James McLaughlin, vice chancellor for finance and administration, retires Dec. 31. That means someone will need to fill in and clean up the mess he’s leaving behind.

The chancellor praises his financial expertise, experience and leadership. Let’s just forget that we are in a $14.6 million deficit with thousands being cut from student services and faculty payroll to overcome the shortage. How is that fiscal financial responsibility? Clearly, it is not.

One inspiring woman proved last week that a few thrifty measures make a big difference.

Meet Pamela Tyler, district coordinator of donor relations. She planned an appreciation event with the assistance of consultants from the ACCD Foundation and development staff from the five colleges. She invited major donors like Boeing, Toyota and Valero Energy Corp. to the Koehler Cultural Center to show them how their gifts are benefiting the district. She was able to find local business donations, which cut the event budget by two-thirds.

The party favors included tickets to a theater production here and Scobee planetarium and chocolate bark prepared by the St. Philip’s culinary arts department. She said they chose these gifts to show donors what their money supports. She said using the strengths of students, faculty and staff means more than a paperweight emblazoned with a design that donors will probably never use. We have someone in this district who actually appreciates what the students and faculty offer?

Hire Tyler for McLaughlin’s soon-to-be vacant post. She seems to have a knack for saving and a go-getter attitude. Save the $100,000 for yet another national search.

Tyler, whose job is seeking donations to the district, knows just how hard money is to come by; of course, she doesn’t waste it.

Visit The Ranger online to compare her tale of planning a donor appreciation event with the reasoning John Strybos, associate vice chancellor for facilities operations and construction management, uses for doing exactly the opposite for the CIP celebration this afternoon at Pearl Stable.

Reasonable lab hours, available faculty and staff and low tuition — that’s all students want and need.

Maybe someone like Tyler can make that happen.

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

1 comments

Cee Cee

Sun Nov 15 2009 13:37

This article should have been on the comics page. Ms. Tyler has neither the background or expertise to even contemplate this position.

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out