Note: See our story on the overview of the complaints and aftermath before reading this story.

"The investigation was not intended to be a scientific study, and I've been saying that at every meeting I've been to," says Gayle Holliday, Ph.D, President of G&H Consulting, the firm hired one year ago by MCC to look into complaints of discrimination at PVCC. 

"It wouldn't pass my English 101 class," for its writing or evidence, said PV English instructor Mickey McCloud, who has read the G&H report.

Yet, composition quality aside, a scientific study of attitudes or other characteristics of the entire Penn Valley population was neither asked for nor was one conducted by G&H Consulting.  PVCC did not charge them to perform a climate review, but an inquiry. 

  They were not empowered to execute anything like a rigorous law enforcement investigation, but G&H reports it did interview "over 60 people" - or about 1 percent - of a combined student and staff population of approximately 6300 at PVCC.  G&H says the interviewees they chose were identified through "an internal process" and included subjects who were requesting to be interviewed.

"A data project based on self-selected sampling would not be accepted"

The consultants found no solid evidence of discrimination in the incidents they investigated.  Yet based on repeated anecdotal references in the interviews to alleged discriminatory incidents in the past and ongoing, the consultants speculated that a climate of "cultural insensitivity" might exist at PVCC.

But G&H fell far short of surveying a sample large enough to validate their gut feelings.  Moreover, they made no comparison of the 1 percent they studied to a standard control group, such as the surrounding community.

"The formula for minimum sample size needed for interval estimate of a population proportion is one of the topics we study in the Introductory Statistics class taught here at PV," says PVCC math instructor Tim Chappell. 

"Assuming 95 percent confidence with a  maximum 5 percent error, a researcher would need to survey 385 people to  determine if students had negative perceptions of PV. Self-selected sampling and referral sampling measure only that sample and  should not be used to make inferences about the population. My students do projects throughout the statistics course.  A data project based on self-selected sampling would not be encouraged or accepted."

Indeed, because of the relatively limited research it conducted, G&H could come only to one supportable conclusion: that there are genuine feelings of disconnectedness and discrimination  among less than 1% of the PVCC population. 

  A casual observer on the Penn Valley campus might easily guess that minorities are certainly not unwelcome here, and even appear to be thriving.  The study finds a slight shortfall in the ratio of minority faculty to students, but is clearly unable to substantiate a minority-hostile hiring climate at Penn Valley, where the President is African American, and according to an appendix, overall minority employees (not just faculty) comprise 38 percent of the total, exceeding the student population's 30 percent. 

Nonetheless, PVCC has announced the formation of a number of new committees by faculty and administration, for the purpose of implementing some of the report's recommendations, most of which were already being suggested by faculty and others.

   Asked recently if PVCC should now conduct a formal scientific study of the PVCC population as a whole, in order to get needed data on how and where to focus efforts going forward, PVCC President Bernard Franklin said, "We are considering that."

Holliday says she is passionate about her work and upset to hear of the criticism.  She says she stands behind the conclusions reached by G&H, and wants to help in every way she can to improve human relations at Penn Valley.

Copyright 2008 Metropolitan Community College