John A Logan Board forum

That was entertaining.  The seven candidates for the JALC Board of Trustees participated in a forum sponsored by the JALC Political Science club (kudos to Dr. Jane Bryant and the club!).  The format had the club moderators reading student prepared questions and a few from the audience.  Each candidate answered the same question, addressing the audience, not each other. 

All but Graff and Snider muffed the first question, regarding performance based funding.  The rest had no idea what the term means but used up their time making sentences with the word "performance" in them.

Early on, Vanhorn came out swinging.  He was upfront that his entire campaign is based on his opposition to the perceived nepotism and cronyism allegedly practiced by the Board.  He named names.  O'Keefe's son has a job.  Don Brewer's son Clay is the director of personnel and received hefty raises.  Bill Killquist was on the Board previously, sat in the executive session while his own hiring as director of security was discussed.  Why was he in the room, even if he didn't vote?  Vanhorn wanted to know. 

All the candidates seemed to be at pains to say the Board should take a less active role in the day to day running of the college, except Kilquist.  When they were asked, point blank, if they would renew the contract of new President Michael Drieth, all but two were effusive in their praise and adamant they would keep him.  Hamilton and Kilquist ran out the clock with their answer and avoided saying they would.  Hamilton actually ended fairly upfront that he thought the jury is still out. 

When asked what recent act of the Board they had the strongest reaction to, Vanhorn took Kilquist out for a spin regarding his hiring.  Kilquist objected to tuition increases.  Snider was proud and fairly eloquent regarding the purchase of a new computer system, the fact that they consciously voted the tuition increase to pay for it and eliminated some fees to balance out the tuition increase.  Williams cluelessly chimed in about how he thought that the new Desire to Learn software was great.  Problem was that Snider was talking about the new student information system.  Nobody called Williams out on it though. 

When the candidates were asked what to cut, it brought the strongest (and most diametrically opposed) answers from Vanhorn and Kilquist.  Kilquist wanted to cut athletics, specifially scholarships to out of district students.  Vanhorn expressed his undying love for Logan athletics proclaiming that Logan's feats, reported on the sports page of the local paper, were the best publicity for the school.  "It's not like you're going to see anything about the English department!"  Laughter from the crowd. 

As the night wore on, Kilquist went on a long rambling rant about unprepared young people applying for jobs he held in his hand in his various incarnations.  This was apparently a riff on another candidate's comment that the community college helps people prepare for career searches as well as teaching subject matter.  Hamilton managed to treat the audience like chumps when, attempting to defend the Board members with children employed by Logan, he said he knew Kilquist's son, who was a hard working bright young man.  The problem became evident later when O'Keefe, trying to defend himself and his actual son, had to point out that Hamilton must have confused his son for someone Hamilton thought was Kilquist's.  Apparently Hamilton didn't know him so well after all. 

In a rather jaw dropping admission, Vanhorn said he had applied for a coaching job, in the early '00s and, through political shenanigans, didn't get it.  He said he had forgiven but not forgotten.  Clearly not the latter.

So, reactions after two hours and no supper? 

Hamilton:  Started out reasonable but, rather than growing on one as the night went on, had the opposite effect. 

O'Keefe:   A non-factor all night.  Very quiet and kept his head down except to defend against helping his son once he was hired.  He didn't speak to how the son got hired.

Vanhorn:  Kind of the crazy uncle.  A loose cannon but hit his target each time.  He was on a mission and succeeded in introducing specific, as well as general, charges of nepotism.

Graff:  Came off as reasonable and informed. 

Snider:  Also came off as reasonable and informed.

Williams:  Pleasant, reasonable and uninformed.  Clearly winging it a couple times.

Kilquist:  Came off as a curmudgeon.  For all his talk of wanting to protect students from tuition hikes, he didn't seem to like young people much.  He repeatedly returned to his theme of job losses in southern Illinois, enumerating closings that weren't even in the John A Logan community college district.