DEAR LISA SKARI:

On behalf of the student body of Mt. Hood Community College, we at the Advocate would personally like to wish Lisa Skari, incoming president of the college, the best of luck in her years to come at MHCC.

She’ll need it.

Her predecessor, outgoing President Debbie Derr, put in a great deal of effort striving to streamline numerous aspects of the college, most notably its administrative organization, while simultaneously marketing the college to a rapidly growing east Multnomah County population, one becoming more diverse than ever.

In this respect, Skari’s previous post will hopefully help prepare her for the realities of heading a community college in East County. She is coming from Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington, a suburb that is significantly more diverse than Seattle or Tacoma, the urban centers it abuts.

One of the main tenets of Skari’s tenure at Highline, as chief advancement officer, was reflecting that community diversity. We at the Advocate anticipate her continued support of the MHCC administration’s investment in student resources, such as the Diversity Resource Center (DRC) and the office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Other aspects of Mt. Hood may be a little different for the new president.

In a presidential candidate forum held on campus in March, Skari said, “Through generation of external dollars, both grants and foundation… and stable enrollments, we are steady” at Highline, referring to that school’s budget stability. As anyone who’s spent some time at this college could tell you, “Mt. Hood” and “stable” rarely appear in the same sentence, financially.

Now, it’s not as if we’re expecting Skari to come in, snap her fingers and solve all of the problems Mt. Hood is struggling with (some of them for decades, now). Finding an approach to our budgetary issues that leaves the college financially solvent, its programs fully funded, and its staff adequately compensated (all while setting tuition at a rate community members can reasonably afford without incurring too much student debt) might not actually be possible.

Deciding which of these issues – institutional solvency, instructor compensation, and student affordability – is the most important, and which can be compromised instead, will define how Skari’s presidency is received. It also will illustrate who she feels she is accountable to.

Seeking a voice

Luckily, she doesn’t have to tackle these issues alone. Mt. Hood is, by and large, filled with caring, passionate, hardworking individuals, be they student, instructor, administrative staff and everything in between. And Derr and her managers have succeeded in keeping labor peace during her five years, avoiding bitter contract battles with MHCC’s three main employee groups – full-time and part-time faculty members, and classified (support) staff workers – that have experienced plenty in previous eras.

If Skari’s presidency is to be effective, however, she’ll need to figure out how to foster an environment where the people who make up this college can have a greater voice in shaping it.

Many faculty members feel that, historically, this hasn’t necessarily been the case. Often they feel powerless when change comes, sometimes abruptly. As Janet Campbell, longtime social sciences instructor, notes, “We’ve had a really big problem… with the turnover of mid-management [positions], and that’s really destructive to what we [as instructors] do on a day-to-day level.” She adds that in the 20 years she’s taught here, she’s had 12 deans: “With each new one, you kind of get more cynical.”

Suggestions from the faculty on how to improve the situation has fallen on deaf ears, at times. For instance, the social sciences faculty worked along with the administration to produce a new pilot plan to shift more day-to-day oversight to faculty members and help ease the load of their dean. All seemed set, then Derr and the administration backed off this past September, Campbell said.

“I think the administration [was] nervous about the model. And I can’t blame them; it was something different,” she said. “But the team put a lot of work on it and really came up with a solid plan and the administration kind of back(ed) out on it. It was really disappointing.”

(Craig Kolins, MHCC chief of staff, said a redesign of instructor/dean structure remains a possibility soon, pending further review.)

In any case, establishing a culture where instructor needs (not to mention those of the students and of support staff) are heard, appreciated and considered with respect to policy will be of paramount importance, then, if Skari wants to make new headway among the faculty at Mt. Hood.

How best to truly accomplish this, of course, isn’t quite as straightforward. There’s only so much a single person can do to represent the myriad needs, each of them equally valid, of all those who make up an institution as large as Mt Hood. But Skari, in taking on the position of president, has signed on to do exactly that.

As we said, we wish her the best of luck.