Copyright Mechanicsburg Patriot News
I was on the HACC faculty for 46 years. I served with every HACC president, and I was on the search committee that hired John Sygielski, known as “Ski.” Although I had reservations about Ski coming to HACC at that time, I waited until the faculty met him to finalize my position. When that time came, the faculty was overwhelmingly in his favor, and Ski expressed his love for HACC and the communities within which it resides. How did we arrive at the situation where faculty has declared a strike? After nearly four years of negotiating, and the Labor Relations Board finding the union’s position fair, there is no resolution to the matter. How can a man who loved the institution he headed for 12 years refuse to resolve his differences with the people and institution he once said that he loved? As a member of that search committee, I feel betrayed. For the good of HACC and its students, I implore the HACC’s president and board to resolve the impasse and allow the first community college in the Commonwealth to continue to offer the best and most affordable education in south central Pennsylvania.
