Fidel Castro resigns as President

Over the past two months, RCC has seen the resignation of President Daniel Castro, the hiring and the transition of an acting president for an interim president and progress on the search for a replacement for Chancellor Salvatore Rotella.

The controversy began Dec. 8 when Tish Chavez, Castro's assistant, sent a mass e-mail to all faculty, staff and administration at RCC.

The e-mail was sent on the behalf of Castro and announced his resignation as president as of Dec. 11.

"I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best administrators, faculty, staff and students," Castro's e-mail read. "(I) know that I leave RCC in good hands."

Technically, Castro would remain president until the end of the year. Chancellor Rotella, however, chose Linda Lacy, then the vice chancellor of Student Services, to serve as acting president in Castro's absence.

No rationale for the sudden departure was given at the time, nor has one been confirmed as of now, but the lack of evidence did not stop the events to follow.

Accusations from faculty members on all sides of the issue began to surface, all of which remained consistent with the individual views of Castro's performance as president.

The first of these comments came Dec. 12 when Political Science instructors Dariush Haghighat and Ward Schinke sent their views via e-mail to the RCC administration, attacking Castro's previous record at other schools and his demeanor as president of RCC.

One of the major points the instructors made was the lack of information that the hiring committee gathered. "One of us served on Castro's hiring committee and what bothered this member... was the fact that nobody from this college was provided an opportunity to do any field research," the letter stated.

Another large problem that the e-mail addressed was the changing of class schedules; Haghighat and Schinke declared that the altered schedule could be linked to the drop in enrollment at RCC.

But it was not just the alleged administrative errors that Haghighat and Schinke dealt with, but what they claimed was Castro's "lack of vision... and his absolute contempt for the principle of shared governance."