5. Student Trustee Report – Service Learning

Students gain benefits from service learning including higher retention rates, learning course concepts in a hands-on setting, satisfaction of making contribution through service hours to community organizations. Video presentation.

Announced homecoming, two bands.

October Hispanic Heritage Month, visiting artist, panel discussion. Refer questions to Earl Dowling.

6. President’s Report

Joe Collins. Events demonstrate how faculty and staff go above and beyond. Described Open House for over 700 guests. More than 50 faculty on hand. At the MAC, dedication of Belushi Performance Hall drew 500 people. Laps with Chaps, 700 people. Astronomy professor last night drew over 400. These events happen year in year out, every year, important effort.

Recognition of Saraliz Jimenez, director of our Latino Outreach Center, who was honored at the state level for her work supporting Latino/a students in higher education.

Ida Hagman. Spoke in favor of the BTE based on the quality and the challenging content. Was a visionary act to establish it. Great education opportunity, very meaningful to audiences. Bring it back, get a subscription and go!

Maggie Opal. Spoke in support of the excellent opportunities in theater classes and BTE.

Ed Franckowiak. Referenced co-mingling of funds between COD and the Foundation. Public funds, have the issues of FOIA requests to foundation been settled? Concerned about Hamilton’s email address.

Kirk Allen. Disappointed that McGuire is not here. But not really. Subpeona on house accounts used by admins and trustees, also documents that support the approval of those expenditures. Those documents don’t exist – or you lied to me on my FOIA. What isn’t found is telling. Only location of American flag is in front of HEC, should be addressed.

Paul Lefort. Commented on Birt’s absences. Will she be a full-time for part-time board member? What is her budget position? How many meetings to miss before considered to abandon position? Supports the new budget, more realistic, provides relief for students and taxpayers. Also commented on the consultant who spoke last week and said she recommended against hiring Breuder. Asks Wozniak if he knew of her recommendation and if so did he ignore it, and why?

Jennifer Schwartz. Speaking on behalf of BTE, a current student and theater major. It’s “miraculous” the experience of working with theater faculty and the level of professionalism they offer. Talkbacks offer incredible insight.

Laura Voss. BTE has blessed me as a resident, and I have grown as a person.

Grace Beifuss. Student. Did not have sense of direction, started acting and taking classes at COD. BTE moved me along as a student and as a person. Changed my life.

Miguel Marino. Has been speaking at BOT meetings and was befriended by Monica Miller, Breuder’s secretary, who said that if she was his mother, she would be proud of him. Learned of her upcoming termination. Reaching out to help her find a new place at COD. Hope her opportunities will not be limited because she has not done anything wrong here.

Robert Bailey. Member of Buffalo Theater Ensemble. Asked audiences to be changed by their experience. Non-profit, driven by ensemble. Always embraced by community and college. Mentoring and offering class visits. Thrived for 27 years. Dismantled by just one man – can be undone. Community wants us back, students want us back. Please, bring us back.

Richard Jarman CODFA Vice President

It’s winter 1996. I am part of a theatre group in Naperville. One of the members floats the proposal that we take some acting classes at COD to hone our craft. So I screwed my courage to the sticking point and introduced myself to the academic rigors of College of DuPage. One of the requirements of taking the Acting classes was going to see shows and write critiques on them. Buffalo Theatre Ensemble allowed us to fulfill at least part of this requirement.

But it was much more than that. An example: our instructor, Madonna Freeburn, was cast in the hysterically funny, and not-at-all weird, Michael Frayn farce Noises Off. So we got a sneak preview of a show in a late stage of rehearsal. Nothing like watching your instructor doing her stuff in a professional setting to reinforce credibility. Sure we had some adventures going to see storefront shows in Chicago, but none had quite the impact that going to BTE did.

Last month we listened to the testimonials of many former students and other community members. You received a petition with more than a thousand signatures. You received letters. In response to this upwelling of support, there will be a presentation tonight about BTE.

I don’t know what you will hear but I would surmise that important criteria are, the impact on education and students, the impact on the community and the costs involved to make all that happen. How many students could be affected by BTE and how to count them? My argument would be anyone enrolled in a theatre class. We have almost 3,000 students in chemistry per year, yet I am confident that I could count on the fingers of one hand the number who become professional chemists. That’s not the point: they are chemistry students.

While we strive for data-driven decision making, there is a role for the intangibles: those factors less easily quantified, and metrics should not necessarily be applied uniformly across the panoply of institutional activities.

Consider the radio station. It’s impact on education? There is no credit program in radio here. It has proved a steady drain on college resources. Yet it has perceived value in the community. That’s okay.

Friday concerts at our own Ravinia by Lake DeShane are immensely popular. While fake Beatles and Abba impersonators are not for me, the community likes them and they generate good PR. Yet they generate no direct revenue. That’s okay.

Some programs make money, while others lose. Some programs are big and others small. Provided the collective whole is sustainable that is what matters. It often comes down to an innate sense of what is right. I strongly believe that bringing BTE back is the right thing to do and the community is overwhelmingly in support of this happening.

1. Call to order / Pledge of Allegiance
2. Roll Call
3. Agenda approval. One agenda item was moved earlier, then the agenda was approved.
4. Public Comment

Chair Hamilton made a brief comment on First Amendment Rights and the right of the public to address the board.

Joseph Enders. Denied First Amendment Rights. Wants to start a student organization. Thanks BOT members for supporting him. Wants to end Breuder-era policies.

Gino Impellizzeri. Emeritus Professor and Scholar, COD. Congratulated BOT on voiding Breuder’s contract. However, motivation must be addressed. Read quote from Tribune about the lame-duck board actions. Asked board to call those board members as witnesses.

Glenn Hansen CODFA President [in separate post].

Richard Jarman, CODFA Vice President [in separate post]

Steve Schroeder. Good evening and thank you for this opportunity.

Tonight I speak to you as a member of the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee, also known as the Jeff Awards.  For forty-seven years, the Jeff Awards has served Chicago like the Tony Awards serve Broadway.  Last year, the Jeff Awards widened their judging boundary to include an ever-growing and vibrant professional suburban theatre scene. Unfortunately and ironically, shortly before that decision was implemented, Dr. Breuder recommended to the Board of Trustees the elimination of support for Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. That unfortunate decision has created significant missed opportunities for the College of DuPage in terms of recognition, diversity, and education.

Concerning recognition, over my past two years of service on the Jeff Committee, I have judged 355 professional theatre productions. I can honestly say that the work done by Buffalo Theatre Ensemble (BTE) stacks up to the best that Chicago has to offer. Had the Board continued support for BTE, I am positive that they would have received recommendations, nominations, and perhaps even major awards. This would have brought significant and positive attention and acclaim to our college, not to mention increased campus attendance.

Much of the deserved recognition comes from a commitment to diversity. Of the 355 productions I have judged for the Jeff Awards, I’ve seen the same show done by different companies only six times. Both Chicago and BTE are committed to producing a variety of voices, sometimes controversial, sometimes provocative, but always meaningful. BTE’s commitment to balancing popular work with more obscure offerings is one of its primary strengths both artistically and, I argue, commercially, especially here in the Chicago market.  It seems that a commitment to diversity leads to a more committed audience. Whether BTE produce Neil Simon or Neil LaBute, Shakespeare  or Sondheim, they  always do so with the same commitment to excellence, entertainment, and education.

In fact, that commitment to both diversity and education is what truly sets BTE apart from any other Chicago theatre company I’ve experienced. I have yet to see another company in our area provide the level of educational resources and outreach as BTE, and this includes even such renowned companies as Court Theatre at the University of Chicago. From workshops and dialogues conducted directly in our classrooms to publishing study guides for the use of schools and community organizations throughout our district, BTE is committed to education, which is our top priority.

Hopefully you now recognize that investing in BTE will reap dividends like increased positive attention, increased diversity, and increased educational opportunities. Indeed, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble is an act we all need to catch.

Tonight you will hear a presentation about the Buffalo Theater Ensemble. You have the wonderful opportunity to consider the future of one of the true gems that has put College of DuPage on the higher education map and the Chicagoland map. It is our belief that a student attending College of DuPage should have every educational opportunity that a student attending a 4-year public or private institution has. They need to be intellectually challenged like any first or second year college student. The community attends to be engaged not just entertained. We are a unique community college, we should not think like the cliché, but instead we should do everything we can to break that misconception.

What is very important to note is that BTE is on tonight’s agenda because of requests from students, alumni, and members of our community. Since the decision to end the presence of BTE on campus, there have been campaigns for its return. Not driven by the faculty members, who advocated for the project within the administrative structure until they were told “NO”, but by the public. In contrast I’ve not heard anyone advocating for the return of the Waterleaf.

As to whether or not BTE returns to campus must be driven by consideration of the tangible and intangible academic outcomes it provides to College of DuPage students and the COD community; not easily expressed by the charting of profit and losses or attendance. Is BTE important to the Theater program and the College for what it provides as a learning experience? The productions that were presented were not meant to be easy and accessible, they were to challenge the audience in many ways. This is higher education; not high school, not dinner theater. There is an academic obligation to move the audience out of their comfort zone, just as there is in much of our curriculum.

In many ways BTE is representative of the other great things that happen at COD, excellent projects that are faculty planned and led. We see support for some activities, but in recent years we’ve also have seen a number of activities that were faculty-driven disappear, be diminished, or at best misunderstood. Various Music Ensembles and the multi-disciplinary Community Farm, to name just a few. There has been a misguided philosophy that the best and only place for full-time faculty is in the classroom; we’ve endured that for too long. What Faculty do is not linear, we all do many things other than stand at the lectern and present. But, to understand this, that means you must look outside the classroom for a complete view of what faculty bring to COD and expand the vision of what being a college professor is all about.

College of DuPage is a college, a leading institution of higher education. Our success can’t be measured through spread sheets nor confined within business management philosophy; to enhance and guarantee COD’s success as something other than just a cheap alternative to other schools, there needs to be an understanding that faculty do bring incredible expertise to the planning of and accomplishment of the academic mission. You have hired the best faculty, not the most affordable; we should be empowered to lead and innovate. You will be impressed.

Tonight’s blog is brought to you by a faculty member who has a long teaching day tomorrow. If the blog ends early, please watch the video for more coverage! [Click here for Multimedia Services link]

Tonight’s meeting is scheduled to begin at 7pm. On the agenda at Item 7 is a presentation about the Buffalo Theater Ensemble. We are proud of our excellent theater faculty members and hope that their efforts and their many supporters will be persuasive. Please read CODFA VP Richard Jarman’s post about BTE here: The Show Must Go On

There is a closed session at Item 9.
[Click here to open the PDF of the agenda]

The Board of Trustees special meeting scheduled for Thursday, September 24, 2015 has been canceled.

The Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting in the Student Services Center (SSC) Room 2206 on Monday, September 28, 2015 at 7 p.m.

See the COD Board of Trustees website for more information.

Appointment of Administrator Appeal Hearing Officer

This is related to the need to have someone to hear appeals from Glaser and Sapayta. Complicated and sensitive legal work. Mazzochi has a motion prepared proposing the hiring of Joseph A. Morris. Timelines are very tight.

McGuire: risk that these hearings may be tainted. Should reach out to IL Labor Relations Board. Need to be sure that hearing officer is absolutely unbiased.

Mazzochi says that McGuire has warped idea of conflict of interest. Nobody has any prior relationship with Mr. Morris. Suggestion of conflict is frivolous. McGuire had every opportunity to suggest anyone she wanted to.

McGuire says that she is just saying it has been a very fast process and not many options were considered.

Elliot says that he and his firm have no relationship or business with Morris. He was contacted because of his reputation for being one of the best or even the very best hearing officer in the state.

Napolitano states that there is a Sept 24 deadline to schedule a hearing.

Vote: Birt and McGuire No, all others Yes.

This is the end of tonight’s blogging coverage!