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Trustees fail to reach decision on instructor

By Brad Lowell

The tug-of-war between three members of the college board of trustees and the college administration over the criminal justice instructor didn’t end last night when two votes on her future failed.
The first vote to pass a resolution to not renew the contract of Rita Dondlinger failed on a 3-3 vote. College president Richard Underbakke recommended that the board approve the nonrenewal of Dondlinger’s contract.
Voting for the motion were Faith Nyswonger, Jim Huff and Quentin Smith. Voting against the motion were board president Dan Gerber and board members Charles Lowers and Marsha Doyenne.
Underbakke said that the board needs to take action on the nonrenewal of Dondlinger’s contract. “If we don’t fill the position, I’ll have to staff the criminal justice classes with auxiliary instructors and that wouldn’t be good for the students or the school,” he said.
Nyswonger said technically the board nonrenewed her contract when the motion was approved to notify her of our intent to not renew her contract. “We’ve spent hours and hours on this issue and, in my opinion, we have gone through the back door,” she said. “This board has done a disservice to the college.”
Board attorney David Swenson said that timely notice was given to Dondlinger of the board’s intent to nonrenew her contract and she has no expectation of a contract.
During its March meeting, the board unanimously approved a motion to notify Dondlinger of its intent to not renew her contract. Dondlinger addressed the board, along with two of her students, at the April meeting.
Dondlinger, a nontenured faculty member, was seeking reinstatement or at least a hearing before the board.
At a special board meeting, on June 16, the board failed to approve the second step in the nonrenewal process, which is a resolution to nonrenew the contract. After more than an hour of executive sessions, the board was deadlocked with Nyswonger, Huff and Smith voting to nonrenew her contract and Gerber and Lowers voting against the motion. Doyenne abstained.
After the motion to nonrenew failed again last night, Lowers made a motion to renew Dondlinger’s contract through the 2009-2010 school year. That motion failed on a 3-3 vote with Gerber, Lowers, and Doyenne voting in favor of the motion and Smith, Nyswonger and Huff voting against.
As a result, no action was taken by the board on an agenda item which recommended the hiring of Phil Baskerville as the new criminal justice instructor.
The board scheduled another special meeting for July 7 to discuss personnel. The meeting will be the first attended by new board members Greg Askren, David Clemons and Roger Koester. They will be replacing retiring members Smith, Nyswonger and Huff.  
The board authorized vice president of administrative services Bob Maxson to proceed with an initiative to seek a design concept for additional college housing.
Maxson said the college has 306 applications for housing for the fall semester. That’s 21 more students than college housing can currently accommodate, he said.
Enrollment for next fall looks strong and 90 sophomores want to remain in campus housing as compared to 70 last year at this time, Maxson said. The design concept will be for a building to accommodate between 65 and 70 students.
That will allow the college to close buildings 8 and 9 which have structural defects and bring available occupancy to between 306 and 315, Maxson said.
Maxson said that under the design, bid and build concept, the timeline would be for occupancy in August of 2010.
The board accepted a bid of $55,038.27 from ISG Technology, Inc. of Salina for 93 computers and 33  17-inch monitors. Student technical fees will be used to fund the purchase.
Indoff, Inc. of Salina was the successful bidder on 58 classroom chairs for the library with a price of $8,667.23.
The board also accepted a bid $17,114.51 from Carpet One of Manhattan for the purchase and installation of carpet tiles and broadloom carpet for the Geary County campus.
The annual license agreement for Microsoft software from Software One of New Berlin, Wisconsin in the amount of $10,936.85 also was approved by the board.  
The board agreed to extend for three years the agreement with ASI Laundry Solutions in exchange for replacing the washers in the college laundry and to place two washers and two dryers in the Hillside Apartments. The company also agreed to replace the laundry card dispenser, Maxson said.
Approval was given for submitting the performance agreement with the Kansas Board of Regents for its consideration. Vice president for academic affairs Kim Krull said that the plan must be approved every three years and that it is an improvement plan which sets targets and measures improvement.
The college goals include improvement of student retention, improvement of student outcomes or completion rates, and to increase participation in community service projects and leadership forums, she said.
Krull also announced that Rita Dondlinger was recognized at graduate ceremonies as the faculty member of the year for the Concordia campus and that Richard Clark was teacher of the year for the Geary County campus.
Underbakke reported that the operating grant from the state for fiscal year 2010 will be $4,051,146 which is  $631,239 less than the original FY 2009 grant of $4,682,385.
The president said that the college will receive $233,000 in federal stimulus funds which can be used for tuition mitigation or deferred maintenance. “Our budget proposal will include a portion of this money for mitigation of tuition,” he said.
Underbakke congratulated Joel Figgs, the admissions staff, and all employees at the college who work to recruit students. “Their hard work has paid off with an increase of 856 credit hours from 4,723.5 hours last year to 42,579.5 this year,” he said.
Athletic director Matt Bechard appeared at the meeting to inform the board about a drug testing procedure being developed for the athletic department. Student athletes will be subject to random drug tests throughout the school year, he said.

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