Faculty union lashes out at Webster again

FREMONT – The Terra Faculty Association once again sharply questioned the direction of Terra State Community College and decisions made by President Jerome Webster to cut nontenured faculty at a time of declining enrollment numbers.

English professor Sharla Shine addressed the Terra board of trustees at Wednesday's meeting.

In a prepared statement, Shine said she thought the college's core values were under attack and the integrity of Terra's curriculum was at risk. Shine said in the last two years, 20 full-time faculty members had been fired or left the college for other institutions.

She said the college's English department had only four full-time faculty members left, which she said was the lowest number at Terra in the last 30 years.

"Dr. Webster would like you to think that such cuts and turnover are normal. But they are unprecedented," Shine said.

Shine said the college needed a strong base of full-time, tenured faculty, as well as cutting-edge labs and up-to-date equipment.

Webster said Wednesday night that Terra wanted its students to be best served with any new collective bargaining agreement with the faculty union. He said the college continued to be open to returning to the negotiating table with the faculty union.

"The college is very interested in collaborating with the faculty and resolving the collective bargaining agreement that is at stake and wants to very much to support a settlement with the contract," Webster said.

Webster said he was trying to ensure Terra had the absolute best faculty it could have in serving the community.

The board met twice in executive session Wednesday to discuss collective bargaining and personnel matters.

Board members emerged from the second executive session and took no action, with vice chairman Matthew Montowski noting the college and the faculty union were still in the middle of the collective bargaining process.

"We encourage both parties to participate in the statutory process," Montkowski said.

Board President Sandra Berlekamp said in a lengthy email Friday that the Terra board had taken seriously the the criticisms of the faculty association.

Berlekamp defended Webster, saying she had spent several weeks last summer in informal investigation of issues raised by the association with Terra's former board chair and additional time more recently reviewing the faculty union's most recent vote of no confidence.

"I would say that many of their complaints were unvalidated, specifically in laying them at Dr. Webster's door," Berlekamp said, adding, "For example, I know that TFA leadership are attendees at the President's Leadership Council, which includes cabinet, deans, directors and union leaders, an indication of transparency to me."

Berlekamp said that, under Webster's leadership, the college was updating old networks, servers and antiquated software because of a agreement with the University of Toledo that was saving Terra hundreds of thousands of dollars.

She said Webster's leadership had directly led to an agreement with Northwest State Community College to form a Council of Governments that potentially would allow for significant savings.

Berlekamp said the college's new Goal Oriented Tuition Plan, which offers a flat-rate tuition for full-time students, was another initiative of Webster's.

"The board has full confidence in Dr. Webster's leadership and his forward-thinking attitude," Berlekamp said.

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