Fourth in a series
Re “Dr. (I Am Not Speaking) Rocha Is a Veteran of the No-Confidence Wars”
[img]1769|left|Dr. Mark Rocha||no_popup[/img]Having stealthily left his two most recent academic positions virtually beneath a blanket of darkness – at least no one was looking – Dr. Mark Rocha, the besieged Pasadena City College president, attempted to stand down his fiercest critics at yesterday’s Academic Senate meeting.
The students and faculty who slung no-confidence votes in his expression-free face in recent days, objecting to his “dictator-style” of leadership, seemed not to rattle him.
He has visited this war zone more than once.
His style is controlled, immaculately disciplined externally, as in, “What, me worry?”
We Are a Team?
He refused to concede the smallest wrongdoing in the formal, widespread anti-Rocha sentiments that are galloping about the historic campus.
“Despite our differences,” he said, “we are not going to get a divorce.”
Dr. Rocha can afford to exude a heavy dose of confidence. The Board of Trustees has built a safety wall around the tall, matinee-handsome administrator in the form of a contract through June 2016.
Some critics said he was shrewd at the podium. Others branded him sly when he cast himself as one of them.
It was not that he was right and they were wrong, he said. Rather, we are one – a tactic some saw as a bid to co-opt sympathy.
Both Sides Responsible
“We are in this together. We need to figure a way out of this together. We need to figure out a way to move forward together.
“In order to do that, we need to figure out, we need to speak honestly. We need to have conversations.”
Some persons said he sounded like a young man resisting attempts by his girlfriend to end their relationship.
“I am not going to rehearse (sic) my comments from the Board meeting (last week).
“I am always hopeful, always hopeful, that we can get to know each other. Until we stand still and have an actual conversation back and forth, over issues that have faced this college for 15 years, we probably are not going to make as much progress, quickly, as we want to.”
It’s not as if he were a newcomer to this kind of knives-out community college warfare.
Come as You Are?
He came to what turned into a contentious fight as if he just had breezed in from holiday.
Attired casually in a tan polo shirt and dark trousers, he was the portrait of a seasoned Palm Beach vacationer. Only the straw fedora was absent.
Observers, from Orange County to West Los Angeles College to PCC, whether they agree with or oppose him, unfailingly include the identical characterization: “Smooth.” Not a dent in his physical surface.
Conversationally, his manner is soothing. The needle measuring his tone was still as stone.
Dr. Rocha opened by pitching a bouquet of roses into the laps of his most determined critics. They, however, have vowed not to throw anything that smells sweet back in his direction.
“Let me just say this. I want to say this from my heart.
“I love you guys.”
Fortunately for Dr. Rocha, the looks that came back from the audience were not loaded.
“I love you all. I love those who disagree with me as strenuously as you possibly can disagree. That’s the way I was brought up. That’s the way I was born. That’s the way I am going to die.
“I think you guys are a wonderful college, a wonderful group of people.”
In his third year at Pasadena, Dr. Rocha reminded the Academic Senate that he became the fourth President in four years.
For members of the audience who find math thorny, he offered a numerical crutch.
Should he be dropkicked into the Out basket, he said his widely hoped-for ouster would be the fifth time in seven years Pasadena City College has exchanged leaders.
(To be continued)
