Charles Weinstein, President of Berkshire CC Professional Association
In February, 12 Berkshire Community College faculty were fired. To many employees, the firings appear retaliatory. Union leadership had conducted a formal survey, provided by the American Association of Community College Trustees, that gathered employee opinions of president Barbara Viniar's performance as Berkshire CEO. Results were in marked contrast to the "A+" that college trustees had bestowed on her performance when they awarded her a substantial raise in Fall, 2001.
In February, faculty and staff followed up with a vote of no confidence; the 12 were then fired. Since then, a number of news reports and letters to the editor have appeared in The Berkshire Eagle. The following letter from union leaders, recently published by The Eagle, summarizes the events and mood at the college.
To the Editor:
No sooner had the BCC unions got used to [TV pundit] Alan Chartock's account of our no-confidence votea childish reaction to unavoidable firingsthan Eagle editor David Scribner proposed anotherit was vengeance for the damaged campus vernal pool. A chorus of commentators jumped in: Blame the uppity staff, the pampered professors, Weinstein's megalomania. What are we to believe? It's enough to leave a faculty downright misguided.
None of this is surprising. As a rule, defenders of the status quo will trivialize or dismiss its critics, and hope that no one notices the contradictions. Listen to what's been said: the faculty are dedicatedbut disgruntled; they live their missionbut hurt their case; they embody excellencebut pursue vendettas. Caught in this web of illogic are those who chase after every conceivable story but the actual onePresident Viniar's management-by-intimidation, the damage it's done to faculty and staff, and how those people finally said "no".
To tell this story, we need to get the facts straight. First, the timing of events: On the late October day that Trustees announced Viniar's A+ rating and raise, members of both unions called for participation in a genuine evaluation process. Our questionnaires were located in November, circulated in December, tallied in January, discussed in February. An overwhelming no-confidence vote occurred at noon on the 12th. Three hours later, the president announced she was dismissing 15% of the faculty. How many were terminated at the other community colleges, almost all larger than BCC and several sustaining deeper cuts? At four of the campuses, 1 or 2%. At the other ten, none.
The day before, while Trustee Chair Bill Dunlaevy was in the cafeteria asking union leader Charles Weinstein to delay the vote (a request the unions denied), President Viniar and her deans were upstairs on a conference call with the school's attorney, planning strategy for dismissals. Could this have been unknown to the Chairman of the Board? Or was he seeking a delay that would clearly place the vote after the terminations, thus confusing public opinion and deflecting attention from the unions' concerns? The question is: Was the vote a response to the terminations, or the terminations a response to the vote? Second, the issue of validity. By implication, [former Board Chair] Richard Whitehead impugned the unions' evaluation of Viniar when he asserted that, in her earlier review by the Trustees, "favorable comments far outweighed negative". Leaving aside the matter of the claim's accuracy, such an outcome would not be surprising since the questions were created by the Trustees themselves and their sample was small, non-random, and almost unavoidably biased. To avoid such bias, the unions found a scaled questionnaire that was validated by widespread use, and surveyed not a sample but the entire populationall 150 full-time unionized employees. The 115 who rated the president represented 77% of these (96% of faculty alone)a strikingly high response rate. Of these, 44 (or about 4 in 10) also wrote comments154 of them.
This time around, negative comments far outweighed positive127 to 17. Refuting the suspicion that those who were critical had more to say, numerical ratings by all respondents (ranking the president "below average") gave support to those who commented, and suggested that had more done so, the trend would have held. Incidentally, only 15% of those remarks addressed the highly publicized soccer field issue. 85% did not. May we now put to rest the theory of salamander payback?
So, what do those 85% address? They describe a remote president with little or no interest in academic affairs. They attest to rude, insulting, and enraged behaviors. They assert a pattern of improper hiring and firing. They bear witness to threats against faculty and staff at all levels. They say she runs the place like a medieval fiefdom.
Her defendersmost of them from the world of commerce who mainly discuss her off-campus rolesay she runs it like a business. (Should a business run this way?) But BCC is not a business. It's a collegea place where curiosity and learning, where intellectual development and psychological growth, are nurtured in an atmosphere of respectful, of collegial, relations. Under this president, that atmosphere has altogether soured. And that which has soured cannot be made good again. We no longer have confidence in her. She can no longer lead. Her presidency is, in effect, over.
It may not be only Barbara Viniar who must resign. Trustees who drag out her departure and subject the college to further pain, must leave with herfor they will be the ones who have truly violated the public trust.
Maureen Masoero, Library Assistant; Chief Steward, Local 1067, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees
Wayne Klug, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology; Berkshire Director and Acting Chapter President, Massachusetts Community College Council Pittsfield