ABOVE: DACC Board of Regents Student Trustee Leonidas Hamza
It was Monday evening during the closed session portion of a special Danville Area Community College Board of Trustees meeting that Student Trustee Leonidas Hamza walked out of the board room, saying he was both “fed up” and “disappointed.”
Hamza said he began taking classes at DACC two years ago, fell in love with the school, and really wanted to be a student trustee.
Hamza, at one time a prospective law student, says some current board members, and especially Board President Greg Wolfe and DACC President Dr. Randy Fletcher, do not like his outspokenness on issues such as the recent dismissal of personnel in the adult education program.
Hamza says he spent hours doing his own research. But during the day on Monday he was called into a room by Wolfe and Fletcher, along with a secretary and Dean of Students, and told to stop being disruptive. Then, during closed session that night, he was admonished for being on his cell phone checking on a major concern at home; something Hamza says numerous board members have done during closed session.
Hamza stated after walking out that yes, he’s running for a regular board seat to try and help keep the school from “decaying and falling apart.”
AUDIO: We’ve lost faculty, administration; we lost adult education, we are now losing parts of the culinary program. We’re losing parts of the electrical program for the pre-apprenticeship here for construction.
Hamza says he’s hearing disturbing stories from students in such departments who are close to their degrees or certificates, but their classes are getting cancelled. He says this so called “overload issue,” where faculty are being told they’re teaching too many hours, was never a problem before. It was just the school meeting what its district desired.
AUDIO: It’s like supply and demand. We had a really high demand for classes here. And there’s not enough faculty here, and they had no choice but to take on what they could take on. And they took on what they could handle. And everybody had built a lifestyle around what they were taking on, and now everything is being disrupted. So I’m assuming that’s why the culinary department is having issues.
Hamza, the one-time desirous law student, also added that when called into the room earlier Monday, he was told to sign something that strengthened rules concerning student trustees. Hamza says, yes, he signed it with the notation UCC1-308, meaning a Reservation of Rights, where the person signing can perform their side of the deal while stating they disagree with certain terms.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, SEE THIS ARTICLE FROM THE NEWS-GAZETTE’S JENNIFER BAILEY
