El Camino Puts More Trust in Its Student Trustee : Education: The community college has decided to pay its student representative, who will be allowed to make and second motions. But applicants must meet tougher eligibility standards.

By DEBORAH SCHOCH

Aug. 5, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

When Anthony Narcisse was student trustee representative last year at El Camino College, he could attend meetings and engage in debate with the college board of trustees.

But he could not cast a formal vote. Nor could he make or second motions. And while other trustees earned $400 a month, he earned nothing.

Now, in what some are hailing as a landmark change, El Camino trustees have approved new rules that expand the role of the student trustee.

Narcisse’s successor, Steven T. Nash, now is allowed to make and second motions. And he will be paid $200 a month.

But he also must meet stiffer academic and eligibility standards, such as keeping his grades at an average of 2.5 or above.

Students at a number of California community colleges have been advocating a larger role for student trustees, and the changes at El Camino followed months of student lobbying.

Nash, who has been student trustee since spring, says the changes place El Camino in the top quarter of community colleges in the state in terms of the power and pay given the student trustee. He praised the trustees for taking the action.

However, some student leaders argue that more stringent standards for the student trustee could limit the pool of eligible students, leaving out some of the growing number of part-time and minority students on the El Camino campus.

“I gather they’re looking for the cream of the crop,” said Narcisse, who now lives near Atlanta. “They want students with significantly higher grade-point averages and students spending more time in the classroom. I don’t think we need elite students being on that board. I think we need concerned students.”

Three student trustees in the last five years have been the only minority representatives on an all-Anglo board, said David Love, former student body president.

Because many minority students attend El Camino part time, the new standards--which include an increase in the course load required of a student trustee--could exclude minority students disproportionately, Love said.

Stanley Dunn, president of the board of trustees, disagreed.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’ve broadened the pool, not limited it,” Dunn said. For some students, he said, the $200-a-month pay for the student trustee could eliminate the need to work.

“It was a trade-off,” Dunn said. “We traded more units and a higher GPA in exchange for more power, more responsibility and a $200-a-month trustee fee.”

Dunn said he hopes the changes will encourage communication between trustees and students.

“Historically, trustees come on campus only once a month. . . . They’re almost closeted away,” Dunn said. “Hopefully, this will give us a closer feeling to the student body as a whole.”

El Camino College has had a student trustee since 1978. But new interest in the post surfaced after 1988, when the Legislature passed a sweeping law aimed at reforming community college government.

“It said we should establish a collegial system of government to include faculty, staff and students,” said Ann Reed, vice chancellor for public affairs for the California Community Colleges.

“People are saying the pendulum is swinging back now, where people are getting more involved in their schools,” said Duane Thompson, student member of the board of governors at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.

Other Southern California community colleges also have been scrutinizing the student trustee role.

Santa Monica College last year gave its student trustee the power to make and second motions. This spring, the Ventura County Community College District increased student trustee pay from $100 to $400 a month.

The student trustee for the nine-college Los Angeles Community College District is Joe N. Rudynski, a student at Harbor College in Wilmington. He now gets paid $500 monthly, compared to $2,000 for the other trustees. Rudynski currently cannot make or second motions, but the issue of the student’s powers is about to be reviewed by a trustee committee, said Warren Kinsler, general counsel for the Los Angeles District.

The student trustee slot is the “institutional identity of students,” Rudynski said. The strengthening of a student trustee’s authority in turn strengthens student identity, he said.

At El Camino, debate about the student trustee’s role has been under way for more than a year, students said.

The board agreed July 23 to allow the student trustee to make and second motions, to have advisory votes recorded and to be paid $200 a month.

Simultaneously, the board also created new eligibility rules.

To be a trustee, the student must be enrolled in at least seven semester units, up from a five-unit requirement in the past. The student also must have completed 12 units with a cumulative grade-point average of at least 2.5, up from 2.0. Previously, there was no limit on the number of terms a student trustee could serve, but the board ruled that the student can serve no more than a full one-year term.

Although the board has granted new privileges, some trustees say they believe certain other powers should not be extended to the student member. Fox, for example, is opposed to inviting students into the board’s executive sessions--an issue that was not voted on last month. Under state law, students do not have access to executive sessions.

“The executive session deals with budget matters, disciplinary things, personnel matters that get into very, very touchy matters,” Fox said.

And Trustee Lila Hummel said she did not think the $200 pay was needed. “They have no legal responsibility as a student trustee. So, if they want to be paid, they can run for the office and take on the legal responsibility,” Hummel said.

The student trustee is elected yearly by students. The five regular El Camino trustees are chosen by voters in a districtwide election.

Narcisse said he remembers feeling somewhat apart from the rest of the board.

He was treated “cordially, but like a student,” he recalled. “The reality of the situation is that the other board members don’t see the student trustee as being a member of the board.”

Some students predict that the new eligibility rules--by screening out some part-time students--will lead to younger, full-time students serving as trustees.

“Students here are getting older. I believe someone right out of high school doesn’t have the big picture,” said Robert L. Bethea Jr., president of the Associated Students, the student government, who says he is unhappy with many of the changes.

The age of the average student at El Camino has risen from about 25 to 29 over the past decade, a school spokesman said.

Part-time students carrying fewer than 12 units now make up 77% of the El Camino student body--up from 63% in 1979.

And whereas 65% were Anglo in 1979, that has dropped to 45% today. Another 19% of the current students are black, 16% are Latino and 14% are Asian, according to statistics supplied by the college.

Those shifts have further fueled some students’ concern about the new eligibility rules.

At a student government meeting Wednesday, Love urged that a letter be sent to the trustees inquiring how the changes will affect minority students. Possible action was postponed until Aug. 8.

“Why are we making standards when, to my knowledge, there’s never been a problem with the student trustees?” Love asked in a recent interview.

But Nash, the current trustee, said he is upset at what he called implications that the changes have a racial undertone.

He agrees with the new eligibility requirements, he said. “If someone can’t cut a 2.0 or a 2.5, it’s going to be very hard for them to manage school and being a trustee.”