Desperate times at the college | Guest op
Published 2:36 pm Thursday, May 28, 2015
As a 20-year tenured English instructor at Green River College, I have been proudly and devotedly teaching your kids, cousins, nephews and nieces, grandchildren, and perhaps even you at the community college on the hill.
Sadly, in the last five years since the hiring of our president, Elaine Ely, the level of discord and distrust permeating this campus that we call home has only grown. It’s making Green River now unrecognizable from the place that so many of us fell in love with when we as faculty, staff and students first became part of the Green River Community College family.
We were initially enthusiastic about the new president and her call for “courageous conversations and participatory governance.” But as it has played out, those words were empty rhetoric since the only conversations from the president’s office have been highly controlled and scripted, while the participatory governance has been reduced to top down, unilateral edicts that only involve Ms. Ely’s administrative team.
I assure you that all 92 percent of full-time faculty who signed the first vote of no confidence in May 2013 and the 92 percent who signed the second vote of no confidence submitted at theMay 21 Board of Trustees meeting did so with deep reflection and with much evidence before them: unfair labor practices, such as bad-faith bargaining in contract negotiations that have taken over a year and a half without resolution; the decision to shut down programs without giving the program chairs an opportunity to see relevant data or provide solutions (one of them is our union president and chief negotiator, who stands to lose his job by June 8); lack of transparency in financial budgets and how international program funds are allocated; the loss of over 130 valuable employees who either quit or were fired; intimidation and surveillance of current employees who fear retaliation for attending pro-union rallies; and irresponsible and short-sighted thinking in fiscal management.
Fiscal woes
We see this fiscal mismanagement in the construction of a new Trades Building that would need to be repurposed at a cost of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, if the Trades programs are cut, and in the shameful raises the president and five members of her administration received at a time in what she calls a budget crisis, yet we see a 30-percent average increase in those five administrative salaries over the last three years in contrast with no faculty or staff raises over the last seven years.
The only crisis we face is one of failed leadership. And for the college to say those who signed the vote of no confidence only represent 29 percent of the faculty is intentionally disingenuous, as the other part of our faculty, the part-timers, are unprotected and face reprisal and possible termination if they were to speak out against the administration.
The administration, quite simply, is out of touch with the long-standing values of Green River and the community. President Ely thinks in terms of a big business, corporate model privileging new capital-building projects, global outreach, and the bottom line over supporting established programs, community outreach, and our most underserved and marginalized students in Trades to the finish line. But she is not the only one out of touch.
We have turned to the Board of Trustees twice now in the last two years with these two votes of no confidence. Yet last Thursday, after formally receiving this second vote and after hearing from over 30 speakers who shared poignant stories – many of whom were students who submitted their own voice of concerns with over 200 signatures – the GRCC Board of Trustees’ President Pete Lewis in a surprising statement proclaimed that the board once again was in full support of Ms. Ely, this time only minutes after the close of the board meeting, meaning none of those letters or speeches were even considered.
We are in desperate times. The level of dysfunction and distrust we face from both the administration and now the board is irreparable. So we turn to you, the community, to help us bring about change in order to return the college to its core values and the respected place on the hill that generations have treasured.
Please write letters to our governor, as this will have the biggest and most immediate impact. You can either send them to Gov. Inslee at the address provided below, or, preferably, you can send your attached letter to Steve Kinholt, fellow faculty, at skinholt@gmail.com.
All hard copy letters will be hand delivered by a large contingent of faculty and students to the governor in person before the June 8 timeline when the possible elimination of three faculty jobs and the three programs take effect.
In my letter, I plan to ask the governor: one, to speak out against the automotive, carpentry and GIS program closures; two, to demand an independent and transparent audit so that all parties know the true accounting of the college, so that intelligent decisions can be made to conduct future program reviews with relevant data made available to all parties in a timely manner, and so that we have a full accounting of how and where International Program dollars are being spent; and lastly, to have him put pressure on this president to tender a resignation so as to preserve the college and the local community we past and current faculty and staff have been charged and honored to serve for 50 years.
Governor Jay Inslee
Office of the Governor
P.O .Box 40002
Olympia, WA
98504-0002
For more information on what has been happening with the events at the college, please go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/Green-River-Community-College-United-Faculty-Coalition/200271623328912 and
With deepest gratitude from all of us who call this community college home,
Brad Johnson, English instructor
