Southwestern College is in crisis.
What the governing board does – or fails to do – in the weeks and days ahead will effect this institution for many years to come.
Dr. Kindred Murillo’s increasingly disturbing behavior and mystifying decisions have reached a point of no return. Her cowardly move to scapegoat Dr. Malia Flood for the ASO debacle is a bridge too far.
If anyone deserves a demotion, it is Murillo. The ASO mess was largely of her making.
Murillo has foolishly micromanaged the ASO for months. It was one of Murillo’s series of expensive consultants, the Jones & Associates Consulting firm, whose titular head bills himself as a “transformational facilitator” and “phenomenal organization effectiveness consultant,” that made a series of ill-advised decisions that led to the racially-charged ASO blow up of May 2. It was Jones & Associates that decided to call a meeting and pack a small room full of students and employees with big frustrations. It was akin to bringing together the Hatfields and McCoys, Montagues and Capulets, or the Turks and the Kurds.
It was not going to end well.
It didn’t.
It was not Dr. Flood’s fault that Murillo demonstrated one of her now-classic examples of Seagull Management. Once again, she flew in from far away, shrieked incoherently, crapped on everyone, and then flew away. After an hour-long food fight the Jones folks had long since lost control of, Murillo flew in like a seagull, cancelled the ASO election and flew off without offering any useful solutions or ideas.
Ironically, it was former Director of Student Development Brett Robertson, the second person Murillo scapegoated, who came up with the idea of a peace-making coalition government that Murillo has praised to the hills. Like a good soldier, Robertson took not one bit of credit for the plan, instead allowing the students to have a public moment of redemption and a way forward.
Dr. Flood, in her role as Dean of Student Affairs, had the ASO under her chain of command, but three steps down. Student Activities Coordinator Richard Eberheart had (and still has) day-to-day supervision of the ASO. Robertson supervised Eberheart. Flood supervised Robertson. Dr. Tina King supervises Flood. Murillo supervises King. The governing board supervises Murillo. College district voters supervise the governing board.
Murillo, as she is often does, subverted the chain of command and thrust herself into a situation that Robertson and Eberheart should have managed at their level. Dr. Flood offered advice and support to the ASO leaders, which is exactly her job. It is not her fault that some students bypassed her and ran straight to Murillo. The college president had told them it was okay.
There are so many troubling issues to unpack here.
SUBVERSION OF HR PROCESS
Murillo has once again subverted the college’s Human Resources policies and processes. This is the same president who appointed 60 percent of her vice presidents and a legion of college directors and managers by calling them “acting,” “interim” or “temporary.” Despite her sunshiny New Age rhetoric, Murillo has shown that she is undemocratic and will not brook dissent. She appoints whomever she wants wherever she wants, which is very unhealthy for the organization and squelches ideas contrary to hers.
NO DUE PROCESS
Murillo completely ignored college discipline policies. Dr. Flood did not receive due process. This is a veteran administrator who has two decades of sterling evaluations and an honorable record of service to this institution and its students. She has been a tremendous improvement over her incompetent predecessor, Mia McClellan, who left Dr. Flood a massive mess to clean up.
AN EFFECTIVE DEAN
And clean up she has. Dr. Flood helped to drag Southwestern College into the 21st century in many important areas. Before Dr. Flood became the dean, SC denied it had a sexual assault problem and covered up assaults in its crime reports. Dr. Flood, herself a victim of sexual assault, has led the college into a healthy (and legal) new direction that acknowledges the problem, provides an accountable avenue to report, and provides students medical, law enforcement and counseling support.
Dr. Flood helped to modernize the college’s Disabled Student Services programs and made this campus a more welcoming place for students on the autism spectrum. She is working to help homeless students and students with housing insecurity. She has advocated for more mental health counselors, and has used great creativity to expand mental health resources. She has – correctly – argued that SC needs a real, honest-to-goodness, well-trained, full-time Title IX Director. She is a good listener who always makes time to meet with students and staff who have concerns or need her advice – even if it means working well into the evening.
CULPABILITY FOR ASO MESS
Blaming Dr. Flood for the ASO debacle is like blaming Taylor Swift for the war in Syria. Do not take our word for it, read the report of the investigators Murillo hired for $120,000 to study the ASO meltdown. We did. Despite the college’s ham-handed attempt to redact the names and titles of the players, it is not hard to sort out the who’s who.
The investigation assigns most of the blame (deservedly) to Student Activities Coordinator Eberheart, who was caught red-handed playing favorites, manipulating the election process, allowing illegal meetings and other transgressions of process. Investigators were also very critical (deservedly) of the role of Assistant Professor of Biology Trishana Norquist, who acted unprofessionally by stirring up already-emotional students, making unfounded accusations, and pressuring a student to stand up and point out four classmates for a reprehensible act none of them committed.
Neither Eberheart nor Norquist were demoted or terminated by Murillo. It appears they got off scot free. For the record, the Editorial Board of The Sun is not calling for firing or demotion of these two employees. Eberheart has always been a kind and helpful force at the ASO. Norquist is a talented young faculty member who seems to care about students and could, with a dash of seasoning, become a positive force at Southwestern College. They did, however, make mistakes.
The point should be obvious. Eberheart and Norquist had their fingerprints all over the worst parts of the debacle, but it is two leaders up the food chain who got whacked. We are hoping against hope that Murillo did not cave into the campus’s fraught racial politics when making these decisions, but the appearances are not good.
CAMPUS SUPPORT FOR DR. FLOOD
We have fanned out across campus this week and spoken to almost every student involved in the ASO situation. Not a single one blamed Dr. Flood. In fact, each and every student said they were upset she was punished. Not one single administrator, faculty member or employee has said to us that Dr. Flood deserved blame and demotion. Getting anyone to agree about anything on this campus is nearly impossible, but there seems to be unanimity that Dr. Flood was mistreated and wrongly demoted. We hope her fellow administrators have the courage to tell their boss Murillo that what she did was wrong and unacceptable.
Murillo seems to think The Sun is angry with her for hiding documents, but we wish it were only that. We have lost confidence in her and we are concerned by her erratic behavior. The juvenile opening of her recent to letter to the editor is troubling.
The only problem with that is there is virtually no bench and no one on our campus management team qualified to take her place. Our governing board should consider bringing in a competent, experienced former president in the mold of Denise Whitaker or Dr. Robert Deegan for a year. Otherwise, SC should seek help from the California Community College Chancellor’s office and invite a conservator in to manage the college until we can get through accreditation and get back on our feet.
Dr. Malia Flood needs to be immediately restored to her rightful position of Dean of Student Affairs. She deserves a public apology from Murillo and this college for falsely blaming her for something that was clearly not her fault.
