Race, ethnicity concern DCCCD board member

At a Jan. 10 Dallas County Community College District Board meeting, Trustee Diana Flores raised concerns about racism within the DCCCD. Some students have told her they feel unwelcome on certain campuses in the District.

Flores said she talked with some of the District’s visiting scholars while attending an event sponsored by the National Community College Hispanic Council (NCCHC). They were appalled by comments about race heard at faculty association meetings, she said. Students and other employees have told Flores about incidents that contribute to her concerns about racism in the DCCCD.

Flores, a Latina who was elected to the board in 1996, also questioned a survey which was being developed by the Dallas Community College Faculty Association (DCCFA). She challenged the faculty group’s motives and the effectiveness of its survey to evaluate District leadership.

Flores said that the chancellor and decisions coming from his team are being scrutinized by a “small segment of the employees in this District,” and suggested a racial component to the scrutiny. “In my opinion, it is racist, racist, racist, racist at its core,” she said, according to the Board minutes.

When reached for comment, she said she stands by her Jan. 10 comments, which are reflected in Board minutes certified by Flores and her peers on Feb. 1. Flores told a News-Register reporter that she does not question the association’s ability to poll its members.

“Faculty are intruding in administrative areas that they are not hired or elected to do,” said Flores, according to Board minutes. “And, Register reporter that she does not question the association’s ability to poll its members.

“Faculty are intruding in administrative areas that they are not hired or elected to do,” said Flores, according to Board minutes. “And, just as faculty do not tolerate intrusion into …
academic freedom, why are they intruding into administrative and Board territory?”

The strength of Flores’ statements surprised Shirley Thompson, president of North Lake College Faculty Association (NLCFA). The NLCFA is one of the district’s seven local faculty associations, which together form the DCCFA.

Thompson said the survey was in its draft form when obtained by Flores. The final version has been distributed to faculty. No significant changes were made, said Thompson, but the title now clarifies that the organization survey was originated by the association.

If a problem existed with the document at that stage, she said, it did not need to be “checked out in a public forum.”

“We really try to look for methods of solution that work for all and leave everybody intact,” Thompson said about the faculty association.

Thompson, a North Lake professor since 1978, teaches math. She said North Lake’s faculty association meets once a month with the President’s Team. “There are good faith efforts on the administration’s side to include us,” she said.

NLCFA reports 91 percent participation by full-time faculty on the North Lake campus. The association does not directly influence hiring practices, but makes the members’ wishes known to the administration.

They meet with the president, said NLC Human Resources Director Ella Barber, adding that applicable issues regarding faculty would filter down to her department through the President’s Team.

Fred Newbury, DCCFA president, told District trustees that his group based its survey on materials from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). Ninety-five percent of all two-year colleges belong to the AACC.

“The bottom line always has to be student success,” said Margot Perez-Greene, Director of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD), on the use of a faculty survey to evaluate leadership.

Surveys are not useful, said Perez-Greene, “if you’re uncovering or seeking to uncover incompetence. The framework has to be there so that it’s a plan that everyone agrees on …just out of mutual respect.”

NISOD supports faculty, staff and administrators from 700 community colleges worldwide, including DCCCD.

According to Thompson, the DCCFA survey asked its members to rate their satisfaction with the leadership teams at local and District levels, including the District’s chancellor, vice-chancellor, and the president at their campus.

In a Jan. 30 letter from the DCCFA to the District’s Board of Trustees, obtained by the News-Register, the association expressed its displeasure with “charges of racism” made at the Jan. 10 trustees meeting.

“The integrity of our faculty and the Association leadership was impugned. Our organization supports, in principle and practice, the many benefits that diversity brings to an organization and to our students,” DCCFA officers said in the letter. “We are deeply saddened by these events and the impact that words like these have on an organization.”

Attorney Frank Hill, counsel for the DCCFA, addressed the Board of Trustees at a subsequent meeting held
on Feb. 1. The association’s officers were pleased with Hill’s presentation.

Hill conveyed the legal rights of the faculty association and asserted its right to free speech and to assemble. Hill also outlined the historical context of the association’s relationship with DCCCD.

Flores suggested that a forthcoming job satisfaction survey to be conducted by the chancellor’s office would be a broader method of measurement, but recognizes the association is a separate entity. The chancellor’s team will launch the DCCCD’s district-wide job satisfaction survey in October 2006.

All citizens, including North Lake College students, are welcome at the monthly Board meetings. The DCCCD Board of Trustees will hold its next meeting on March 7 at 4 p.m., at the District Office, 701 Elm Street, in downtown Dallas. Board meeting agendas are posted at www.dcccd.edu.

The Board’s meeting minutes are not available to students or the public without first submitting a Freedom of Information Act request. Employees of the District can access the meeting minutes through their Intranet.