Key Leaders Join Effort to Return Tate to L.A.T.T.
Support is mounting for deposed Los Angeles Trade-Tech dean Sharon Tate as a number of placard-waving fashion students and key industry leaders on April 18 urged trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District to return Tate to Trade Tech from East Los Angeles College, where she was recently transferred.
Tate, a veteran administrator and industry figure, was transferred to the school’s East Los Angeles campus earlier this month after more than 20 years at Trade-Tech as an instructor and more recently, dean of academic affairs. Her transfer was believed by her supporters to be related to her recent outspokenness about the college’s new “compressed calendar” which would alter fashion students’ current five-day per week, 20-week schedule with a new 16-week schedule and longer class periods. Some classes would be lengthened by 15 to 30 minutes. Fashion program students staged protests over the proposed changes and college officials believe they were instigated by Tate and other faculty members.
At Wednesday’s board meeting, industry leaders such as Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association; Mary Beth Sales, a designer with Maxine Swim Group and former LATT dean and Barry Sedlik manger of economic and business development for Southern California Edison joined several students in expressing their concerns about the college’s fashion program and Tate’s departure.
“Sharon epitomizes what community college administrators should be in bringing the college and industry together,” Metchek told the board. “An industry outsider would not have the ears of the industry like she has had.”
Sales, a former assistant dean at Trade-Tech, credited Tate with landing major corporate contributions to the college from IBM, Gerber, Lectra and others.
“She’s attracted the best instructors. She’s pushed people and motivated people. She doesn’t accept mediocrity,” Sales said, adding that Trade-Tech students have benefited as a result. “She’s a true visionary.”
Board members said that Tate’s dilemma is out of its jurisdiction and is a decision that falls under the responsibility of interim college president Daniel Castro. Several Tate supporters told the California Apparel News that Castro has expressed no desire to return Tate to Trade-Tech.
