OPINION
How can AS candidates be
held accountable for
campaign promises?
Page 2
The
Pasadena City College
Pasadena, California
Vol. 75 No. 12
COURIER
Thursday
May 13, 1993
Board adopts
new position
By ALFREDO SANTANA
News Editor
The time was 7 p.m. on Wednes¬
day May 5 and the place was the
Circadian. The college trustees were
about to meet. The only thing obvi¬
ous to all in attendance was the ten¬
sion in the air.
On the agenda for discussion was
an issue that has caused several
headaches this year for Dr. Jack Scott
and his administration. For the first
time in his five-year tenure as PCC
president, his governing policies were
officially challenged by college
faculty members.
After nearly three months of dis¬
agreement with the administration
about guidelines utilized to select
heads of academic departments, the
social science faculty took the issue
to the board of trustees.
They asked the panel to change
selection procedures implemented
by administration to select depart¬
ment heads.
Dr. Jack Scott
Social sci¬
ence professors,
unanimously
backed by the
Faculty Senate,
asked the panel
to change a pol¬
icy that included
three faculty
members and
_ four administra¬
tors at the first
screening level and narrows the pool
of applicants for the position. They
also asked to add two faculty mem¬
bers to the second interview level.
Previously, a panel consisting of only
administrative members picked one
of three candidates who make it to
the second interview level.
By unanimous vote, the panel
approved a counteroffer framed by
the administration that would pul
four faculty and four administrators
at first level. It would include one
faculty member along with five ad¬
ministrators at second level inter¬
view.
In case a tie occurred at the first
level of interviews, a high-ranking
administrator would break the tie.
“It’s a viable compromise. It’s
the direction that all want to go,”
said trustee member Susanna Miele.
“Sometimes compromise is lacking
overwhelming support, but it does
work.”
Before the trustees voted on the
issue, faculty representatives re¬
quested that the panel create a com¬
mittee to study different ways other
community colleges in the area se¬
lect chairpersons. The board rejected
that idea.
Elvio Angeloni, social science
professor, said that various colleges
in the area (among them Citrus Col¬
lege) allow professors to select their
departments heads with little execu¬
tive input.
Joseph Sargis, president of the
board, said faculty members per¬
ceive that the administration is un¬
able to pick academically qualified
applicants for chair positions. He
said the administration has been doing
a good job in that regard.
The board supported the admini¬
stration reasoning that academic heads
should ultimately be picked by col¬
lege officials and not by the faculty
teachers.
“[The academic chair] is a man¬
agement position,” said trustee Rich¬
ard Green.
Trustee members said if they would
have approved the Faculty Senate
bid, minorities would be weeded out
of the selection process.
“I don’t see any member of color
among the Board of Trustees. I think
you’ve got to take a look at your¬
selves,” the professor said.
The Los Angeles Times quoted
math professor Bob Jones as saying
that “there’s an undercurrent of ter¬
rible dissatisfaction among faculty.
Scott would prefer the board not
know about it. ’’The ruling means
that the selection process will have
four faculty and four administrators
at the first level and one faculty
member and five administrators at
second level. The administration is
expected to follow those guidelines
when filling chair positions.
Student suspect in D
building bomb scare
□ Instructional
Computer Center
employee claims
package is part of
harassment from a
former student.
By COURIER STAFF
Campus police evacuated D
building last Tuesday morning
after a phone call from the in¬
structional computing center re¬
ported a “suspicious cardboard
package that seemed like a bomb.”
Opened by the Pasadena Po¬
lice Bomb Squad, the package
only contained baby food cans,
baby clothes, and a letter. It was
addressed to “Our sunshine” from
“Mum and Dad” and it arrived in
the D building after a bizarre
journey.
According to Steven Lester,
campus police detective, the pack¬
age was originally sent to a PCC
employee who rejected it twice.
The package was then mailed
back to the sender, listed as “Mum
and Dad.”
The address written under the
names was the campus Instruc¬
tional Computer Center (ICC).
The package arrived at the lower
level of the three-story building
by campus mail at 8:30 a.m. It
was placed on top of a desk lo¬
cated in D1 17.
“We received a call from an
ICC staffer who said a cardboard
box with cellophane tape wrap¬
ping was on his desk,” Lester
said. He said the caller described
the package as suspicious.
Campus police suspect that
the package was from a former
PCC student who has allegedly
been harassing an ICC employee
for more than two months.
BOMB SQUAD
.wwi.
. . .
Campus police officer Ralph Evans gingerly holds
the cardboard box reported to be a bomb. It was found
by an employee at the Instructional Computer Center
(ICC) Tuesday morning. The package, addressed to
Photo by ANDREW ZIMA/ The COURIER
an ICC staffer, contained baby clothes and
formula. Police said they are investigating the
incident as part of harassment from a former
student aimed at the employee.
The 26 year old suspect attended
the school between 1991 and 1992.
She allegedly sent the employee,
who requested anonymity, more than
1 0 letters containing drawings in the
last two months. “She hit me with
small umbrella across the back
once,” he said.
Besides baby formula and clothes,
the package contained about 10 strips
of cardboard placed on top of the
baby items.
“We are dealing with a mentally
confused individual,” said Ralph
Evans, campus police officer. He
said the suspect stopped coming to
campus last February after campus
police warned her to stop sending
letters that worried the employee.
However, he said campus police
are unlikely to issue an arrest war¬
rant because she has neither sent
threatening letters nor has acted vio¬
lently.
The ICC employee said the woman
accused him of burglary, rape, and
of allegedly taping the rape incident.
She also claims he kidnapped her
baby last December. He said all her
accusations are ridiculous, includ¬
ing her claim that he sold videotapes
of the alleged rape to her neighbors.
Activities in the building resumed
at 10:25 a.m. after police picked up
the box and determined there was no
box.. Police said about 150 to 200
employees and students were evacu¬
ated from the premises for two hours.
“We are dealing
with a mentally
confused
individual.”
Ralph Evans,
campus police officer, on
the suspect police say has
been harassing a PCC
Instructional Computer
Center employee for
more than two months.
FACULTY REACTS TO TRUSTEES’ DECISION
‘Scott and the trustees won, the college lost’
By JEFF GIROD and
ROBERTO REYNOSO
Reaction was swift to the Board
of Trustee’s decision to back the
administration’s stand concerning the
chairperson selection process for the
social sciences department. Faculty
members willing to be quoted ex¬
pressed strong negative responses to
last Wednesday’s events.
“They just pass through what¬
ever the president wants,” stated a
professor from the department of
mathematics and computer sciences
who requested anonymity. “Their
attitude is whatever the president
says is right and that is what we’re
going to follow.” The professor ex¬
pressed a strong resentment toward
the term “compromise” when de¬
scribing President Jack Scott’s bid.
“It was the president’s proposal. It
was not a compromise. The admini¬
stration still has one hundred per¬
cent control.”
Daniel Meier, assistant professor
of the English, concurred. “I think
this has given a clear message to the
faculty that we have no power,” he
said. “Even though we’re told we
have power in the decision making
process on this campus, the decision
by the Board, and particularly the
comments by the Board, have indi¬
cated to us that we have no power at
all. Virtually the Faculty Senate is a
castrated body.”
Faculty members interviewed
expressed resentful feelings at being
treated as second-class citizens by
the powers that be. “We’re consid¬
ered competent in the classroom but
incompetent to manage our own
affairs,” Meier explained. “That
takes away our idea of professional¬
ism.”
Lee Reinhartsen, assistant pro¬
fessor of English, believes that the
decision handed down wasn’t in the
spirit of AB 1725, a law allowing
each community college district to
set its own governing policies and
thus permitting the Board to allow
more input from faculty in the chair¬
person selection procedure. “I don’t
think the Board’s action is fully
cognizant of the implications of AB
1725 which was explicitly passed to
share governance between faculty
and administration.” Reinhartsen,
himself currently running for vice
president of the PCC chapter of the
California Teachers Association, feels
it primarily comes down to a struggle
for power within the college. “Like
Machiavelli said, nobody voluntar¬
ily gives-up power.”
In a statement released by the
Committee to the Review Chair Se¬
lection Procedures (CRCSP), Scott’s
bid was referred to as a “macabre
compromise.” According to the
statement, the compromise was
“similar to a partner having his or
her voting rights increased from 20%
to 30 percent with 70 percent still
being retained by the other partner
who calls it shared governance.” It
goes on to say that at the Trustee
meeting, “The only thing that was
compromised was the college’s com¬
mitment to academic competence,
the college’s intellectual integrity
and the college’s duty to uphold the
public trust.”
Jane Hallinger, associate profes¬
sor of the department of English, is
co-chairman of the AB 1725 com¬
mittee whose purpose is to prevent
such a thing from happening. Hallin¬
ger said that the Board’s action has
been misconstrued as focusing solely
on the selection process for the so¬
cial sciences chairperson when in
fact the decision set precedence for
any future hiring of department chairs.
Hallinger went on to say that the two
sides need to come together to dis¬
cuss their differences in interpreta¬
tion of AB 1725. “I feel at the
present time that there needs to be a
meeting between the faculty and the
administration to redefine and as¬
sess wha shared governance is. We’re
all operating under our own assump¬
tions from our own areas.”
Dr. Enrique C. Orozco, professor
of social sciences, who has been
teaching at PCC since the 70’s, said
he feels that democracy is beginning
to fail among administrators and he
sees the future becoming very bleak.
“I feel the social science depart¬
ment, through the administration,
should have an equal role in selec¬
tion of a new chair, for a more demo¬
cratic process.”
“The administration has decided
it doesn’t want to be democratic,
suggesting the social science depart¬
ment would not be responsible in
evaluating candidates, which, if
looked at realistically , is an afront to
the integrity of the social sciences
people.”
Orozco blames the change in rules
in electing chairs as the biggest rea¬
son for the problems. “I don’t un¬
derstand how an institution that is
operating so well can suddenly find
itself at issue over such a trivial
matter as the selection of a chair.
Under old rules, there would at least
be a 50-50 chance for someone like
me to be chosen chair, but under the
new format, percentages greatly
diminish. It lacks democratic proc¬
essing, which would select the best
qualified candidate,” said Orozco.
“Where you have faculty dissi-
dence, there is always danger of it
snowballing.” It increases the possi¬
bility of a falling out between ad¬
ministration and faculty. If history is
an indicator here at PCC, faculty can
lose confidence in its leadership.
Contrary to what some have been
led to believe, the choosing of an
outsider might not be the answer,
and might even worsen relations
between the sides. “When you have
a situation like this, bringing in an
outsider into a tense conflict be¬
tween administration and staff, it
would be hard for the outsider to
mend fences, thus leading to a drop
in morale and further dissidence,”
Orozco said.
In the statement released by like
CSRCSP yesterday, it is evident
that dissidence is taking place.
“One thing is clear, academic
competency is not a signifigant con-
em to either the Board of Trustees or
to Scott. Scott and the trustees won
- the college lost!”
I