A vigorous and sustained shoveling of sh*t against the tide

I LOVE TO READ advice given by notable academics to incoming freshmen (er, freshpeople). I like to compare their handy tips with the suggestions that I often dish out.

A couple of days ago, the New York Times assembled some pearls of wisdom from nine well-known academics (College Advice, From People Who Have Been There Awhile). Check it out.

The inevitable Stanley Fish advises students to find out “who the good teachers are.” Good idea. I often tell students that, if they choose their instructors carefully, they can receive a better education here at IVC than at the fancy and expensive and  famous university up the road. It’s a lot easier for a student to get to know his or her instructor here in sleepy little Irvine Valley, where the motto “Publish or Perish” has been changed to “Publish? What for?”

Oddly, Stan the Post-Modern Man advises the fresh collegian to “consult the teacher-evaluation guides available at most colleges,” even as he acknowledges that these guides “are the vehicles of petty grievances.”

Stan confuses me. Too many high-school grads can’t manage a “clean English sentence,” he writes. The same can be said, of course, about many college grads. So he advises freshmen to take composition courses even if they don’t have to. On the other hand, he says that “too many [college] writing courses today teach everything but the craft of writing….”

Wadda nut.

English Professor Gerald Graff urges freshmen to emulate “key moves” made by successful profs, namely, some “common practices of argument and analysis.”

Graff wants students to “enter the conversation.” The best way to do that, he says, is to learn to summarize others’ arguments and to “Use these summaries to motivate what you say and to indicate why it needs saying.”

Summaries? Maybe this Graff fella has a touch of Asperger’s. (Like me.) He makes lots of lists, I bet.

Graff’s advice strikes me as a little odd—I think maybe he hung out too much with the college speech team—but he is surely right in urging students to engage in conversation and debate.

–But not with knuckleheads, and IVC ain't Ivy League. Students should stay away from colleagues who get their cues from talk radio or TV or SOCCCD board meetings. In Orange County, that pretty much leaves 'em lonely.

The venerable Harold Bloom clearly lives in the past. Entering college, he says, “should be a voyage away from visual overstimulation into deep, sustained reading of what is most worth absorbing and understanding: the books that survive all ideological fashions.”

That is, Bloom advises a vigorous and sustained shoveling of shit against the tide.

Meanwhile, historian Carol Berkin offers more practical advice. Make sure, she says, that you aren’t sitting in the wrong classroom. Embarrassing, that.

Also:

During class, do not: a) beat out a cadence on your desk while the teacher is lecturing; b) sigh audibly more than three or four times during a class period; c) check your watch more than twice during the hour. Do: a) practice a look of genuine interest in the lecture or discussion; b) nod in agreement frequently; c) laugh at all (or at least most) of the professor’s jokes.

We should pin these Six Commandments on all those empty bulletin boards in A200. --Except for that last one. I hate fake laughter.


Like Stanley Fish, historian Garry Wills advises students to “Learn to write well.” Aim for “clarity,” he says. Also, “Read, read, read.”

I often tell my students exactly the same things, but I suspect they think I'm just being quirky and they go back to writing enigmas.

Wills advises students to “Seek out the most intellectually adventurous of your fellow students.”

Exactly. The same advice will have students transfer to a good university ASAP. In fact, it'll drive 'em clean out of the OC. It is, after all, the home of the "birthers" and other Stupiders.

Wills recalls a story about Jimmy Carter, who was asked what he thought of his freshman daughter who had been arrested during an anti-apartheid protest. Said the pious Peanut Farmer: “I cannot tell you how proud I was. If you young people cannot express your conscience now, when will you?”

Yeah. When you try doing that when you’re old like me, your colleagues tell you to shut up and get positive.

Noted philosopher Martha Nussbaum also emphasizes the special opportunity that arises during college: “this may be the one time in your life when you have a chance to think about the whole of your life, not just your job.” Taking Humanities courses in particular provides one with “resources to prevent your mind from becoming narrower and more routinized in later life.”

Well, that’s the way it’s worked out for me, and for many of my yappy and peevish intellectual friends. We’re so broad and whimsical that some wanna send us to counseling or unemployment--or worse.

The grizzled James MacGregor Burns hasn't heard yet that newspapers are dead. His advice: “try to read a good newspaper every day.”

Well, first, try to find one! (Last week, the OC Reg filed for bankruptcy.)

Newspapers, he says, “will teach you how to write.” Again, “clarity” is the key virtue.

Yup, that’s what I tell my crew. Every day. But I steer 'em away from the Reg, 'cause its especially shitty when it's clear.

The old fossil Burns also advises students to “get to know your teachers outside of class.”

Well, he got that right. I'm always telling students to get to know their profs. I’m sure our detractors from on high will be horrified to hear this, but, owing to this tag-along-after-class phenomenon, the Reb and I know lots of students, and we hang out with ‘em.

Some of these kids who stick around, you can just see their eyes get wide, their world get bigger, more exciting, more fun! Wow, the world of big ideas, big possibilies!

The crazy posters on our office wall don’t hurt. Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, the Clash, the vegetarians, the 50,000 stupid voters.

We often send these kids on down to UCI (or Columbia or UCLA or Cal, etc.) and, for years, they return like boomerangs as they pursue ever-larger academic adventures out there, somewhere.

Biologist Nancy Hopkins advises students to “fall in love…with an intellectual vision of the future.” That’s what happened to her, decades ago, listening to geneticist James Watson. “By the end of that lecture I was a goner — in love with DNA,” she writes.

Hopkins focuses on “passion” and big dreams:

You may be the person who constructs a new biological species, or figures out how to stop global warming, or aging. Maybe you’ll discover life on another planet. My advice to you is this: Don’t settle for anything less.

I worry that the college experience, with all of its crazy and informal mind-expanding and world-opening mechanisms, is slowly disappearing, replaced by weird-assed online instructional “delivery” by for-profit companies whose cyber-walls are devoid of wacky posters, and whose “mission statements” refer to ever-improving, mind-numbing SLOs and plans for cheap but comprehensive “informational” brain implants.

Screw that.

Sham shared governance?

The OC Reg’s Gary Robbins reports that, with the support of the AAUP, a group of UC professors are urging their colleagues to “stage a one day walkout on September 24th to protest the deep financial cuts that are being made throughout the system as a result of the state budget crisis.”

UCI professors urged to stage one day walkout

Professors are pissed that their input and suggestions are being ignored, so a few of them composed and signed a letter (on Aug. 31) that urges colleagues to stay home on the 24th.

One of the signers, Professor Catherine Liu (Film & Media Studies/Comp Lit) says that most instructors will show up that day for a “teachable moment” to clue students in.

The letter reads, in part:

Dear Colleagues,

…It is now finally inarguable that the polling of the faculty on significant matters is a fig leaf for the will of the Chancellors and the Office of the President. We stand corrected: shared governance is merely the polite name for emergency powers.

…On July 29, the Academic Council, representing the Academic Senates of all ten campuses, voted unanimously for systemwide implementation of at least six instruction-day furloughs over the academic year, with permission for campuses to have up to ten such days.

This recommendation—based on the expressly stated will of the faculty—was summarily rejected by the Chancellors and the Office of the President.

The reason for this unilateral decision is clear: the administration seeks to evade public accountability for the manner in which it has managed the budget crisis. It was the “optics” of the Senate Council’s recommendation that were judged untenable. The Office of the President has failed to arrive at a plan that would protect the interests of both students and workers. It wishes to disguise the harm this failure has done to the University’s mission…. …UCOP has flagrantly erased the difference between a furlough and a paycut, presenting the latter in the guise of the former.
…
We call for the suspension of faculty teaching on [Sept. 24] pending three demands, which we understand as absolutely minimal:

1. No furloughs or paycuts on salaries below $40,000.
2. The immediate institution of the Academic Senate Council’s July 29 recommendation
regarding the implementation of furloughs.
3. Full disclosure of the budget….

Recently, in local student newspapers:

Tuition Increases Across the Country (The Cypress Chronicle)

George McGovern speaks at convocation (The Chapman U Panther)

Not with a scalpel, but with a meat cleaver

• Spring semester not looking so good at RSCCD

In the OC Reg’s College Life blog this morning, Gary Robbins reports on continuing cuts in classes at the Rancho Santiago Community College District:

2 O.C. colleges cut 400 classes, affecting thousands

Even before the Fall semester started, 400 classes were cut. But “the cutting isn’t over.”

The Rancho district recently learned that it must cut an additional $15 million in the current fiscal year, and a trustee says that will make it necessary to eliminate more class sections and to fire some teachers in a district that serves about 56,000 students.

Phil Yarbrough, a Rancho trustee, said new class cuts could be announced as early as Sept. 14, and made official about a month later the district adopts budget plans.

“I’m going to that meeting not with a scalpel, but with a meat cleaver,” says Yarbrough, who has taught economics at both colleges in the Rancho district.

In the meantime, students at Cal State Fullerton are looking for classes to replace those cut at their college, but, according to an [RSCCD] spokeswoman, these students “should not assume they can find the classes that they are looking for.”

• Worst waste of the year?

Meanwhile, Matt Coker of the OC Weekly reports on the latest chapter of an ongoing story concerning UCI and the impending explosion of Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn’s head:

Coburn Ready to Blow Over UCI Computer Games Center?

Matt reports UCI’s announcement of “the establishment of the Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds.” But what’s that got to do with Coburn’s melon?

The Oklahoma Republican puts out annual "Worst Waste of the Year" reports, and among the examples of "outrageous federal spending" in the 2008 edition was the National Science Foundation having granted $100,000 to UCI to study the differences in how gamers from the U.S. and China play the popular online video game World of Warcraft.

…[The goal of the center’s leaders] will be to expand campuswide research activities involving the social and technological aspects of games and virtual worlds. More than 20 faculty members from computer science, arts, humanities, social science and education will collaborate in the center, according to the announcement. 
UC Irvine was among the first major research universities to establish educational and research programs in computer game culture and technology, with its Game Culture & Technology Lab that was launched in 2001 having attracted nearly $5 million in external funding.

See also Sit-In Protests UCI's Closure of Programs for Low-Income Students

• Clothing, hotel stays and other personal items

The Contra Costa Times reports on abuses and irregularities at the Peralta Community College District in Oakland—according to a “news group” that has hired former state chancellor Marshall Drummond:

Peralta must crack down, report says

Drummond's report comes two months after the Bay Area News Group examined a host of ethical questions surrounding [Chancellor Elihu] Harris' business partnerships with Mark Lindquist, whose firm received a $940,000 no-bid contract from the Peralta district. Lindquist also is president of the Peralta Colleges Foundation, an auxiliary arm of the district.

The newspaper group, which includes this publication, also reported that Trustee Marcie Hodge had used a taxpayer-funded credit card to buy thousands of dollars of clothing, hotel stays and other personal items. Hodge has said she repaid all the personal expenses before the district paid her bills.

Video of Monday's board meeting

Video of Monday's meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees is now available at the district website, here.

You might want to use the "jump to" button to jump to the following "highlights."

"Public comments"

Three faculty object to Chancellor Mathur's "Christ saved our souls" video, starting at 00:07:30. (The academic senates have previously passed resolutions against the trustee practice of religious prayer at district and college functions.)

"Written reports"

The Academic Senate Presidents speak, starting at 02:05:15. (One senate president seems to undercut the earlier faculty comments re prayer and expresses regret that the First Amendment protects this blog and its authors.)

See also Tracy Daly's Board meeting highlights.

More on the board meeting

Never did get a chance (until now) to complete my report on Monday’s meeting of the SOCCCD board. Here are a few notes. Gotta run.

As you know, Tom Fuentes, former OC GOP chair, and his pals have worked hard over the years to place their corrupt friends in office. County Sheriff Mike Corona was one of those friends. He’s headed to the pokey.

Chriss W. Street, OC Treasurer-Tax Collector, is another. He showed up on Monday to report the trend in taxes collected. As we’ve reported previously, and as Street’s handout made clear, tax bucks have steadily increased in recent years, but that trend is now over. For 2008-09, $4,782,292,446 was collected. For 2009-10, the number is $4,724,904,937. That’s a 1% decrease. No biggie.

So far, this is old news, but Street did offer a “personal prediction.” In the year following this one, the amount, he predicted, will be down 4-5%.

Since we’re a basic aid district, this matters.

Faculty spoke during “public comments.” Claire Cesareo-Silva read a letter by Carmenmara Hernandez Bravo concerning the trustees’ habit of offering Christian prayers at events. It is not very Christian, she said, to impose your religious beliefs on others. Reference was made to the Chancellor’s August 17 “opening session” and his video that ended with a statement about Jesus Christ dying to save our souls.

Ronnie Lebauer was next. She zeroed in on the message that Jesus Christ died for our souls. It is offensive, she said, for a public institution to make specific religious appeals. We need to be “inclusive,” she said. As it is, the community deserves an “apology.”

Finally, math instructor (and inveterate district public prayer foe) Karla Westphal spoke. She noted that, in the past, trustees have defended their prayers by noting that they are “non-sectarian.” It is “impossible to believe,” she said, that the district abides by this notion in view of the Chancellor’s video, which ended with the statement:

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you—Jesus Christ and the American G. I. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom.

This sentiment, she said, is “explicitly Christian.” It is rude and it is unconstitutional, she added. Since the board insists on this course, it has been forced to hire legal representation, which is expensive. Such expenses are entirely unnecessary and are thus “fiscally irresponsible.”

Saddleback College Academic Senate Prez Bob Cosgrove also spoke. He distributed a pamphlet that introduced the 15 new faculty at the college. He thanked the board for these hires and for deciding to pay for much-needed maintenance of facilities and whatnot.

It was about now that the Chancellor made his peculiar “statement” that guest speaker Michael Drake was “not offended” by the video. Knowing Mathur, he was reporting the fact that Drake offered no comment at all while implying that Drake said “hey, I’m not offended by that.” Maybe somebody should ask Drake. [UPDATE: see comments. I suspect that one reader is correct that Mathur was referring not to Drake but to himself as the "diverse Chancellor." That, of course, does nothing to vindicate his reasoning.]

Bill Jay was back (he’s been ill), but he didn’t look strong. “I’m back,” he said. He soon collapsed back into his chair, silent.

Fuentes heaped praise on board Prez Don Wagner for his MC duties (at the Chancellor’s opening session). He had heard only “magnificent comments” about Don’s efforts and the “successful” opening session. He yammered a bit about the upcoming 9-11 events at the campuses.

John Williams, who is struggling these days to deal with that nasty Grand Jury report about his efforts as Public Guardian/Administrator, gave no report at all.

Wagner heaped more praise on the Chancellor’s opening session and a “great and informative presentation” he had just witnessed concerning ATEP. He made a joke, alluding to Gary Poertner’s vacation in Hawaii.

Marcia Milchiker said something about her participation in flex week activities. She learned, she said, all about “super-charging your computer.”

Dave Lang said something, but I remember none of it. So did student trustee Bi’Anca J. Bailey, who was mostly pretty chirpy.

In his report, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur noted that headcount is up by 7% and FTES is up nearly 10%. He sounded terribly staunch. He displayed a large piece of plexiglass given to him by the OC Board of Supervisors upon which was written a resolution.

Tom Fuentes did indeed request yet another report on faculty salaries, only this time one that compares our faculty’s salaries with those elsewhere in the county.

Glenn and Tod and Randy came up to give their presentation on “strategic planning.” The former was brief and efficient. Tod offered a bit more whizzbangery and flash. Nice light grey suit. I want one.

As he spoke, Herr Peebles of ATEP seemed to settle into a deep sleep. Somebody showed a chart with many boxes and numerous arrows promiscuously directed. Everyone lapsed into a coma.

During the presentation of the district’s final budget, Mathur again repeated his new talking point, that “we operate within our means.” Meanwhile, he said once again, the state has tended to adopt “smoke and mirrors” type budgets. That’s been true, he said, for “13 to 20 years.”

Maybe I heard that wrong. 13 to 20?

Mathur was really saying, “see, I’m talking about state finances, and I’m offering nasty and knowledgeable commentary, and so I’m a big man.”

There is, he said, a serious “efficiency review” going on at the three campuses. The state, however, ain’t doing that, he said.

Beth Mueller made the actual presentation, and that seemed good. In the course of the discussion that followed, Marcia opined that “it coulda been worse,” and Bob C fretted about the loss of matriculation dollars. He said something, too, about such “disastrous” cost-cutting ideas as student self-placement in basic ed courses, etc.

Next item: the basic aid priority list (i.e., recommendations concerning how to divvy up the money):

MY NOTES:

WAGNER: Saddleback College gets $8 million and IVC gets less than $1 million? These priorities seem "wildly unbalanced."

Question: Is this item (rec to accept these priorities) time-sensitive?

Answer: only the IT part. The others can wait a month.

LANG: I'm unsure whether all of these expenditures adhere to our guidelines (namely, basic aid should be restricted to "one-time only" expenses). Need time to think about this.

WILLIAMS: didn't this go through DRAC (i.e., the district resources allocation committee, which includes representation from both colleges)?

Answer: no, basic aid money distribution does not go through DRAC.

Action: money for IT approved. Decision re rest of money to be decided after more "historical" data is made available concerning pattern of these expenses.

The two Associated Student Government budgets were presented and approved without a hitch. The board was impressed that a relatively large proportion of student funds would be devoted to scholarships and other things of clear benefit to students. Dave Lang seemed to have some minor issues, but, in the end, these kids got a pat on the head. (In recent years, the board, or at least some trustees, have expressed displeasure at the way these funds are distributed--essentially, they want students, who pay fees, to clearly benefit--and student leaders have essentially yielded to this perspective.)

Fire, Stars and Dreams

(Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, and Walter Adams (l-r) in 1931 at the Mount Wilson Observatory 100" telescope, in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California. It was here in 1929 that Hubble discovered the cosmic expansion of the universe. photo: California Institute of Technology)

Tim Rutten has a thoughtful piece in today's Los Angeles Times about the Mount Wilson Observatory - it's part local history, often overlooked or diminished, part science lesson, part a larger meditation about what these fires mean.

An excerpt:

"On the other hand, if this "angry" Station fire has done nothing else, it has reminded us that we remain rather small and often helpless before the most basic of terrestrial elements -- fire, water, wind. Those huge pyrocumulus clouds looming over downtown L.A. on Monday were like monuments to a kind of heedlessness and vanity that flourishes with particular force in this city -- where a fantasy of control long ago took hold. How do you accept implacable nature of the sort that's been on display for the last week in a city where so many believe they can reinvent their lives, their looks and even their psyches?

The last time fire burned all the way through what's now the Angeles National Forest was in 1897, eight years before astronomer George Hale began work on the first phase of the Mt. Wilson Observatory. Dave Boucher, the L.A. County Fire Department's historian, and other local scholars of fire ecology believe that the Station blaze already has surpassed that conflagration in size.

Almost all of the largest fires in California history -- including the largest, the 273,246-acre Cedar fire in San Diego County six years ago -- have occurred in this century, products of urban sprawl, the thoughtless propagation of non-native plants, unwise fire suppression policies and, probably, global warming.

The dreams that propelled Hubble toward the world-altering discoveries he made atop Mt. Wilson may very well have had their origins in our ancestors' reveries beside their flickering fires. It's sobering to witness how easily it can become once again an element of dread."

To read the rest, click here.



"On a visit to the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena in 1931, Albert Einstein demonstrated his calculation of the density of the Milky Way. By using Mount Wilson's 100-inch telescope Edwin Hubble had recently shown that the universe is expanding." -from Science@Berkeley Lab:

VETS Center opens at Saddleback College

Bohrstein sent us this pic of Mt. Wilson last night

Recently, in the OC Reg:

New student center focuses on war vets (Niyaz Pirani)

MISSION VIEJO - Saddleback College students who are former members of the armed forces or on active duty and their families will now have a dedicated space to receive counseling, share experiences and receive academic and career help.

The VETS Center opened alongside the beginning of the fall semester last week and is meant to ease veterans into student life. The center will also provide referrals for on-campus and off-campus veterans' services.

"Our veterans have sacrificed so much for our country and it is only fitting to provide them with every resource they need to succeed as a Saddleback College student and beyond," said Tod A. Burnett, president of the college, in a release.

The center is located in the Student Services Center, room 207, and is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday. For more information, call 949-582-4252.

The troubling sentiment

I’ve been trying to locate the sappy patriotic video shown by Chancellor Raghu Mathur two weeks ago at his fall opening extravaganza. It presents a series of more-or-less patriotic images—including bald eagles and Americans experiencing hard times—and is accompanied by Lee Greenwood’s execrable “God Bless the USA,” a clumsy, bombastic anthem that seems to be “de Bomb” in Redneckville and environs.

I haven’t located the exact video.

I tried to remember the troublesome sentiment with which the video ends, and it appears that it is the following:

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you—Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

That’s right. Jesus Christ. This inarticulate blather ("defining forces" that make "offers"?) is making the rounds among the usual suspects.