AVC PRESIDENT UNDER FACULTY FIRE AS CONTRACT EXTENSION DISCUSSED.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

Antelope Valley College trustees are proposing to extend by one or three years the contract of President Linda Spink as she comes under fire from faculty over hiring, class sizes and course development.

The campus friction culminated this month in a faculty senate resolution accusing Spink of failing to consult with faculty and in a flurry of internal memos traded by Spink and some faculty members, which included personal attacks between faculty and even a critique of Spink's grammar.

Spink, in the second year of her three-year contract, described the conflict as partly a power struggle, while academic senate officials liken it to a culture clash.

Board President Betty Lou Nash, who said Spink is making strides to improve the college and is highly regarded in the community, decried the divisiveness.

``I don't think it serves to enhance the image of the college to have all this back and forth disagreement. There must be a way to settle these matters internally,'' Nash said. ``We hope it's not having an impact on students. It's not enhancing our reputation in the community, and I think we have a fine reputation, which we don't want to mar. It's always our goal to serve students, so I think the professionals realize that and don't let this interfere with service to the students.''

The board will consider the contract proposals at its June 8 meeting.

Spink was hired in 1996 to replace Al Kurki, who stepped down after 10 years as Antelope Valley College leader. She was formerly a vice president of Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica, N.Y., and was selected from 53 applicants in a nationwide search.

Her three-year contract expires next year, and her annual pay is $106,090.

The present battle can be traced to June 1997, when a conflict with the language arts faculty boiled over during a college board meeting.

John Hall, an English professor at the college for 22 years, was ejected from the meeting by security guards, and language arts faculty members called for Spink's resignation.

In dispute was the hiring process to fill two vacancies in the department. The language arts hiring committee sent two recommendations to Spink, but she wanted to review the top three candidates for each post.

Language arts faculty said state law on shared governance makes it clear that faculty should hire faculty. The law, passed about 10 years ago, requires community colleges to involve faculty, staff and students in the governance of the institution.

``That was something that really started raising a lot of these issues on shared governance,'' said Steve Standerfer, college spokesman. ``The problems come in interpretation. There are some faculty who take a rather liberal view of (the law), and then you have others in administration who take a more conservative viewpoint. It's become an emotional issue because you have varying interpretations.''

The faculty senate resolution, approved May 7, cited a lack of consultation on developing a process to determine the feasibility of an industrial technology program. It said the administration had promoted the development of distance learning courses ``through a process outside of any shared governance committee or process.''

It recounted the eight months of work spent by a faculty committee with administration representatives on developing criteria for class sizes and plans to implement that criteria, only to have Spink reject it.

``Shared governance says you collegially consult. We all sit down and reach an agreement. We sat down, reached agreement, and the president says, nope, I'm vetoing that,'' said Richard Manley, academic senate president and college career counselor.

The battles with the president are affecting morale, Manley said.

``I know, for myself and people on the academic senate, we're using a lot of energy to struggle with the process issues rather than using energy to resolve problems to better serve students.''

Spink in a May 14 memo denied violating the tenets of shared governance, which she depicts as means in which everyone works together to better serve students.

``It doesn't mean any one group of individuals gets its wishes on everything. Ultimately, the board of trustees and myself as president have the final responsibility for our actions as an institution. If we were going to govern by committee in total, then there would be no need for administrators. One cannot manage a $26 million budget/institution by committee,'' Spink wrote.

On the class-size issue, Spink maintained in her memo that she was never sent a copy of the faculty committee proposal, which she described as flawed and lacking research on what its cost would be and its impact on the budget and students.

Spink in an interview said the conflicts have to do with issues of power and who has final authority.

``The concept of shared governance passed by the Legislature was to ensure faculty, staff and students have involvement in the governance of the college. I agree with that. They have valuable contributions to make, but the law did not take the managing of the institution away from the board. That's the heart of the conflict,'' Spink said.

Forming committees for subjects like the distance learning proposal would squelch creativity, the president said.

Spink said the dissent is coming from a small percentage of the faculty and that other people on campus have been supportive.

``You know as well as I do that the silent majority goes about their business,'' Spink said.

Manley said one source of the conflict stems from the fact that Spink came from New York, where shared governance is not a mandated law, thus she is not familiar with how it works.

``But after two years, I can't see that can be used as a reason for noncompliance,'' Manley said. ``I think the other reason is she has a management style in which she is used to making all the decisions. Anything that comes to her, she is used to having veto power. I really feel that any person in that position should take time to learn the local culture and law and make an effort within that culture and follow the processes that come with it.''

Manley said if the board extends Spink's contract, it should be for one year.

Spink said she would like to stay on the job and has no interest in packing up and moving elsewhere.

``I hope we will be able to come to a resolution. I will not give up management prerogatives when I think it's important to the institution. We all have to sit and talk,'' Spink said.

Some longtime campus employees have compared the current atmosphere on campus to the days of the administration of President Dick Stein, Kurki's predecessor.

Stein's tenure culminated in accusations that two administrators misappropriated funds. They were acquitted during a trial in which one defense attorney made the comment: ``Dr. Stein is slime.''