Students protested a press conference announcing the selection of the City College of San Francisco’s new special trustee with extraordinary powers, Dr. Guy Lease, this week. CCSF students and faculty have been vocal in their opposition to the state-mandated oversight of a single special trustee.
A meeting on Monday, which was initially closed to the general public, was opened up to the protesters at the behest of faculty union leader Tim Kellikelly.
During the conference Dr. Brice W. Harris, California Community Colleges Chancellor, announced that the elected trustee board would be reinstated on or around July 1 of this year, provided that its members complete professional training. “Based on the progress that the college has already made in the past couple years, its successful entry into restoration status, and on the commitment demonstrated by the locally elected trustees, we really envision that this board could assume full responsibility about four months from now,” Harris said.
Harris replaced the elected board with a special trustee in 2013, in the turmoil following the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges’ (ACCJC) attempt to remove the CCSF’s accreditation. Since then, the college has been locked in a battle with the ACCJC. Faculty and students see it as a fight for survival—if the college loses accreditation, it will lose state funding and access to federal Pell grants, effectively forcing it to close.
CCSF faculty said they were surprised to learn the board might be restored in four months, since previous communications from the chancellor’s office said it would not be restored until July 2016. Even so, they will still fight for the board’s restoration.
“Even if you think that’s good, it’s like when you’re negotiating a contract, you continue to push,” said Dr. Tarik Farrar, chair of CCSF’s African American studies department, who witnessed the protest.
Protesters on Monday demanded that the special trustee be removed immediately, calling his leadership a “dictatorship.” CCSF trustee Rafael Mandelman nevertheless thanked outgoing special trustee Dr. Robert Agrella for his several years of service, eliciting heckling and boos from protesters.
