Does Dianne McGuire want the Supreme Court to rule on COD Board Acting Chair?

College of DuPage Board Trustee Diane McGuire sure has a strange way of addressing the two year probation imposed on the College of DuPage by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Rather than participate in the numerous reforms implemented since the new COD Board took charge in April, she has voted against every one. Rather than accept some responsibility for the myriad of educational, financial, ethical and administrative problems that prompted the HLC to place COD on academic probation, McGuire continues her 18 month campaign to deny any systemic problems at COD under her watch, laying its problems on the reform Board majority swept into office last April by a fed up community.

Simply voting 'NO' whenever her three member holdover Board faction was asked to participate in a reform vote for seven months afterward was not good governance. It contributed to the HLC citation about board dysfunction in their probation report. But at least her avalanche of NO votes could not stop the reforms she endlessly ignored from being implemented, putting COD on the road to recovery. With the resignation of the Board Chair, McGuire's intransigence has reached a new level of malfeasance. As apparent leader of the holdover faction, including former Chair Erin Birt and 'go-along' Trustee Joe Wozniak, McGuire orchestrated a boycott of the December 14 Board meeting, effectively shutting down COD governance. This action was prompted by resignation of the reform majority Chair, deadlocking the board at three votes apiece between the reform and McGuire holdover faction. McGuire, oblivious to the urgent need to address probationary status reforms, is laser focused on the strange theory that Acting Chair Deanne Mazzochi is not the acting chair, in spite of opinion from COD counsel and the Illinois Community College Board that she surely is till the state mandated annual reorganization next April. This led to the counter productive special Board meeting McGuire's faction scheduled for January 7, a meeting McGuire's group then boycotted because Mazzochi exercised her duly authorized powers to lead the Board agenda. McGuire has vowed to boycott the next regularly scheduled January 21 meeting, calling instead for a second special meeting January 14, demanding Acting Chair Mazzochi dare not tamper with McGuire's agenda .

Dianne McGuire has set herself and her two holdover Board members up as a bizarro, alternate COD Board that has nothing to do with dealing with the catastrophic probationary status for which McGuire and her holdover colleagues bear much responsibility. What's next? Will McGuire take Mazzochi's certified status as Acting Chair all the way to the Supreme Court to get it rescinded? Rather than squander her last 15 months as Trustee tilting at unproductive windmills, McGuire might consider the following opening statement at the next Board meeting, whenever it occurs:

"I'm from the community, I'm a lifelong educator, and I'm here to help get COD off probation. Let's get started."

If she says that, she will surely get a well deserved standing ovation.s