Citing multiple issues, Ralph Proctor has resigned his position as the top diversity officer at the Community College of Allegheny County and returned to the classroom.
“I’m really very sad about leaving because I promised (former president) Stuart Sutin I’d deliver one of the best diversity programs in the country,” Proctor said. “But I felt that recent changes would not allow me to do what I needed to fulfill that promise.”
Proctor was named the college’s vice president and chief diversity officer shortly before Sutin resigned last year amid a fight with county government about the lack of transparency in the school’s budgeting procedures. As such, one of Proctor’s first tasks was to assist in the search for a new president.
RALPH PROCTOR
“I was on the search committee and was diligent in working to keep minorities in the candidate pool,” he said. “I had been fighting for seven years to get either a woman or Black man to serve as president.”
In December, CCAC named Alex Johnson, Ph.D., president, the first African-American to hold the post in the system’s history. Though Johnson’s selection would seem to have been a positive step in Proctor fulfilling his promise, he said tension arose between them.
Part of the problem, Proctor said, revolved around a discrimination complaint he had filed in 2007 related to his salary. Proctor said he was asked to drop it; he refused. Shortly thereafter, Johnson changed Proctor’s title to “Special Assistant to the President for Diversity and Equity.”
“Although I kept the extra $20,000 that accompanied a vice president’s position, I felt it was a de facto demotion because vice presidents’ meetings were then held in my absence,” he said. “I tried, but failed, to explain that losing the title would hinder my ability to have input and to do the job.”
Another issue involved Proctor’s job security. State law governing community colleges only allows tenured faculty to leave the classroom for administrative or other duties for a two-year period without losing tenure. That window was closing for Proctor.
“In late August, we had a meeting and I said I was willing to stay in administration and burn those bridges to the faculty,” he said. “To which Johnson replied, ‘you’d better do a good job.’ He said, ‘I’m going to hold you accountable,’ He said it three or four times. I took that as a threat; I’ve always been accountable.”
Proctor then went to his office and typed a resignation letter saying he was returning to his post as chair of the Diversity and Ethnic Studies Department.
Proctor has also amended his 2007 complaint to the Human Relations Commission claiming a hostile working environment and retaliation as causes for action.
Rick Adams, former head of CCAC’s Homewood-Brushton campus, is now Special Assistant to the President for Diversity and Equity. Citing Proctor’s pending complaint, neither he nor Johnson were able to comment by deadline.
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