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English 0950-05
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Draft for Essay #2

The community college where I take classes and have a student-worker job, Anoka Ramsey Community College (ARCC), is like most other Twin Cities metro-area community colleges, I suppose. There is a president at the top of the ladder who is in charge of everyone underneath, and the different levels go down from there, all the way down to secretaries and maintenance workers and student workers at the bottom. In this paper I will examine the "power structure" at my community college and how such things as age, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and other things play a role in this power structure.

At the top of the ladder is the president, Dr. Patrick Johns, who at this college is a white male. I'd guess that he's in his late 40's or early 50's. He is in charge of two vice presidents, a VP of Administration, Michael Seymour, and a VP of Educational Services, Susan Tarnowski. I don't know much about the VP of Administration and the whole "business" side of the college, so I will be concentrating more on the "academic" side of the college. I think I've heard it said that this president worked his way up to this position; he was once in charge of the financial aid office, I think, at this college.

Directly underneath the president is the VP of Educational Services, Dr. Susan Tarnowski. Currently, this VP is a white female, and I'd guess that she is in her mid to late 40's. Previous to this current female VP, the college had two successive white men in that position, Dr. Shanon Christianson and Dr. Douglas Allen, and before that the position did not exist. The VP of Educational Services is directly in charge of all the Deans of Educational Services. I think that, currently, there are generally good feelings about having a woman in this position and that the two VPs before her were a little "heavy handed."

There are two Deans for "Student Services," Andrea Roberge and Karen Kraft, and four Deans for "Academic Affairs," Mary Raeker-Rebek, Cynthia Weinshapple, Ann Holland, and Luanne Kane; there is also one Dean for the faculty at the Cambridge Campus of ARCC, Deidre Peaslee. Remarkably, all these Deans are white females, like the VP of Educational Services, even though these deans were in place before the current female VP arrived, so it is not true that the white female VP hired all white female Deans. However, it is true that the two previous white male VP's must have done most of the hiring for the current deans, and it seems a bit unusual that white males would hire nearly all white females for these positions. It makes me wonder whether the white male VP's didn't want men working under them, or if men simply didn't apply for these deanships, or if these white men needed to feel superior to women and therefore only hired women for these dean positions.

In talking to people around the college, I found out that before the college had a VP for Educational Services with both Student Services and Academic Affairs under the same VP, the college had a Dean of Student Services, who was a partially-Latina or Hispanic female, and a Dean of Academic Affairs, who was a white male. However, once the white male Dean left for his native state to take a position there, the college explored the option of "realigning" (?) the hierarchical structure at the college to put both units under one person, rather than two units under two different people. It seems that in the past there had been "fighting," or at least a lack of communication, between the two units, with a lot of lacking or miscommunication, etc. Revising the structure of the college was done to solve this problem, and I think, based on what I've heard, it is better now than it was before.

Underneath all of the five Academic Affairs Deans are all the faculty. The faculty are a mix of both male and female [is there any way to count this?], but the faculty is largely white, with one African American and one Latin American. The faculty have no supervisory power over one another or anyone else (except if you consider that they "supervise" the students in their classes). There are faculty coordinators and facilitators for the various academic "divisions" or departments on campus. The coordinators and facilitators function as department or division chairpersons, but they don't have any supervisory power over the faculty in their departments or divisions.

In addition to the faculty, and probably below them, are all the faculty secretaries, who are all white females, and all the maintenance workers, who are all male, but there is a mix of older white men and younger black (African immigrant) men. Secretaries are stereotypically female, and there is no exception here at ARCC. The faculty secretaries range in age, I'd say, from their 40's to their 60's. Likewise, maintenance workers are stereotypically male, and again there is no exception here. Most are white men in their 40's or 50's, but there are at least two younger black men who are immigrants from Africa. One might say that the black men are lowest at the college, but on the other hand, they came here from Africa speaking very little English and had very little education. The two on staff now are either taking college classes or have already taken some college classes. I'm not sure if either has his A.A. degree or not. I just don't know their full story. In any case, with a lack of education, they might not be eligible for any "higher" positions at the college. So, I'm not sure if this is a case of white people holding black people down, or if these workers are hired at the level for which they are eligible. I have heard that some other African immigrants have worked here, have taken classes here, and have transferred to other schools. So, it is also possible that these men are comfortable in the positions they have here. They might just want to make some money now before moving on. Or, they might not be able to transfer somewhere else due to transportation, housing, or other issues.

Except for these black men on the maintenance staff, one black faculty member, and one Latino faculty member, I am not aware of any other "persons of color" on the campus. However, I do know that late this past summer a new Director of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs was hired at the college. His name is Keith Brooks, and he is in a Ph.D. program down at the University of Minnesota. His initial duties, I've heard, are to research the campus about diversity and multicultural issues, prepare a report on his findings, and make recommendations for future action. This might include recruiting more diverse students and faculty and workers to the campus. I have to wonder, however, whether the college really cares about this, or if they are doing it because it is "politically correct" and they are coming up on the 10-year review from the Higher Learning Commission.

Student workers like myself are probably at the bottom of the ladder here at ARCC. Student workers might include helpers for the faculty secretaries, computer lab assistants (CLAs) in the computer labs, and assistants in the bookstore, the business office, the financial aid office, the human resources office, and the library. I'm not sure if tutors in the Academic Support Center and Student Orientation Leaders are considered student workers or not. Most of the student workers I know are either male or female and are all white. There might be some student workers of different races or ethnicities, but I'm not sure [is there any way to find this out?].

In all, I've enjoyed my experience at ARCC so far, both as a student and as a student-worker. I haven't witnessed anything alarming in terms of a superior berating someone beneath him or her. I also haven't noticed anything that would suggest that people are unhappy with the current situation, but I'm a student and I don't hear everything.