College Chose Not to Renew Contract
* A July 21 story mentioned my recent replacement as vice president of student services at Irvine Valley College. Unfortunately, it falsely said I was fired from Irvine Valley College more than a year ago.
In fact, in December 1998 the board of trustees simply decided not to renew my contract.
In April of this year, two months before my contract was to expire, I resigned from IVC to accept appointment as administrative dean of the Pacific Coast Campus of Long Beach City College. The misleading statement in your story is the allegation that not renewing my contract was caused by a disagreement with the president of IVC, Raghu Mather, over a personnel matter.
In fact, we had many disagreements over a broad range of issues, based on our very different educational philosophies and approaches to educational administration. How to handle various personnel issues was just one of our areas of disagreement.
Mathur wanted to have his own team of administrators, and the trustees accepted his recommendation that they replace me. This completed his replacement of his entire senior staff.
PAULINE E. MERRY
Garden Grove
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