NOVEMBER 3:At about 12:30 this afternoon, two representatives of the ACCJC/WASC (the accrediting agency) met with about twenty IVC faculty. As you know, full teams visited both colleges of the district about a year ago, and ACCJC subsequently granted both colleges “reaccreditation,” but in the very lowest category. Essentially, each college got a D.
This did not prevent Lang & Mathur from spinning the ACCJC's judgment as a "thumbs up" and a "validation...of the excellence of our institutions.“ (See press release, 2/2/05.) In truth, our colleges were in a bit of trouble.
Colleges that get a D are expected to make improvements in response to the agency's recommendations. Further, the colleges are required to submit “progress reports”—to be followed by a visit from the Accreds. Well the reports are in, and now the Accreds are visiting.
IVC's progress report, which cited many positives and some negatives, was described by more than one of its authors as being "as honest as it could be." Translation: it coulda been much more negative, but an effort was made to look on the bright side. That's hard to do at IVC, which seems to be in an eternal night, especially now that Raghu Mathur has won fabulous cash prizes and the keys to a fancy Mercedes.
Well, Accred bigwig Deborah Blue and her colleague finally showed up in our hideous portable building at about 12:40 and the meeting got underway. Blue asked about the “Technical Assistance” (TA) matter. There are particular issues (e.g., defining faculty duties and responsibilities, I think) that remain unresolved between the district and the faculty, and both the Academic Senates and the district have expressed a desire to pursue “technical assistance,” that is, they desire bringing in objective third parties to hammer out a reasonable agreement.
IVC’s Senate President explained that, in the past, the district (i.e., Chancellor Mathur) has consistently rejected the TA route--until, that is, the intransigent district was smacked around by the Accrediting agency’s recommendations a year ago. She also explained that the two academic senates are pursuing the possibility of having the AAUP, those champions of Academic Freedom, represent faculty in TA.
Blue asked how long it has been that the district has rejected technical assistance. The Senate Prez explained that the district’s anti-TA ways go back at least to 2000, when the district changed Board Policy 2100.1, which concerns delegation of district authority to Academic Senates. The version of 2100.1 that then existed provided that 2100.1 itself could only be changed upon mutual agreement of district and senates.
With typical ruthlessness, back in 2000, the board unilaterally changed 2100.1. Upon doing so, 2100.1 no longer included the “mutual agreement” provision!
No, I’m not making this up. See our ARCHIVES, starting with February, 2000.
Given that TA was impossible (for it can occur only when both parties seek it), the Academic Senates had no recourse but to appeal to the State Chancellor’s Office. That agency ultimately judged that the district’s actions violated Title V of the Ed Code. No surprise there.
THE PLAGUE OF DESPAIR. Blue asked about the campus climate—now, verses a year ago.
Several instructors said that relations between the Academic Senate and the college administration have improved over the past year. Faculty and administration have worked well together. For instance, they successfully collaborated in writing the accreditation “progress report.”
But, according to these instructors, the faculty’s relationship with the district (i.e., with the Chancellor and Board) remains dismal. To illustrate the point, Lewis explained that faculty have enjoyed a good working relationship with Vice Chancellor Tom Anderson. But it appears that, owing to Anderson’s coziness with faculty, he has now been handed his walking papers. The Board has sent the poor fellow to the Siberian frontier of Tustin, where he cleans quonset huts and rotates blimps.
Thus, re relations between IVC and the district, the “plague of despair” detected by the Accreditation team a year ago persists. Or so said several faculty.
OVERWORKED DEANS. Ms. K explained that she has been absent for four years (she was away to serve as president of the state academic senate), and, now that she’s back, here is what she sees: overworked deans, who simply can’t do all that is required of them. Faculty have scrambled to take up the slack, typically without compensation, she said. If I heard her correctly, she asserted that she now finds an “appalling, dismal lack of energy.”
Despite these difficult circumstances, chimed the Senate Prez, remarkable things have been accomplished, e.g., Program Review, work on the SLO initiative, and the progress report, among other things.
A CULTURE OF MICROMANAGEMENT. Among the elements of the Accrediting Agency’s ding-age of last January was that old favorite, board “micromanagement.” (Weren't they dinged for this back in '98? Do these people ever learn?) Lewis explained that the board has adopted an “interesting” approach to that complaint, namely, the Board President (Lang) has become the de facto Chancellor. Routinely, when asked a question, the Chancellor refers the questioner to Mr. Lang, the man with the answers. (Occasionally, jokesters refer to the omnipresent Lang as "the Chancellor.")
Lewis hypothesized that the trustees are so entrenched in their culture of micromanagement, that they can no longer see it even when they’re in it up to their collective eyeball.
One instructor asserted that some of our administrators try to do a good job, that they genuinely want to do the right thing, but they are fearful. More than one instructor described these administrators as always “looking over their shoulders.” They operate in “an environment of fear.”
“Yeah,” said one wit, “they don’t want to get Andersoned.”
NOT OPTIMISTIC. Greg noted that the Senate has been working very hard to do the necessary work of the college, including writing the progress report. He asserted that the senate has worked diligently for this college to retain its accredited status.
That is true. The senate has led the way in accomplishing necessary tasks, when adminsitration has dropped the ball, or kicked it into the strawberry fields. But the Senate has not received much support. "I'm not optimistic," said one instructor.
There are Mathurians who have joined their hero in consistently portraying faculty as working against the functioning of the college and against reaccreditation. Anyone who has served on the Academic Senate in recent years knows that the truth is entirely to the contrary.
I recall Padberg and Wagner's election to the board in 1998. I invited the two to campus to show them around. Wagner took me up on it. I told him that he needed to get to know us, to talk with us. I suggested that the board is too removed from the actual workings of the colleges. Trustees need to get their own impressions of who faculty are and what we do based on interaction and conversation.
But it was to no avail. It seems that the trustees are largely content to let Mathur do their thinking for them with regard to conditions in the trenches. And, according to the notoriously dishonest Raghu, faculty are trying to "destroy the colleges" and "undermine our accreditation."
Trustees, are you reading this? GO ASK GLENN. Ask him if faculty are working to undermine this college. Skip Raghu. Go to Glenn. Go to Dennis. Got to Gwenn. Please pass Goo. Go directly to THOSE WHO WORK WITH FACULTY. Hear what they have to say. Please!
One instructor noted that IVC has for some time been in the mid-range category for college size, but, recently, the college has officially dipped back down to the “small college” category!
Another instructor explained that, for a time (namely, last spring), the college community was palpably optimistic. That optimism sprung from one thing: the likely prospect of non-renewal of Raghu Mathur’s contract!
The “spirit of despair was lifted,” he said.
Ah, but then, all of a sudden, spirits crashed to earth. Not only was Mathur’s contract renewed, but the fellow received a stunning raise, some of it retroactive. He's the Quarter Million Dollar Man.
One instructor was bothered by such negative talk. She insisted that the college is “moving forward,” that things are “working well.” But others in the room sought to refute her perception.
A long-time supporter of Raghu Mathur—Mr. R, a fellow infamous for his blatant bowdlerization of the 1998 IVC accreditation self-study drafts—spoke in defense of his pal. R reported that he does not see people walking around in despair.
R described a board meeting (in May) in which people emerged from beneath various rocks to offer encomia of praise for Mathur.
He noted, too, that the final paragraphs of the progress report refer to a “climate of despair.” Mr. R denied that there is any evidence at all that such a climate exists or that Chancellor Mathur’s leadership is unpopular.Mr. R did not quote from the progress report. Here is what it actually says:
From the faculty and staff perspective, the most significant issue relative to the climate of despair that continues to plague the college is the renewal of the chancellor’s contract on June 21, 2005. On May 17, 2004, 93.5% of the district faculty voted no confidence in the chancellor. (The California League of Women Voters mailed 318 ballots to all full- time faculty within the district. 246 faculty participated in the vote (77% of the faculty responded). 230 votes (93.5%) expressed no confidence in the leadership of the chancellor; 15 votes (6%) expressed confidence in the leadership of the chancellor; one ballot was unmarked, and counted as an abstention. The vote was conducted by and certified by the California League of Women Voters.) It is the view of the faculty that by renewing the chancellor’s contract, the board majority has continued to dismiss the voice of the faculty thereby causing dismay, concern, and further despair…Despite repeated efforts by the faculty association, IVC and SC academic senates, the classified senate, and CSEA to convey their concerns to the board president and other members of the board, the trustees voted 4-2-1 to renew the contract and granted the chancellor a substantial retroactive increase in salary as well as a substantial salary increase. These actions outraged dissenting board members and faculty. Approximately 75 faculty members attended the June 21, 2005 board meeting. Almost all faculty who attended the meeting were there to protest, to voice their opposition to the board’s actions regarding the chancellor’s contract….
DYSFUNCTION. Mr. D spoke up to rebut R’s points. He reminded us of the stunning “no confidence” vote re Mathur (Raghu’s third and least "confident"). If that is not evidence of difficulty with the district's leadership, then what is?
Mr. D described a Board forum that he attended in which participants were inspired to ask such fundamental questions as, “Who are we (as a college)?” That, at this late stage, we must ask such questions reveals our profound dysfunction, he said. We have many highly-paid administrators, said D, and yet the board seems to cast about for volunteers among faculty to assist in recruitment and public relations.
Mr. D noted that we have a culture of “inbreeding”—the same people persist in positions of authority—and that an inbred culture can produce “no new ideas.” We need fresh, new, visionary leadership, he said.
STILL DICTATING. Blue asked about the “Chancellor’s Cabinet,” the weekly occasion in which governance groups interact with the Chancellor. How is that going?The Senate Prez cited one major improvement, for the senate and other governance groups are now permitted into “docket meetings”—where board topics are decided. But, said she, Chancellor’s Cabinet continues to be the Chancellor’s dictating to other governance groups.
She cited the case of the recently-adopted district and trustee “goals.” These goals were developed in a closed session in mid-September. When these goals were finally revealed, some governance groups noted the curious fact that many of them had already been achieved.
One naturally suspects that the Chancellor and the board were listing such goals merely for the sake of appearing to be achieving things.
When governance groups questioned the inclusion of these curious goals, the Chancellor ”shut them down.”
The good news, said the Senate Prez, is that all of the governance groups, aside from the Board/Chancellor, are on the same page. They express a unified view, but it does not matter. Their view has “no impact.”
THE BIG BUT. After about 35 minutes, time had run out. Dr. Blue then stated that she and her colleague seemed to be sensing a better atmosphere this time, that people at the college were more willing to speak up.
—But there’s always a BIG BUT.
She added: But we hear what the “pervasive sentiment” is.
She did not identify the sentiment. She didn’t have to. —CW
14 comments:
Just for the record: I am in despair.
Thanks.
Me too!
I am not in despair (not being in your district), but I sure do sympathize. That retroactive raise for the spectacularly incompetent and harmful 'Goo would have driven me to self-destructive rage, if not insanity. My hat's off to you all for continuing to serve your students in spite of it all. Heroic, I call it. I wish you a radically different future.
Did members of the Accreditation Team meet in one of the "moldy" buildings?
Did someone make sure that all the lights worked? That the floors were clean? Etc. Etc.
- despaired, disgusted and demoralized
The lights worked fine.
We were in the portables. They looked like always, like crap. But it was a good meeting, I think. The team wanted to hear from IVC faculty, and they did.
In case any reader is not part of Mr. Bauer ("Chunk Wheeler”)'s small circle of people “in despair” over Irvine Valley College, the Saddleback Community College District, and its board and chancellor, and is wondering why all the negative energy and venomous attacks are arising from two colleges that seem by every rational measure to be succeeding in their mission of educating students, or why these well-paid but miserable public employees don’t simply find a job elsewhere—the answer, in one word, is 1997.
1997. Until that time, Mr. Bauer and his friends had been riding high under a system known as “school chairs,” in which middle management at IVC was performed by faculty members “released” or “reassigned”—in whole or part—from the classroom teaching for which they were originally hired. These school chairpersons managed the other, teaching faculty members, controlling their class schedules, overtime allocations, classroom evaluations, supply budgets, etc.
Some did a good and conscientious job, supporting the teaching activities of the faculty they supervised and representing their concerns up the line. One of these school chairs—now Mr. Bauer’s favorite target—was chemistry professor Raghu Mathur. Other school chairs became part of a corrupt oligarchy of “junior fire marshals,” which in the worst cases resembled Zimbardo’s classic psychological experiment where subjects placed in positions of authority over their peers shocked them mercilessly with electricity. Some administrators, most notoriously the ex-husband of “senate prez Wendy,” enlisted school chairs to do the dirty work of persecuting and harassing faculty they disliked, neatly circumventing established union contract protections, since the harassers, the school chairs, were not technically “management.” Thus teachers who rubbed administrators the wrong way got crummy teaching schedules, negative evaluations, no overtime teaching, reduced supply budgets, or were fired. Mathur became one such target of the IVC administration after he began blowing the whistle on the inequity and corruption of the system.
“Reassigned time” became the currency of favoritism at IVC. Oligarchy members got their buddies reassigned from teaching duties to populate a growing panoply of quasi-administrative, non-teaching posts. Some teachers had “100% reassigned time” and did no teaching at all. This meant that more part-time instructors had to be hired to handle the actual teaching duties that bring in the students and pay the college’s bills. Nepotism flourished, as the oligarchs took control of the hiring and filled the ranks with their relatives. Reassignments increased. According to a faculty member at Saddleback, IVC’s motto seemed to be “Every man an administrator!”
By 1997, the exodus of paid full-time faculty from the classroom had taken its toll on the college budget. Community colleges like IVC receive funds from the state on a per student basis, so that teachers in the classroom bring in the operating budget of the college. The district board realized it had to do something about the problem of IVC and decided to scrap the school chair system. Faculty were put back into the classroom, reassigned time was severely reduced, and full-time deans were brought in from Saddleback to replace the school chairs. Mathur, the whistleblower, became IVC president, and eventually district chancellor.
Great howls of anger arose from the deposed “IVC clique,” as they came to be known. Although the board had taken care to avoid any layoffs in the reorganization, the clique, its principal mouthpiece Bauer, and a few administrators (now faculty) who resented being moved from Saddleback to IVC, have whined continuously since they were returned to the teaching duties for which they were first hired. Though they have camouflaged their agenda over the intervening years in the garb of various legitimate-appearing concerns (“shared governance,” accreditation, fiscal solvency, academic freedom, freedom of speech, labor rights), they really want only one thing: to turn the clock back to 1997 when they ruled the roost, didn’t have to pull their weight in the classroom, and trampled roughshod over their colleagues. Privately they have admitted as much.
They have pursued a variety of strategies to accomplish their goal of replacing the district board, removing Mathur, and returning themselves to power. They have repeatedly tried and failed to change the board at the ballot box, including through a recall attempt. In 1998, they nearly succeeded through a “sky is falling” propaganda campaign in conning the accrediting agency into revoking the colleges’ accreditation and laying the blame publicly at the feet of Mathur and the board. Students were recruited to help torpedo their own accreditation, and “extra credit” grade points were offered for negative editorials in the college newspaper. They tried again in 2004, but failed as accreditors apparently saw through the ploy. Most recently, they pressured the board to terminate and not extend Mathur’s contract when it expired in June 2005. That also failed when even their longtime supporter on the board, David Lang, turned against them and voted to extend Mathur’s contract another three years. Victims of their own myopia, the group evidently failed to grasp the unpersuasiveness of their case against Mathur, which reduced simply to “we don’t like him.” The televised board meeting showed each of their speakers intoning the same empty, circular argument: “You shouldn’t hire a chancellor whom the faculty doesn’t like.” “Why don’t you like him?” prodded board members. “Because he will be ineffective because faculty don’t like him.” Although his vote instantly made Lang, one of the more astute and rational board members, a new clique target, it was the right thing to do: Mathur had in fact managed the district well, was respected in the community, and had carried out the will of the board.
Another self-delusional premise of this small group of disgruntled college employees is that they represent the views of the majority of the 350 full-time and 1,500 part-time faculty of the colleges. A walk through the offices and classrooms of either college quickly dispels that notion. Faculty are enthusiastic about their teaching, and students are well satisfied, consistently giving them high ratings. As one IVC teacher told me, “This is a good place to work. The only time I feel any despair is when I go to the academic senate meeting.” Still, group members point to a 2004 majority vote of no confidence in Mathur that they took among the full-time faculty during a contract dispute. But most faculty are very involved in their teaching and simply want to be left alone. Prior to the vote, group members went from office to office twisting the arms of faculty, many of whom remember when the group was in power before 1997, and who fear retaliation should they take over again. In fact, the group continues to marginalize itself among the majority of faculty who do not share their obsession with ancient grudges and are embarrassed by their shrill hysterics.
All the while their drummer boy Bauer continues his sophomoric, mean-spirited and racist attacks against Mathur, a black man, against board members, and against anyone who doesn’t share his views. As can readily be seen from even a cursory pass through his “archives,” plagiarism, intolerance, arrogance, and pontification are his hallmarks, and nothing is beneath him—belittling his targets’ clothing, ridiculing their personal appearance, or mocking their foreign accents.
All the fury and frenzy, though, go right back to 1997 and the group’s desperate need to turn the clock back eight years.
It's the "Milgram" experiment not the "Zimbardo" experiment, Ray.
I'll leave it at that. Thanks fro writing.
OOOH, I'd recognize that prose style anywhere!
Didn't the previous accreditation team make some interesting comments regarding it too?
They're using that tired old canard about "chairs" again? If there were any truth to "disgruntled chairs" theory, why has the dissenters' agenda never mentioned bringing back the "chair model" in all these years since the chairs were eliminated? And if Bauer is motivated by losing his Chair job, how do you explain his pursuing the Brown Act lawsuits and his vocal opposition to the Board Majority and the Old Guard BEFORE he became Chair and before the Chair model was eliminated? (You've got to keep your facts straight.)
And how does this elaborate ad hominem against Bauer address the fact that people like Ray manifestly white-washed Accrediting reports (just read the Times and Register stories--they make that abundantly clear), the Board violated the Brown Act and First Amendment rights (according to the courts, including appellate courts), and 94% of faculty voted "no confidence" in Raghu (with a high percentage voting)? How is any of that related to some supposed agenda to return to Chairs?
Mr. 1:43 a.m. needs to get a clue. And he needs to get some sleep.
Ahem, Raghu Mathur is a BLACK man?
That's what Mr. 1:43 a.m. wrote anyway.
News to me.
Concerned Parent of College student
The only reason they were able to win a couple of free speech lawsuits is because of a recent, 2 decade trend of staking the US District Court, 9th. District, with ultra liberal judges that are sympathetic to the more frivolous stuff, like ANY free speech, never mind RESPONSIBLE speech! So, because some demonstrating students weren’t permitted to disrupt a major College event and were relocated to another area of the campus, the district gets nailed for not allowing free speech! Let’s see them get away with that in any other US district court.
Their lawsuits were nothing but self serving and the underlying motive wasn’t about free speech anyway, it was about making the board and Mr. Mathur look bad. They want to get the community to HATE Mr. Mathur. Does the community know that Mrs. Wendy pocketed $900,000 for her expert legal services? It came right out of the College’s budget and went straight into her bank account! That’s $900 K less for students! Isn’t that wonderful?!?!?!
I read that the teachers got a pretty sweet contract. If you folks feel you’re being mistreated as you claim and what has never been proven, why not take your higher educations and work somewhere else where you’ll be much happier? Why keep torturing yourselves and airing all your dirty laundry?
This circle of RACIST people (the dissenters) work in the Humanities area. They’re also WHITE folks. I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but South OC is no longer made up of all WHITE communities! How about a little HUMANITY folks? How about a little TOLERENCE folks? How about a little KINDNESS, RESPECT and COLLEGALITY folks?
In the media, they have the local columnists in their pockets reporting twisted and biased accountings of events and omitting relevant information. I think the public is wise enough to not be fooled and growing tired of being taken for fools. People aren’t stupid you know?
“Ad hominem ?!?!???” Now, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? Since 1997 all they’ve been doing is pure ad hominem with NO substance.
This website and blog is nothing more than a HATE SITE. It’s on the same level and should be considered as such. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck… Common folks, you know the rest! I digress…
And sorry folks, it IS the Zimbardo Prison Experiment. The anonymous poster (above) is correct.
Why can't you clowns get this straight?
The "Prison" experiment was Zimbardo's (at Stanford), and it involved no electric shocks.
The electric shock experiment is the much earlier "Milgram" experiment. SHEESH!
To learn about Zimbardo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
To learn about Milgram:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram
Dear Mr. Pissed Off poster (two posts back):
"Mrs. Wendy" made how much? $900,000?
What have you been smokin' dude?
Near as I can figure--and I've followed the district's litigation closely--Wendy made money only on two suits: the suit in response to Mathur's lawsuit of Bauer/Burgess, in which she made maybe $10,000.. --And the recent "hiring policy" suit--for which the senates' lawyers have not yet been paid.
And when they are paid, it won't be no "$900,000"! Get a clue!
Plus the "electric shock" experiment, as everyone knows, was Milgrim's, not Zimbardo's!
Why don't you pick up a book now and again?
I'm white?
News to me.
Thanks for the lowdown.
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