A few more news articles

Tuesday's Asbury Park Press included a story with the headline OCC wants teachers' lawsuit dismissed.

Well, maybe if the administration didn't try these strongarm tactics in the first place, there wouldn't be any lawsuits. Here is an excerpt:

Calling charges brought by mathematics instructor Patrick Mitchell and English instructor Karen Veselits "without merit" and a "misuse of our legal system for the advantage of a few disgruntled employees," Tara Kelly, the school's vice president for student advancement, said OCC will be filing a motion to dismiss in coming days.

Kelly said the school's attorney, John C. Sahradnik, would not specify the grounds for the requested dismissal before filing.

On Jan. 20, the two teachers, represented by Somerville attorney Stephen Hunter, filed a civil action in state Superior Court, Toms River. In the suit, the teachers allege "there was no educational justification" for the nonrenewal of their contracts, and that the school further violated their rights by never giving the teachers a reason for not rehiring them.

The suit asks that the court void the nonrenewal decision of the OCC board of trustees and let the teachers have another chance to make their cases for rehiring.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a couple of stories that I had not seen until now. The first story was originally published Dec. 15, 2005, and was picked up by Kentucky Community and Technical College System's news site so I can link to that one here:

Professors at 2-Year College in New Jersey Say Criticism of President Led to Their Ouster
Writer: JAMILAH EVELYN

In a controversial decision on Monday, Ocean County College's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to reassign the adviser to the student newspaper and not to renew the contracts of three untenured professors, recommendations that came from the New Jersey college's president.

The moves, the professors say, are retaliation stemming from articles criticizing the college administration that ran in the student paper, the Viking News.

Jon H. Larson, president of the 8,500-student community college in Toms River, N.J., was not available for comment on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the college, Tara B. Kelly, said that none of the decisions had been made out of retaliation. College officials would not comment further about the three professors, she said, citing a college policy not to discuss personnel matters...

A second story was apparently published on Jan. 6, 2006, but it requires a password to read it on The Chronicle's Web site.