April 11 2016
By Jeremiah Aviles
ECCO Editor-in-Chief
On Friday, March 31st, on the heels of the suspension of both College president and attorney general Gale Gibson and Rashidah Hassan by the Essex County College Board of Trustees, students organized a press conference in rejection of these actions, denouncing ongoing lack of transparency and demanding proper representation in the institution.
The charge was lead by Debra Salters, the Student Representative on the BoT, who spoke on the steps of the Essex County Hall of Records at noon. She was joined by many other students, including college club leaders, who were holding signs and standing with her against the action.
Debra Salters addressing the media, courtesy Lev Zilbermints
Salters decried a situation of official secrecy, opacity, and intransigence regarding not only the suspensions, but in all the Board’s decision-making. She also questioned new appointments to the Board; the blocking of new hires to fill key administrative positions; and the Board’s dealings with Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo.
Salters has had to fight to gain recognition for her status as Student Representative from the Board’s current trustees, despite a longer academic and professional trajectory at ECC than either of DiVincenzo’s latest additions to it: Bibi Taylor, former Plainfield City Administrator, and Safanya N. Searcy. Searcy is currently a student herself at the University of Maryland, and is a Union organizer for the SEIU (Service Employees International Union). Her positioning onto the Board of Essex County College is, at the least, an intriguing question.
In a meeting with the County Executive and his cabinet regarding this discrimination, Salters says her status as the Student Representative was constantly put into question. At that meeting, Salters says she did not only raise issues regarding her treatment, but also brought to light irregularities concerning established Board practice enshrined in College by-law and State law, such as arbitrary cancellation of meetings and the holding of secret meetings. She was not permitted to be present at executive sessions.
Salters name is the last on a list of Board of Trustee members on the ECC website.
Salters is quoted by NJ.com as saying that “The suspension [of ECC President Gale Gibson] was approved with same secrecy that the board has been operating with for years.” The board held a closed-door meeting- at which the County Executive was reported to have attended, against Board procedure- on March 28th regarding the decision, which Salters was not privy to.
The original article by NJ.com which broke the suspension story, dated March 29th, was titled “Essex County College president suspended amid financial probe.” It was, however, unable to quote Board Chair Bibi Taylor or Board Counsel Juan Fernandez as they declined to comment, raising the question of how the paper in fact knew that the suspension was due to a “financial probe.”
Students who had regularly attended previous BoT meetings and witnessed the irregularities of those proceedings quickly banded together with Salters and drafted a press release rejecting not only this action but also the ongoing secrecy and erratic behavior of the Board in general. Citing the tuition increase/ongoing budget deficit issue, which students brought to the forefront of college attention ECC’s spring semester, ranging from January to May 2015, the press release states that, “History has not only validated student concerns, but proved them prophetic. We reiterate the call to make public all college finances.”
Not stopping there, students also called on the State Education Commissioner David Hespe as well as the U.S Department of Education Secretary John B. King, Jr. to investigate. [This has since happened].
The press release follows in its entirety.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The students of Essex County College will be holding a Press Conference on April 1, 2016 at 12 noon at the Hall of Records, Newark, NJ, to demand answers about what is going on at Essex County College. Students want to know the reasons behind the College President’s suspension; why key positions are being unfilled; why the student representative on Board of Trustees has no voting power; and why the student voice is not being heard in college matters.
What: Press Conference by the students of Essex County College
When: 12 noon, April 1, 2016
Where: Hall of Records, Newark, N.J.
Topic: Suspension of President Gibson/Demands for more accountability and transparency
We, the students of Essex County College, represented by the Student Representative on the Board of Trustees Debra Salters and others, hereby declare unambiguous repudiation of the action taken by the Board of Trustees on March 25th– Good Friday, a State, Federal, Court, and religious holiday- in suspending the President from her executive duties at the college.
This action has been undertaken at a time in which:
– ECC’s budget continues to be in deficit;
– Executive positions in the college administration continue to be unfulfilled;
– The Board of Trustees has stripped the college President of her power of temporary appointments;
– The Board of Trustees has rejected internal applicants for these key positions without providing alternatives;
– The Board of Trustees has committed numerous State law and College by-law infractions, including shutting out and discriminating against the Board’s Student Representative Debra Salters, holding secretive executive meetings without publishing meeting minutes, and others;
– The college has a record graduation rate;
– The college has an increased retention rate
For the past year and a half students have been at the forefront of the college’s budget issue. A deficit running in the millions of dollars was announced as needing a 20% tuition increase last year, which awoke students to this reality. BOT fingers pointed at the County and the State as at fault for the budget shortfall. The administration cited lower enrollment and retention rates, as well as historical reasons for the deficit. In response, students repeatedly asked for- in public BOT meetings, in private meetings with BOT and Administrative members, and even in a meeting between Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, his staff, Senator Teresa Ruiz, and then-Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of ECC Calvin Souder- the transparency of the institutions finances. Ultimately, tuition was raised only 8%.
History has not only validated student concerns, but proved them prophetic. We reiterate the call to make public all college finances.
The Board of Trustees has suspended ECC’s President in the same opaque and secretive way it has been operating for the past year and a half. Financial information has not been forthcoming to the public, and now obscure accusations are being leveled at administrative staff via media outlets which cite no Board members on the record.
The media article referenced is the Tuesday, March 29th article in NJ.com. The article’s title is “ECC president suspended amid financial probe,” but no such accusation was made on the record by either the Chairperson Bibi Taylor or Juan Fernandez, the Board attorney. What’s more, rumours abound that the Monday meeting was attended by County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, what would be a flagrant violation of county college policy. This executive meeting has had no minutes published, which is now becoming normal practice for this Board, in violation of Board Policy 1-1, Section 4e.
Board meetings have been cancelled abruptly and with little or no notice, and no explanation offered. Public meetings have included employee grievance sections in the agenda, in which employees have come forward and made accusations that have no place in a public board meeting as they cannot be validated or refuted. The college’s administration has been starved of Deans, Academic Officers, Marketing Directors, and other such positions. These positions are of great importance not only for the ability of the college to close its budget gap, but for it to be an accreditable institution as per Middle States statutes. The Student Representative to the Board of Trustees, Debra Salters, has been systematically ignored and mistreated by the Board, which is not only an affront to students, but is against State statutes and college by-laws, and so forth.
These violations and many more like them have become commonplace, and evidence a clear mismanagement of Board duties. According to Middle States, the Board’s duty is to ensure that the policies and procedures it establishes are followed by the college President and other executives. The Board is not supposed to be a part of the day-to-day operations of the college. What the Board has done, by starving the college of huge swaths of its leadership- without any valid pretense whatsoever- has been to jeopardize the College’s accreditation standing with Middle States, and thus the value of the education that each and every student of ECC is working towards. Students thus reiterate their repudiation of the Board’s actions in removing the college President, and of all the actions mentioned here.
Students also reject any interference from the County in the form of influence from its Executive Joe DiVincenzo. While the College Board’s members are promoted by the Board of Chosen Freeholders and the County Executive, they must follow College by-laws once in place. The college is not a political playground. The college is an institution serving the community by offering educational services. The jeopardy of the college’s accreditation outlined here is a clear indication of the interference of those with personal and adverse agendas, and students will not accept this.
To this end, we call on the NJ State Education Commissioner David Hespe to investigate. We also call on the Secretary of Education for the U.S Department of Education, John B. King, Jr. to investigate. Finally, recognizing his initiative for the people of Newark to take back their education, and recognizing the pivotal role Essex County College plays for many of Newark’s high school graduates, we call on Mayor Ras J. Baraka to turn his attention to what is happening at Essex County College and to support students.
This situation calls for increased student and community involvement in the institution of the college. To this end, we also call for the Student Representative be a member of the Board with full rights and privileges and responsibilities: that they be allowed to vote and attend executive meetings.
Signed, March 31st 2016
ECCO 
