To the Board…
May 22, 2009
CODFA PAC PRESIDENT GLENN HANSEN COMMENTS ON ROLE OF FRIENDS FOR EDUCATION
Glenn Hansen, President of the Political Action Committee associated with the COD Faculty Association, made the following comments to the Board of Trustees at its meeting May 21, 2009:
Good evening.
I'm Glenn Hansen, President of Friends for Education and Chair of the Endorsement committee. I'd like to offer my congratulations to all of the new Trustees and new officers.
Tonight I'd to provide some information about FFE and why we exist. I have the pleasure of being the past president of the College of DuPage Faculty Association and the Faculty Senate. During the last 2½ years, I and many others had a front row seat to witness how business was done at COD. Political Action Committees are an important part of many organizations and, frankly, are often a necessity. They are part of the nature of politics in the United States, although unfortunately many PACs are not grassroots movements as ours was.
While our political efforts are not new, Friends for Education is. We came together just over two years ago in response to Board actions. We are Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, Independents, and who knows what else; we don't ask. We grew in strength and dedication as time went on and events continued to occur at COD. We saw two trustees resign, trustees appointed without true public input, an FMP director resign, our insurance benefits and broker debated, a PR firm specializing in political image hired outside of normal procedures, law suits and counter suits, a public argument between the Chair and President over whether to renovate our Instructional Center, a President fired over Memorial Day weekend, a presidential search that garnered tremendous criticism, a suspension of Mission and Vision planning, the Election Board hearings, and of course the policy manual. Needless to say, this tsunami of actions by the board caught the attention of the public and the media. Good news in the press was limited and often displaced by other COD news. If you worked here, wouldn't you try to change things?
From the beginning, we have been open about our business, and we have identified who we are—never hiding the fact that we are the Faculty PAC. The Faculty Association rents an office from the college. It is part of our contract and FFE, a CODFA committee, only uses that office to meet between elections. Once we have endorsed candidates, we meet off campus so as not to appear to violate ethics policies. We only use the office address for the state Board of Elections and County Clerk offices. I felt it was important that we always be accessible to the government officials and not hidden behind a mailbox number. All contributions and funds are received through our Post Office box. Money from IPACE came to my personal address. Our website is independent of the college, our Treasurer is different from the Association Treasurer, our bank accounts are separate for the Association and PAC, there is no commingling of union dues and PAC funds, and all the faculty elected an Executive Director to manage our day to day operations and to direct our efforts. There was no campaigning on campus nor was there any distribution of material; faculty did not even put signs on their cars when they drove onto campus.
Regardless of our efforts, I've been asked about our interview process and the use of our office. We did invite all of the Board candidates to our office for an interview. I contacted them via US mail with delivery confirmations offering my personal e-mail and personal phone number. I called all via phone as I found the phone numbers, if I could. (The only political message to use the COD phone system was the robo call I received on my office voicemail from Michael Ledonne.) We asked all candidates the same written and oral questions. At no time did we ask any candidate their political affiliations or discuss any future contract issues. I personally told each endorsed candidate that we expect them to be independent critical thinkers. We realize that we will differ over some issues, but we are confident that it will be respectful and professional. We expect them to make decisions that are good for the students, and the overall good of COD. To further our transparency, I will have our endorsement questions posted on our website. Once again, to be clear, after we endorsed our candidates we moved all our activity off campus.
We believe that the citizens of DuPage County were well informed and voiced their opinion that a change was needed at College of DuPage. The message they sent was to move the College forward during an economic time in whch COD is very important to all residents.
I wish you the best of luck and offer my support in these difficult times.
Thank you.
