Monday, February 29, 2016

Leap Day may be remembered as Black Monday

The mismanagement of local and state politicians has hit the area hard today.  There are rumors that Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Southern Illinois is closing.  If true, this is a tragedy that impacts young lives, when they are most vulnerable.
 
Bad news at John A. Logan College is not a rumor.  Notice of Recommendation of Reduction in Force letters went out to dozens of employees.  Two special meetings of the Board of Trustees will be held Wednesday, March 2.  The first will be at 5:30, from which the Board will go into executive session.  The second is at 7pm.  The agenda for each meeting provides for public comment.  To be considered are the elimination of 15 non-teaching professional staff, 35 full time faculty and 5 Teamsters.  That's 20 people who support students or teaching and eight non-tenured, and 27 tenured, faculty. 

As a union spokesman told the BOT, at their last meeting, this is not all the fault of the state (though, surely, most of it is).  Some of Logan's financial problems are of the Board's own making.
Regardless of who is to blame, it is cruel and unnecessary to put the entire college through the trauma it is now experiencing.  The part time temporary president and a part time temporary vice president are making decisions that will have far reaching consequences that will outlast their theoretically short tenures.  All employees are operating under a cloud and, while one assumes that only a fraction of those who received letters will be eliminated, everyone holding a letter tonight has to assume the worst.  The unions, the public, alumni and local legislators should hold the administration and the Board's feet to the fire.  There needs to be a rationale, publicly given, for each position eliminated and for why each individual has been singled out.

Right now, everyone has to assume the worst:  that some will be lost regardless of length of service, quality of service or prestige brought to the College.  Some may be lost as old scores are
settled.  In all cases, careers will be disrupted, families uprooted and institutional memory lost.  ...All this because a college got cute with credit hours, and finances, and two generations of
legislators neglected their jobs.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Logan BOT ducks responsibilty

With 40 to 60 layoff notices on the way and students waking up to the reality of a potentially decimated college, the John A. Logan College Board of Trustees looked everywhere but in the mirror for a culpret on which to afix blame.  According to Channel 3, last night's board meeting brought out a newly assertive faculty union and tearful and frustrated students.  It did not bring out anymore self awareness on the part of the Board, as they blamed every other politician, past and present, from local reps to the governor, for the financial pickle they're in.