The Elgin Community College Board of Trustees is breaking with the tradition that it changes its leaders every two years. During the board’s recent post-election reorganization meeting, board members voted unanimously to keep Donna Redmer as chair, Ellie MacKinney as vice chair and John Duffy as secretary for a third year each.
The board also installed newly elected Trustee Jeff Meyer and reinstalled Redmer. Meyer and Redmer had defeated board veteran Robert Getz in the April 7 election in a race of three candidates for two six-year trustee terms.
MacKinney said it has become the board’s tradition to appoint a new chairperson every two years — usually the previous two years’ vice chairperson, which in this case would have been her. But MacKinney urged the other members to keep Redmer as chair because the college is about to undergo a rigorous examination to determine whether it should be reaccredited by the Higher Learning Commission of North Central Schools and Colleges. That process typically is done every 10 years.
President David Sam said Elgin Community College is one of two Midwest colleges that is being used as a guinea pig to test a new method of examining a college’s strengths and weaknesses.
“The board has a number of responsibilities in the reaccreditation process and I told the board members that it would be in the best interest of the college to stay with the same leadership team,” MacKinney said. “After this year, I expect we will go back to the practice of changing officers every two years.”
Sam said the accreditation examinations will begin this summer and continue through October.
A year ago Getz, who had served on the board for 11 years, led an unsuccessful attempt to get himself elected as vice chair and Trustee Art Sauceda elected as secretary. Those efforts failed by 5-2 votes.
