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Source: Albuquerque Journal, N.mini storageM.Aug. 18--As she heads toward an evaluation by the Santa Fe Community College board on Monday, SFCC President Ana "Cha" Guzman says she's "been caught between and betwixt" as she tries to take the school to another level.Guzman has been under fire from some associated with the school, to the point that the governing board approved hiring a private investigator to check out some of the complaints.In an interview Friday, Guzman, a native of Cuba who came to Santa Fe in 2012 after 11 years at the helm of Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas, noted that her two predecessors at SFCC were promoted from within the SFCC ranks."When you've worked together for a long, long time, you really become a family," she said. "I had entered a new family. I had to make sure people understand that I valued everybody in the family, but that changes had to be made if we want to go to the next step."She also said: "I think that everyone understands that when a new leader comes onto the scene, people who have been at the institution a long time don't want to see change. But the board entrusted me in taking the college to the next step."She said she's cut administrative costs and positions to free up $600,000 for eight additional faculty and technician spots. She said only 37 percent of classes had been taught by full-time faculty.Guzman also said her reorganization was not intended to suggest anyone was incompetent. "The changes were made because we need to free up some money" and because administrative costs were too high, Guzman said."I understand how hard it was for them," she added.List of concernsLast spring, the school's faculty senate presented a letter to the board that said there was a "high level of dissatisfaction" among staff members.The letter outlined a list of concerns, including that there was a lack of input from key stakeholders, a sense among staff of being undervalued, confusing processes for hiring deans and department chairs, a lack of a formal review process available to offer feedback to administrators, and a belief that the implementation of a strategic plan and academic reorganization was happening too fast.In response, Guzman announced the formation of an Academic Quality Improvement Council to address those concerns. But because it was near the end of the school year, Guzman said the council wouldn't be formed until school resumed in the fall.In a letter dated July 31, the staff senate sent a letter to Guzman expressing many of the same concerns.The letter states that it intended to facilitate discussions about some of the concerns employees have."This discussion is not about being for or against the president or any other individual," the letter read. "The focus here is on issues and actions."The letter praised Guzman for putting student success and completion at the forefront of the college's agenda, her initiating the Center of Academic Traditions -- a one-credit first-year student success course -- and her efforts to address challenging budget issues. It then goes on to outline a number of concerns staff has pertaining to quality process and conditions of employment.The letter states that the staff has several concerns over employment security, valuing all employees, and incentives and benefits.The letter notes that staffing assignments are at the discretion of the college, but says that "Nonetheless, the reassignment of the deans to faculty status with a commensurate reduction in pay without any form of due process, while technically in compliance with policy, was unprecedented. Staff members are concerned that this suggests that any employee could, without warning or voice, be reassigned to a lower position and subject to a significant decrease in salary in the course of reorganization."The staff senatself storage letter also says an attempt to move approximately 30 employees from regular employment status to at-will status, meaning they would serve at the pleasure of the president, was unprecedented.Though the governing board tabled the issue, the letter states that staff members are still concerned that something similar could happen at any time and that the rationale for making changes wouldn't be fully communicated.The senate letter also raised concerns over statements made by Guzman that staff was less important than faculty for student success."Although the statements may not have been intended to be derogatory, they have been interpreted by many members of the staff as such and have had a negative impact on morale," states the letter.Clearing her nameIn an effort to reduce administrative costs, Guzman created a retirement incentive program under which 47 employees have left, a figure that has provoked some concern among the SFCC community about turnover.Guzman says it's not an early retirement program -- those already eligible for retirement can receive a buyout of $2,000 per year of service, up to a maximum of $20,000.Documents obtained by the Journal show the incentive payments have totalled $892,000 so far. But Guzman said longer-term salary savings from the program are being used for a veterans resource center, a center for academic transitions (aimed at helping students graduate, transfer to four-year colleges or find jobs) and other "direct services to students."In explaining the retirement incentives, Guzman initially said that, in general, community colleges "retain employees for way too long" and that SFCC had a lot of staffers who'd been eligible to retire for years but had not done so. Asked to elaborate, she said it wasn't that employees stayed too long, but that community colleges provided great teaching jobs without some of the requirements imposed on four-year college professors and "in general people stay and stay until there are incentives to retire."Guzman maintained that it was her idea for a private investigator to be hired, after board member Linda Siegle began receiving calls complaining about Guzman. With an investigation, Guzman said, Siegle "would be able to see that in fact, one, it was very few people at the college that were making the complaints and, two, it was orchestrated by some people who may have been angry at me for requiring them to do their job.""I just felt it would be helpful for everybody to kind of see that in fact a lot of employees are very supportive of me because they feel we are moving forward and serving the students." Guzman said.She said SFCC has improved its graduation rate, which has been the second-worst in the state, and enrollment is up about 6 percent compared to this time last year. The school has about 6,500 students.But Siegle said it was the governing board that first discussed the idea of an investigator and brought it to Guzman. Siegle said Guzman supported the probe "to clear her name." The school is paying $60 an hour for the probe, with an estimated cost of $3,600.Guzman said what the investigator is looking into is her interactions with others at the school. Siegle said she has received "a lot of complaints about issues."The board will discuss the private investigator's report and the results of Guzman's evaluation during a board retreat on Monday. The board meets for its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday. Among the agenda items are an update on the board retreat, reports from the faculty and staff senates, as well as student government, the faculty salary schedule and approval of the strategic plan.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) Visit the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) at .abqjournal.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉