(Name-mce) ListServ Hung out to Dry

[Villanueva Anselmo]

http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_6283.shtml

 

 

>From Diverse Online

Feature Stories
Hung out to Dry
By David Pluviose
Aug 24, 2006, 09:00

 

Hung out to Dry

Minority presidents often are brought in to promote diversity, leading
to, in some cases, an abbreviated tenure.

It was only three years ago that Dr. R. Wayne Branch was tapped to take
over the reins at Clark College, a 70-year-old private college in
Vancouver, Wash. As president of the Community College of Baltimore
County-Essex, Branch oversaw the reorganization of the college after it
was folded into a three-college system. Those organizational skills and
his background in counseling led Clark to make Branch the first
African-American president in the college's history. Clark trustees also
thought Branch could help mend a bitter rift between the faculty and his
presidential predecessor, Dr. Tana L. Hasart.

Now, barely three years after taking the job, Branch is out at Clark.
His dismissal reflects a disturbing trend for minority community college
presidents, says Dr. John E. Roueche, director of the University of
Texas at Austin's Community College Leadership Program.

"Today, there are only about 39 or 40 African-American presidents of
community colleges, and that is less than [it was] 10 years ago," he
says. "And probably 35 percent to 40 percent of that group are graduates
of our program."

Prior to Branch's performance review this year, the Clark faculty union
disclosed to the public a stunning 229-10 no-confidence vote against the
president (see Diverse, June 29). The union cited Branch's abrasive
leadership style and an alarmingly high administrative turnover as the
primary causes for the decision. A few months earlier, faculty at the
Dallas County Community College District had threatened a similar vote
against then-chancellor Dr. Jesus "Jess" Carreon, citing the same
concerns. Like at Clark, the faculty's decision prompted DCCCD trustees
to force Carreon out of office after only three years.

In both cases, diversity and race issues played significant roles in
stoking campus tensions. Carreon's successor at DCCCD, Dr. Wright
Lassiter, the first African-American to lead the district, faulted
Carreon for possibly exacerbating animosity with White faculty. "Every
senior appointment that [Carreon] made, with one exception, was a person
of color," says Lassiter.

Although the official reasons given for Clark's no-confidence vote make
no mention of race, faculty union president Miles V. Jackson says he
believes racism is at least partially responsible. Even before the vote,
he had conceded that a "long-term history of institutional racism" at
the college could lead some faculty to vote against Branch.

Clark's trustees almost certainly hired Branch with the hope of
promoting diversity at the college. But many faculty apparently were not
on the same page. Dr. Joshua Smith, emeritus professor of higher
education at New York University and the former chancellor of the
California Community College System, says that such a reaction is not
uncommon as minorities are increasingly tapped for high-profile
presidencies.

"Sometimes, when a person is brought in and all of a sudden they get a
mandate for diversifying things, then the question has to be, 'Is the
board serious? Do they mean it? Are they going to be with me on this if
we hit a crunch and have some tough things to worry about?' And
sometimes they're not with you. Or sometimes, they're not even aware of
what you have done. I've experienced that," Smith says.

A college with diversity troubles sometimes reaches out to a minority
candidate for help without giving the candidate a frank assessment of a
sometimes-hostile environment, adds Dr. Howard L. Simmons, chairman of
Morgan State University's department of advanced studies, leadership and
policy.

"Minority presidents are often asked to take over in cases where they've
had lots of difficulties. A lot of times these institutions already have
problems when people go in," says Simmons, a former executive director
of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. 

"Sometimes, I don't think they would even hire [minorities] if there
were not these looming problems. And then the faculty takes the position
that they're really in charge and that they weren't consulted. A lot of
times the faculty members take the position, 'If you don't do what we
want you to do, then you're going to be out the door.'" 

 

Dr. W. Wayne Branch (left), and Dr. Jesus "Jess" Carreon have travelled
similar presidential paths. Both men were the first minorities to lead
their respective institutions, but both were forced out after losing the
confidence of their faculty members.

Dr. Elva C. LeBlanc, president of two-year Galveston College, says the
common faculty complaint of presidential abrasiveness is often simply
the result of faculty not getting their way.

"I've yet to serve an institution where [faculty] complaints didn't
include a lack of communication. You send memoranda, you have meetings,
you send e-mail, but still, that comes up," LeBlanc says. "When you have
this, you have everyone giving their idea, it doesn't mean that
everyone's idea will get to be implemented." 

She says that when specific faculty recommendations aren't implemented,
angry faculty members lash out by saying, "'My voice isn't heard and
[presidents] just do whatever they want to do, and they're abrasive.'"

Roueche suggests that some faculty members are perhaps unwilling to
embrace diversity initiatives when they come from a minority president.
He says, by way of analogy, that if the chairs of a science department
and an English department both argue that writing should be included in
every course, the science department chair will carry more weight.

"In my view, a White person carrying the banner of diversity is not
going to have the same kind of negative reaction that sometimes minority
folks have when they're carrying the same banner," he says.

Often, many say, trustees and faculty have very different sentiments
about the merits of promoting diversity. That disconnect then leads to
president-faculty clashes.

"Unfortunately, [presidential] search committees look for candidates
that reflect them in many ways, not just ethnically, but educationally,
in terms of interest and commonality. And search committees, for the
most part, are made up of faculty. Meanwhile, you may have a leader that
knows that the institution is ready [for] leadership that is of color or
female because of the demographics," says Palm Beach Community College
Provost Dr. Maria M. Vallejo. "Boards of trustees may not be looking for
people that have started off as faculty. ... [Faculty] are looking at it
and saying, 'What's happening to my institution; it's changing.' Trying
to get those two visions to merge is very difficult, and it takes time."

However, Roueche says numerous minority community college presidents
have had enormous success implementing diversity initiatives while at
the same time promoting harmony with faculty despite existing racial
tensions. Roueche points out that Dr. Walter G. Bumphus, outgoing
president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, has
been a champion of diversity and "is one of the most respected, honored,
admired presidents in the country." 

 

Dr. John E. Roueche, Director, Community College Leadership Program,
University of Texas at Austin

Roueche also notes that former Northern Virginia Community College
President Belle S. Wheelan championed diversity at NOVA, but was very
well regarded by faculty. Also, "Just this last month, Dr. Zelema Harris
retired as president of Parkland College and brought a great emphasis on
diversity, a great emphasis on quality, a great emphasis on improved
teaching and learning, and was a much, much beloved president. In fact,"
Roueche says, "there were many, many wet eyes the day 
she retired." 

A hard-charging style can strain the president-faculty relationship even
further, especially when dealing with often-sensitive diversity issues.
Carreon, for example, was known for his aggressive approach.

"How you do something [is] almost always more important than what it is
you're doing," Roueche says.

What's in a Title?
For many community colleges, the contentious relationship between
faculty and administration can be traced to a change in title. The move
from calling the institution's leader "president" to "chief executive
officer" has been blamed for much of the controversial top-down
leadership styles employed by many contemporary college chiefs. Critics
of the title change say presidents have historically embraced an
academic consensus-builder model. 

The influx of CEOs coming from the corporate world has opened
increasingly vital private fund-raising avenues for their institutions.
But the management style many CEOs have brought with them has been met
with stiff resistance from faculty members nationwide. But despite the
confrontations, not everyone is convinced that the shift toward "CEO" is
a bad thing.

According to Ricardo Castro-Salazar, dean of Pima Community College's
instructional division, the CEO debate within community colleges "is a
false debate. What it boils down to is the sound management of
resources. It doesn't matter whether you're the Red Cross or the cancer
society or an educational institution or IBM, the more efficient you are
in handling and managing your resources, the more able you will be to do
what you're supposed to do. In the case of the community college, that
would be to serve the community."

However, many scholars and administrators disagree. According to NYU's
Smith, "There is a bit of a problem" with the CEO model. "I understand
the shorthand of people saying the chief executive officer, the chief
academic officer, the chief business officer or chief fiscal officer. I
can understand that," he says. "But I think that it is a mistake if you
then use that and you start to follow corporate models without
remembering how higher education has been traditionally constructed -
faculty have always been at the core of the college."

Dr. Brenda Simmons, executive dean of Florida Community College at
Jacksonville's North Campus, says presidents need to be part business
executive and part academic consensus-builder to succeed.

"In some cases, a leader can strike that balance and know when to exert
the leadership from the CEO vantage point - it's almost a schizophrenic
kind of thing - and more importantly, know how to be that academic
leader. If you can get it in one person, that's perfect," she says,
although that task may be too much for one individual at some colleges.

 "Some of the institutional models are going to the business-like CEO
type as the president, and then the chief academic officer achieves that
goal of consensus building with the faculty," Simmons says. "The 21st
century is demanding that you have someone who can build partnerships
within the local communities and reach out and bring in dollars ... but
we are an academic institution, and there has to be academic leadership
from some source at the top."

Smith, the former chancellor of the California Community College System,
says he's relieved he no longer has to live the hectic life of a
community college president. He says the job is akin to operating a
three-ring circus.

"To call [the community college presidency] a high-wire act, I think, is
quite appropriate," he says. "Sometimes, you're going to wind up with a
board member or two yanking the high wire up and down. And the president
or the CEO's job is to stay on the high wire. It's just the nature of
the game. It's political, it's tough, and I hope both [Branch and
Carreon] pick themselves up and go back into the fray." 



(c) Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com

 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 16222 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
Url : /pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/attachments/20060831/bb74c9c2/attachment-0003.jpe 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 8479 bytes
Desc: image002.jpg
Url : /pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/attachments/20060831/bb74c9c2/attachment-0004.jpe 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 4460 bytes
Desc: image003.jpg
Url : /pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/attachments/20060831/bb74c9c2/attachment-0005.jpe