The College of DuPage continues to make progress as they soon will fill open seats on their Board of Trustees.
Two six-year terms and one two-year term are open on COD’s board this April.
At a public forum held by the Naperville area homeowners confederation, the four candidates, all of which are newcomers, discussed the challenges that COD is facing, tax levies, and much more.
One audience question brought up the college’s recent public relations problems. Uncontested two-year term candidate, Alan Bennett, thinks that issue is improving.
“There has been a PR problem facing COD. I think the current clean-slate candidates have turned the tide and have moved toward a reversal of that position. I mean you have a clean-slate candidates that were elected in April 2015,” said Bennett.
However six-year term candidate Christine Fenne suggested some ways that COD may be able to improve those problems.
“Some of the things that I think the college can do are to promote faculty and student successes, show off their excellent programs that they have in education and cultural activities. Promoting the board and the administration,” said Fenne.
Dan Markwell, a six-year term write-in candidate, thinks the recent PR problems will take time to heal.
“But I don’t think there’s some sort of magic bullet that will suddenly fix everything,” said Markwell. “I think that it’s just going to be a long process of continuing to show that the College of DuPage is worth their time and their trust and their investment.”
And final six-year term candidate, Taso Triantafillos, thinks the creation of more committees to address the problems will help the college move forward.
“There should be a committee made up of the student body where we can actually get feedback from the student body as far as ‘is what we’re doing working for you or not?’ Raising awareness is very important in anything we do and I think making sure that we’re creating effective and efficient communication channels is just as important as anything else,” said Triantafillos.
And one way to do that is by having public discussions like this here in Naperville. It’s important for current Chair Deanne Mazzochi.
“Naperville, in general, sends an incredible proportion of students to College of DuPage,” said Mazzochi. “We also have a Naperville center that’s based here with an incredible number of programs and students who’re served so it’s very important to me to understand what’s important to the individuals who are here in Naperville.
These four candidates will be on the ballot for the April 4 consolidated election.
Naperville News 17’s Christine Lena reports.
