Letters: Consult faculty when picking leaders for City Colleges

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After reading the Elynne Chaplik-Aleskow letter (“Pick City Colleges leader with faculty input” — June 14), I have to add my support to her position on the elimination of the Academic Affairs department at Chicago district office (“unconscionable”). It defies all logic that professional educators do not have any input in the administrative policies of the City Colleges of Chicago when it is in the business of “education.”

What comes to mind is an interesting book published in 1987, “The Closing of the American Mind,” a national bestseller written by Allan Bloom. If the current chancellor and fellow administrators read this book, they would have known that leadership would require more than just using a corporate approach while playing political hardball with the faculty, students and taxpayers.

The first two years of post-secondary education are important in the academic lives and careers of our future leaders, as are curricula that incorporate critical thinking. As of now, it appears that the city colleges are limiting the institutions to being vocational preparation schools.

Students hail from diverse communities in many areas of this wonderful city. By moving programs and classes to a single college, based on administrative decisions, the students juggling family responsibilities, jobs and education are limited in their access to opportunities.

Apparently, dear taxpayers, these moves are made at the convenience of the district office, not for the students that they are supposed to serve. It is my hope that the choice of a next chancellor and board of trustees will be made with much deliberation and diverse representation, not on the whim of City Hall.

Cheryl Dias, professor emeritus,

Harold Washington College

Bright prospects for Britain

Switzerland has done very well not being a member of the European Union, and now the British will join them. Brexit has not even begun and no terms have been specified, negotiated or settled. The resulting terms may not be much different than the current status. Also, the British never used the euro as do the Swiss, and the weaker pound will boost British exports and improve tourism.

Thomas Cechner, Lockport

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