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By Staff Editorial
By Staff Editorial
If you want a new chancellor, you’re going to have to wait.
We’re down to three candidates, but with no clear front runner. At least the fact that it is taking longer than expected indicates that the Board of Trustees is concerned with who ends up running our college.
Piles of paperwork, complaints and opinions surround this decision. Sorting through all of it has the Board tied up. While it’s great that the Board wants to give us a chancellor we deserve, they really need to pick up the pace.
Still, we can’t blame it all on the Board of Trustees. It’s a big decision and everyone has an opinion.
Several faculty members have expressed discontent with the race for chancellor. Not only are they unhappy with the three finalists, they disapprove of the entire process.
Their argument: The faculty doesn’t have a say in who makes it to the vote.
Sure, now that we have finalists, the faculty can express who they think is best for the job. But, faculty had no hand in choosing those candidates.
This lack of hands on participation has many faculty members lending only marginal support to any candidate.
Faculty members aren’t the only people who feel their opinions are being overlooked.
“We’re pissed,” Michael Gonzales, student body president of Riverside City College said when asked about student’s level of participation-or lack there of.
Sure, we’d all like to have an active voice in deciding who our chancellor will be. However, opening up the entire process to all faculty members and students will only increase delays and create more conflicts.
We need to have some level of trust in the Board’s decisions. The Board isn’t going to select candidates who are incompetent… hopefully.
Students and faculty already have a voice. The fact that instructors and students get a vote proves that we do matter. Besides, if students and faculty really had a problem with the Board’s decisions, they would have to show support for someone, not just let the Board have the only voice.
Now that there are only three candidates, they need to support whoever is chosen as chancellor. You can’t please the entire population, but you can at least show that you’re behind someone.
We can’t just disregard every candidate, due to the fact that we feel left out. It isn’t fair to overlook the candidates because we didn’t pick the final three.
The fact that everyone feels left out should not influence our decision for chancellor. If we really want a voice, we should lend our support the best candidate.