[img]2284|right|Mark McQueen||no_popup[/img]Dateline Pasadena – The most gripping interlude during this afternoon’s special meeting for faculty on the campus of troubled Pasadena City College occurred in the first moments when freshly reinstated English professor Mark McQueen was introduced to the overflow crowd.
It was a scene for memories in the Circadian Room of the Campus Center. As colleagues cheered, the conservatively attired 64-year-old educator – in sport coat, yellow dress shirt and necktie – made his way slowly, almost painfully, to the front where Prof. Roger Marheine, was holding a hand mike for him.
Shy to the point of being phlegmatic, Mr. McQueen’s shuffling steps are traceable to his impaired health, dominated by a heart condition.
One month ago, to the shock of the campus, Mr. McQueen was indefinitely suspended by the most unpopular community college administration in California for attacking a student who was profanely assaulting him.
The two-layered campus stun was caused by both the charge, that faculty called preposterous, and the dizzying abruptness with which the professor was remanded to the sidelines.
For stress-related reasons, Mr. McQueen was hospitalized shortly after the incident.
On a campus where the once embedded principle of shared governance has been declared DOA by the virtually bunker-isolated present administration, sadness and fury are running a tight race for primacy.
News Sporting a Smile
Good news has been pounding the PCC grounds in waves the last few days.
At the same time the administration was pronouncing Mr. McQueen clean, suspended journalism advisor Warren Swil, 61, also was reinstated after admitting showing nude pictures of himself to a middle-aged male student in a sexual harassment case. Mr. Swil will return in the spring.
No one believed the student’s charge against Mr. McQueen then or now, possibly even President Dr. Mark Rocha’s inner circle that he is said to fully control.
Fifteen students testified on behalf of Mr. McQueen’s innocence.
[img]2285|right|Professor Roger C. Marheine||no_popup[/img]Mr. Marheine, president of the Faculty Assn., and a faculty member for 34 years, told the school newspaper, The Courier, that the hastily organized online petition to immediately reinstate went viral. “There are over 1,650 signatures of support for Mark,” Mr. Marheine said.
Meanwhile, the perhaps red-faced administration spun around again and reinstated him almost as swiftly as the vanquishing act.
This Won’t Take Long
Unsurprisingly, Mr. McQueen’s talk, consumed less time than his journey to the front of the room.
Speaking with gentle softness, “thank you for taking my back,” he said.
With the autumn semester almost over, Mr. McQueen will return to his classroom in the spring.
Spring, not winter semester, because Dr. Rocha angered the faculty and PCC’s student body by singlehandedly eliminating winter intersession on Aug. 29, 2012.
Which brings this story to the main purpose of the snappy 45-minute meeting:
To delineate to staff the full meaning of the recent ground-churning ruling by the state’s Public Employee Relations Board, PERB, that Dr. Rocha and his administrative companions acted illegally in killing winter, and it must be restored.
Winter Wonderland
The faculty huddle was purely celebratory.
“This has been some of the most momentous 10 days in my 5½ years as president and 10 years as a union leader,” baseball cap-wearing Mr. Marheine said jubilantly. “It’s been quite a roller coaster.”
Last Friday, PERB rendered the mountain-strong verdict that faculty members and students hope will soften the perceived leadership hostility that crisscrosses the urban campus of the Colorado Boulevard school.
However, as court winners commonly learn in huge rulings, the ungreased wheels of justice clank slowly.
The Rocha administration has vowed to appeal, and it would have stunned the winners had it been otherwise.
But the restrained news, said Santa Monica labor attorney Larry Rosenzweig, who represented Mr. Marheine’s union, PERB packs a huge backlog.
“Could be a year, a year and a half before the appeal is heard and a final ruling is handed down.
Although The Courier screamed “WINTER IS COMING” in a giant banner headline across the front page, not just yet.
If everything goes as expected, said Mr. Rosenzweig, it could be two more years before the restored winter intersession is implemented.
