The Roundup Staff
Today, the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) board of trustees will continue to turn the crank of the presidential jack-in-the-box as they begin to interview the final candidates for president.
For the last year, interim president Dr. Joy McCaslin has filled the seat vacated by Robert Garber in August. And in the last nine months, a selection committee and the board of trustees have been looking for a permanent occupant.
And as the board begins the interviews of the finalists, the majority of the campus population will not have the slightest notion as to who will fill that seat until the selection is announced.
The purpose of the 12-person committee was to make sure that all aspects of the campus were represented: professors, staff, students and the community.
But how could they possibly know what we want from a president when the majority of those represented were never afforded the time to address that?
When Garber was selected five years ago, he and the other two finalists were given the opportunity to participate in a town question and answer session with the Pierce community.
Glendale College hosted a similar event for it’s three presidential finalists. They also released how many candidates were interviewed, as well as they as released the names of the finalists.
Pasadena City College will be hosting separate forums in which their finalists can speak.
Not only did Fullerton College release the names of their finalists, they videotaped the discussions, which included a member of our campus’ administration. The videos can be viewed at http://www.fullcoll.edu/index.php?q=content/fullerton-college-president-candidates-forum.
So despite protest and the open policies of the schools around us, the board still stuck by their advertised notion that the names would not be released.
According to selection committee members Pierce College Council (PCC) President Lyn Clark and Academic Senate President Tom Rosdahl, the consulting firm hired by the board of trustees advised them not to divulge the presidential finalists.
The consultants, Dr. Edward J. Valeau, Sallie A. Savage, both Senior Partners of the ELS Group, and Dr. Lydia Ledesma, search consultant, were listed on the brochure advertising the position.
The main reason given was that if they released the names, it might scare away “good candidates,” said Clark. This was mostly directed toward those who were working at other colleges and were anxious about the reaction from their current schools if they did not get the position here.
This was an understandable concern for both the board and the interested applicants, but that still leaves the general population of Pierce in the dark.
If a candidate really wanted this job, they should have been willing to take the risk of not getting it. While this school is part of a community, it is still a business. And in business, the advancement of one’s career is a high priority and the candidates should not have been afraid of letting that be known.
It’s understandable that the board would want to protect the candidates and now the finalists, but they should have remembered whom this decision will affect the most: the 23,000 students and hundreds of faculty and staff here at Pierce.
We should have been given the opportunity to meet the person who will eventually occupy the highest position at our college.
But instead we’ll just have to wait until the jack-in-the-box finally pops out, and we have to hope it’s not a clown.
(Dustin Johnson / Special to the Roundup)
