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THE END OF A ERA, AND BEGINNING OF A BETTER ONE….

by on Mar. 16, 2013, under Education

As the saying goes, it all began….when I felt as though I had been raped again.

I had gone to a Pima College board meeting about a year ago when the turmoil over Flores inappropriate behavior with employees surfaced, a story long told by hundreds of Pima employees to me over his many years, one that I intimately shared with them because I, like them, had been subjected to it.

But it was while I sat there listening at that meeting that I felt as if I was being raped again as I listened to Scott Stewart on the board dismiss and denigrate in a seemingly ridiculing fashion the serious complaints and pain of good employees, many who had left and few who had remained.

But now a real document exists and real action has been proposed that testifies to the pain, and as HLC described it, scarring (a term I wholeheartedly concur with) that many good, dedicated employees have suffered for these many years aggravated by their undying hope that they could overcome what was wrong with the system and persist in making the lives of their students better.

HLC letter

findings

Regardless of this outcome, I remain grievously sorry because I know too well the many great employees, but also students, who have suffered from what transpired over the years at the college, and the many great friends and coworkers I miss when they left because of it all.  But this is the legacy Flores and the board now must wrestle with, and most hopefully will see the sense in passing it on now to those who will show their responsible actions that they care about their community, their employees, and their students.

Dr. Lyn Olsen has been an employee of Pima College for more than 15 years teaching and managing a wide variety of programs. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education, her Masters in Public Administration, her bachelors in psychology, her associates in health administration and has earned five national certifications in healthcare administration. She is the author of several textbooks in addition to hundreds of presentations and articles. She recently was presented the highly prestigious Regional Toastmaster's Communication and Leadership Award. She also won the Unsung Hero Award from the National Association of Women Business Owners for her development of the Women Empowering Employment Workshop which has helped serve many disadvantaged people in the community. She also won Instructor of the Year from Pima College and the Metropolitan Education Commission's Crystal Apple Award for her community service projects with local businesses and social service agencies. She has a long history of working closely with hundreds of local businesses and social service agencies including the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Tucson Urban League, Job Path, and Fred Acosta Job Corp.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 16th, 2013 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/bret.linden FoMo Bret Linden

    I didn’t make the meeting (didn’t know about it until the news broke online today after it happened, would have loved to been there), but I read the documents and am encouraged and disappointed at the same time.

    I had contacted the HLC, requesting to be heard. First, they asked me to type up everything I had been through and provide supporting documentation of same. At first, I agreed, but as I got a few days into that task I discovered a couple of things. First, that I underestimated the enormity of the task and that it would take a time investment on my part that didn’t seem worth it when weighed against the odds of something actually coming from it. Second, I was going into a very emotionally dark place that I had mostly put behind me. My research had dug up incidents I had forgotten about (I guess when there’s many incidents, there’s only room for so many at the front of the brain) and made me angry about them all over again. I was reliving pain now that I had been through during my PCC employment. I thought it through and decided that this sacrifice wasn’t going to be worth it because I doubted the HLC would act on any of it.

    So, I requested some time to speak with someone in person. My request was granted, but when I got there I was told I only had 20 minutes to talk about it. How in the world can I go over four years of mistreatment, abuse, and first-hand victimization of corruption in 20 minutes??? I hit as many high points as I could, and I named some names and gave them a direction to head in if they were granted access to files to drill through. But, I left there thinking that I had wasted my time and nothing would happen. I will give them this: when I mentioned that many “competitive hiring processes” were just for show, and that the “successful candidate” had been selected before the position was ever posted…the interviewer reacted as if she had heard that many times before she had spoken to me.

    After reading the attached documents, I don’t know if I was right or not about the HLC’s sincerity. Of everything I experienced first-hand, only the hiring practices seemed to be acknowledged by the HLC in these attached documents. Everything else seemed focused on top-level administrators. I guess that’s better than nothing, but I’d like to see some middle-managers held accountable for their actions, too. A hostile work environment is a hostile work environment. Most of us who worked there had to deal with it at one time or another, even those of us at the bottom.

    Even though their accreditation hangs in the balance, I doubt very seriously that PCC is going to make the necessary changes to stay in the HLC’s good graces. Oh, I’m sure they’ll say they will. I’m sure that they’ll still be “looking” for another Chancellor while Miles stays at the helm in two years. I’m sure she’ll talk about how great PCC is and how they’re above board and how everyone follows the rules…just like she did when the HLC started their initial digging a few months ago. I’ll take a look in two years. If they haven’t brought back a full meet-and-confer, and if Char Fugett, Daniel Soza, George Ahlers, Michael Goodspeed, Cindy Dooling, Brenda Keane, Jeff White, and some select others are still employed there, then I’ll know for a fact that PCC isn’t serious about cleaning up their culture of corruption. If you want to clean up any environment, you start by taking out the trash. Those I mention are among the trash at PCC. Yeah, I got no problem naming names. All of these people I mention either were breaking the rules, or covering for those who did, or in some cases both. In other words: a big part of the problem. I can prove it, and I’ll stand behind it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/bret.linden FoMo Bret Linden

      When I call out names of people to be fired/trash to be taken out, I can’t believe I failed to mention one of the biggest problems of all…Doreen Armstrong. Seemingly her entire job is to sweep things under the rug and convince everyone that they really weren’t experiencing what was happening to them. I took two or three legitimate complaints to Doreen during my time there, spoonfeeding her the sections of policy that were being broken with each complaint. None of my complaints were acted on with any action that stood any realistic chance of success.

      If I had a magic wand to fire anyone at PCC to make things better, but I could only choose one, it would be Armstrong. Getting her out and replacing her with someone who actually did the job she was tasked with would go A LONG way toward healing the wounds of PCC.

  • Fraser007

    This all happens whenyou hire clowns like the past “president”. Seems to be in the water in this valley. No wonder nobody wants to invest here.

  • Sad Employee

    This seriously makes me sad. The hardest thing about all this is that we were able to feel happy that someone FINALLY acknowledged the hurt we have been feeling, and here comes PCC defending themselves AGAIN by saying that many of the comments made in the report are not based on facts or evidence. Seriously…just stop, PCC. Just finally own up to your mess-ups so we can heal. I really am waiting for the entire board and senior admins to resign, but that is so doubtful…they make SUCH good money that why would they ever want to leave that? We can only hope that the county will take action and get rid of them all. Yeah, this started under Flores, but the board and senior admins COULD HAVE PUT AN END TO IT! They could have stopped. But they chose not to. Instead, they went along with it. Miles could have stopped the tyranny but didn’t. I find it hilarious that she steps down as interim chancellor but not as campus president. She doesn’t want to take the heat any longer but she wants to make that good money still. All the presidents, executive vice chancellors, vice chancellors all need to go. We need a fresh start and as long as these people are still “leading” our college we will not be able to heal. It’s painful and sad to see such a good place go down so badly due to people who say they care about the college but would rather collect a nice paycheck and throw out their morals and all human decency out the window.

    • http://www.facebook.com/bret.linden FoMo Bret Linden

      You’re absolutely correct.

      But, no one will resign…it’s all about a power trip, always has been. These types with the power won’t give it up. They need to have it taken from them. The only ones who can make that happen is the BOG, who has always been on a power trip of their own. But, no one will stop them, either. The voters of this town are out of touch and ill-informed anyway about the major races, what are they going care about a Community College Board of Governors election? They’re just going to vote the “D” as they always do and move on.

      As sad and as unfortunate as it is, PCC is going down. They’re going to end up losing their accreditation and thereby go out of business. It is too bad, too. My first year I actually enjoyed working there. My second and third year, if you took away my corrupt supervisor I still would have enjoyed working there.

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