[img]1769|right|Dr. Mark Rocha||no_popup[/img]Is the ice beneath the under-siege feet of President Mark Rocha beginning to melt as warmer weather sweeps across the Pasadena City College campus?
A year after organized faculty and student groups, infuriated by his so-called dictatorial, non-consulting style of governing, issued onesided no-confidence votes in Dr. Rocha, he has become the invisible personality on campus.
His departures from previous community college campuses have been described as “unclean.”
In the tradition of the late President Nixon and other troubled leaders, the president is spending chunks of time out of view.
It still is too early to denote where wishful thinking ends and reality commences as signs grow that this fourth year of his unpopular reign finally may be the end.
PCC’s general counsel, Gail Cooper, said to be Dr. Rocha’s closest ally in a thinning field, also is rumored to be on her way out. Legal problems lately have been haunting the once supremely confident lawyer.
Campus observers admittedly are puzzled by a recent scene at the president’s hideout – or office: “Full boxes were being carried into his office, and full boxes were being carried out. What does that mean?”
The Board of Trustees, whose faith in Dr. Rocha was said to be unshakeable – despite his deeply troubled pre-PCC past and his thorn-strewn present path – is modifying its former hardline attitude.
“We are seeing some movement from the Board to be more collegial,” says a campus veteran. “All of a sudden, the Board is perking up its ears and paying serious attention to what we have been trying to tell them about Rocha for so many years.”
