Platform
Make the college more student-centered
Students need greater access to services such as tutoring, testing, developmental education, and counseling. The college should be properly staffed to maintain these services. The Board needs to respond to the district's changing demographics, enrollment trends, and student needs. The Board should work towards better affordability and access.
Heal wounds left after recent resignations
COD needs consistent and sensitive leadership that will allow the administration to regain its footing after these significant changes to the college.
- two Trustees resigned
- Director of the Facilities Planning and Construction resigned
- President of the College reassigned
- Vice President of Academic Affairs reassigned to faculty
- two Associate Deans reassigned to faculty
Support academic quality
Proposed Board policy changes would give curricular control to the Board and impinge on Academic Freedom. COD already has a rigorous curriculum process for new courses and programs. Each of these programs is complex and deserves knowledgeable and experienced faculty leadership.
Improve financial oversight
The Board should ensure that the college adheres to best practices of budgeting, bidding out contracts, and change orders. The college can ill afford to pay three presidential salaries at the same time. Current budgeting practices of under-estimating revenue and keeping disproportionate fund balances should be discontinued.
Increase state funding
The state has decreased funding for higher education. Currently, the college receives just over 10 percent of its revenue from the state, the rest coming from the district property tax levee and tuition. The college should work with the state to return its funding to an acceptable level.
Make decisions more open and collaborative
The current Board has increased closed sessions and one-on-one conversations with each other to discuss public business. As a result, little real dialogue, deliberation, or debate takes place in the open. Constituents and stakeholders are polled less and less about their views prior to the Board making its decisions. The Board should ensure that all stakeholders have a seat at the table.
Improve shared governance and communication
The Board micromanages and repeatedly disregards the voices of students, teachers, and administrators. It should let the administration and faculty do their job and trust their recommendations. Only if there is clear evidence that a recommendation is deeply flawed should the Board delve into the details.
Refocus the Board on COD's mission and vision
One of the most clearly defined roles of a Board is to set the mission and vision of a college with its constituent college groups. Our current Board has put an already long overdue review of the mission and vision on hold. The Board should ensure that all stakeholders have an opportunity to give input into the revision of the mission and vision.
Strengthen the Board's ethics
The Board should ensure that its members' ethics are beyond reproach and that COD is a safe and equitable environment for all students, staff, faculty, and officials. The Board should adopt the ICCTA's ethical principles as its own.