The Contra Costa Community College District will release a compiled memoir next month in celebration of its 60th anniversary, but the reminiscences are not without controversy.
At issue is the chapter, “Battle Over DVC Reorganization,” by Bruce Koller, which covers a management change so tumultuous it led to a nearly 93 percent faculty vote of no confidence in then-President Mark Edelstein in 2002, a lawsuit by the Faculty Senate against the district in 2003 and an appeal of the judge’s ruling in 2004.
Two former DVC Faculty Senate presidents – Barbara Sawyer and Gay Ostarello – read a chapter draft and fault Kohler’s selection as author, since he was not actively involved in the events covered and did little research.
“I’m unhappy that the memories being asked for aren’t wider,” said Sawyer, Faculty Senate president from 1995 to 2000. Although retired, she teaches an English or journalism class each semester.
Calling the chapter “not historically accurate,” Sawyer added, “It is only fair to have multiple memories [of such a] volatile time.”
Ostarello, Faculty Senate president from 2000 to 2003 and now retired, said in an e-mail interview: “Clearly, this chapter does not qualify as history. That said, I am dismayed that even a collection of stories including these pivotal events in DVC’s history does not include contributions from any faculty members who were involved on a daily basis with what transpired. Bruce was not one of those people.”
The approximately 400-page book, “Sharing Memories: Contra Costa Community College District, 1948-2008,” will be unveiled at an anniversary celebration Oct. 5 at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond’s Marina District near the shipyard where the district’s first classes were conducted.
The book project was initiated by district Chancellor Helen Benjamin, coordinated by Tim Leong, the district’s public relations director, and edited by Bill Harlan, a retired English instructor who still teaches at the San Ramon campus.
Leong described the book as 25 chapters of phases and movements that shaped the district as told by “individuals talking about what they remember.”
But Sawyer said she had expected the book to have a similar approach to “Diablo Valley College at 40, 1949-89,” DVC’s 40th anniversary book. “It was very well researched … [and] controversial areas were covered fairly, ” she said.
However, Leong offered a different view of the DVC book, calling it “basically, a compilation [of] governing board minutes… a good book to read if you want to fall asleep.”
Social science professor Greg Tilles wrote the last one-third of “Diablo Valley College at 40” and will have a section republished in the district’s anniversary book. He pointed out the DVC book was praised by the AACJC Journal (August 1990) and the Community College Week (April 1991).
“Maybe it wasn’t as lively from the outside,” Tilles said, “but, internally, a lot of people were pleased.”
Harlan defended his selection of Koller as author of the chapter on the Edelstein years.
“Koller was very much affected but not caught up in the emotion of both sides,” he said. “I don’t think he glosses over it, but I don’t think he writes in bloody detail over it.”
For his part, Koller, who was Faculty Senate president during the quieter years of 2005 to 2007, described his chapter as “my own memory of what took place…not a lot of research.”
He said he was not trying to be a reporter or a historian and acknowledged he was “on the side-lines, observing,” during the years he wrote about.
But Ostarello said readers may assume otherwise.
“I am afraid that this ‘book of memories’ will be viewed by some as the definitive word on the reorganization struggle at DVC, and that would be a travesty” she said. “A much more accurate and complete story needs to be told.”
The district’s book will be sold for $30 at all Contra Costa community college bookstores and online after the Oct. 5 event. Published by the district and printed in Hong Kong, the initial order is for 500 copies, Leong said.