According to the Commission, the issues “raised in the complaints and the response provided by the College signaled to the Commission that further investigation was necessary to determine if the institution was meeting the Criteria for Accreditation and Core Components.”
In November, 2012, the Commission sent a fact-finding team to investigate the complaints. Word of the investigation spurred more people coming forward with complaints and phone calls throughout the months of December and January of 2012.
“Nearly all of the employees interviewed during the 58 one-on-one interview sessions and other meetings held throughout the visit stated that there was a culture of fear at the college, that employees dared not speak their minds for fear of retaliation,” found the investigators. “Many felt threatened with losing their jobs if they spoke freely.”
The most common specific complaints were about the notorious sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior of the College’s former Chancellor, Roy Flores, and the “failure of the Board of Governors to institute an appropriate investigation into these claims.”
Both women and men reported that a “hostile work environment existed at the college, perpetrated by and/or overlooked by senior administrators. Claims were made about the inappropriate use of the institution’s discipline and hiring processes, bullying and demeaning actions and comments toward employees, general fear of reprisals and intimidation, and the Board’s knowledge of inappropriate behaviors of senior leadership and inaction on their part to stop such behaviors.”
Eight female employees came forward to tell their personal stories regarding the fact that they were the recipients of unwelcome and inappropriate attention and advances by the Former Chancellor both on and off campus. Some of these employees reported these incidents to their superiors and to a member of the Human Resources staff.
According to the report, “the recipients of such behaviors suffered physically, financially, and emotionally. They feared and experienced retaliation. Several of the women who rejected the Former Chancellor’s actions towards them were, within approximately six months, subjected to disciplinary actions through the HR process and were demoted or transferred to another position within the District.”
The report noted that one employee has settled an EEO claim as a result of her claims involving the Former Chancellor’s actions.
Despite receiving complaints regarding inappropriate behavior by the Chancellor, the Governing Board did little. In a public meeting, the Chair of the Board asked for individuals to contact him if there were concerns or complaints, but the Board took no action to “investigate the complaints until December of 2011 when several Board members brought these issues to the attention of their legal counsel.’
Flores told Board members in an Executive Session in June of 2011 that rumors existed regarding his inappropriate behavior. The report revealed that Flores “vehemently denied such actions. The Board took no additional action at this time to discipline the Former Chancellor or to investigate the rumors as he described them.”
Board members dismissed complaints according to the report and marginalized victims, “At least one of the Board members described some of the allegations of inappropriate behavior on the part of the Former Chancellor as “minor” and did not take the complaints seriously if he/she believed the employee was not a “good” employee or if the individual making the claim was a former employee who left the employ of the college in disfavor with the college’s leadership.”
A blogger on the TucsonCitizen.com, made the complaints public in February 2012. She included the allegations that eight female staff had come forward with claims of sexual harassment on the part of the former Chancellor as part of her postings.
After the blog post came out the Board met frequently in executive session to discuss this situation.
Between the public complaints and questions about the award of more than $300,000 in unbid contracts to a man who claimed to be a boyhood friend of the Chancellor, the spotlight on the College was too much.
The Board accepted the Flores’s resignation and gave him a lucrative sweetheart “special assignment” from March 1, 2012 to June 30, 2012.
The complainants got nothing despite the fact that their accounts of harassment went into the Board’s decision to oust Flores and they received zero financial compensated, neither has the Board apologized to or in any other way addressed them.
The Harassment (including Sexual Harassment) policy had not been revised since 1999.
Flores’s departure changed little according to the report; “Under the former Chancellor’s leadership some other senior administrators were allowed to bully and intimidate some college employees. The pattern was learned and continued into the present culture at PCCD.”
The report cited as an example an incident in which a current employee was threatened by a senior administrator because the “employee would not follow directions to change information he/she was presenting.” The employee was threatened and told that, “if he/she didn’t like being a team player, he/she could look for another job. The threat, according to this employee, was direct and clear.”
“At least one individual in a supervisory position was given orders from the top senior administrators to find negative evidence of performance against a subordinate so that the college’s disciplinary system could be employed to either justify transfer within the college or to force the individual’s choice to make an employment change by leaving the college’s employ,” according to the report. “Several interviewees speculated that similar actions had been taken against them, but they could not offer evidence to support this belief.”
The report describes an oppressive atmosphere where “deviation from proscribed administrative directives was not tolerated.”
Not surprisingly, “members of the the Interim Chancellor’s, Suzanne Miles, Cabinet, most of whom were also members of the Flores’s Cabinet, expressed few concerns about the communication style of the Flores or Miles and did not express any sense of urgency regarding the claims of the culture of fear and intimidation expressed by many employees.”
However, the Governing Board “new of the concerns and ignored them. One Board member indicated that he/she was fully aware of complaints against the Flores’s leadership style and his use of belittling and derogatory comments. However, the Board member was happy with the direction of the College and did not want to jeopardize that through disciplining the Chancellor.”
The report found a “prevailing perception that senior administrators at PCCD manipulated college employment policies to reward or punish employees. The word “cronyism” was often used.”
It appears to many that Miles has not been candid nor honest in her response to the investigators. They note that there are “discrepancies between the Interim Chancellor’s letter to the Commission and facts learned during interviews with the Board members and PCCD employees.”
“The letter indicates that the former Chancellor retired from the Chancellor’s position due to failing health.” However, “interviews and statements by members of the Board indicate that while his health was a factor, the time table for the Chancellor’s retirement was greatly altered due to the allegations pending against him. One Board member indicated that the Former Chancellor was “forced out” due to the allegations.”
Miles indicated in her letter that she was unaware of any administrators who were aware of any complaints against the former Chancellor, but at a meeting with 5 members of C-FAIRR (Coalition for Accountability, Integrity, Respect and Responsibility) in May of 2012, the Interim Chancellor, following an outburst from one of the other administrators, was heard to say, “I wish we could get back into a civil mode. You are doing exactly what we put up with for nine years. We’ve been threatened like this for nine years.”
Additional issues beyond those with which they were originally charged to investigate became known to the team during and after the on-site visit.
The issues raised in the complaints to the Commission prior to the on-site visit by this team and the issues discussed with members of the college’s learning community and the community at large are highly complex. The roots of many of these complaints are grounded in historical context which negatively impacts the present culture of the college.
In conclusion the report found:
The former Chancellor engaged in inappropriate, unwanted and unprofessional behavior towards many employees.
Board members knew about complaints regarding such behaviors as early as 2008, and the Board failed to act to investigate the complaints.
The explanation provided by the Board members (that the complaints were anonymous) is not a viable reason for leaving very critical complaints against a senior college officer uninvestigated. Similar complaints went unaddressed by the Board in 2010 and in 2011.
The former Chancellor’s behaviors referenced by some Board members as “strong” and “tough” and by employees as “intimidating, rude, and of a bullying nature” were known by some Board members as early as 2004. Some senior institutional administrators had also experienced or seen these same behaviorson the part of the former Chancellor but failed to take appropriate actions to ensure that such behaviors would not continue.
The former Chancellor’s aggressive and combative communication style developed an organization that followed directions with little if any question.
The generally accepted practice of unprofessional behavior on the parts of some administrators has resulted in a severe lack of trust within the college community.
The former Chancellor and the Board appear to have established a symbiotic relationship which prevented the Board from acting independently and from taking appropriate steps to safeguard the well-being of many of the college’s employees.
Some of the college’s senior leadership, both past and present, have misused and abused the power of their positions.
The administrative style has not disappeared from PCC with the exit of the former Chancellor.
The institutional culture at PCC was shrouded in the shadow of silence that was fostered through a pattern of protection created by members of the Board of Governors.
The culture persists today.
Serious breaches of acting with integrity have been demonstrated by PCC’s Board of Governors, the former Chancellor and some other senior administrators at PCC.
Serious issues exist at PCC which are in need of review, attention, and action, and it believes that new leadership is needed to help address these issues.
To view the report, click here.