Twinkle, Twinkle, Trustee Tom

"Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars…"

At the most recent board meeting, Trustee Fuentes opined that we should try and lure star faculty from UCI (and OCC) to come and teach at our little campus in the orange groves. (See "Nov. 14 Board Meeting, part II," 11/16.)

His proposal begs questions aplenty, but Rebel Girl will leave the begging of those to others more suitably irreverent and “sophomoric” (Red? Chunk?). She will presently address only one: Besides the glamour of working with Trustee Fuentes, what, exactly, is in it for these “star faculty”?

Who does the starry-eyed trustee imagine might feel motivated to traipse across town and teach for the paltry adjunct faculty compensation offered by the district, not to mention return some of it for the privilege and convenience of parking on campus?

Lousy compensation and paying for parking aside, let’s consider the bountiful resources available to our present part-time faculty. Perhaps these will attract the stars from the U of C at I.

Take for example, the part-time faculty office in A-200 (please!). A modest hand-lettered piece of paper taped to the door affirms that it is, indeed, the part-time office. The otherwise unadorned facility serves, theoretically, the needs of some 60 or more part-time faculty and their students.


The office resembles a windowed closet (with one window broken and leaning against the wall for months now), tucked away between a mail box arrangement and the cheerful Howard Gensler Memorial Xerox Cubicle, its constant rhythmic sound and light show, a jolly mechanical celebration of the ingenuity, creative thinking, and can-do spirit of that clever fellow. (See "The Howard Hilton," 9/30/01)

For those nostalgically inclined, the part-timer’s office conjures the sites of those screwball college pranks of the 50s where students crammed into telephone booths and Volkswagens, even as their parents cowered in bomb shelters under the house.

A quick survey reveals the bunker is equipped with two desks--that’s one for every thirty “star” instructors, teacher-to-furniture ratio-wise. The drawers of one desk are broken and splintered (or the equivalent of the splinters produced by particle board), no use to anyone unless they are going to use their gaping cavity as some kind of “cubby” or public storage unit. Or maybe this is what the Martha Stewart-type magazines mean by “distressed”?

Our inventory is completed by noting one table, one bookcase, three chairs, two computers, a telephone, and a scattering of table lamps.

But there’s more. Need I remind anybody that the part-time office is also an outpost or protectorate of the now famous colonies of mold of the A-200 building? There’s something perhaps the pedagogy stars are not getting in enough quantities over at UCI. Nothing quite like being exposed to Penicillium (a potential allergin-–I think that this is related to the stuff that if I ingest can kill me!); Aspergillus (allergy, respiratory infection) and my favorite: Stachybotrep (allergy, respiratory and skin irritant and some strains give off gases that are nerve toxins). I bet they don’t have this stuff over at UCI--at least not in faculty offices and classrooms, maybe in the labs--but not, you know, available for the taking or breathing. Not just giving it away!

And don’t get me started on the classroom conditions “star” UCI faculty would face once they leave their part-time office. You know how Rebel Girl feels about rodents in the ceiling, podia, floors and broken furniture. (Hey, has anyone seen the broken window over in the CEC building yet? Or the cascades of mulched leaves eating away at the sagging eaves? We’re talking YEARS of leaves here. Good compost, poor roofing material.)


She feels, well, like calling the health department.

That said, part-time faculty do, to their credit, use their sad little part-time office. After all, our part-time faculty may be employed part-time but they are full-time professionals. We all see them in there, making do and doing as well as they can.

It makes me wince. They deserve so much more--and so do their students.

The beautiful thing about Fuentes’ nutty offerings a few nights ago is that nobody takes him seriously. Or do they? I look forward to his follow-up and welcome a concrete proposal for a campaign to, yes, stay with me here: attract Senate and, presumably, Non-Senate Faculty to apply for teaching positions at Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges. And what might such a proposal look like? How would it be promoted? A junket to UCI? Lunch with Chancellor Drake (who’s got a liver ailment, not to mention contract struggles with his own faculty and staff unions)?

How about we just recognize the trustee’s yammering for what it is? A few minutes of hot air offered to distract whomever is listening from real issues. A purposeful blowing of smoke. Or as Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” says: “Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

Of course, trustee Fuentes doesn’t even bother with corroborative detail. He just says stuff.

-- Rebel Girl