and the PCC-CTA have 10 days
to come to an agreement. If there is no
agreement in that time, the report will
then be released to the public.
If negotiations continue past June 30
(the end of PCC’s fiscal year), the
faculty could lose salary adjustment
pay retroactive to June 30, 1979, ac¬
cording to Dr. Gary L. Woods, PCC-
CTA president.
However, the June 30 date could
present a problem for the faculty’s
negotiations.
“It is my understanding that state
law does not allow retroactive salary
adjustments after June 30, which
means no salary adjustments would be
allowed for 1979-1980 once July 1980
comes,” said Dr. Stan Hutchinson,
chief negotiator for the PCC-CTA.
“It is my firm belief that the district
(Continued on Page 6)