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The Academic Senate sent out a survey to full-time faculty members on Monday to evaluate Superintendent Mark Rocha in an attempt to assess the performance of Rocha after senate members complained that the Board of Trustees left them out of the formal evaluation process.

“Shared governance committees have spent numerous hours on numerous issues collecting data and coming up with recommendations,” senate president Eduardo Cairo said. “The president opts to go a different route.”

Cairo said that he hoped that the faculty was open-minded and that they will provide positive and negative feedback so that the survey would be fair and honest..

The Academic Senate created an Ad Hoc committee during its Nov. 18 meeting to determine whether the faculty had the power to evaluate the president and, if so, what model would be used for the evaluation.

“The faculty will have 32 bubble-in questions to answer,” Cairo said. “They will also get three questions that they can answer by writing in an answer.”

General Counsel Gail Cooper said that only the Board of Trustees has the authority to evaluate the president.

“This is clearly set forth in Board Bylaw 1680,” Cooper said. “Should the Academic Senate attempt to proceed with an evaluation of the Superintendent/President, it would be an unauthorized infringement on the exclusive province of the Board and therefore be ineffectual.”

In her Oct. 23 letter to Cairo, Cooper stated that if the senate attempted to conduct a public evaluation of Rocha it would be a violation of his right to privacy and he would have the right to seek redress in a court of law against any individuals who participated in the defamatory statement.

Cairo said that was not true, and that the faculty association’s lawyer had told Cooper as much in an Oct. 29 letter.

“Obviously, it is the Board of Trustees that hires and fires the college president as well as conducting formal evaluations of his work,” faculty association lawyer Lawrence Rosenzweig said. “But you cannot seriously contend that other members of the campus community and the community at large cannot express opinions about the president’s performance. No confidential information will be necessary to accomplish that and there will be no invasion of the president’s privacy.”

Rosenzweig went on to say that the Academic Senate was providing a “vehicle” for faculty to express their opinions about very public conduct by the president.

“Why can [the district] not assume that the faculty will find something good?” asked Cairo. “It will shed light on areas to be fixed.”

Cairo said that the faculty had been instructed to mail back the surveys by Feb. 18.

Philip McCormick
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8 Replies to “Full-time faculty to evaluate President Rocha”

    1. I agree, but fear that our BOT will just ignore this, too. If three votes of no confidence didn’t faze ’em, I don’t see how an evaluation from what they perceive to be a bunch of lazy, greedy faculty will make an impression.

      1. I’m ready to see the numbers. If, (as managers and their peanut gallery claim,) the college is doing great, I’ll be ready to cheer the President’s high ratings.
        These are exactly the same questions that every presidential evaluation uses at PCC. How will the numbers fall? The suspense is wonderful.

  1. I’ve taught here for 17 years, seen presidents come, and seen them go.
    It was a telling moment when last year the Board decided to eval. this present leadership in secret. Seriously?

    The Academic Senate is to be commended for what (so far) seems to be a balanced, honest application of PCC’s honored practice of evaluating its leadership with the contribution of Faculty input.

    We wish Mark R. well in his future endeavors, whatever they may be.

    1. good question… ! she must not like Rocha either.

      her scare tactic isn’t working because all the faculty i’ve spoken to have turned in their evaluations. plus, the faculty lawyer wrote point blank there is no legal recourse. Cooper is assuming IF someone writes something libelous (not true about his character), and IF the Senate committee makes that public, and IF there were a way to track the faculty evaluators –which there isn’t because they are ANONYMOUS –then maybe…

      the evals are to be placed in a blank envelope and then that envelope mailed in another envelope to a PO box off campus. the evaluation envelope gets immediately separated from the outside envelope and goes into one big anonymous pile.

  2. Ha! Nowhere in Board Bylaw 1680 does it state that “only” the Board has the right to evaluate the president: https://pasadena.edu/IPRO/Policies/documents/PCC_1680bt.pdf
    I really wish the Courier reporters will do their homework.

    In fact, the evaluation mechanism that the faculty are using is the same exact one (same questions) that the Board uses on its evaluation.

    I’m continually amazed how Ms. Cooper continues to fabricate the truth. Like Rocha, like Cooper.

    1. I really wish readers like you would actually pay attention to what has been written.

      “‘This is clearly set forth in Board Bylaw 1680,’ Cooper said.”

      Nowhere does the Courier say that this is true. They attribute the information to Ms. Cooper.

      In fact, they even follow up with: “Cairo said that was not true, and that the faculty association’s lawyer had told Cooper as much in an Oct. 29 letter.”

      If the readers want to know what the actual Bylaw says, the are at perfect liberty to look it up themselves. The whole point of a news article is to present information fairly and let the readers decide for themselves.

      Just to be clear: I completely agree with and support what the Senate is doing. I just don’t think it’s fair to blame the Courier for reporting the (possibly false) information they were given.

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