Essex County College Prez Accused Of Tampering With Emails: Report

Gale Gibson - the suspended president of Essex County College - is facing accusations that she tampered with emails to the school's Board of Trustees, a report says.

Gibson was removed from her position in late March, but limited information about the accusations against her was given at the time.

However, according to a NJ.com report, Gibson’s attorney said that she is now facing charges that she allegedly instructed staff to pull data from the hard drives of "suspect" colleagues and issued orders for staffers to find out who had passed along complaints to the board.

According to Gibson, who denied the charges, the accusations are the result of possibly retaliatory politics at the college, which has facilities in Newark, West Caldwell and Cedar Grove.

Gibson told NJ.com that the accusations against her came after she began to gather information about a campus print shop that she believed was performing hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid services.

Gibson is alleging that her efforts were ultimately stonewalled by Vice President for Administration & Finance Joyce Harley, a former county administrator who received the backing of Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo for the president's job three years ago, NJ.com reported.

Read the full report here.

At a press conference last week, several students at the college lambasted what they perceived to be a lack of “transparency and accountability” surrounding Gibson’s suspension.

“We, the students of Essex County College… hereby declare unambiguous repudiation of the action taken by the Board of Trustees on March 25 in suspending the president from her executive duties at the college,” student organizers asserted in a joint statement.

“The Board of Trustees has suspended ECC’s president in the same opaque and secretive way it has been operating for the past year and a half,” students continued. “The college’s administration has been starved of deans, academic officers, marketing directors and other such positions. These positions are of great importance not only for the ability of the college to close its budget gap, but for it to be an accreditable institution as per Middle States statutes.

“The college is not a political playground,” students asserted. “The jeopardy of the college’s accreditation outlined here is a clear indication of the interference of those with personal and adverse agendas, and students will not accept this. To this end, we call on the NJ State Education Commissioner David Hespe to investigate. We also call on the Secretary of Education for the U.S Department of Education, John B. King, Jr. to investigate. Finally, recognizing his initiative for the people of Newark to take back their education, and recognizing the pivotal role Essex County College plays for many of Newark’s high school graduates, we call on Mayor Ras J. Baraka to turn his attention to what is happening at Essex County College and to support students.”

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