Editor:
The College of the Redwoods, our community college, is not representing, at all, the will of the community at large (“CR faces the music,” Blog Jammin, March 14). It has become another top-heavy institution, prostituting itself to the whims of the cronies serving on its board. To eliminate the programs which actually serve this community is against why community colleges were actually created. Yet, again, CR is cutting one of our most popular and necessary programs in the arts: its music program.
We, as community members, are the only people to voice our support for this program. We are the tax base for this college. We can actually have a voice.
As the Humboldt Light Opera stated so well, CR is the foundation for many who do go on to amazing careers in the music field and we cannot have this movement foiled.
I send out a plea to all residents here who have enjoyed our theatre and music behind out Redwood Curtain, far from San Francisco. We must, en masse, protest this cutting at CR. The top brass needs to be trimmed, not the academic programs.
*Virginia Hassrick, Bayside *
This article appears in For the Love of Bowling.
College of the Redwoods is out of touch with the community. The cuts of classes and faculty while adding remedial classes at the expense of viable classes is an example of that. The music program and theater art department have NOT been losing money. In fact, they are putting valuable money resources into the school. So have many of the other classes that are slated to be cut.
In the business world, money has to be handled wisely and not cut products and resources. The CR board and administration has and are mishandling their resources. I want a financial audit of the school after the last 2 presidents left. Was everything done legally? Maybe instead a golden handshake, they should have been given the golden boot. The expansion of the pilot programs into other areas took away from the main school. Sell the satellite buildings and cancel leases in little used outlying areas. Focus on the main campus. Don’t build new buildings and then cut classes. Put money into the existing buildings and existing classes while adding more advanced classes. Don’t cut classes and layoff faculty. More classes, more students, more money. CR board and administration: Listen to your community.
How much annually does the average musician bring in? In a society where everything is driven by maximum capital and society glorifies those making maximum capital (sometimes seemingly regardless of the means to that end) do you really expect your community college to hold on to programs teaching skills which do not maximize the potential earnings power of the student? Forget lobbying CR this problem is much deeper. Lobby Congress, lobbying society to adjust its value system and teach our youth that their is more to being a successful human being than maximum capital. CR is just another cog in the system.
Perhaps College of the Redwoods is making room for Marijuana 101, a prerequiset needed in order to transfer to Humboldt State which cut out a much needed Nursing Program only to later bring in a Pot Major. Old hippies must be in charge of our schools of “higher” learning.