(From The Dissenter’s Dictionary, 1999)
In 1988, the board adopted a not unusual administrative hiring procedure that gave to a search committee, representing various constituency groups, the task of selecting the best 3 to 5 candidates from all applicants for interview by the chancellor, who would forward a single recommendation to the board. In April of ‘97, the Board Majority appointed Raghu Mathur as interim president of IVC, despite his lack of experience as a full-time administrator and his unpopularity with many faculty and staff. Almost from the start, Mathur offended and angered nearly everyone, though he was loyal to the BM. Nevertheless, he applied for the permanent position, and, under the circumstances, it was not unreasonable to expect that his name would not be forwarded by the search committee to the chancellor for the final round of interviews. Recognizing this, the BM pressured then chancellor Lombardi to abandon the established hiring procedure in favor of one in which the Board would itself interview all candidates after the search committee had done so, leaving the latter with no discernible role. At the time, Lombardi explained his action by saying that he was being "realistic" about the board, who were concerned, they said, that Mathur might not be evaluated "fairly."
Said the Irvine World News: "It's clear the four-member majority of...trustees is now manipulating the selection of a new president for Irvine Valley College. The process they've come up with is a sham...[This micromanagement and politicizing has] got to stop before those four individuals wreck the district and its two find colleges" (8/14/97).
As the IWN in effect predicted, in September of '97, Mathur was appointed permanent president, prompting trustee Dave Lang to seek the intervention of the state chancellor's office. According to Lang, "The process allowed for no meaningful input by campus shared governance groups or the community. The choice was not supported by the administration and was subjected to no level of institutional approval...." Lang also sent a letter to the OC District Attorney concerning apparent violations of the Brown Act. (IWN, 9/11/97). (See BROWN ACT.)
By March of '98, Board members explained that they were considering a proposal to officially adopt the hiring procedure used to hire Mathur. In an interview for IVC's Voice, trustee Dorothy Fortune opined that the proposed procedure would be "more inclusive than ever." Said trustee John Williams: "This is a much fairer process." (3/5/98) On the other side, in a letter to the Times, trustee Milchiker explained that the new procedures "will invalidate a long-standing collegiate district policy which offers all college constituencies a voice in the selection of administration. This subversion of the hiring process comes at a crucial time"--given the ongoing administrative exodus.
Eventually, the Accrediting Commission (ACCJC) cited the new procedures as evidence of the board's micromanagement and subversion of shared governance, and thus they were abandoned. This, however, did not end the BM's manipulations of administrative hiring. When Glenn Roquemore didn't survive the final cut in the screening for the permanent VP of Instruction position at IVC, trustee accusations of unfairness again surfaced, and so, again overturning the search committee's decision, Roquemore was interviewed at the second level. (Though, in the end, Roquemore was not hired, the IVC Academic Senate took great exception to the Board’s impugning of faculty honesty; 2/25.) A similar kind of interference occurred in the job search that yielded the hire of Armando Ruiz as Vice President of Student Services at IVC, despite his utter lack of administrative experience.
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