Note: This is the fifth and final installment in the Outpost’s weeklong series on College of the Redwoods and its recovery from accreditation trouble. 

Four years ago, the faculty at College of the Redwoods was describing it as a place of widespread misery, blaming then-President/Superintendent Jeff Marsee for creating an environment of secrecy, distrust and defeatism. And in the years that followed, CR came very close to losing its accreditation thanks to its organizational dysfunction and inertia.

These days, things are much better, says faculty union President and Political Science Professor Ryan Emenaker. “Things are dramatically different,” he said in a recent interview. “The administration has a lot more interest in working with faculty and asking for input. The decisions are being made in public. … Kathy [Smith] is a completely different president. She takes time making decisions; she brings people to the table; she’s much more methodical.”

Emenaker said Marsee actually deserves some credit, too, for inadvertently motivating the faculty to galvanize, organize and stand up for their rights under the college’s shared governance system. In the midst of the Marsee era, the CR Faculty Organization filed a pair of lawsuits with the Public Employee Relations Board, and as a result the union now has more regular and direct communication with the Board of Trustees.

The college environment has become more collegial and upbeat. “I think overall things are a lot more positive,” Emenaker said. “People are cautiously optimistic, which I think is appropriate.”

While the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) has removed all sanctions from CR, it’s still keeping its eye on the college. Earlier this week CR had to submit cash flow projections for the next three years along with a plan for funding retirement benefits.

Like Emenaker, President/Superintendent Kathy Smith thinks the college has improved as a result of its accreditation scare. And unlike Marsee, she has developed trust with faculty. “Being placed on ‘Show Cause’ [accreditation status] probably caused a lot of [faculty members] to say, ‘We’ve got to work together,’” Smith said, adding, “I’ve got the personality to work with people, and I don’t care to boss people around.”

Smith believes CR needs to change its collective approach to interacting with students. The attitude historically has been a bit detached, she said, with faculty happily teaching the students who show up but figuring it’s not their job to worry about the ones who don’t. 

“But we’re finding that, in order to meet the state task force requirements of us, we have to do more than that,” Smith said. And she used a term not often heard in higher education settings: customer service. If a student misses a class, maybe the professor can take the time to send an email or text to see what’s going on. “Those faculty are taking over the [concept that], ‘OK, it is my job to help these students be successful.’

“I understand when faculty say, ‘That’s not my job,’” Smith continued. “But if your job depends on it because we don’t have the students here, and our budget goes down, and then we have to get into a layoff situation, I think people are understanding now the connection between those things. And we’ve not had the best customer service, according to many people we’ve heard from.”

The college is in the midst of redesigning its website and has been bringing students in to get feedback on how to make resources more accessible. Meanwhile, administrators are looking for ways to get more integrated in the communities the college serves, and to do it in more frugal ways. For example, rather than reopening expensive educational sites in McKinleyville and Arcata, CR is going back into those communities and offering classes at the local high schools.

Administrators are also working to form stronger connections with local K-12 school districts, in part by offering dual-enrollment classes at local high schools. This allows high school students to take college-level courses — and get college credits — without having to leave their own school campuses. There’s a program already underway at Eureka High School with plans to start dual-enrollment at Arcata, McKinleyville and other high schools scattered around the county.

And thanks to Assembly Bill 86, passed last year, community colleges like CR will be taking over adult education programs from K-12 schools starting in 2015-16. With the passage of Prop. 30 in 2012, public schools like CR avoided a financial nightmare, though money remains tight. The Prop. 30 money has gone largely toward deferrals, money the state has owed the school for years. There has also been more money for materials and equipment. But the state’s focus on growth, combined with CR’s declining enrollment, means CR will likely be pinching pennies for the foreseeable future.

Smith says there’s a built-in disadvantage. “Our fiscal structure is out of balance,” she said. “We just don’t have the revenue to pay for our expenses.” The cost of everything from health care to materials to utilities climb steadily while revenues remain constant or, often, go down.

But it would be difficult to overstate the value of College of the Redwoods to the North Coast. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary (the college was founded in January 1964), CR has awarded thousands of degrees and certificates, teaching people to become nurses, mechanics and police officers and helping countless others (including this reporter) to gain some skills, expand their views of the world a bit and guide the aim of their life trajectories.

There are likely many valuable takeaways from CR’s accreditation scare, but one of them is certainly this: It’s in the entire community’s interest to pay attention to how the school is being operated.

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