By VIRAJ PERPALL, Guardian Staff Reporter

viraj@nasguard.com

Janyne Hodder is the ideal presidential candidate to take The College of the Bahamas (COB) to university status and help smooth out problems with the teacher's union, it was claimed last night.

The COB council, according to a well-placed source, has thrown its weight behind the vice-principal of McGill University, to fill the void left by Dr Rodney Smith after he resigned over a plagiarism scandal.

"They are basically saying that if you don't want Hodder to come, we wont sign your documents."

President of The Union of Tertiary Educators in The Bahamas (UTEB) , Jennifer Issacs-Dotson, expressed that the last faculty and staff industrial agreement ended in 2003.

Up to now, attempts have been made to adjust the agreement but the council claims that in order for this to be done, COB must acquire university status.

However, according to members of the union, the catch to this is that the council is implying that in order for COB to become a real university, vigourous attempts must be made to persuade Hodder to reconsider her decision in heading the college.

Sources have revealed that in an urgent meeting held on Wednesday evening, a vote was taken to decide whether further attempts would be made to convince Hodder to change her position on candidacy.

According to sources, the vote would have been unanimous but was opposed by the council's UTEB representative, who has refused to change her position on the matter.

"Our position has not changed. We feel that we should have a say in this matter and that will remain the same," said UTEB President Jennifer Isaacs-Dotson.

"What the council needs to understand is that running an institution is not the same as running a business, people have vested interests in this. There are faculty and staff who have worked here for almost three decades and no one can say that they shouldn't play a factor in major decisions," she said.

"The president is only one person, but he or she has to come here and work with the faculty and staff in any event," Isaacs-Dotson said.

Earlier this week, Isaacs-Dotson admitted that a motion was moved to ask for the resignation of certain council members.

This was followed by heavy criticisms from the student body, which claimed that no person without a doctorate degree is qualified to run the college, considering that Hodder does not have a PhD.

Students added that they felt the process was carried out incorrectly and that Hodder would receive endless opposition, if she accepted the post as president.

Last week, Hodder was introduced by the council chairman as a third candidate in the presidential race. She was opposed by a vast majority of faculty, staff and students within the college, resulting in her withdrawal from the race days later. However, it is reported that when Hodder took on the presidency at Bishop's University in 1995, she received similar opposition by major stakeholders of that university.