The faculty union at Monroe Community College is scheduled to vote next week on a resolution of no-confidence in the college’s board of trustees.

The Faculty Association vote is slated for May 29 and follows a vote of no-confidence in college President Anne Kress held in November.

“It is our opinion that Monroe Community College’s Board of Trustees has failed to secure a minimum level of confidence from employees,” the resolution reads in part.

“The MCC Board of Trustees has failed to take appropriate action in the oversight of Monroe Community College’s President Anne Kress,” the resolution went on. “The actions of the Board of Trustees, often through passive acceptance of the president’s reports and lack of rigorous oversight of college management, have resulted in a deleterious impact on one of this community’s most valuable resources.”

The vote is the latest salvo in a cold war between faculty and college stewards dating to at least 2008, when faculty members overwhelmingly expressed no confidence that trustees could conduct a search for a new president free of political sway.

Trustees ended up selecting Kress and relations have been icy ever since.

The no-confidence resolution against Kress that faculty voted on last year listed 68 points of contention with her administration that ranged from an overall “failure of the public trust” to contractual violations and a lackluster response to plummeting enrollment and employee turnover.

Lack of faith

Kress and trustees at the time dismissed the vote as a bargaining tactic, as her administration and faculty were locked in a protracted labor dispute. Those negotiations were eventually settled and trustees signed off on a new collective bargaining agreement last month.

“As we told the board then, and have been continuing to remind them, the vote of no confidence in President Kress was not just about the contract,” Faculty Association President Bethany Gizzi said. “That was one of the numerous concerns we have with President Kress’s leadership.”

Gizzi said the vote scheduled against trustees is the result of the board “having not responded in any substantive way” to the faculty’s lack of faith in Kress.

“We believe they’re not taking their roles seriously,” Gizzi said.

Barbara Lovenheim, chairwoman of the board of trustees, declined to be interviewed and issued a statement that read in full: “While we are aware of the Faculty Association union’s discussion of a vote of no confidence, the MCC Board of Trustees has not received any communication from union leaders regarding it. Generally, we find it advisable to not comment on hypotheticals or hearsay.”

The faculty union’s resolution runs four pages and contends trustees have violated the public trust in four general areas: “mismanagement of college resources,” “lack of transparency and urgency regarding the financial and enrollment crises,” “negligence in overseeing the student experience,” and “contempt for college employees.”

No-confidence votes are not an everyday occurrence in higher education, but they have become increasingly common, spurred by declining enrollment, falling public aid and tight budgets.

Between 2013 and 2017, there were an average of 17 no-confidence votes at colleges and universities nationwide, compared to an average of three between 2000 and 2004, according to research by Sean McKinniss, a formal doctoral student whose online database of no-confidence votes in higher education has been widely cited.

Targets of no-confidence votes at community colleges tend to survive the rebuke.

Research out of Warren County Community College in New Jersey found that 51% of presidents of American Association of Community Colleges member schools who had been subject to a no-confidence vote since 2008 stayed in office.

But the votes are serious matters because they can impugn a school’s reputation and disrupt a governance structure that traditionally distributes power among trustees, administrators, faculty, students and alumni.

DANDREATTA@Gannett.com