El Vaquero Glendale College
www.elvaq.com
In This Issue Photo by Jason Castro
By Alison Geller
Photo by Jane Pojawa
Speech Team Forensic’s, a Winner at Board of Trustees Meeting. Pages 2 and 5 STAFF PAGES Photos of Faculty and Adminstrators. Pages 7 - 14
Volume 89 Number 2
FRIDAY MARCH 24, 2006
EL VAQUERO FEATURES EDITOR
T
he search is on for a new superintendent/president for the college. Starting July 3 Dr. John A. Davitt, who has led GCC for the past 21 years, will no longer be in charge. It will be the beginning of Davitt’s retirement and time for the new president, who is to be chosen in May, to begin his or her time in office as chief executive officer at GCC. A hiring/search committee has been made up of 21 people, with Dr. Vicki Nicholson, the
Search Is on for a New President
Director of Human Resources at GCC as chair, to find Davitt’s successor. The committee is composed of trustees, faculty, staff, administrators, students and community leaders. The minimum requirements for this position include a master’s degree, five years of managerial experience of a large, complex organization, and a great deal of experience as a professor of higher education. One of the first steps the committee took was to hire search consultants to help with the hiring process. The school chose to hire
Community College Search Services, which is a small company made up of five retired community college presidents/ chancellors. They have assisted in over 50 searches for community college presidents. Dr. Jim Walker and Dr. Leslie Purdy are the two consultants who will be helping the committee with their search. The consultants assist in preparing the interview questions, reference checks, recruiting, and developing the procedure and processes used in the search. According to Walker, there are three reasons colleges hire
outside consultants. The first is that being a superintendent/ president is a very difficult job. Secondly, the applicants and selection methods need to be kept confidential, and lastly because the process needs to be kept clean; they need to comply with the law and proper procedures. But that is all they are there for; they do not vote. “Our job is not to recommend the advance of finalists or who to hire,” said Walker. Walker, who was president of Moorpark College for 10 years, and has been retired for
[See President, page 4]
Vandalism Adds to Financial Woes By Olga Ramaz
EL VAQUERO ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
“Y MOVIE REVIEWS “V For Vendetta” and “She’s the Man.” Page 16 SPORTS Track and Field and the Cheer and Dance Team. Page 17
NEWS................... 1-4 FEATURE.............. 5-6 SPORTS.................. 17 ENTERTAINMENT ....16 CALENDAR . .......... 19
ou are raised to respect other people and property and you wouldn’t do this destruction if you really thought of it as your property,” said Lawrence Serot, executive vice president of Administrative Services, referring to the prevalent issue of graffiti and the damage to various blinds and blackout curtains on campus. Serot addressed the current wave of such acts in a campuswide e-mail sent out on March 14 to GCC faculty and staff. According to Serot, graffiti on the college campus has worsened this past semester and the damage to curtains in both the Camino Real and Administration buildings is not only new, but disturbing. “We never had problems, but all of a sudden people are just yanking them [curtains] off,” he said. “It doesn’t destroy the curtains but it does damage the rod, which then needs to be replaced.” In the past six months there have been several complaints about noticeable damage to the curtains in the form of cutting and pulling. According to Lew Lewis, Director of Facilities, the cost to replace and/or repair damaged curtains averages from $400 to $600. Cleaning up graffiti is not inexpensive
Photo by Jane Pojawa
Britta Amunsen, an art student, on her way to a class in the heavily graffitied Aviation/Art building.
either. Lewis said that the product used to remove the tagging costs $10 per can, and although the product does in fact remove some of the markings, the smudges produced during clean-
up call for other types of restoration, like painting. Hiring an outside painter costs the school too much money, money which the campus cannot afford to spend. [See Vandalism, page 2]