Comments before the Board

The Emergency meeting on Thursday, January 15^th

Here we are faced with yet ANOTHER personnel change in our administrative leadership.

Is this the right time?

• We are on the heels of a visit from Chancellor Jack Scott.
  
• One of the recommendations that put us on Accreditation Warning from the ACCJC was because of administrative leadership instability.
  
• A Special Trustee will be appointed soon.
  
• We are in the middle of a Search for a new Superintendent/President. This will not look good to possible candidates.
  
• These are difficult fiscal times: We are paying for Gerry Fisher's Contract, Lisa Waits' contract, we will be paying a new interim Superintendent/ President, and are still paying a Chief Financial Officer who is on Administrative Leave.
  

Is this the right time?

While Dr. Waits may not have all the required skills to be Superintendent/President because she is early in her career she is:

• A competent Communicator who regularly sends out e-mail updates to the campus community
  
• She has worked to get to the bottom of the budget questions and has communicated her findings to the campus community
  
• She is an open and honest communicator.
  
• She has the confidence of the faculty and staff
  

I recognize that the Board was split 4 to 3 and is still split (now 3 to 4) on her presidency and that there are issues of trust that influence these decisions but, any benefit a more experienced, outside Interim must be weighed against the current momentum the faculty has toward recovery under Dr. Lisa Waits.

What about the repercussions of this decision on the Faculty? We need to know that the actions that the Board of Trustees takes are in the College's best interests, not vindictive, personally motivated actions.

The faculty needs to know that the Board values the work we do and the work we are going to do to get us through this recovery and off of Accreditation Warning.