by Rob Smith

IN 2005, WASHTENAW Community College President Dr. Rose Bellanca found her institution, Saint Clair County Community College in Port Huron, embroiled in an ACLU lawsuit over a gag order imposed on the college’s Board of Trustees via an ethics policy the Trustees voted to adopt. The policy barred Trustees from talking to “students, faculty or employees without first notifying the college president,” or from participating “in any meeting outside of a legal assembly of the board in which matters of board substance are discussed.”

According to an April 2005 piece posted to InsideHigherEd.com, in essence, St. Clair County Community College board members “would have to seek permission from an employee they oversee—the president—to talk to faculty members, students and other constituents.”

Again, according to InsideHigherEd.com, the trustee on behalf of whom the ACLU brought the suit, Thomas A. Hamilton, alleged he had been “increasingly marginalized on the St. Clair board ever since he began challenging a series of decisions by Bellanca and the board over hiring policies, spending practices, use of executive session in board meetings, and evaluations of the president.”

The student journalists who produce Washtenaw Community College’s award-winning Washtenaw Voice newspaper are feeling a little like Thomas Hamilton—marginalized.

The complaints begin with Susan Ferraro, a contract employee hired to do PR work for WCC, and end at the desk of Dr. Bellanca.

A member of the student newspaper staff describes how student reporters contact upper-level administrators.

“We are expected to call Susan Ferraro, to go through her.”

When asked what happens if upper-level administrators are contacted directly, the staff member explains, “We are told that we must go through the college’s Public Relations officer.”

This is a significant departure from the open door policy of former WCC president Dr. Larry Whitworth. Students phoned administrators, spoke to them directly and found it much less cumbersome to get the information they sought, according to WCC faculty member Keith Gave. Gave’s career includes 15 years at the Detroit Free Press, Other stops included the Dallas Morning News, The Associated Press, Chicago Bureau, and the Lansing State Journal. He has also worked as a college PR staffer, so he’s uniquely qualified to comment on Susan Ferraro’s job.

Gave said he has exchanged emails with Ferraro, but not spoken to her directly about what his student journalists feel is retaliation for their reporting on Dr. Bellanca’s troubles with her faculty.

Susan Ferraro was initially chipper when asked if she is a gatekeeper for upper-level administrators irked by the students’ coverage of the year-long conflict between Dr. Bellanca’s administration and her faculty.

“I’m not a gatekeeper. I’m a facilitator. I open doors. I don’t close doors,” she says.

Ms. Ferraro also claimed, contrary to what the student newspaper representatives alleged, “In some cases, student reporters schedule their own interviews.” When asked to clarify whether students, in fact, are able to schedule interviews with upper-level administrators, Ferraro suggested that it was more expedient for the students to make appointments through her.

“It’s a matter of facilitating the time spent,” she stated.

“Susan Ferraro drags her feet,” complained a Washtenaw Voice journalist. It can take a month to get information now.”

A faculty member familiar with the situation said: “Susan Ferraro is running interference, and that directive has to have come directly from the Office of the President. Administrators are worried about talking to reporters. They should be. We’ve seen they can be fired at a moment’s notice.”

The faculty member is referring obliquely to Dr. Bellanca’s 2013 firing of WCC’s popular VP of Instruction Stuart Blacklaw.

Ferraro countered that in her “tenure working with The Voice, I am not aware of any missed deadlines.”

Over the course of answering questions, Ferraro became increasingly sardonic.

When asked about allegations made by student journalists concerning the new policy leading to a real lack of transparency, Ferraro said, “I’ve heard nothing from the students concerning a lack of transparency.”

A faculty member says: “Of course she’s heard about the complaints. She’s being disingenuous if she claims otherwise.”

In addition to having to go through Susan Ferraro to speak to upper-level administrators, the student journalists spoke about a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for which the college charged them $168.40—for electronic files. The students were charged $33 per hour for five hours of labor, a troubling sum.

Over the course of his six years advising the student newspaper, Keith Gave says the students prepare five or perhaps six FOIAs each year.

“The college never charged the kids. Former Voice writers who have jobs at newspapers took up a collection to pay for the FOIA. It was an absolutely amazing gesture.”

If the newspaper’s staff are feeling marginalized, they are in good company. The faculty are up in arms, as well. Several full- and part-time faculty interviewed for this story asked to remain anonymous; they fear for their jobs, they say, as allegedly Dr. Bellanca’s brand of leadership consists of threatening to fire people whom she disagrees with.

Faculty members say that for this reason, among others, the union is in an uproar. Faculty also say that the friction between Dr. Bellanca and her staff has been generated by issues such as alleged lack of institutional transparency, lack of shared governance and Dr. Bellanca’s administrative staffing plan.

The faculty recently sent a detailed complaint to the college’s accrediting body, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).  HLC’s 19 member Board of Trustees is comprised of  six college presidents, and other top-level administrators. There are three faculty members, a former state senator as a vice president of marketing among the group, as well. WCC faculty admit this is hardly a mix likely to view WCC’s faculty complaints with much sympathy.

The June 16 letter to the HLC, composed by 20 faculty members, begins:

Dear Higher Learning Commission:

We are reaching out to you to investigate the alignment of our institution (Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan) with our stated mission, our board-specified policies and procedures, and the accreditation requirements of the Higher Learning Commission. It is our position, as faculty leaders at Washtenaw Community College (WCC), that we are currently operating outside of these parameters in a number of areas and have reached a crisis point due to the lack of administrative leadership. Our desired outcome is to hold the WCC Board of Trustees accountable to address our problems and ensure that the college is under capable leadership.

“They did it hoping to get headlines,” said one faculty member. “It’s more of a stunt than an effort to endanger the college’s accreditation,” said a faculty member who had been at the college for a number of years.

At WCC, tuition costs are up, student enrollment is down and the college has a two-year degree completion rate of five percent, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. This means that it’s costing county taxpayers over $25,000 per degree completion based on the $45.9 million collected from taxpayers annually to operate the community college.

On June 25, 2013 WCC trustees extended Dr. Bellanca’s contract through 2016 and gave her a raise. The Washtenaw Voice reported the particulars of the trustee’s decision:

“In addition to her extension, Bellanca’s salary has been set at $202,878 and authorized a deferred payment of four percent to her current compensation; received a $15,000 housing allowance and $9,500 to be paid for expenses related to her office.”

There are fears among those who support the Washtenaw Voice that administrators are edging toward what one supporter of the student newspaper phrased, “pulling the trigger. It’s easy enough to just say that the budget won’t support a print newspaper and to cut funding for the program,” said the WCC faculty member.

One administrator did speak to The Ann Arbor Independent confidentially because, as the WCC staff member said, “I’m afraid for my job.”

The administrator said: “The Trustees need to open their eyes. High turnover among staff, disgruntled faculty, an atmosphere of fear, falling enrollment, to me these are all signs that Rose Bellanca is out of touch—after just three years. I think the Voice is doing an excellent job reporting on the conflicts. We should all be proud.”