By Juan Montoya
Then-Texas Southmost College counsel Daniel Rentfro - in a letter to TSC trustees -in Sept. 21, 2010 made his pitch to them to approve his "historical" partnership pact, citing dire consequences if they do not.
The letter warns trustees that if the partnership is dissolved, they faced financial ruin, lower pay for college employees and higher taxes (more than double) for the district.
The "workgroup" with which Rentfro participated included the usual suspects: Provost Alan Artibise, Special Assistant to the Probost for Partnership Affairs Wayne Moore, Vice President for Financial Affairs Rosemary Martinez, and former trustee and executive director Michael Putegnat.He calls Moore and Putegnat "two of the architects of the original partnership agreement."
Also aiding the group were then-trustee David Oliveira and UTB-TSC president Juliet Garcia.
In a latter vacillating between praise for the original framers and biting criticism that their work-product had proved inadequate, Rentfro said it was time to adopt his new "single-entity" model and that he predicted it is "a new model of higher education that in years to come would be copied around the nation."
Well, good thing that the majority of the trustees then – Adela Garza, Kiko Rendon, Trey Mendez and Rene Torres – didn't buy his Cassandra warnings that the sky would fall if the partnership was abandoned.
Instead, they braved the political storm and social ostracism and decided to reestablish the community college to its original mission of providing the first step up the educational ladder to local residents at a reasonable cost.
An election later – now with Rendon as chair, Mendez as vice-chair, Rivera as secretary, and new members Dr. Reynaldo Garcia, and Art Rendon on board – the community college is on its way to resurrection. It has, as Dickens said in his Tale of Two Cities, "come back to life."
There is, of course, the overriding matter of accreditation which has been flubbed in the first two attempts by TSC President Lily Tercero. That, we were told, was partly the failure of the UTB staff to provide TSC with the necessary data to fill in the blanks required by the accreditation body. It is one of – if not the most critical cog – that is missing from the equation. Other than that glaring misstep, the TSC board has continued steadfast on its promise to restore TSC to its former self.
The dire predictions by Rentfro and others associated with the Garcia administration have not only not come true, but have been left in the dust as TSC goes about the task of operating independently from the UT System. After the initial board decide to go at it alone, they have:
*Seen enrollment increase by 18 percent when the nay-sayers predicted that it would decrease*Seen tuition for students (and thankful parents) decrease by 37 percent, a savings for the average student taking a full-time schedule of more than $1,000 below the university tuition rates. It has allowed TSC to be one of the few – if not the only – community college to reduce tuition in the last academic year.
*Eliminated Student Union fees, an extraneous cost to students who reside locally and don't use it
*Seen it's dual enrollment double withe the participation of local school districts. When high school students who participate in the program arrive at TSC, they already have college hours and don;t have to pay tuition for some courses
*Kept the effective tax rate the same, not imposing a further burden on the district residents who subsidized the fabulously gas-and-oil wealthy UT System by serving as a taxing entity for UTB
*Increased the number of its instructors and staff
*Increased its tax reserves
*Seen it's bond rating improved. TSC has no plans to incur further debt on behalf of the UT System, but would enjoy lower interest rates if the voters approved a bond issue in the future. Refinancing existing debt has saved taxpayers millions already.
*Afforded to give a 4.5 percent increase to its employees
Where are the "sky is falling" dooms dayers who wanted to keep TSC a cash cow for the UT System now? Would you believe trying to nibble away at the city's resources as Garcia and her cadre of parasitic bureaucrats had been doing to TSC for the last 22 years?
Go Scorps!
17 comments:
The sky is falling and you have yet to see this. Accreditation is the most important issue before the board and they seem to ignore this and high five themselves for everything else.
Come 2016, Kiko, Ed, and Trey will be ousted should TSC not attain accreditation while on their watch.
To anonymous who says the sky is falling, perhaps you should attend TSC and educate yourself instead of making a fool of yourself on blogs. If you knew anything you would know that TSC is well underway toward accreditation.
TSC is an "Alternative high school" for remdial classes. Get real, Monty.
The number of students and the financial bottom line, is only some of the indicators of a healthy community college.
The level of instruction has taken a serious decline since TSC became free standing. This is in large part due to the wholesale use of Pearson digital learning. The students don't like it, the faculty does not like it and it has increased the amount of cheating by 100 fold. Cheating is now the rule and not the exception.
The educational theory and culture at TSC is now far more akin to public school than a college or university.
Moral by the employees is terrible with most wanting to quit if they get a chance.
I would expect that TSC will survive as an institution, but I have little or no hope that the education received there will have much value to the students or the community. If institutional survival is the goal, then TSC is a roaring success. If student education is the goal, then TSC is a dismal failure. It all depends on how you measure the college.
WE have to understand that Julieta Garcia and her cohorts (Tony Martinez, Freddy Rusteberg, and United Brownsville) hope that TSC will fail and they continue to do whatever Julieta says to promote failure at TSC.
Julieta is the Queen of DArkness and has the largest ego in town.
To anonymous of12:10. You hit the nail on the head but the majority of the board is bought and paid for. How on earth do this pendejos gravitate and find each other. Employee turnover is alarming. The president is way way over her head . She is just buying her time You think Julieta was bad well Tercero is the same but pendeja.
She has amassed 3 millions from the public troughs . Not too bad for a Naca. She thanks the banks, contractors, sleazy con men, a little bribe here and there, etc.
Thanks 12:10. Keep us informed. Pearson is God, in some circles. And if you let students test via the internet they are going to cheat like crazy.
Anon at 12:10PM
Pearson is a problem provided in part by Dynamic Campus, the third party IT company in charge. Too bad Juan has his nose so far up Tercero's rear end and he doesn't look into this. This company takes 3.5 million of our money every year and they haven't upgraded TSC's equipment since they came aboard. Students are using equipment either dumped by UTB on TSC or old equipment that is part of the Carl Perkins grant.
Rumor has it that Dynamic Campus barely uses a third of the 3.5 million dollars and they pocket the rest. People are asking why this company gets so much money and there are no improvements.
The 3 Amigos: Julieta "la pinche naca", Fred "el pinche aleman" y Tony "el pendejo"
TSC is a house of cards and an educational cluster fuck. Tercero is the spider in the center of the web and all decisions must be passed by her. For whatever reason, she defers making those decisions until the last possible moment which results in chaos to get things done. This short circuits the planning process and the entire school operates in crisis mode all the time.
This produces a terrible work environment and results in high stress levels and an unnecessarily high rate of turn over. Tercero does not have even basic people management skills. The best work product will result from employees who enjoy their work and are enthusiastic about what they do. Turn the workplace into a toxic, dismayal swamp of stress and see what you get. Well, you get TSC in it current incarnation.
The Trustees picked the wrong horse to lead the college restart. She is a numbers cruncher and not a leader. She is also pliable and can be controlled by the Board of Pendejos. That probably is the principal reason she was hired.
This is just the opinion of one who has observed the restart up close and has been awake the whole time.
Aunt Jemima should have been in Jail long ago.
Administration at TSC does not know what they are doing, but it is ok since they are giving themselves enough rope to hang themselves when they get probation. They will look incompetent and will be let go by the board. The board will look incompetent as well for letting all the rubbish ensue with all the mismanagement going on. Once they get probation or worse they lose accreditation, their heads will roll either way and they will be at fault. It will be a clean house from top to bottom and even in the board. The board will be ousted by the public as well for having a blind eye to the problems at the school, and believing the sociopaths that are running the show who have no experience in higher education. The problems are too numerous and too serious, but administration will be at fault and roll out of there like Proud Mary: rolling and sinking into the Rio Grande. Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.
IF TSC is "remedial" as one observer says, then its because BISD graduates students who require remediation in order to be successful in college. The community college can only advance students based on the level of education they have upon entering. BISD fails and drags down TSC because the BISD grads are illiterate in two languages when they get their social diplomas.
nonymous said...
Administration at TSC does not know what they are doing, but it is ok since they are giving themselves enough rope to hang themselves when they get probation. They will look incompetent and will be let go by the board. The board will look incompetent as well for letting all the rubbish ensue with all the mismanagement going on. Once they get probation or worse they lose accreditation, their heads will roll either way and they will be at fault. It will be a clean house from top to bottom and even in the board. The board will be ousted by the public as well for having a blind eye to the problems at the school, and believing the sociopaths that are running the show who have no experience in higher education. The problems are too numerous and too serious, but administration will be at fault and roll out of there like Proud Mary: rolling and sinking into the Rio Grande. Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.
Adele for TSC President !
The most effective person to take the president's place will be a person already at the college with more academic experience than Tercero. Furthermore, all ex-employees need to start running against these board members. Sooner or later with all the high turn-over rates and disgruntled employees that have left and will leave, the college will finally run correctly when elected to the board.
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