Not long before Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton selected to be the president of Ohio's largest two-year institution, a national group named her the top community college CEO in the country. Now, six years later, faculty members at Cuyahoga Community College say that the woman they once welcomed with open arms isn't fit to feat the 22,000-student college.
Trustees and others, however, characterize the growing rift between Thornton and the faculty as a struggle over who will control the college--the president or the faculty union.
Cuyahoga has gained a reputation for rough-and-tumble politics. Trustees fired Thornton's predecessor, who once lunged over the table and slugged the board chairman during a trustee meeting. Late last month, nearly three-quarters of the full-time faculty cast ballots against Thornton in a no-confidence vote of her leadership abilities, according to union officials. But that vote is in dispute. Although the union says that nearly 300 members cast ballots (with all but thirty-three voting nay to Thornton's leadership), trustees say only about 100 faculty members voted altogether.
"She's autocratic," complains Patrick Masterson, a speech communications professor and president of Cuyahoga's American Association of University Professors chapter, about Thornton. But that's just one of the complaints. The faculty union has drawn up a twelve-page list of grievances against Thornton dating back to her third month on the job in March of 1992. Thornton, who even critics acknowledge has created much good will in the Cleveland community, declined comment. However, she told a local newspaper after the vote, "My door is always open."
The Politics of the Vote
Some community college leadership experts say the Cuyahoga case illustrates the difficulties presidents face when pinched between the conflicting wishes of faculty and trustees. When such clashes occur, some experts say, faculty unions increasingly are more willing to wield no-confidence votes like a club if college presidents resist their demands.
