To The Editor:
By Neill BellOctober 1, 1999
For those who haven't yet heard and might be interested, the number one priority for hiring new faculty at Mendocino College is. ..Football Coach. That's what MC'S Executive VP for Academic Affairs and his team have come up with as the number-one instructional need at our community college, and that's what they rammed through committee.
If you agree with the convoluted logic the instructional chief followed in coming to this conclusion, you may be pleased with the outcome. If, on the other hand, you are among those who wonder about the vision of a school administration that can see hiring a full-time, intercollegiate athletic football coach before filling chronic needs in other academic programs, you aren't alone. More than a few of the faculty at the college think it's nuts.
Not that athletic coaches at MC don't need and deserve better than they are getting from the school. Coaches are hired as part-time instructors, given as many PE and other classes as they can teachwithout becoming eligible for full-time pay and benefitsand are expected to recruit and do much more than they ever receive in the form of part-time faculty pay and stipends. As one faculty member put it, the intercollegiate programs in football and baseball have been operated "with mirrors" for the last decade or more.
But when the educational administration makes it clear that it considers "stabilizing fulltime enrollment" among those male students playing football for MC to be the most pressing instructional need at the college, maybe we ought to ask questions. So far, the answers we've gotten are pretty disturbing.
Neill Bell
Redwood Valley
463-1461
Copyright MPFA 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited
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