Former JCCC Prez Finalist for City College San Francisco Chancellor

Terry Calaway

After not making the cut for the Florida State College at Jacksonville president job, Terry Calaway is on the short list for the position of Chancellor of the City College of San Francisco.

Considering how diverse City College of San Francisco is, one wonders if they will have the same concerns staff at Florida State had about Calaway shutting down the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (ODEI) when he was president of Johnson County Community College. Will CCSF’s Faculty Diversity Internship program continue? How about it’s Gender Diversity Project or the  Latino Services Network?

— Terry Calaway, 57, retired in August after six years as president of Johnson County Community College in Kansas, a school of 60,000 students. He grew enrollment by 8 percent and coordinated academics with four-year universities. His 36-year career in academia includes four as president of Central Arizona College.

In 2011, the college expelled four nursing students who posted photos on Facebook showing them working with placenta. A court ordered reinstatement of a student who sued.

Calaway holds a doctorate in education administration from the University of Texas at Austin.

via 4 finalists for City College S.F. chancellor’s job – SFGate.

The article recalls the Placenta-gate scandal that focused on Calaway expelling student nurses for posting photos on Facebook.

Conceal & Carry @ JCCC

Conceal and carry on campus brown bags offered Sept. 19, 20

Brown Bags to discuss conceal and carry on campus will be held from 1 to 2 p.m. noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013, and noon to 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 2013, in GEB 264.

The sessions will be facilitated by Becky Centlivre, Paul Kyle and Alisa Pacer to update employees concerning the new legislation that was passed to allow conceal and carry of weapons on campuses. The audience will be updated about the how, what and when of the legislation, plus how JCCC is approaching compliance to the law.

You see this:

I see this:

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JCCC to raise mill levy & tuition

At their monthly meeting, the JCCC Board of Trustees voted to increase the mill levy and to increase the student activities fee per credit hour. Now some may argue that this fee is not tuition but it is assessed per credit hour, like tuition, and it must be paid at the same time one pays tuition. Call it whatever you want, but it’s a tuition increase.

According to trustees, the increase is to help  provide scholarships. Clearly the board thinks we’re a bunch of idiots because we all know that a primary focus area for the JCCC Foundation is providing scholarships.  It does that with Dollars for Scholars and Some Enchanted Evening. It also holds special events like Spice! with Wolfgang Puck.

BTW, JCCC wouldn’t need to increase the student activities fee to fund scholarships, if it didn’t keep raising tuition.

But you’re saying “What about all those scholarships that need to be funded?”

Perhaps the JCCC Foundation should  stop forcing the college to construct buildings simply to name after donors and do something more practical like seeking permission from the funders of unawarded scholarships to temporarily shift those funds to the scholarships students need most.

Let me tell you, I’ve gotten full scholarships from JCCC because I was the only one who applied. I’ve also applied for and gotten scholarships from JCCC because the people in charge of  those funds begged me to submit an application because they had money to give away — literally.

OK this was more of a rant than I’d anticipated. I just meant to offer some clarification on JCCC raising the mill levy and tuition…

Posted April 18 to the Johnson County Community College electronic mail server, Infolist:

Fred Krebs, My Unexpected Friend

Fred Krebs, 1946 – 2012

I met Fred Krebs when I worked as a reporter for The Campus Ledger. Fred, dressed as Benjamin Franklin,  sat at a table in the Commons building handing out copies of the US Constitution.  He saw me coming down the steps from The Ledger offices and said, “You need to have one of these.”

I thought he was one of those annoying guys handing out Gideon bibles.

Looking closer, I saw it was a pocket-size US Constitution. I thanked him and took it. I continued to walk down the hall then I turned around and went back into The Ledger office.

“There’s a guy handing out little mini-Constitutions in the COM. Get a photog out there,” I told the photo editor. “Oh, and tell everyone to get one of those mini-Constitutions and bring them to the staff meeting.”

That was the beginning of our annual Constitution Day feature story and Fred was always our “go to” source.

As an employee of the library, I’d seen Fred a few times as he scheduled classes with the librarians. When I became a Diversity Fellow, I started to see more of him as he collaborated with our director, Carmaletta Williams on projects, most notably on The Souls of Black Folk.

Sure, I still thought he was kinda crazy for dressing up as all those historical figures but, everyone has their thing, right? And his wasn’t hurting anyone, in fact, people enjoyed it. He was helping them understand history.

When Fred’s mother, Virginia Krebs, stepped down from the Board of Trustees, I submitted an application to fill the vacancy. I guess word got around and Fred came into the library and said, “I hear you applied to fill my mother’s seat on the board.”

Oh geez, was I really gonna get a beat-down in the library from Benjamin Franklin? 

Student Who Filed Lawsuit Against JCCC Speaks – Part 2

Walking on the Ledge

Summer Vocation

Marcus Clem, former copy editor for The Campus Ledger at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., tells how an open records request led to a lawsuit against the college.

In part two of this interview, Clem discusses the events of summer 2011. He reveals how he became separated from the student newspaper, why he secured an attorney, and the process of filing the lawsuit.

Watch Part 1 of the Marcus Clem interview

Editor’s Note: Miguel M. Morales served JCCC as a Diversity Fellow from fall 2009 – fall 2011 and is a former staff member of The Campus Ledger.

Student Who Filed Lawsuit Against JCCC Speaks – Part 1

Walking on the Ledge

Spring Forward

Marcus Clem, former copy editor for The Campus Ledger at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., tells how an open records request led to a lawsuit against the college.

In part one of this interview, Clem discusses the events of spring 2011 and how he became involved in a story focusing on the college’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI).

Editor’s Note: Miguel M. Morales served JCCC as a Diversity Fellow from fall 2009 – fall 2011 and is a former staff member of The Campus Ledger.

JCCC Responds to Student Lawsuit

Posted today on the Johnson County Community College email server, Infolist:

SPLC brings lawsuit against JCCC

Johnson County Community College has been notified of a lawsuit brought the Student Press Law Center and a former student regarding open records requests. The SPLC says the fees the college is asking to comply with the requests are excessive.

JCCC periodically receives and responds to Kansas Open Records Act requests. The SPLC and a former member of the Campus Ledger, the college’s student newspaper, have asked the college to produce these records:

• Emails to and from a former college employee and the former executive director of the college’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, for Jan. 16-17, 2011, days admittedly chosen at random
• All emails in December 2010 between the former employee and a professor
• A list of all Kansas Open Records Act requests to the college and its responses for 2010-2011.

The college is working with counsel to reach a satisfactory outcome to the matter.

Student Journalist Takes JCCC to Court

You knew it was gonna happen sooner or later …

Posted on the Student Press Law Center website:

KANSAS — The Student Press Law Center and a college journalist filed alawsuit Tuesday against Johnson County Community College in Kansas for excessive fees to release open records, including nearly $10,000 to produce one day’s worth of emails.

The college estimated a total of $24,130.72 to fulfill requests by the SPLC and former copy editor Marcus Clem for staff emails and documents related to other open records requests.

Attorney Christopher Grenz, of the Kansas City law firm Bryan Cave, who is handling the case pro bono as part of the SPLC’s attorney referral network, said the fees are “facially excessive.”

“They’re basically hanging a price tag on what should be public documents in order to keep those documents from being public,” Grenz said.

The current requests in the lawsuit have evolved from an original request by Rachel Kimbrough, current editor in chief at The Campus Ledger student newspaper at JCCC. Clem said Kimbrough was working on a story about the closing of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and departure of program director Jason Rozelle.

Christo’s JCCC connection

I was beginning to think this video was a JCCC urban legend.

Thanks to Dan Coulter, a former JCCC employee and the writer, producer and director of the video, we can see the legendary 1978 Christo installation “Wrapped Walk Ways.”

The video is full of awesome! It’s has really nice moments like an orchestra playing the Star Wars end theme for visitors; the woman who says if this is art, then she’s Venus; and, of course, all that sweet 1970s fashion.

Though it’s not mentioned in the video, those around campus assert that several JCCC students served as volunteers for the installation.

Read the article, “Student works with Christo,”  in The Campus Ledger archives.

Read more about the installation on Christo’s website.

"Wrapped Walk Ways" - Christo