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| Cedric |
McKinney theater (January 4, 2000):
My winter break was a complete bust, what with my getting a bad case of sciatica and whatnot. Somehow, I went to “staff development” activities down at Saddleback College expecting to have my spirits raised. What was I thinking?
Arriving at Saddleback’s McKinney theater at about 9:05, I grabbed some coffee and headed inside, where I sat pretty much in the middle. I espied Bob Kopfstein and Ray Chandos way off to my right. They whispering nastily. Just then, Pam Zanelli walked in, a haystack still on her head. Williams, Lang, and Milchiker were down toward the front, in the dignitary zone. Williams, looking staunch, was wedged in his seat like a square peg in a square hole.
At about 9:10, facing a meager crowd of about 60, Cedric began to purr through his nose the way he does, pointing out, unpleasantly, that it wasn’t yet a new millennium, not for another year. Gotta get beyond Y2K thinking, said he. Off to the right, someone broke wind, and there was laughter.
Sampson introduced the trustees, starting, naturally, with Williams. Then he thanked Maureen S for setting up the morning session, whereupon he explained the need for clarification of “roles and responsibilities.” Translation: “gotta put those goddam academic senates in their place.”
The guest speaker—Ray Geigle, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Cal State Bakersfield—seemed pretty cheerful for a guy who has to live in Bakersfield. He was a pretty good speaker, too, in stark contrast to Sampson.
For no apparent reason, Geigle told a funny story about a philosophy course he took as an undergraduate. In class, the professor asked Geigle whether he understood the lecture. Geigle said he did. Said the professor: “Well, good, Geigle; if you understood it, then everyone did.” We all laughed, but it was a bitter laugh, for we thought: “how come we’re stuck with stiffs like Cedric while friggin’ Bakersfield gets this guy?”
Geigle explained that 70% of the labor force is now in the service industry, and students need to understand that. Up in Bakersfield, lots of students want to go into agriculture, but that’s no good, ‘cuz, pretty soon, all of our crops will be grown by one guy on a computerized tractor, plowin’ computerized dirt.
Said Geigle: used to be that kids could go into manufacturing and make some good money, buy a house, a car. Now, manufacturing is pretty damned cheap and efficient, and these manufacturing jobs have vanished. Gotta have knowledge; that’s the new commodity.
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| John |
He was starting to piss me off.
Geigle talked about the globalization of the economy, which, he said, is now unstoppable. The world wide web is having an incredible effect, like nothing that’s come before it. Nobody knows where this train is going, in part because it has no engineer. We can’t predict how things will be 3 years from now. So flexibility’s the thing.
Geigle seemed to say that the economy is becoming increasingly polarized between the unskilled, who are making five bucks an hour (or who make big bucks administering at IVC), and the highly skilled, who are wealthy bastards with maids and chauffeurs. He also noted that, pretty soon, we’ll all have molecular computers implanted in our bodies.
We’ve gotta tell our students more about the “texture of the job” they’re going into, said Geigle. A student might start out wanting to be, say, a traditional nurse, but he or she will end up shoving microcomputers up patients’ noses and then spinnin’ ‘em out the door.
Sensing the need to end with something positive, Geigle was suddenly bullish about California. Our state, he said, has all of the attributes necessary for global leadership. The largest open markets are in the Pacific Rim, and California has great ports. Also, we’ve got this diversity thing nailed. We’re screwing up, though, ‘cuz we’re not teaching languages. Gotta get on that. Everybody must get multilingual.
Geigle talked about our infrastructure, which has been badly neglected. Our generation has not done for its children, said G, what our parents did for theirs. Basically, said Geigle, we’re a bunch of assholes, and, looking over at Sampson and Williams, it was hard to disagree.
After that, I hung out with Bill for a bit, and then I wandered over to the union luncheon, where we all stood in line. Suddenly, Lee popped up, holding a copy of Dissent 40, which offered an account of his Dec. 13 drumming performance. He shook the thing at me and said, “Why don’t you distribute these around here!” I said, “I did, Lee. That’s why you’ve got one. Nice to see you, Lee.” His tail twitched.
At long last, we got our food—there wasn’t much for vegetarians—and we sat down. I sat with Wendy, and others soon joined us. Cedric wandered over to greet people, but, though he stood only inches away from our table, he passed us by. I noticed Tony and Tom and Patrick over at one table, and Walter and Dale and Laurence at another. Larry and Moe and Curly were there, too.
Huddling at the table next to the podium were Pam “Same Sex” Zanelli, John “PE Boy” Williams, Ray “White Wash Willy” Chandos, Bob “Anger Management” Kopfstein, Sherry “PAC Woman” Miller-White, Sharon “Tiny Tears” MacMillan, and Cedric “Just Waitin’ for Retirement” Sampson.
Wow. An Axis meeting, right out in the open like that.
Just before things got started, we heard a strange sound from nearby. We looked down. It was Lee, who whispered, “I see you choose your friends carefully.” Then he ran off, [disappearing among the vertically unchallenged.]
Ray was seated in front of the podium, so, when things got started, they moved him to a card table against the wall, where he chewed alone, while the adults continued to conspire at the big table.
Sharon, wearing a brown suit with big gold buttons, introduced the featured speaker, who, as near as I can tell, was the caterer. He seemed like a nice fellow, though his address was uninspired. Later, he popped up to make a pitch for his restaurant.
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| Haggerty |
After Maureen made an announcement concerning the “Great Teacher” seminar at Lake Arrowhead, Sharon introduced various dignitaries in the audience, including two trustees (Milchiker and Williams), the Chancellor, and President Bullock. Raghu P. Mathur was nowhere to be seen. Sharon, apparently about to break into tears, praised Williams for his support of the contract, especially with regard to the tiff over cost of living. Thanks to the outcome of the COLA wars, said she, “we’ll be happier teachers.”
Next, the loathsome John Williams spoke; he wore a blue suit, Hitler hair, and a ridiculous tie apparently fashioned from an American flag—a clear violation of what the SAR call “flag etiquette.” He said: “Yeah, I supported you. Now, you damn well better support me in 2000.” —Well, no, he didn’t actually say that. What he actually said was, “Why am I here?” Really.
Following Haggerty’s example, Williams spoke fondly of Saddleback College, which, he said, “changed my life.” He had intended to be a PE teacher and coach, but then he took some criminal law courses at the college, and the rest is history. (Yeah. In fact, he sat around eating doughnuts as a bailiff for 22 years. Naturally, after his doughnut period, he felt prepared to oversee a college district.)
He said that we’ve recovered from the bankruptcy and the “future is very bright.” After underscoring his role in the COLA wars, he said, “I appreciate your support” and “Please email me.”
Bob K got up to praise [himself] and his cronies for their successes negotiating the contract. Bob explained that good salaries in the district started with a board member, who used to say, “You can’t pay a good teacher enough; you can’t fire a bad teacher fast enough.” Everyone nodded; Lee W winced.
Sharon spoke about faculty evaluations, a bone of contention. The IVC Academic Senate has pursued a change in the evaluation procedures (for IVC) to bring them more in line with state guidelines, which favor inclusion of “peer evaluation.” Naturally, the Old Guard is against this. Sharon said that our existing “system” is very “liberal.” Hence, we “shouldn’t change it.” Ray C got up to make similar noises. He seemed to suggest that our peers can’t be trusted to evaluate us, but deans can. In fact, however, in December, an administrator at IVC was pressured by King Raghu to place an utterly undeserved negative remark in a faculty critic’s teaching evaluation. What about that, Ray?
An hour or two later, we headed to BGS for a joint meeting of the academic senates, with Anne Cox and Peter Morrison presiding. The chancellor, of course, has recently expressed his intention to urge the modification of the board policy concerning delegation of authority to the academic senates. This effort by the chancellor (and, no doubt, the Board Majority) to reduce senate authority turned out to be the sole topic of the meeting.
Lee Walker was there. Amidst much groaning, he held up a recent Times article which described the “insulting” and “juvenile” anonymous newsletters that have cropped up at Saddleback College in response to the Dissent. He then held up a copy of Dissent 40, which, he said, has an article by “Chuck Wheeler”—implying, of course, that the Dissent, too, offers anonymous writings. At that point, I announced (politely) that “My name appears at the end of the article, Lee.” (Evidently, the poor fellow can’t read.)
Anne introduced some visitors, including Linda Collins of the State Academic Senate and trustees Nancy Padberg and Don Wagner. Wagner explained, rather ominously, that he will “report back to the board” what the senators have to say. He then added, contrary to all reason, that there is no effort afoot by anyone to change the scope of the exiting board policy regarding delegation of authority.
What’s that boy been smokin’?
Lee asked an incoherent question about the Brown Act, which produced a quizzical look on Ms. Collins’ face. “I’m not quite clear what the point is,” said she.
Peter laid out the essential facts regarding the “delegation of authority” caper. Basically, the board policy that defines delegation of authority to the senate (giving to the senate authority in 11 areas) explicitly precludes a unilateral change of the policy by the board. So, asked Peter, can the board act unilaterally? “Let’s hope that we don’t get there,” said Peter, for no one wants to pursue this matter in the courts. [Ultimately, the board did act unilaterally. —Ed.]
There was some disagreement concerning whether the change that the chancellor intends to recommend is “substantive.” After a while, partly owing to remarks by Ms. Collins, who seemed to be pretty sharp, it became abundantly clear that, contrary to the chancellor’s defenders—the Old Guard and Wagberg—the proposed change is indeed substantive.
At one point, I asked whether the board has in fact violated the existing policy—by failing to accept the senate’s recommendations (in the specified areas) or failing to provide written reasons for failing to accept them, as the policy requires. Eventually, it became clear that the board has indeed done so on several occasions. Such, at any rate, was the judgment of officers and senators of the Saddleback Academic Senate.
A defensive and clueless Nancy Padberg declared that there has been an “ongoing dialogue” for six months about these proposed changes, a point handily refuted by Anne Cox, who explained that no one had heard of the chancellor’s proposal until November or December. Anne and others rejected the notion, expressed by Sampson, that the senate does not understand its role. The problem is that the board does not accept the senate’s recommendations, contrary to board policy.
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| MacMillan |
Maureen S described how, during her tenure as senate president, the senate presidents were marginalized. First, they were moved from the meeting table; then their microphones were removed; and so on. Mickey M, who had also served as senate president, chimed in to explain that, when her hand went up at meetings, she was routinely ignored. There was a time, she said, when the faculty’s voice was valued; no longer. As things now stand, changes are just “given to us.”
A guy named Martin said we need to be entrepreneurial. Then Lee said something of about equal perspicacity.
Dale C chose that moment to announce: “I think the board is doing a great job,” whereupon Lee clapped loudly and alone.
And so it went. —CW
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