MISSION VIEJO : New Supervisor Hired at College

Saddleback College officials have hired a native of Nigeria to replace a black supervisor who quit his job at the college last September.

The supervisor’s decision was prompted by what he said was “unbearable” racial harassment from some of his employees.

Meanwhile, racial tension resurfaced at the college last week when several flyers promoting a screening of a film on the life of the late Malcolm X were defaced with racial slurs, then reproduced and distributed on campus.

Saddleback Community College District Chancellor Richard Sneed has issued a memorandum to all faculty, staff and students condemning last week’s flyers, which he said “constitute a hate crime.”

“The Board of Trustees and I are outraged by this cowardly act of racism and are deeply concerned for the dignity and safety of our staff and students,” Sneed said. He added that the college district will take legal action “to the full extent of the law” against any faculty, staff member or student implicated in the crimes.

Sneed said the Orange County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident, which occurred despite several cultural diversity seminars that have been held on campus in recent months and the improved procedures that have been implemented to deal with racial harassment.

In hiring a new director of operations and support services for the campus, college President Constance M. Carroll said this week that no special efforts were made to recruit another black man to succeed Lonnie Poindexter.

Poindexter, 60, said he quit the post after enduring five months of racial harassment in the form of anonymous telephone calls and racist flyers sent through interoffice mail.

He will be replaced by Ayo Adeseun, manager of building services for Cal State Fullerton. Adeseun, who has lived in the United States for 15 years, will begin his new position on March 30.

“We were lucky to get him,” said Carroll. “The college has hired one of the best qualified people in the field. He has extraordinary experience and is an expert in the field. We interviewed people of all races and gender and hired the best possible candidate.”

Carroll added that she is “delighted” that someone of Adeseun’s ethnic background was selected.

“We want to have a diverse staff,” she said. “We don’t want to have a staff that is unduly represented in any one ethnic group.”

Adeseun, 39, is working toward a master’s degree in public administration at Cal State Northridge. He holds an associate of arts degree in urban planning earned at the State Polytechnic University in Ibadan, Nigeria, and a bachelor’s degree in political science and public administration from Cal Poly Pomona.

At Saddleback he will be responsible for supervising a department that oversees groundskeepers, custodians, mechanics and maintenance workers.

Adeseun had held supervisorial positions at Santa Monica Community College and the Pomona and Chino unified school districts.

Carroll said Adeseun has been asked to continue with the sweeping changes initiated by Poindexter, who was told when he was hired that the department had not been operating up to standard. Poindexter said he felt his changes led to disgruntled employees and to the racial harassment.

“I don’t expect to have any problems and am not particularly concerned” about racial harassment, said Adeseun, who added that he was made aware of Poindexter’s situation during the interview process.

“I have not had these problems in previous jobs,” he said. “Basically, I think you need to educate people and make them sensitive to be respectful of other people’s backgrounds.”