Dr. Tony Fellow said today he will see seek re-election to the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees representing Area 7 (Arcadia and parts of Temple City and El Monte) in the June 5 elections. He currently serves as president of the board.
“PCC is one of California’s gems, a success story in higher education,” Fellow said in making his announcement. “During my tenure, PCC was recognized by the Aspen Institute as one of the Top Ten Community Colleges in the U.S. and named one of the Top Ten Veterans-Friendly Colleges in the U.S.”
In addition, he said PCC has much to crow about. “Look at what we are doing,” he said. “We are expanding the Pathways Program for student success and First-Year Experience innovations which became national models; initiating new dual enrollment arrangements with high schools that will expand the opportunity for their students to take college courses;
transforming PCC’s classrooms and information services with the latest computer technology; and utilizing new funding sources to expand career and technical education program opportunities.”
He also said that PCC received a 100% clean full accreditation decision. “All issues with
accreditation have resolved,” he said. “In addition, PCC has outstanding reserves, and achieved a balanced budget for the first time in 30 years. He also said that PCC has had two consecutive years of no audit problems.
“The trustees, the president, the faculty, and staff deserve credit for the hard work to achieve these milestones…and they are not small achievements,” Fellow said.
He said he plans to concentrate his next term on the following issues:
Establishing an enrollment management plan that would guarantee that current levels of enrollment continue at PCC;
Hiring a diversified faculty and staff which reflects the PCC’s student body;
Striving for a larger PCC presence in the northeastern section of the district;
Identifying and obtaining funding for modernizing PCC’s infrastructure; and
Building a satellite campus in the Arcadia area, which makes up some 33 percent of PCC’s enrollment.
Fellow is a distinguished professor of communications at California State University, Fullerton, where he was chair of the Department of Communications and the Department of Cinema & Television Arts. He also is founder of The Florence Programs at his University, and teaches at the Florence, Italy, campus regularly. He is author of six books, including his recently released Tweeting to Freedom: An Encyclopedia of Citizens Protests and Uprisings Around the World. His American Media History book is used in universities throughout the word. He is currently working on a book on women in the Civil War and another on Italy.
Fellow teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in media history and law, international communications, media and politics and research and statistics. He holds a master’s degree from Cal State Fullerton, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, University of Southern California, where he was named a Walter H. Annenberg Fellow. He has done extensive graduate work in Soviet and Latin American Politics. He also is a Fulbright Scholar and was assigned to the most prestigious Fulbright in Italy, the Vercelli Chair of Media History near Torino, Italy.
He has a long record of community service having been elected to the El Monte City Council and is the longest-serving member of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District. He served on the Metropolitan Water District for 17 years, where he was appointed vice chair of the board. He is a member of the Los Angeles Council of Governments and president of the San Gabriel Valley Discovery Center Board of Directors.
Fellow was a reporter and editor at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, owned at the time by Thomson Newspapers, for 10 years. He covered the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and wrote a political column.
In his spare time he enjoys oil painting and helping teach adult Bible study classes at St. Francis of Rome in Azusa. He and his wife, Clara Potes-Fellow, reside in Arcadia.