Disdain transparent

Staff and administrators received a 2 percent salary increase this fall, while faculty members received an increase of an average of 6 percent.

The actual individual faculty increases ranged from 1.65 percent to 14.55 percent, or very little to the longest-serving and best educated and much larger increases to the newest and least educated.

At a Sept. 5 Faculty Senate meeting, radio-television-film Professor John Onderdonk called the 2 percent salary increase “insulting.”

At a March 9 town hall meeting at this college, Leslie likened department chairs to being “four-legged,” saying, “We try to split you between keeping one foot in the classroom and then putting your other three feet in the administrative role. I think on one level, we need to acknowledge that these are administrative roles.”

Acknowledgement for management roles by other employers usually comes in the form of increased wages.

In March, the board approved a salary plan for full-time faculty that increased full-time faculty workdays from 164 to 166 without increased compensation.

Yet, Chancellor Bruce Leslie received a 7 percent salary increase bringing his base compensation to $343,475 this fall: the 2 percent administrator increase, or $6,399, and an additional $17,139 to put his compensation on par with his peers at other two-year institutions in the state.

But wait … there’s more. He also will receive car allowance, cell phone allowance, life insurance and retention bonus.

His estimated FY 2013 compensation is budgeted at $373,000.

In FY 2012, he collected $349,462.

While Leslie enjoys his windfall, students across the district have to cough up more tuition for fewer services, such as shorter lab hours, fewer librarians, counselors and tutors, and virtually no printing of class handouts.

And faculty are expected to absorb more assignments, such as counseling students and being available 24/7 to answer student email while petty tug of wars over office hours reflect ignorance and disregard for expanded responsibilities.

Instead of retention bonuses like the chancellor’s, the faithful faculty are invited to retire early because they are too expensive.

A strong faculty is one of many factors a student takes into consideration when choosing an institution of higher education.

A college does not exist without faculty; a college is its faculty.

A college does not become a life-long mentor; a faculty member does.

The vast majority of full-time faculty members devote time beyond the classroom and office hours attending to student needs (and former students’ needs) as well as in endless meetings for committees and initiatives, all in the best interests of students.

Real leaders often make sacrifices and are usually the first to volunteer; they know, in the long run, it’s for the greater good.

Instead, this district’s top administrator couldn’t even be bothered to sit through this college’s May commencement. By the L’s, he was making his exit.