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The best thing voters could do for Alamo Colleges is reject its planned $450 million bond in May.
Look, my father was a longtime community college professor in Arizona, so it’s painful to say voters should reject a bond that would benefit students. As a rule, community college profs are all about their students, and community college students deserve our investment and support.
That shouldn’t be confused with blind support, which is what Alamo Colleges is asking. Accreditation is technically up in the air for San Antonio, Northwest Vista and St. Philips colleges. A fourth college, Northeast Lakeview College, has yet to receive independent accreditation despite opening in 2007.
The bond vote is in May. However, the earliest accreditation warnings could be cleared for San Antonio, Northwest Vista and St. Philips colleges is June. The timing is problematic. Why ask for $450 million when accreditation is, technically, at risk?
Such a timeline should be enough to hit the pause button, but instead the Alamo Colleges board of trustees has plowed ahead, putting voters in an awkward and unfair position. Invest in students who are often on the edge, or reward a board and administration that has been utterly tone-deaf on matters of the public?
Alamo Colleges officials have said voters shouldn’t worry about the accreditation woes. Technically, it’s all just technicalities. Boring stuff about policies, calculating grade-point averages, transferring credits and so on.
“If it wasn’t for this separate evaluation raising these technical issues, there wouldn’t be any issues,” Chancelor Bruce Leslie told the Express-News Editorial Board. “Timing is critical for us.”
Delaying the bond vote for a year, he said, would only add to the cost of projects and potentially undermine community partnerships. But why should voters care about the timing for Alamo Colleges? Voters didn’t create the accreditation issues.
Let’s not forget, the driving issue behind the accreditation warning, the board’s decision to include “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People” without faculty consent, has been swirling for years. Literally years.
As recently as this fall, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges warned Alamo Colleges that force-feeding the 7 Habits would create accreditation headaches:
“The Committee recommends that the institution demonstrate that it places primary responsibility for the content of the curriculum with its faculty,” it wrote.
Yet, Alamo Colleges didn’t take action until after the accreditation warnings hit. If timing is crucial for the bond, why put yourself, and voters, in such a difficult position?
Leslie is right in saying the accreditation issues are technical matters, not questions of academic rigor and substance. Yet in substance and style of governance, Alamo Colleges has left much to be desired, making it awfully hard to go along to get along.
Leslie’s decision to glue his eyes to his cellphone throughout Palo Alto College’s graduation last year was troubling because it was a visual statement of how little he valued those students’ accomplishments, although his contrition seemed sincere. That alone is not nearly enough to reject the bond proposal, but there is more.
The decision to keep secret the separation agreement between Alamo Colleges and former Northeast Lakeview President Craig Follins was a troubling statement of how little the district values public oversight.
That agreement, signed in December 2015, allowed Follins to collect his $205,000 presidential salary for nine months while doing nonpresidential work. He also received $25,000 for an employment search firm. This was on top of an executive coach he also received.
None of this was made public until a few weeks ago. Not because the records were confidential (they obviously weren’t), but because Alamo Colleges structured the agreement to delay any release.
And so it goes as tensions between faculty and administration deepen and stories bubble up about administrative junkets to Ireland, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and India.
No wonder the Alamo Colleges board approved Leslie’s most recent contract extension (base pay $403,000, up from $380,305; monthly vehicle allowance $1,500, up from $1,000) with zero public discussion.
Support the bond? Sure, that is a great way to invest in students. But rejecting it would teach the administration and the board a valuable lesson. Poor governance has a cost.
jbrodesky@express-news.net
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