Controversy
In May 2008, the school board abruptly removed the college president, Sunil Chand.
In October 2008, COD board chairman Michael McKinnon sued three former college trustees for defamation. The defamation suit was dismissed in mid-February, 2009. The three trustees had alleged that he had sexually harassed them. Mary Mack, one of the trustees, then counter-sued McKinnon for defamation.
In November 2008, according to Insidehighered.com, faculty members and students protested a board meeting by attending the meeting with tape over their mouths. This was to protest changes to the college rules modeled on conservative activist David Horowitz's controversial "Academic Bill of Rights", which takes control over the curriculum away from teachers and gives it to the school board. If adopted, as the Board of Trustees has proposed, this reform would make College of DuPage the first institution of higher learning in the nation to adopt Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights" The faculty association sent a letter to the board noting that the changes were never discussed and no complaints over curriculum have been filed by students. Another controversial change to the college rules was that control over the student newspaper will be given to the College president. This comes after the newspaper criticized the school board. The Student Press Law Center advised the newspaper that the changes may violate Illinois state law.
In February 2009, a board meeting in which trustee candidates contested objections to their candidacy drew over 100 people. The objections to the candidacies had been filed by Kory Atkinson, an outgoing trustee. The board barred audience members from commenting on the procedures. Candidates charged that the process was flawed and undemocratic.
Read more about this topic: College Of DuPage
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)