[Editor’s Note: Reacting to yesterday’s report below, by the Pasadena Star-News, about Wednesday’s Pasadena City College Board of Trustees meeting, centering on the governing style of embattled President Mark Rocha, our sources are skeptical about the emergence of a pro-Rocha group. “Call this the Board’s PR offensive,” said one. “My speculative opinion is Board members had a hand in writing their full-page ad.” A longtime faculty member said he did not recognize the name of one signee.]
Re “Rocha and His Trustee Pals Frown, Scold No-Confidence Voters”
[img]1769|right|Dr. Mark Rocha||no_popup[/img]Dateline Pasadena – A high-profile group concerned about the future of Pasadena City College has emerged, expressing its “full confidence” in the Board of Trustees and criticizing the teachers union for its role in the turmoil pervasive on campus regarding the performance of Presuident Mark Rocha.
Called Citizens for A Better College, the group placed a full-page advertisement in Thursday's newspaper as an open letter to the PCC Board of Trustees, urging them to put students first and move past the “behavior of a noisy few.”
The ad is signed by former PCC trustees Ann Hight and Warren Weber, Arcadia Councilman Peter Amundson, former Sierra Madre Councilman Bart Doyle, former San Marino Councilman Michael Johnson and former Pasadena City Manager Donald McIntyre, among others.
Much of the letter singled out the PCC Faculty Assn. as the source of dissent on campus because of its ongoing impasse in contract negotiations. Its “vote of full confidence” is a direct response to faculty and student no-confidence votes in President Rocha earlier this year, and to the controversy surrounding a complaint against journalism professor Warren Swil.
“I don't hear half of the faculty coming to board meetings and being disrespectful, publicly maligning the character of the president,” said Nat Read, a former Pasadena Chamber of Commerce board chair, who also signed the ad. “This is going against everything Pasadena instructors stand for. I've never known a PCC instructor who would show that kind of disrespect and that kind of maliciousness.”
The college's decision to eliminate its winter term this year has created the most controversy, but Ms. Hight believes it was the right move because it allowed PCC to increase its course offerings.
“We're lucky to have it in our community, and we're distressed at seeing this uproar that’s been going on so long between the union and administration,” Ms. Hight said.
An ad hoc faculty committee collected 188 votes of no confidence in Mr. Rocha out of 213 ballots in March, and the Academic Senate made a similar vote in April. The PCC Associated Students also passed a no-confidence vote.
The Faculty Assn. made a similar move last August, when the Board of Trustees removed winter from the college calendar.
The new citizens group isn’t aware of the day-to-day operations at PCC, union president Roger Marheine said on Wednesday, without having seen the ad.
“The FA is nothing without the support of faculty,” he said. “We’ve prided ourselves on being the opposite, and not being the noisy few.”
