WOODLAND HILLS : Pierce Interim Head Scolded by Council

The Pierce College Council has scolded interim President Mary Lee for acting without the council’s input in drastically scaling back four industrial arts programs.

The council voted 12 to 1 Tuesday to approve a motion to “strongly advise (Lee) of the importance of consultation with the affected bodies of decision making.” Carmelita Thomas, the Woodland Hills school’s acting vice president of academic affairs, dissented.

Pat Siever, a history teacher, introduced a motion to reprimand Lee, but the council agreed to a compromise. The most severe punishment is censure, Siever said, but that is used only for the more serious offenses.

“It was important for the council to go on record in its minutes with a motion of some sort letting Dr. Lee know that she hadn’t waited long enough,” said another council member, Tom Kramer, a journalism teacher.

Lee’s decision to act without the council’s recommendation, he said, runs contrary to the notion of shared governance.

The council was to have made a recommendation last month to Lee on the cuts. It decided to wait until Tuesday to give faculty members time to study the proposal. Lee, who has always backed the plan to cut the programs, told the council that the fall scheduling process would be disrupted if the decision was delayed. There had been plenty of time, she told the council, for everyone to study the proposal, which was introduced more than two years ago.

She defended her actions Wednesday. “There is a difference between shared governance and not making a decision without council input,” said Lee, who made her ruling in late March. “I heard a council member say, ‘I don’t care if the decision is delayed a year.’ The purpose of shared governance is to assist with decision making--it is not to delay the decision-making process.”

The plan originally called for eliminating the metallurgy, woodshop, welding and machine shop programs, based on the argument that the programs have low enrollment and are out of step with Pierce College’s mission.

Under a compromise plan approved by Lee, the metallurgy program will be phased out by August. Certificate and associate degree programs will be eliminated in the welding and machine shop programs. The woodworking department, which does not offer a certificate, will begin offering one for a two-year trial period.

Siever, along with others, had warned Lee that it would be politically unwise for her to act without input from the council. Lee has said she would like to be appointed to the top job at Pierce on a permanent basis. The decision is expected in coming months by a special committee and the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees.

Siever said she sees a trend among district administrators to overlook shared governance in the interests of expediency. “There seems to be this idea that shared governance delays the process and that’s not true,” she said.