[img]702|left|Supporters Vince Motyl and Diane Hauptman flank Prof. Siever at a meet ‘n greet in Carlson Park.||no_popup[/img]Some first-time candidates for political office feel their way through a campaign by walking closely along a wall.
Raising their hands maximally high, they keep their fingertips pressed against the wall, as if they were reading a Braille map.
That is not the style of Prof. Patricia Siever, one of five rookies in the six-candidate race for the School Board in the Nov. 3 election.
Even though she looked comfortable on Sunday afternoon, conversing with prospective voters during her meet ‘n greet in the park, she said her first bid for public office has not resembled drawing on a pair of favorite old shoes.
It was adjustment time.
As a career community college professor, she stands apart from the field for more than professional reasons.
You may call it feistiness.
Filing last month at the end of the registration period, Prof. Siever said her path into the race has drawn criticism.
“It bothers some people that I did not first to go the powers-that-be” before declaring her candidacy, said the veteran of decades of numerous board memberships.
“I don’t know who ‘they’ are. Just that you are supposed to shmooze them.
“It seems to be a problem for some people I didn’t do that.
“But the power, to me, is the people. I believe in the Constitution of the United States,” said the history prof at West Los Angeles College.
“I am not going to (seek out the kingmakers). If people continue to believe I should have, that is fine. They have freedom of speech.”
By the way, Prof. Siever is a Republican, placing her in a minority in the academic universe.
She probably also brings the most compelling real-life story to the race — quitting her mother’s abusive home in the third grade and walking three dozen blocks, by herself, to move in, permanently, with her grandmother.
She learned long ago she did not have to bend to political correctness.
“People have approached me,” she said, “and asked, ‘Have you talked to so-and-so yet? You know you have to talk to them.’
“I say, ‘I am talking to the people.’
“This is America, not another foreign country. This is my country. I am here for the students. If they can’t see that what we, what our campaign, has yo offer students, then I think they are doing our students an injustice.”
Once again emphasizing that education — K through college — is a seamless continuum, not rival worlds clashing with each other, Prof. Siever returned to one of her favorite themes, global education.
She rendered another observation is likely to rankle critics again, breaking historic moulds.
In community college, she said, “we are preparing students not to live in Culver City forever, but to go out into the world and see what they can do.
“The world is waiting for them.
“But if they don’t have a knowledge of the world, and then you get into a class issue again, ‘As a candidate, you have to talk to these people,’ what kind of future are we going to have?
“Must we keep talking about people when they are a hundred years old?”
Prof. Siever said the name of her website explains the centerpiece of her campaign — 5 weeks before Election Day on Nov. 3:
siever4studentsuccess.com
