After 25 years, San Antonio College lost a valuable tradition, ousted professor says

When the Alamo Colleges District board voted April 19 to uphold the firing of a tenured professor, it ended a murky argument over his two salaries that had raged for months. But the firing also cemented the end of a 25-year relationship between San Antonio College and the Texas Academic Decathlon, a high school competition that moved this year to the University of the Incarnate Word. The fired professor, Rickey Hopkins — who is also the executive director of the nonprofit that runs the decathlon — said he still can’t fathom why SAC didn’t try to keep the prestigious event. The decathlon’s federal tax filings had labeled Hopkins’ side job a full-time position, which the college doesn’t allow its full-time faculty to hold. Hopkins said that was a clerical error that he didn’t notice for years. The unanimous vote to finalize Hopkins’ termination, effective Nov. 21, came after he made his final appeal arguments in a public hearing. It ended his 35 years at SAC teaching court reporting.

“He has never reported that he had full-time outside employment,” states the termination recommendation signed by SAC President Robert Vela, Associate Vice Chancellor of Human Resources Linda Boyer-Owens and Alamo Colleges District Chancellor Mike Flores. “In addition, he has used College District property and resources, including SAC’s address as the business address of the Texas Academic Decathlon,” it states. Hopkins argued that college and district officials knew and approved of his job with the decathlon, which began in 2015, though he had worked on the event at SAC for years before that, beginning in 1996. For one thing, Hopkins was given a pass from teaching classes in the spring semester for several years after he became executive director, so he could work on the event. He pointed to amendments to the decathlon’s IRS reports made after his termination and letters from the organization’s board as evidence that the job was part time, not full time. “One of the most disappointing aspects of this termination was the fact that the president of San Antonio College did not ask me directly about this,” Hopkins told the board. “This could have all been avoided by speaking man to man instead of relying on mediators.”