It isn’t often that a school turns away money from the federal government. But it happened at El Camino College near Torrance. And now the faculty’s union – as well as at least one elected school board member – are up in arms.
The dispute centers on a $180,000, two-year grant offered by the U.S. Department of Education that would have sent a handful of students and some faculty to Europe for a student-exchange program focused on early childhood development.
Administrators chalk up the quarrel to a simple misunderstanding about a grant that amounts to a slim fraction of the millions of dollars the college receives from grants every year.
But the flare-up seems to highlight a fault line between faculty and the administration – and in particular college President Thomas Fallo – at a community college campus known for running a tight financial ship.
“It’s autocratic, this kind of decision-making,” said Elizabeth Shadish, a philosophy professor and the president of the El Camino faculty union. “Here we were, developing an educational program and Tom Fallo cuts it off at the knee. I’m just puzzled.”
Back in April, faculty from the childhood-education department applied for the so-named “Atlantis” grant. At the time, it appeared they’d had Fallo’s blessing. Attached to the application was a letter signed and apparently written by him.
“Building international capacity in the teaching field reflects a compelling national interest and need,” Fallo wrote in the letter. “Future teachers at El Camino College and the professors who help prepare them are ready and willing to address it.”
This summer, members of the childhood-education department were pleased to learn they were awarded the grant; they’d tried the year before but were turned down by the federal government.
But last month, administrators informed the department that it could not accept the money. The reason: The grant paid for faculty to travel internationally, and the college – owing to the state budget crisis – banned international travel last school year.
“We’re baffled and perplexed and disappointed,” said Janet Young, a professor of early childhood education, who was one of the grant’s primary authors. “We see ourselves as professionals. The president signed off on it. I’m perplexed and very disappointed as a professional.”
Young said the grant would have caused her to miss five days of school. It also would have paid her a stipend of $2,000.
Administrators say they didn’t realize the grant involved international travel when they signed off on it. They add that it isn’t productive to send faculty abroad in the middle of the school year, when doing so benefits only a handful of students.
“It’s a wonderful program in that a couple of students would get to go to Europe,” said Francisco Arce, the college’s vice president of academic affairs. “On the other hand, we have thousands of students.”
He noted that some of the travel would have occurred in October 2011.
“That’s right in the middle of the semester,” he said.
Fallo declined to be interviewed for this article, deferring all questions to Arce.
Faculty union fights back
After the grant was turned down, grumblings through the grapevine brought word of the situation to Shadish of the faculty union. She in turn brought the informal complaint to college board member Maureen O’Donnell.
A former Torrance school board member and city councilwoman known for asking tough questions, O’Donnell’s El Camino candidacy was supported by the faculty in 2005, when she ran unopposed.
On Sept. 7, O’Donnell brought up the issue with Fallo at the college’s regular board meeting. Last week, she said his reaction left her peeved.
“I requested information about the Atlantis grant, and asked Fallo why he wanted to rescind participation,” she said. “All he would say is `Because of information I have learned.”‘
The Daily Breeze obtained a CD recording of the meeting, but the recording cuts out just as O’Donnell begins to ask about the grant, which happened toward the end of the meeting just before adjournment.
O’Donnell said when she pressed him further, Fallo suggested that she read it online.
“He began to deride me for not using a computer,” she said.
O’Donnell said she found the exchange particularly irksome because she and the rest of the board function as Fallo’s boss.
“Dr. Fallo is, after all, an employee of the board,” she said. “In the corporate world, an employee who would refuse the reasonable request by an employer would be fired instantly.”
Other board members didn’t seem to share O’Donnell’s level of pique.
School board President Ray Gen said he doesn’t believe the issue should have risen to the level of the college board.
“This should have been worked out way before it got to this point,” he said. “Otherwise we’re micro-managing every decision – who goes on what field trip, which teams our football team is going to play. We’re supposed to set policy.”
But he added: “Somewhere the communications fell apart.”
School board member Bill Beverly said he doesn’t have enough information on the matter to pick sides.
“I’m hoping by the next board meeting (on Oct. 18) to have a full report,” he said. “Until then I can’t say it’s a big issue or it’s not.”
El Camino administrators say the dust-up has caused them to revise the review process for grant applications.
They reject the criticism from the union that El Camino’s refusal to accept the money could jeopardize the school’s ability to land grants from the U.S. Department of Education in the future.
To buttress their point, administrators cited examples such as a $3 million, five-year federal grant that will focus on improving the graduation rate, and a $1.3 million, five-year federal grant to bolster math and science education, particularly for disadvantaged students.
Rejection is a first
As for the Atlantis grant, the federal administrator, Frank Frankfort of the U.S. Department of Education, said this is the first time a school has turned down the award.
“We funded 25 projects this year,” he said in an e-mail. “Beyond that I have no comment.”
The Atlantis grant clusters colleges in groups of four. El Camino was to partner with California State University, Dominguez Hills; University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy; and the University of Valencia in Spain.
El Camino has since been replaced by the Kern Community College District in Bakersfield.
Each college selects four students to participate. Over the course of the program, the students spend time at other schools within the cluster.
Young, the childhood-education professor who helped write the grant, said the goal is to create a more global track of future teachers.
“We have a commitment to provide our students with tools to help in the increasingly global 21st century workplace,” she said.
She added that the Italian school would have been especially enlightening, as it is recognized worldwide for its approach to early childhood education. The “Reggio Emilia” philosophy, for instance, calls for children to have some control over the direction of their learning, and to learn through experiences of “touching, moving, listening, seeing and hearing.”
Oddly, of the 25 institutions in the United States to receive the grant, El Camino was the only two-year college until Kern accepted.
“This would have put us on the map a little bit here,” Young said.
