Weighing In on Community College Board

* Regarding the May 30 Orange County Voices column by Cedric A. Sampson, chancellor of the South Orange County Community College District:

It should be pointed out that in a public goal-setting meeting, the district Board of Trustees set fiscal soundness and student demand-driven class scheduling far above any other priorities for our district.

The lingering effects of the Orange County debt crisis and an 11,000-name student waiting list for classes obligated our board to move toward a direction that private industry had been taking for the last decade: streamline the bureaucracy and concentrate on the basic goals of the organization.

Internal resistance to change is endemic in any 30-year-old organization, and it was not surprising that that resistance at times turned vicious.

Teachers who “don’t do” Thursdays and Fridays and would really rather be released from teaching to do special projects and administrative work were quite simply out of step with public demand.

Last November, the public elected two new trustees to our board who far outdistanced opponents who made a frenzied attempt to divert voters from their own best interests.

This, coupled with the dismal failure of a hate-filled attempt to recall me, clearly demonstrated that the public was not being fooled.

Rest assured that the board majority of SOCCCD will always keep the public’s best interests clearly in view. It is our only reason for public service in the first place.

STEVEN J. FROGUE

SOCCCD Trustee

* Kudos to Chancellor Cedric Sampson.

As a past president of the South Orange County Community College District Faculty Assn., the designated bargaining unit for nearly 1,000 professors at Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College, I praise the chancellor’s true understanding of our problems and his clear vision of district goals.

Over the last few years our colleges have been dominated by certain teachers who have progressively decreased their workloads. Supported by past administrators, they held key positions dominating every new district hire, every new course approved and each major allocation. They fostered nepotism and resisted modernizing the curriculum. The chancellor and the board of trustees have worked hard to change this.

Most district teachers believe their job is instruction, not “research,” committee work, study groups or administrative assignments. They believe a teacher’s place is in the classroom. They believe we deserve our salaries if we work hard for them.

Last year 55% of the district instructors who voted in the biggest turnout ever approved a five-year contract that prohibited almost all release time of faculty from teaching.

The vast majority of Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College professors believe our real purpose and the real purpose of our colleges is to educate students.

SHERRY MILLER-WHITE

Long Beach

* Although Chancellor Cedric Sampson has written much that is wordy and generally unintelligible jargon, he deserves high marks for mentioning the California Citizens Commission on Higher Education.

The commission’s work and final report has been one of the best-kept secrets this past year.

The chancellor notes that the commission has recommended the elimination of the locally elected boards “in favor of larger, weaker boards appointed by state officials.”

However, his interpretation omits some of the rationale in the commission report.

The report states rather convincingly that “the governance and structure of the California Community Colleges should be simplified and changed to one based on campuses, not districts.”

For those who have conducted research into the governance system of the community colleges, the districts have become an anachronism, since it is the colleges who perform all the essential classroom and budgetary work.

The commission has also concluded that the changes recommended could save tens of millions of dollars.

LEFTERIS LAVRAKAS

Costa Mesa

* I am disappointed at The Times’ printing such a deceptive and one-sided, self-serving article.

Cedric Sampson, the chancellor of the South Orange County Community College District, omits all the legitimate complaints, presents himself as a victim, and simply outlines selected information that serves his purpose.

That is the same purpose of the failure-ridden Board of Trustees majority that hired him.

Sampson glosses over the rational solution proposed by the California Citizens Commission on Higher Education, that inadequate locally elected boards should be replaced by boards appointed by state officials.

Instead, Sampson’s remedy is to make local boards even stronger and better prepared to put down dissent, even if the dissent is warranted. What makes Sampson more qualified to present a remedy than an unaffected third party of experts?

Sampson continues to irrationally down-grade the dissent in his casual mention of the recall campaign against the 1997 board president, although he refuses to mention trustee Steven Frogue by name.

Sampson claims that this recall attempt merely had to do with the administration versus faculty dispute over “release time.” But the deeper, more important issue of anti-Semitism charges that have been leveled at Frogue are not even mentioned.

Sampson ends by appealing for permission for the board to do its job. But he refuses to accept any reins on actions that may be detrimental to the college district and its many diverse students, parents, and taxpaying citizens.

Instead, he claims that “controversy well may indicate that the board is confronting its problems with firm resolve.”

Well, where is the firm resolve and confrontation with these charges of anti-Semitism? Where is the investigation and report on the many sworn affidavits filed by many of Frogue’s students? These questions rightly cry out for answers.

IRVING E. FRIEDMAN

Laguna Niguel