MISSION VIEJO : Team to Help Create Multiethnic Classes

Reacting to a string of racially motivated incidents, the Saddleback Community College District trustees voted Monday to hire a consulting team to advise Saddleback College on the development of a multiethnic studies department.

Following the recommendation of a committee of administrators, faculty and students, the trustees agreed to hire Carl G. Clark, a psychologist, and Tom Gamboa, coordinator of the Cross Cultural Studies Department at Grossmont College in El Cajon.

Clark, an African American, and Gamboa, a Native American, work with other professionals on racial counseling and consulting under the name of The Clark Group.

Trustees authorized paying up to $10,000 to the The Clark Group, which will review Saddleback College’s curriculum; interview administrators, faculty, staff and students, and submit written and oral reports in June.

The report will also include recommendations on how to set up a multiethnic studies program and, eventually, a department offering an associate of arts degree in ethnic studies.

Costs for the study will be shared equally by the Associated Student Government, the Saddleback College General Fund and the Academic Senate’s staff development fund.

Calls for multiethnic studies intensified in the fall after two racially motivated incidents on the Saddleback campus in Mission Viejo. In one, an African American woman reported finding a threatening note on her car’s windshield on Nov. 1. A month earlier, two African American candidates for homecoming king and queen said flyers containing racial slurs had been left in their mailboxes.

One of the candidates, Ricc Waddell, the president of the campus’s Black United Students, withdrew from the homecoming contest and said he had received a letter with similar threats earlier in the year.

Waddell also became the spokesman for students who demanded the college address the issue by forming a multiethnic studies department.

Although he was on the panel that recommended the hiring of The Clark Group, Waddell questioned whether that will lead to the creation of a new department. He said the contract’s limits of five months and $10,000 showed a lack of commitment by the district.

“Saddleback has set this thing up to fail,” Waddell said.

Everett Brewer, Saddleback College’s acting president, said The Clark Group was selected out of three consulting firms that applied. Brewer said Carl G. Clark assured him the work could be done within the limits of the contract.

Neither Clark nor Gamboa could be reached for comment.

“This certainly doesn’t mean this is going to finish the work,” Brewer said. “If there are other things we need to consider after the June deadline, I think we’re committed to following through with them.

“I think the main thing is to get this business started and move forward and see how far we can get.”