From the North County Times
February 12, 2008
We are being poorly served
By: LEON P. BARADAT - Commentary:
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges has just issued a warning to MiraCosta, long lauded nationally as a model community college, for breaches of leadership and governance. Unless remedied, these infractions can cost the college its accreditation. Without accreditation, students cannot transfer their credits to universities and are denied government loans or scholarships.
Not many years ago, John Petersen, then Accrediting Commission executive director, volunteered that he saw MiraCosta College as among the very best in the state. He also asserted a good college can be improved only marginally by an excellent president, but a bad president could quickly ruin a good one. How, then, did MiraCosta fall from such a lofty station to seeing its accreditation jeopardized?
MiraCosta's precipitous descent is attributable mainly to two entities: the Board of Trustees and the local editorial pages.
The four members of the MiraCosta board's perpetual majority (Carolyn Batiste, Charles Adams, Rudy Fernandez, and Greg Post) deny responsibility for current problems, foisting blame on the board minority (Gloria Carranza, Jacqueline Simon and Judy Strattan). While both factions have made mistakes, to be sure, the majority's actions have clearly ruined MiraCosta's reputation and status. After all, they are the majority; it's their policies that have been implemented.
From refusing to tell the public truthfully about their shabby treatment of loyal, dedicated employees, to arrogantly refusing to admit when they were wrong, to abandoning the long-established culture of consultation with faculty and staff ---- these trustees have violated MiraCosta's once vaunted culture of collegiality and the public's expectation of good government.
The North County Times also has some responsibility for this sad affair. Although reporters Philip Ireland and David Garrick were quick to assess the situation at MiraCosta, the NCT editorial board apparently has not digested their articles. The editors seem stuck in a 1950s time warp, refusing to seek the truth.
With scant contradiction, the NCT has repeatedly given voice to its own uninformed editorial writers and to irresponsible community gas bags, each of whom has badly distorted the truth. Indeed, during the past two-and-a-half years of controversy, which has seen numerous innocent MiraCostans sacrificed, I have read only a tiny number of commentators in the NCT who appeared knowledgeable about the unfolding crisis.
The MiraCosta board majority and the North County Times have served the people badly in this tragedy and owe each of us an apology and an immediate change of course.
-- Leon P. Baradat was a professor of political science at MiraCosta College between 1970 and 2003 and a member of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges between 1992-2000. He lives in Oceanside.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/02/13/opinion/commentary/19_04_232_12_08.txt
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