Issue date: 5/8/09 Section: News

After slapping the president with a stern warning last year, the faculty of Southwestern College has overwhelmingly voted No Confidence in Superintendent Dr. Raj K. Chopra after he allegedly left them out of the loop on a plan that reorganized the college.

SWC's Academic Senate, which represents all SWC faculty, voted 26-1 for a resolution of No Confidence in Chopra at its April 28 meeting.

While the vote does not directly impact the president's standing at the college, it sends a clear message to the community and stands at the forefront of a campus-wide uprising after Chopra laid off five staff members April 15 and reorganized some of the college's schools. Senate leaders said Chopra broke a promise to allow faculty meaningful feedback.

Moments after the No Confidence vote took place, Academic Senators unanimously passed a resolution accusing Chopra of disregarding a California state law that requires community college administration to work "collegially" with faculty in decision making.

These two votes represent the third and fourth statements critical of the president by the Academic Senate since Chopra's start at the college in August 2007, "a feat unprecedented," according to one Senate member.

The question of what "shared governance" means has been a long-running debate between administrators and faculty at SWC and other colleges since Assembly Bill 1725 passed in 1988. The bill states that college administrators and faculty will "consult collegially" and gave rise to what is now commonly called "shared governance."

According to SWC Governing Board Policy 2510, "the goal of shared governance is to include, within the decision-making process, representatives of all college constituencies affected by these decisions."

Patricia Flores-Charter, a member of the Senate executive board, said Chopra and his cabinet had come to them for input and agreed to allow the Senate to give additional feedback once the first draft of the reorganization was complete. This never happened, she said, and the next time the Academic Senate executives saw the reorganization plan, it was on the agenda for the board's April meeting.

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