AVC LEADERS DISPUTE CLAIMS OF STATE TEAM.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Defending their hiring practices, Antelope Valley College officials say they enacted improvements to policies and practices before the October visit of a state review team which later issued a critical report.

In a draft of their response to state community college officials, AVC officials said the Technical Assistance Team appeared to have focused on out-of-date guidelines and did not thoroughly examine information supplied by the college.

``There were statements or recommendations listed in the report that were not accurate and somewhat confusing. Maybe on a future TAT review to our campus more attention will be given to documented data, and less attention to a few disgruntled employees,'' said the draft response, prepared by Dee Henry Lee, vice president of human resources.

The letter is scheduled to be reviewed by the college's board Monday night at a meeting. The letter is addressed to Fusako Yokotobi, vice chancellor of human resources for the state's community college system.

The draft of the AVC response acknowledges that the state team made some good recommendations which the college plans to implement, including putting Equal Employment Opportunity information online and prominently posting that information throughout the campus.

The state report, issued after an Oct. 28-30 visit, criticized Antelope Valley College's hiring practices and noted mistrust between college officials and staff. The team was sent to the college after complaints of racism at AVC were made to the state community colleges' board of governors.

``Antelope Valley College has not done an adequate job infusing diversity principles into its culture,'' the report said. ``The team noted that there is also a lack of trust and respect in many areas of the college towards college leadership and towards each other.''

The team did praise efforts by the college's new leaders to hire more minority faculty.

The report said AVC President Daniel Larios, who was hired last year; Lee; and Vice President of Academic Affairs Jackie Fisher are trying to improve morale and infuse diversity into the culture of the college.

The report's recommendations include holding open forums to allow complaints and concerns to come forward without festering; establishing an ombudsman post to which staff, faculty or students can express grievances; establishing a committee to clearly define hiring procedures; and beginning recruitment processes earlier and advertising the positions to a wider audience.

The report recommended a committee be established through the Academic Senate's ``shared governance'' process to clearly define the hiring procedure for academic personnel. The procedure should be approved by the college board and incorporated into all relevant documents, the report said.

AVC officials say they have taken steps to improve the hiring of minorities and released statistics showing progress within the past year.

AVC's percentage of African-American administrators has increased from 14.8 percent last year to 17.4 percent this year, and the proportion of Latino administrators has increased from 11.1 percent to 21.7 percent, the college said.

AVC's percentage of African-American and Latino administrators is higher than the statewide percentage through the state community college system, officials said.

African-American instructors who are either tenured or are on a tenure track rose from 7 percent of the staff last year to 7.9 percent this year. The percentage of Latinos increased from 4.2 percent to 6 percent, officials said.

The college also raised the position of director of human resources from a dean's post to a vice president's post. The position, which had been vacant for several months, was filled four months ago by Lee, an African- American.