Posted on: Monday, June 16, 2003

EDITORIAL
Wai'anae is right to protest loss of Gay

About a year ago, Lucy Gay, an educator and counselor, was promoted to the post of coordinator of Leeward Community College's satellite campus in Wai'anae. Paulette Dibibar, a student, recalls that at the time the campus was "dirty and uninviting."

By most accounts, Gay electrified the sleepy and rundown campus. She helped boost enrollment and generally upgraded the quality of educational programs and campus facilities.

Her mission to make education available to those who might otherwise live their lives on welfare impressed the residents of Wai'anae. And trust us, these folks don't impress easily. They've been disappointed too many times.

So when Gay was summoned recently by her boss, LCC Interim Dean Douglas Dykstra, she expected to be congratulated for a job well done.

Instead, she got what she describes as a demotion. She was handed a two-paragraph letter informing her "Your one-year appointment as the division chair for LCCW will be ending June 30, 2003. We wish to thank you for your service." She was to be reassigned to a nine-month contract as counselor in the Student Services Division.

By that evening, the news had hit the coconut wireless, and the Wai'anae Neighborhood Board voted unanimously to ask the powers-that-be to reconsider Gay's dismissal. Petitions are circulating, and LCC is receiving a good many letters and e-mails in support of Gay.

At first, LCC administrators were mum on the reasons for dismissing Gay. But in an e-mail to The Advertiser Thursday, Dykstra said that Gay's recall was "neither a demotion or a punishment," but a move to fill a much-needed counseling vacancy, for which she was particularly qualified.

Furthermore, Gay will be replaced by Mrs. Jean Hara, an award-winning professor in business technology. There's no reason to believe Hara won't do a good job. But the point is, the Wai'anae community was happy with Gay, and her removal stacks up as another disappointment. And many understandably feel that the leadership reshuffle is patronizing.

Folks along the Leeward Coast have developed a feeling — not entirely unjustified — that their needs and interests tend to come last. That makes it particularly important that, whatever happens next, the campus must not revert to an educational wasteland. It has come too far.