Time Mellows Community College Elections : Politics: Departure of long-entrenched trustees has ended the rancor that once marked campaigns.

What a difference a couple of years make.

In 1988, the San Diego Community College District was awash in controversy, with distrust between the faculty and a long-entrenched board of trustees over a stagnant educational philosophy, the personality of administrative leaders and an unusual financial arrangement for a district foundation.

Two years later, district relationships have moved light-years from those times, with two new board members elected in November 1988, two new administrators widely praised by faculty and community alike and a solution to the festering foundation issue.

So, in contrast to past elections, the campaigns this fall for three of the five trustee seats have been marked not by rancor or back-biting on philosophy or personality, but more traditional debate--rare in many campaigns these days--over who is more qualified to continue and improve upon present district policies.

None of the three incumbents, two retiring after 17 years and a third after nine years, chose to stand for reelection. With the 1988 election of reform candidates Evonne Schulze and Fred Colby, all trustees after the November balloting will have come aboard within the past two years, symbolizing the change that has swept the district.

The San Diego district is the second-largest among California’s 71 community college districts, providing vocational and part-time education to working students, as well as preparing others who are unable at first to meet four-year-college financial or academic entry requirements for transfer to the UC and Cal State systems .

In District A, which covers the Point Loma and beach areas, Yvonne Larsen is running against Kara Kobey. Larsen took 41% of the June primary vote to Kobey’s 30.5% preparatory to the citywide runoff next week.

Larsen, 59, has a long record of involvement in both San Diego and national educational activities, which she points to as proof of her ability to handle matters at the community college level, with its $230-million annual budget, its 120,000 full- and part-time students, and its 7,000 faculty and other employees. The district has three campuses--Mesa, City and Miramar--as well as numerous continuing education centers throughout the city.

Larsen, a San Diego State graduate, served eight years on the San Diego Unified School District board, which governs kindergarten-through-12th grade policies in the city, was a trustee of the California State University system, and held the vice chairman role on the 1981 National Commission on Excellence in Education. That commission produced the watershed “Nation at Risk” study in 1983, from which nationwide reforms have since emanated.

Larsen has stressed her management experience at numerous candidate forums, saying she knows how to “stand and fight” when things do not always run smoothly. Larsen wants the district to offer more literacy programs, put more technology into its classrooms and act more creatively with the San Diego school district in devising programs for preventing and recapturing dropouts.

Kobey, 32, is making her first run at elected office, saying she herself benefited from the community colleges--she is a 1982 graduate of Mesa before going on to San Diego State--and wants to return something.

Kobey, best known as the daughter of the late Monte Kobey and his famous swap meets, calls for more rapid completion of Miramar College, the district’s newest, and for renovation of Mesa, now severely crowded after more than 25 years of use.

Kobey also advocates more trade partnerships between private businesses and vocational programs at the colleges, saying such links could provide students with a more realistic understanding of how their training will pay off with private industry.

“I know the value of a community college education, and I know how useful it can be to those who go on to other study,” Kobey said.

In District A, Miramar College political science and physical education professor Robert Bacon, 57, is paired against Maria Senour, a professor of counseling education at San Diego State. Senour won 48.3% of the primary vote against Bacon’s 16.7% in the district, which covers the northern tier of the city.

Senour, 46, a graduate of Marygrove College in Detroit, has emphasized her experience in training counselors, since a large part of the district’s challenge is in retaining more ethnic-minority students after they begin their studies. Senour also would like Mesa’s renovation to be moved higher on district capital improvement lists, as well as have an expansion of the transfer guarantee program that automatically ensures students entry in their junior year to UC San Diego if they complete a prescribed course of study.

“I see the community colleges as particularly important for poor people economically,” Senior said. “For many students, the push to succeed comes from educators who take the time to help, and the community colleges need more people who can personally touch a student in some way . . . to be role models in making a personal outreach.”

Bacon, 57, has taught at district sites for 31 years and is known to legions of longtime San Diegans for his tennis instruction. A San Diego State graduate, he has been a professor at Miramar the past 12 years and was the president of the faculty senate for the past two years.

Bacon reflects the view of all the candidates in saying that “this is a good district already, which can be made better” and he stresses his familiarity with Assembly Bill 1725, the 1988 state legislation that requires sweeping changes in the state community college system, both in educational offerings and in improving the quality of full-time faculty.

As Miramar faculty senate president, Bacon had a role in the district’s record of hiring almost 50% new faculty from nonwhite applicants in an effort to have its professorial staff represent more closely the multiethnic mix of its student body.

As a trustee, Bacon would work to increase academic course offerings and especially try to improve the college libraries, which have suffered along with libraries throughout the state’s educational system because of budget cuts and higher costs for periodicals and specialized serials.

Hope Logan and Denise Ducheny are the finalists in District E, which encompasses many of the city’s nonwhite neighborhoods including Logan Heights, Southeast San Diego, Paradise Hills and Encanto. Logan garnered 51.6% of the primary vote, and Ducheny won 24.7%.

The 68-year-old Logan is well-known for her longtime community and educational activism. She has served as an officer of the Urban League of San Diego, as a member of the city’s Civil Service Commission and as a member of the San Diego Community Foundation board of directors.

Logan, a graduate of UCLA, also was a lecturer for many years at San Diego State and chairwoman of an education committee for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

As a product of public schools, Logan said the community colleges are the last hope for many young people who otherwise have no future as productive citizens.

“For some time, I’ve seen too many children who complete 12th grade with nothing for them to do; they are not yet educated or trained to get a job,” she said.

Logan said she would work hard to fulfill the obligation of community colleges to serve the “underclass” with literacy and up-to-date vocational educational classes.

Ducheny, 37, is equally known throughout the Southeast San Diego area for advocacy in support of minorities.

A Pomona College graduate and practicing attorney, Ducheny and her husband, Al, have lobbied for community interests in Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego on a variety of City Council and Port of San Diego issues. Ducheny would follow that pattern as a trustee, lobbying for more literacy and vocational education programs, for better academic preparation under the transfer agreement programs and for better libraries.

“This is a board that can do a lot more, especially with City College (downtown) and at the Educational Cultural Complex (in Southeast San Diego) to get more people the education that they need,” Ducheny said. She would push for more partnerships with both the private sector and public agencies, and to boost counseling efforts.