Infighting on MPC board makes even the most basic tasks impossible.

Monterey Peninsula College is an institution built to support the dreams of thousands of students. The community college’s mission statement captures that spirit, along with some baseline expectations for being: “Monterey Peninsula College is actively committed to student access and success and to fostering an equitable, inclusive, respectful, and supportive community by providing excellent academic programs and student services that respond to the needs of our richly diverse region.”

And yet, MPC’s own five-member board of trustees is unable to foster respect among themselves. The board’s bitterness is not subtle. There are accusations of unfitness for office, lying, law-breaking, sexism, racism, even physical assault. This is among the adults who are elected to serve as leaders of an educational institution.

The board was flagged by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges in 2023, which determined: “In order to increase institutional effectiveness, the team recommends that the Governing Board consistently act in a manner uniform with Board Policy 2715.” Policy 2715 calls on members to “work together in a spirit of harmony and cooperation, treating other board members with respect and courtesy.”

It’s not just the accreditation commission that sees a flawed board. It’s also the MPC board’s own chairperson, Rosalyn Green. On March 14, the board convened for a restorative justice mediation session led by Sheila Smith McKoy of the firm RSSC for a cost of $10,750.

Green did not mince words in introducing the mediation session. “We are here today sadly because we are a dysfunctional board,” she said. “We are creating a system of failure because this board doesn’t seem to understand its role, and is unable to work in a collaborative manner. I say this not to be insulting, but because it’s our reality.”

McKoy guided the board through practices in listening, not interrupting and refraining from personal attacks – basic principles that would just as easily belong in a third-grade classroom, not a college boardroom.

Then they each had an opportunity to speak their mind in a very public venting session. “I don’t feel like I am trusted,” Trustee Loren Steck said. “I don’t trust you, Loren,” Trustee Yuri Anderson responded.

So it went, for an excruciating two hours of trustees shredding each other in public. “We came a little dangerously close to name-calling,” McKoy said calmly, after the bloodletting was over. “We might not be able to forgive. So I invite you to release.”

But no sooner had McKoy wrapped up than the board fell immediately back into its old patterns of abject failure to govern. They had one set of tasks to vote on that day: selecting a new chair and vice-chair (and other governing roles) for 2024, something they had already attempted and failed to do 13 times because they are so divided.

Trustee Debbie Anthony declared she would abstain from a vote – she sees the board divided 4-1, everyone against her. Meanwhile, a separate 2-2 divide put Steck and Libby Downey on one side, and Green and Anderson on the other.

Anderson urged the board to table the decision, noting a vote would simply perpetuate the divisiveness. “Taking a vote where we continue to look like factions is all of us abdicating our responsibilities,” she said.

Anthony joined Green and Anderson in voting to delay the chairperson vote until May 22, meaning Green remains chair at least until then.

The board next meets on Wednesday, April 24, when they have a chance to try out the concepts McKoy taught them, like listening to each other. If the March 14 meeting itself was any indication, they still have a lot to learn. For example, Steck interrupted Green to proclaim the meeting was over and instruct her on how to organize the May meeting agenda – exactly the kind of small but significant slights the group had just spent the day learning to avoid.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” said Dean Roseleen Ryan, one in a long line of campus leaders who spoke. “I believe each and every one of you have good intentions, but good intentions are not enough. There is a huge gulf between your intentions as a board and your behavior. That chasm has caused a lot of damage for this college.”

The MPC community, and the students, deserve better.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com