Meeting Resumes;
General Public Comments:
Good evening, I’m Glenn Hansen, President of the Association and Faculty Senate. My voice tonight is that of the 300. This has to end.
The time for action has come. You have circled your wagons for 6 months and defended yourselves by saying it’s not us it’s them. The Faculty are angry that you have ignored our vote of no confidence for more that 2 months. Your only acknowledgment has been from Chairperson Birt that you received my e-mail and would consider it. Other than that you have dismissed us by saying we are only 10% of the employees. The president has held fireside chats with all constituencies except the fulltime faculty to say faculty have done this before at other schools.
Yes, there have been other votes of no confidence; that is significant and should be alarming to you!
I offered in September to meet with the Board and discuss the list of particulars that faculty have generated during the process of discussing the action we took. You have ignored this offer and have not investigated the basis of our action. Our team and our attorney are still willing to meet with you.
Tonight, we call on you to act as the governing body of this institution and return us to the right path. This 6 months of negative news must end; now, not later. Dr. Breuder should do the honorable thing a leader would do or you should act in the best interest of this institution and begin the search for a new president.
Richard Jarman
Vice President CODFA
Things I read in the papers
The Trib Local last week had a column on Glen Ellyn School District 41 putting comments at the start of the meetings. The school board president stated that. They put it up front because they feel that people shouldn’t have to wait the whole meeting to comment.” Evidently D41 puts a higher value on hearing from the public. Another board member went so far as to have board members consider “monthly engagement sessions.” Food for thought.
November 15th we received an alert from IEA that SB2887 a bill designed to amend portions of the Biss law that currently penalize any SURS employer who employs a SURS annuitant with earnings that surpass 40% of their annual annuity, was coming up for a vote Tuesday. The alert continued that “SB 2887 offers a chance to push back against a number of schools such as City Colleges of Chicago and College of DuPage, who implemented harsh measures to terminate all annuitants from teaching – regardless of the number of their classes or the size of their annuity.”
It was painful to read this college that prides itself on being the best in so many things, singled out in its treatment of annuitants. However, the good news that I read in the Tribune this morning was that the bill is now before the governor for signature. Assuming that goes ahead, annuitants earning less than $10,000 will be exempt from the double-dipping penalties that the original bill sought to impose. Ironic that the bill, perhaps well-intentioned in its objective of eliminating cushy benefits for high-paid administrators, inflicted appalling damage on the lowest paid end of the spectrum.
Retired fulltime faculty would in all likelihood never exceed the 40 % threshold if teaching as an adjunct. Yet the college took the approach, citing equity and fairness for all, that this constituency was also barred from rehiring. To be honest I am unable to see the fairness in that. Going forward, if indeed the shackles are removed from the $10,000 category, I expect to see all annuitants acceptable for hiring. If the argument goes that there would be no impact on the quality of teaching, by experiencing these experienced teachers back, then I suggest that the wrong people had been hired in the first place.
Haroon Atcha.Student. I am here tonight as an advocate for the students.
Good evening board members thank you for having me. My name is Haroon Atcha and I’m here tonight as an advocate for the students. In April 1953, president Eisenhower gave a speech concerning the country’s priorities. Though his speech in its entirety is memorable, there is a specific passage that sticks to this day in our collective conscious. You may have heard it before, it goes like this: “Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” He goes on to give some perspective on the cost of a single heavy bomber airplane. “It is two electric power plants […] it is two fine fully equipped hospitals, […] it is some 50 miles of concrete highway, […] it is half a million bushels of wheat[…].” These past many months I’ve come to these meetings and gently urged the trustees and college as a whole to reform those institutions which do not primarily serve the students. I’ve presented pages of data and suggested fully fleshed out and very modest reforms for the Waterleaf, some of which would not cost the college a single dime to implement. I’d be lying if I said the inaction on this front isn’t disappointing. Though perhaps the fault is mine for inadequately providing perspective so let me rectify my mistakes by doing so tonight. 243,000 dollars. This is how much, according to the October 22nd issue of the courier, the college spends on wine and alcohol. 243,000 dollars is 1700 credit hours at this college. It is 27 associates degrees. It is 5700 tanks of gas. It is over a thousand brand new biology textbooks. It is 3 full time counselors. It is 50 study abroad trips. And It is more than what 13 students put together will earn working at a full time, minimum wage job this year. Every single student that has to rely on financial aid or take out student loans or pay for classes out of pocket knows exactly what 243,000 represents. That money represents opportunity unbounded for countless students. And so I hope you’ll forgive me tonight if I come across as more impassioned than I usually do but now that you know what that money represents, I hope you will act in the best interest of the students and reassess the college’s priorities. Because ultimately every dollar misappropriated is a theft, from those who seek education, and are denied it.
Mr. Kempa. Talks about the tax levy coming up.
Regarding mission of community colleges. Talks about the establishment of the ICCB in the ’60s. Mission is to prepare students for transfer to other colleges, prepare workforce, ESL, but notes that the mission of COD is to provide affordable, accessible and comprehensive education….
his three minutes are up and he is cut off.