Board members want the president of BridgeValley Community & Technical College to submit a plan to address a recent faculty vote of no confidence.
“I think this is really important for the continued reconciliation of some of these matters that were brought to our attention. I think the board and president should try to work together to try to reconcile some of those issues,” said Barry Holstein, one of several new board members for the South Charleston community college.
Faculty at the college had a no confidence vote last week on President Eunice Bellinger and chief academic officer Pete Soscia, according to reporting by The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Soscia was announced to have resigned during a board meeting April 16.
Reached by telephone today, Faculty Senate President Bob Hayton confirmed the no confidence vote. He said full-time faculty submitted concerns and a request for Faculty Senate to approve and have a no-confidence vote on Bellinger and Soscia.
The three-page initial list included items like “retaliation,” “poor communication and lack of transparency,” “not following proper hiring procedures” and “constant reorganization of the college, creating a lack of stability.”
Faculty Senate members reviewed the concerns and determined they were legitimate, Hayton said. So a vote went out to full-time faculty, and 68 percent of those eligible participated.
Seventy percent of the votes expressed no confidence in Bellinger and Soscia.
BridgeValley’s board, which met in an emergency meeting via livestreaming this morning, agreed on a motion to ask for a response plan by Bellinger following executive session.
The board also heard a clean bill of environmental health for the college, which is on property of Union Carbide’s old Tech Park, from employees at the state Department of Environmental Protection.
“The Tech Park is a safe place to be,” said Kenan Cetin, a corrective action manager at DEP.
“To the best of our knowledge there are no known issues that would endanger human health or the environment.”
The DEP employees said that after years of use as a chemical research facility, the property was mitigated and parcels were studied and approved for use for various activities. The safety for each parcel was determined by the activities there and how much time a person would spend. So residential property, where someone might live and sleep 24 hours a day would need the highest level of certainty.
“Certain areas are more contaminated than others and they put appropriate remedies on particular areas,” said Ross Brittain, environmental toxicologist with DEP.
Brittain agreed that faculty, staff and students are safe in their activities on the campus. “Unequivocally,” he said.
The effectiveness of environmental remediation has been rumbling at the college, but came under greater scrutiny earlier this month when Bellinger briefly brought the matter up with the board.
“Per the board’s agenda for today’s meeting, it looks as like the board is going to be considering the purchase, sale or lease of property, among a few of the other things in executive session,” she said.
“If such discussions are in relation to Building 2000 within the West Virginia Tech Park,” she said, “I would like to ask the board to please consider my past comments and concerns that I’ve made over the years regarding the safety and health of students and staff in conjunction with the publicly published EPA [federal Environmental Protection Agency] and DEP [state Department of Environmental Protection] reports that they can certainly access.”
After the DEP employees called the campus safe today, there was an awkward back-and-forth with Bellinger and board members who were trying to ask Bellinger if she would participate in a public declaration to say so.
“My only concern was that this be looked into, and you have looked into it,” Bellinger said.
Board member Mark Blankenship wanted elaboration. “I’m asking if you are satisfied with this presentation that has occurred.”
Bellinger pointed toward others who raised environmental concerns with her and said she can’t be the judge.
“I have no ability to make that decision myself,” she said. “I asked for a presentation to be done, and it has been done. I never said I wasn’t comfortable. I said there were concerns and they should be addressed.”
Ashley Deem, the new board president, pressed for clarity.
“I just want to feel comfortable that the president and the board are on the same page,” Deem said.
Bellinger: “I am confident that the situation has been looked into. I cannot speak for all the people who have brought concerns to me over the years.”
Deem: “Are the board and the president on the same page?”
Bellinger: “I would say the board and the president are on the same page.”
The president concluded, “If this is what the board wants to do, I support the board.”
Following the executive session, board members revisited the issue of a public statement that the campus is environmentally safe.
“I think it’s important to speak with one voice as a college relative to their response and their information they provided,” Holstein said, referring to the DEP presentation.
“We should offer a statement for public consumption based on the information we received today. Our school is indeed a safe place to work and seek an education.”
At an earlier meeting this month, the community college board officially withdrew from a master plan that included a stalled proposal to leave the Tech Park and relocate to the long-vacant Stone & Thomas building in downtown Charleston.
The West Virginia Regional Technology Park, where the BridgeValley campus is located, is an affiliate of the Higher Education Policy commission.