Community College Management

* As a past board member of the once-viable Pierce College Foundation and local community activist, I genuinely care about the future of Pierce College. I have documented my concerns and suggestions to both the press and Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) board members since 1993.

Your Jan. 18 article by Solomon Moore “Next Pierce Chief Has to Love a Challenge,” does a disservice to to outgoing President E. Bing Inocencio. Lameduck President Inocencio presided over highly significant curriculum development improvements that have moved Pierce into the forefront of cyberspace instructional innovation. Administrators and instructional leaders routinely practice educational planning goal setting, the basis for any instructional accountability system.

Barriers to interdisciplinary planning and teaching have begun to break down.

However, community college district trustees and management now appear to be primary barriers to college-level accountability and responsibility. Inadequate decision making authority has been and will continue to be a primary factor undermining the cost effectiveness and efficiency of local community colleges.

I agree with the quoted state auditor recommendations identifying the need for the LACCD to improve management policies and practices. It seems to me that the LACCD Board of Trustees has a duty and obligation to speed up this process.

Out of fairness and common decency, do not hire a new college president without giving the new president managerial tools to implement the challenge of Pierce College. Our West Valley region and residents, as well as present and future students and clients, deserve nothing less.

J. JERRY DOMINE

Winnetka