COOS BAY — Southwestern Oregon Community College employees with complaints about its president or campus culture will have a chance to share their concerns with outsiders starting next week.

A team of Oregon School Boards Association representatives headed by an independent consultant will conduct four days of interviews, starting Aug. 4. Anyone who wants to speak with them will have a chance to do so individually, according to Board of Education Chairman Lonny Anderson.

Anderson said the board expects to have a report from the team by Sept. 1, at which time it will decide how to proceed.

“It really depends on what the report says,” Anderson said.

Initially, the board had asked to meet with the team before conducting interviews, but Anderson said the meeting never occurred. Instead, he provided the team with minutes from various meetings and six resolutions prepared by Harry Abel to give them some background information.

“It’s more important ... that the college community be heard and that’s why this is how it’s been set up,” he said.

At Monday’s board meeting, Anderson said he hadn’t received the particulars about how the interviews would take place, other than the four dates: Aug. 4, 5, 18 and 19. He said OSBA requested the meetings be held on campus, but the leaders of each employee group asked that they be held off campus. They said employees might feel intimidated or fear recriminations if they had to speak on campus.

“Faculty need to see this as a fair thing,” said Bernadette Kapocias, chairwoman of the faculty senate.

President Judith Hansen said those stepping forward would be better served if they did so without secrecy. Those who are interviewed will not face recrimination for speaking up, Hansen said, because their firing or demotion would be considered a retaliatory act.

“If everyone knows who spoke to the consultants, if there is a reprisal, everyone knows,” she said.

The board did not discuss the issue of interview transparency, though it briefly considered restricting Hansen’s ability to make personnel decisions.

David Bridgham suggested the board should be given notice prior to any such decisions.

Other board members seemed satisfied with a resolution passed at the last meeting that requires Hansen to notify the board of all personnel changes. Hansen further reassured the board by saying she does not plan to make any organizational changes this fall.

Anderson said the team of consultants will have between three and five members and include experts in the fields of human resources and labor. Its supervisor is Mike Holland, an independent consultant with administrative experience at Linn-Benton Community College.

On-campus safety has been one of the concerns raised in previous meetings and employees raised it again Monday. Wayne Chandler, president of the Classified Union, said a number of employees leave campus after dark and there isn’t much of a public safety presence at that time.

Hansen said there are plans to design new public safety uniforms so they are more visible, thus improving the presence on campus. And she noted an interim director of public safety, Dave McKiney, has been in place since Bill Winfield retired earlier this year. She also said the college plans to hire a new vice president of administrative services as soon as possible, with Sheldon Meyer remaining in that capacity until a successor is hired.