Will San Francisco Community College Implode?

The closer City College of San Francisco gets to the March 15 deadline for determining its fate, the more an alliance of critics disagrees with how administrators are transforming the school to try to keep it open and accredited. The Save City College Coalition of faculty, staff and students is organizing teach-ins, planning marches and wooing elected officials, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, to oppose downsizing the school and denounce pay cuts. “We’re going crazy trying to get the truth out,” said Leslie Simon, a women’s studies instructor at City College since 1975. “We’re very concerned about what we think is union-busting.” An accrediting commission said in July that college finances and governance were a mess, and gave the school until March 15 to turn itself around or lose accreditation and close. Employees – including two successive interim chancellors and a state-appointed special trustee – have since worked frantically to repair 14 major deficiencies flagged by the commission. Support fell away Wary faculty and staff went along. But support began to crumble by fall as they saw that compliance meant tearing down the pillars they say make City College a better place to work than other colleges – but which the accrediting commission calls too expensive and unwieldy. (more)