Sunday, April 22, 2007

A skosh, a dollop, and a plague!



WELL, it’s almost time for another meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees. The show starts tomorrow night, at 6:30, I believe. (All board meetings are performed in the Health Sciences big top—at Saddleback College.)

ACCREDITATION:

The district is still wrestling with some pesky accrediting issues—a skosh of micromanagement, a plague of despair, a dollop of Goo, etc.—and so there’ll be an EXTRA-SPECIAL MEETING to discuss all that at 3:00 p.m. Allegedly, the governance groups will be allowed to participate in this discussion.

There’s a chance that Trustees Fuentes or Wagner will hint at conspiracy theories again, so you don’t want to miss that. Those two are zany, they're daffy!

THE REGULAR MEETING:

If you’d like a copy of the agenda for the regular meeting, just go to the District Website. Voila!

I perused the agenda, and nothing really jumps out at me. It’s always hard to predict what these people are going to do. Agendas don’t tell you much. Sometimes they freak out over flat nothing—like death-defying trips to the beaches of Spain. And sometimes they surprise you and get all magnanimous and sensitive.

They can even be nice.

Item 4.1 is “Approval of Exclusive Rights to Negotiate Agreement (ERNA) with Camelot Entertainment.” Maybe you know what this means. I don’t. Does it mean that the district is zeroing in on the Camelot deal?

Camelot, of course, is the investor group who proposed a super-duper studio complex to take up much of our ATEP acreage in Tustin. Some people worry that we’ll get fleeced by these guys. Could be.

Mathur seems to have taken over the ATEP project. He imagines, I think, that he can envision a success at ATEP so spectacular that his mug will eventually get blasted onto Mount Rushmore.

Item 5.3 is whether to “Approve the Saddleback College study abroad program: Spanish Language Studies in Guanajuato, Mexico in the summer of 2007 and the Educational Tour/Field Study Travel Contractor Agreement with the American Institute for Foreign Study for coordinating all travel agreements.”

Fuentes is the kind of guy who thinks that Mexico and Spain are basically the same place, since the natives speak the same language, more or less. So why not save a few pesos and head for Mexico? Usually, Don Wagner can be expected to warble a similar tune. So expect these guys to be all over this proposal. And why not?

Item 5.4 is an airing of the faculty union’s proposed contract.

Item 5.5 is whether to “Approve the district’s initial proposal for negotiations with the SOCCCD Faculty Association and set a public hearing on the proposal at the regularly scheduled May Board meeting.”

As I’m sure you’re aware, the district has lowballed the faculty bigtime with this proposal. I think the trustees want us to wear knickers and become Republicans. It’s pretty obnoxious. Plus they want us to teach more than two days a week and to swear off striking.

I’ve been teaching five days a week for years, so it’s no biggie to me if they make us show up now and again. I guess others feel differently.

5.7 is a contract with a private dick (Karen T. Meyers, Esq.). What’s that all about?

5.8 lists some Academic Personnel Actions, including a couple of “Additional Compensation”s—so maybe Raghu’s trying to pull another hidden raise scam. Hard to say.

There are two curious “discussion items”:

5.1: “A Board discussion item has been requested on the topics of the Cost of Employee Benefits and Staffing Levels.”

That doesn’t sound good.

5.2: “Faculty from both colleges will present information relative to the curriculum development process and procedures.”

Mathur’s been in a lather about this one for weeks. Don’t know why.

For some reason, he has insisted on introducing the presentation, which will be handled mostly by faculty, since it’s totally their gig. I think Raghu is trying to convince the board that he’s working well with faculty and, in fact, everything’s hunky-dory. Well, when it comes to curriculum development, things are hunky-dory—exactly because Raghu’s not around to mess ‘em up.

My prediction: he’ll stir up a hornets’ nest with this. You watch.

Yeah, but like the Reb says, my predictions aren’t worth spit. I mean, I was the guy who swore that Americans couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to reelect George W. Bush.

Li'l Sarah on the tire swing down by the oaks

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Could anyone be more wholesome than that little Sarah? Look at her tiny little feet! I love that munchkin.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...