The Independent Student Voice of PCC, Serving Pasadena Since 1915
Volume 95. Issue 3
Follow the
Lady
Lancer
Road to
Victory
Page 5
Check Out The
Scene at the
L.A. Marathon
Pages 8-9
Dean Demoted
Board of Trustees Sends
Skip Back To Class
Don Martirez
Editor-in-Chief
Over the years, Skip Robinson’s name
has been attached to controversies sur¬
rounding PCC athletics-some good, some
bad, but none of the allegations proved
serious enough to cost him his job as dean
of the physical education division.
But after a closed door session last night,
the board of trustees voted to end Robin¬
son’s role as dean of athletics for PCC- a
position that he has held for more than 1 1
years. The board vote was 4 in favor, 1
against and 1 abstention.
Robinson’s job title will change from
division dean to instructor effective July 1 ,
a demotion which greatly changes his pay
rate two years before he planned to retire.
“I just don’t understand why they would
do this to me now,” said Robinson. “Ask
Kossler why,” he said, referring to the pres¬
ident of the college.
Speculation by faculty on the board’s
timing to change Robinson’s job status sug¬
gested that campus president Dr. James
Kossler was trying to “clean house” before
his announced retirement.
“No, I’m not trying to clean house
before I run off. The board felt it was the
right time to address the matter. We want¬
ed to do it sooner, but because of Mr.
Robinson’s request, we waited,” said
Kossler. The campus president, however,
would not give reason for Robinson’s
demotion. “It’s a personnel matter, and I
can’t discuss that,” he said.
While Kossler wouldn’t comment on
Robinson’s demotion members of the
physical education department
turned out in force to let the
trustees know how they
felt about the move to
demote their dean. Ten
supporters in the stand¬
ing-room-only crowd
took up the maximum
amount of time allotted
to speakers on consent
items to try to convince
the board to reconsider
demoting Robinson.
“We have to fight for
what we believe in. Skip
Robinson is the Jackie
Robinson of PCC; he
was the first African
American ever to be hired
full time PCC, said a fiery
Dennis Gossard, instructor and former
head football coach. Skip is a respected
member of the campus; he was a high
school legend in the city of Pasadena and
the state track coach of the year many
times over. Gossard added that Skip was a
coach in our last championship football
team. He has raised millions of dollars for
the school, and that money would not have
been raised if weren’t for Skip Robinson,”
said Gossard. “What kind of message are
we sending to the community when a man
who has done so much for the school is
being treated like this?”
Jessie Moore, physical education
instructor, said: “I’m devasted. I used to
hate my job. It was not until Skip Robinson
became division dean when I started to
love my job again. You’ve never seen us
here complaining (at board of trustees
meeting) because we love our jobs. We are
a family; we stick together,” she said.
Moore echoed the sentiments of the other
speakers who listed all of Robinson’s
accomplishments at the college and in the
community.
A surgeon from the community and a
student also spoke out on behalf of
Robinson. The resounding message from
the crowd was for the board to keep Skip
on as dean.
Following the last speaker, the board
decided to pull out the item concerning
Robinson and vote on it separately. Board
member Geoffrey Baum brought up the
possibility of postponing the vote until the
lawsuit involving Robinson was settled.
However, he did not receive the support
necessary from his colleagues to postpone
the vote.
In recent years, Robinson has been
accused of participating in the illegal
recruitment of out-of-state athletes and
also has been criticized for questionable
decisions in the hiring and treatment of his
coaching staff.
In early 2006, Kellie Mueller, a former
student turned personal assistant to Robin¬
son, filed a sexual harassment suit against
PCC because of alleged misconduct by
Robinson.
Sources close to the situation state that
Robinson is being forced out of the dean’s
job as an “unspoken” component of the
settlement PCC made in the Mueller suit,
which has yet to be finalized. The sources
also believe that removing Robinson as
dean would set some distance between
PCC and the bad press surrounding the
former track coach turned dean.
“I wonder what took the college so long
to get rid of him,” said Lori Jepson,
former volleyball coach for
PCC who now coaches at
Lewis and Clark Col¬
lege in Oregon. “I
didn’t like working
for him, I loved
working with the
kids, but I was so fed
up with all the shady
dealings. PCC is a
great academic insti¬
tution with top
notch facilities, now
that Skip is gone,
maybe the athletic
division can be as
good as the rest of
the institution,” said
Jepson.
Skip Robinson, former athletic
director, had a past that was
mared by the politics surrounding
his methods of maintaining his
department.
William Hallstrom
/
Courier
Who Voted?
Beth Wells-Miller
Yes
Dr. Consuelo
Rey Castro
Geoffrey Baum
No
Hilary Bradbury-
Huang, Ph.D.
Dr. Jeanette
Mann
Yes
Susanna Miele
Yes
Keith Lubow
/
Courier