// Messages
var message=new Array();
message[0]="The quality of COD\'s academic programs is based on a direct relationship between teachers\' knowledge and experience and students\' needs and goals. There is a dynamic flexibility in a good curriculum, a good course, a good class session, a good teachable moment. As a teacher, I am passionately devoted to providing this quality of experience in my courses. I spent many years preparing to take on this responsibility, and I welcome it and hold it as a sacred trust for this community. <br /><br />&mdash;<strong>Karin Evans</strong>, Associate Professor of English, College of DuPage (11/20/08 BoT meeting)";
message[1]="This is OUR community college and we want to continue to be a part of Board decisions and all policy changes that concern us. There should be no closed-door meetings with members, as policies and decisions are set at COD.  Everyone should be involved at Board Meetings and share in these important decisions, including the Press, since it is our tax and tuition monies.  Our votes are the ultimate authority at election time. <br /><br />&mdash;<strong>Leonard Felder</strong>, Wheaton resident (11/20/08 BoT meeting)";
message[2]="C.O.D. Board Chairman Michael McKinnon and his colleagues apparently wish to seize control of classrooms and professors&hellip; What\'s more worrisome is the chilling effect that the school\'s new policy will have on free exchange of ideas in the classroom. A geography professor might worry that inviting former Vice President Al Gore to speak to his students about global warming, might constitute a violation of board policy restricting political activity. Same with anthropology, political science, or other professors, thinking twice about the lessons they plan, the texts they choose, the films they show, and the questions they pose to their students.<br /><br />&mdash;<strong>David McGrath</strong>, Emeritus Professor, College of DuPage (\"College of DuPage Wages War with Professors,\" January 6, 2009 <em>Education News</em>)";
message[3]="Scores of College of DuPage students turned up at a board meeting to protest a significant revision to their school\'s policy manual they believed was going to be made without their input. Wearing black tape across their mouths, they stood outside the meeting room\'s windows for nearly two hours while their elected leaders, teachers, and community members questioned the proposed changes inside. Proposals were in the works to raise tuition for some classes in smaller programs, to give control of the student newspaper to the college president and to put trustees in charge of curriculum, speakers, and programs. It certainly seems as if the proposals were going to concentrate significant power in the hands of the trustees and the president. That is rarely, if ever, a good thing at any level. In an era when local government boards regularly act with only a lonely reporter or two watching, last week\'s provocative but respectful protest was refreshing and momentous.<br /><br />&mdash;<strong><em>The Daily Herald</em></strong>, \"Civil Activism We Should All Embrace.\" Editorial, November 28, 2008";
message[4]="I think the challenges that face the institution now are the human aspect of it. The affected piece of human nature, meaning the ability of people to communicate, feel involvement, a sense of collaboration, a sense of working together, a sense of unconditional positive regard. I think the institution right now is in need of a little bit of healing, a little bit of coming together. We do that through common sense approaches of opening it up, of beginning good earnest dialogue, of being accessible, of involving people, defining our roles and responsibilities so we each know and respect what we have to do to take the institution collectively forward.<br /><br />&mdash;<strong>Robert Breuder</strong>, COD President, <em>The Daily Herald</em>, November 19, 2008";
message[5]="Boards are responsible for making broad policies, and staffs are responsible for administering the college&hellip; the system works best when the part-time volunteers (trustees) are responsible for setting general policies as representatives of the community, and when staff members, on a day-to-day basis, establish procedures and make decisions to carry out those policies.<br /><br />&mdash;<strong>Illinois Community College Trustees Association Handbook</strong>";
var mssgnum=Math.floor(Math.random()*message.length);

function sidebarmsg() {
mssg.innerHTML=message[mssgnum];
}

function initiate() {
var today = new Date();
var elecDay = new Date("April 5, 2011");

var msPerDay = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
var timeLeft = (elecDay.getTime() - today.getTime());
var e_daysLeft = timeLeft / msPerDay;
var daysLeft = Math.floor(e_daysLeft);
var elecmssg = daysLeft + " Days Until the Election!";
mssg.innerHTML = elecmssg;
}