ARCHIVES: "PEOPLE WALKING ON EGGSHELLS," by Chunk Wheeler

By all accounts, Raghu is a difficult man to work with or, especially, under.

Consider the case of the now-retired Leann Cribb, formerly an executive secretary, and a beloved and respected employee. Cribb had occasion to work for Raghu when he served as Chair of his School. Later, working for the Office of Instruction, she took notes for Instructional Council meetings—including the now-famous meeting in which Mathur was formally censured for lying.

Cribb found Raghu’s treatment of her to be sufficiently egregious that, finally, on August 3, 1995, she lodged a formal complaint against him. She wrote:

The following memorandum is a complaint I am making about Mr. Raghu Mathur. I realize the gravity of my actions, but please understand that I have carefully considered my case, and I have documented Mr. Mathur’s egregious behavior toward me for the past six years….

As the secretary for the Office of Instruction, I take the minutes of the Instructional Council. At the July 18 Instructional Council meeting, I distributed the minutes from the July 11 meeting. During the meeting, Raghu Mathur announced that he wanted the minutes from July 11 changed. During the course of his request, Mr. Mathur stated that he felt the minutes were biased against him and were written to make him look bad … After the meeting, I went back to check my notes from the July 11 meeting and confirmed for myself that the changes he requested were exactly opposite to what I had written during the July 11 meeting and to my recollection….

Mr. Mathur did not attend the next Instructional Council meeting on July 25. During the August 1 meeting, he raised the question of why the revised July 11 minutes had not been distributed. He then continued on an angry tirade accusing the Office of Instruction of manipulating the minutes to make him look bad … He stated that the minutes were written with a bias against him and that the information in the minutes was not accurate. His comments are a direct attack on my competency as well as on my character. Although I realize that I am not the primary target of Mr. Mathur’s diatribe in this instance, I was embarrassed and humiliated in front of the entire Instructional Council by his false accusations.

I resent Mr. Mathur’s assertion that I, and my colleagues, manipulate information to portray him in a bad light. Manipulating the minutes of an Instructional Council meeting would be an inexcusable breach of ethics and should be grounds for a reprimand or dismissal. This is not the first time Mr. Mathur has manufactured lies to get me fired….

This attack on me is the latest in a series of attacks that began with my tenure in the School of Physical Sciences and Technologies. During my time there, Mr. Mathur told me that I was incompetent on more than one occasion. He also attacked me personally by accusing me of behaving inappropriately while serving on a hiring committee. He reported this “inappropriate” behavior to the President of the college. Although I asked him several times to specify what the inappropriate behavior was, I was never informed of what I had done to warrant being reported to the President and humiliated in front of the committee. I was so disturbed by his mistreatment, I have kept notes on several of these instances for my records, dating back to August 1989.

To be clear: Mr. Mathur routinely revises facts and manufactures innuendo to suit his objectives. He does this at the expense of employees like me who are merely doing their job…..

Of course, there have been other complaints against Raghu. At one point, he was even reprimanded by the college President for failing to get along with others (and for violating a federal law by distributing a student’s transcripts in an attempt to discredit a VP).

—But let’s get back to those who work under him. Consider the case of Bevin Zandvliet, who, for a brief period, served as Raghu’s PIO. She couldn’t stand the guy, so she quit. According to the Register,

Irvine Valley College’s new spokeswoman has left after just one month, saying she was asked to present the public with a view of the embattled college that was tantamount to lying.

Bevin Zandvliet said she repeatedly asked college President Raghu Mathur for information about campus protests, lawsuits aimed at the administration, and controversy over the school’s accreditation, but she was rebuffed.

“I was told that there were some things I was not to focus on,” she said. “From my own research, old files and press clippings I got a picture of an administration that was doing some things that I don’t think I could represent without violating my own ethics.”

…Professors say they have been locked out of decision-making and that those who don’t go along with Mathur are called into his office, yelled at and often written up. Mathur, on the other hand, says he has an “open-door policy” and has worked hard to include faculty, staff and students in decisions.

Zandvliet said that during her four weeks at Irvine Valley, that’s not what she saw.

“People are walking on eggshells around there,” she said. “He said he has an open-door policy and that he believes in communication, but I didn’t see it.” (OC Register 9/25/98)

—CW)