Leaders of COD’s adjunct faculty calls for ‘vote of no confidence’ on board of trustees
The president of the College of the Desert Adjunct Association is calling for a "vote of no confidence" against the school's board of trustees.
CODAA President Catherine Levitt sent a letter to the school's 350 adjunct faculty members last week, highlighting three major points behind the call.
- Vote of "No Confidence" in the Board for Failure to perform
- Vote to appoint an External Interim President
- Vote to request a Special Election for replacement of Trustee Fred Jandt
“They will block each other at every move, no matter what it is, just just because that's who they are," Levitt said about the board of trustees. “We have a very polarized board. We have two on each team, so to speak, okay. That's really uncomfortable, and they're not going to get any work done that way.”
This memo stems from the handling of two adjunct faculty, who had applied to become full time counselors last year.
Levitt tells us their applications went for board approval, but were ultimately pulled by board Trustee Joel Kinnamon.
“It was supposed to be investigated, and they would have their applicants signed on as full full-time faculty on January 5th. It didn't happen in January. It didn't happen in February. They had canceled several meetings, they have canceled everything since this. And they are giving no answers to these adjuncts who are still working as they're working as temporary full time," Levitt explained.
The CODAA is now urging a vote of 'no confidence’ in the current board of trustees, including Joel Kinnamon, Bea Gonzalez, Ruben Perez and Bonnie Stefan, for failing to perform their obligations.
The association also suggests a vote to appoint an external interim president, now that current president Martha Garcia is leaving for a new job.
“We want to be sure that that interim is not one of the people that is a recent hire, or is somebody who has already has a reputation at the college for not being wonderful," Levitt added. "So we want to be sure with the that they have that they access an external candidate as an interim.”
COD professor Robert Holmes also believes the board has “oversight” and has hindered the hiring process for others as well.
“No one's being hired. By not having the meeting and not going through the consent agreement, we have lots of people that need to be hired that have been approved through the normal vetting process process that we have that are in limbo," he said.
As of now, the CODAA says around 270 of the 350 adjunct faculty have responded in favor of the vote of 'no confidence'.
The adjunct association is now pushing for a special election.
“These people are elected officials. So they are politicians. So all we can do is let the general public know that we've got 275 out of 350 thus far or who have voted in favor of no confidence.”
The adjunct association hopes to bring this to the board at its next meeting this Friday.
We have reached out to the members of the board of trustees, and are still waiting for a response.
Stay with News Channel 3 for updates.
