Perceiving chaos

I gave my summer school final exam yesterday. Afterward, some of us wandered outside and found that the weather was wonderful. Campus was quiet. We smiled at the sky.

I soon ran into a colleague who, despite the pleasant summery atmosphere, carried the heavy burden of perceiving chaos.

It wasn’t the weather that he saw as chaotic. It was governance and, in particular, administration.

He (and later, others) related several rumors, including stories of conflict--or unhappiness, anyway--among top administrators. Plus important work of one kind or another just wasn’t getting done, in part owing to emergencies.

We were about to start up the school year, said one colleague, and the college is, right now, a “nuthouse.”


There was some buzzage, too, about the agenda for Monday’s board meeting. Once again, I was told, Chancellor Raghu Mathur is being evaluated by the trustees (in closed session). Nothing new there. But the agenda also indicated that someone might be disciplined or dismissed.

Who’s that? Nobody knew. Couldn't be Mathur. They just love that guy.

I went to take my own gander at the agenda, which was posted inside A100. Item 16 is the recommended approval of travel expenses for a trustee (or trustees?). The second item listed was the October ACCT Community College Leadership Congress. The “estimated cost” per person: $3,000.

Guess where? Yep, ORLANDO, FLORIDA.

Looks like John will be sunning his ass again in the Sunshine State. In the past, Trustee Padberg has noted that ACCT (or was it another organization?) offers west coast conferences, but John doesn’t seem so interested in those. (See Closing in on junket abuse?.)

Looks like the board will be discussing the review process for board policies and administrative regulations . Some of the BPs and ARs are important. Expect things to get interesting on Monday night.

On Monday, the board will be presented drafts of the Accreditation “progress reports” for Saddleback and Irvine Valley Colleges. (—For “review and study,” not approval. Not yet.) These are each college's effort to respond to the Accred's recommendations (i.e., their criticisms). Have you seen these drafts?

SADDLEBACK COLLEGE:

In its action re Saddleback College, the Accrediting people recommended that the board of trustees cease its micromanagement. The progress report (draft) that will be revealed on Monday night notes progress but is not entirely positive about the board’s efforts to address that recommendation:

Despite the positive progress, some problematic issues remain. One such issue is the district’s imposition of its own planning process on the college….

Another problematic and embarrassing issue is the board’s rejection of college-determined institutional memberships…

This, of course, is a reference to the board’s action of pulling the American Library Association from the district’s list of memberships. You know: the ALA are a bunch of “liberal busybodies.” They want kids to view porn, etc. (See Wagner takes on the ALA.)

The draft discusses continued conflict regarding the ban on (or continued district parsimony regarding) reassigned time for senate leadership.


IRVINE VALLEY COLLEGE:

IVC’s report, too, presents positives and negatives. With regard to the Accred’s recommendation that the board cease micromanagement, the draft presents a series of facts (especially direct quotations of trustees and the chancellor, etc., from televised board meetings) that paint a vivid picture of board/chancellor unhappiness with the recommendation itself. (See Faculty "macromanagement"?.)

Re the Accred's "micromanagement" complaint, one board member seems to say, "FU."

I'm paraphrasing.

The Accreds recommended a rethinking and defining of “leadership roles and scopes of authority of...constituent groups….” Once again, the draft offers a series of relevant facts, including the content of a set of “New Rules of Business” offered by the Chancellor. The draft helpfully quotes all of the Chancellor’s rules, including:

• We need to change the way we think and approach issues.
• We need to focus on working together rather than power control and territory.
• We need to act smart and keep it simple.
• We need to be nice to all people.

[All grammatical, syntactical, and logical errors appear in the original.]

Relevant trustee suggestions, which were offered during public meetings, are also reported in the draft, including:

• Have a rumor hotline.
• Be positive and don’t just criticize.
• Invite board members to where you are working.
• Be guided by love.

The draft goes on to report that:

A common theme among the faculty and the classified constituent groups was a strong desire for the chancellor and the board to respect and comply with the statutory and regulatory roles and authority granted to each employee unit. All constituent groups expressed a desire to have their rights respected without involving the legal system, the state chancellor’s office, and/or the grievance process or other external agencies.

The last part is a reference to the faculty’s successful lawsuit re the district's illegally imposed hiring policy--and the ongoing appeal to the State Chancellor’s Office re the district’s unilateral development of planning processes (development which, by law, the faculty are to be allowed to participate in). (See The board is determined to violate Title 5.)

The Accrediting agency’s executive director, Barbara Beno, is quoted as saying (in April):

The college [sic] and the district are making impressive progress in resolving the issues of governance and climate that have proved troublesome in the past…I encourage you all to keep up the good work….”

The Accreds recommended that the college address the climate of “hostility” and “despair." Again, the draft emphasizes facts, such as the occurrence of relevant remarks during board meetings.

Here’s an example of such a remark by the Chancellor:

MATHUR: The past negative press coverage [re the district] has come primarily from some faculty leaders who’d rather blame the chancellor or blame the board of trustees in an effort to seek power and control of the district…[W]here is the sense of fair play and balance? When do faculty and staff come to the podium to thank and appreciate the many good deeds of this board? (March 27 board meeting) (See Listen to Mathur blame our problems on faculty leadership.)

(I invite you to Google press coverage of the district [and colleges] in recent years. As you’ll see, there’s been some very negative and very public press. All of it concerns actions of the board, such as its curious cancellation of the Spanish study abroad program. See Trustee Fuentes' Spanish adventure.)

The former president of the faculty union is also quoted:

Your unfortunate comments at the board meeting tonight have undone a tremendous amount of real progress toward a new and positive working relationship between the faculty…and the administration…It’s sad…to find the chancellor perpetuating, in the midst of a report on the efforts to end hostility and despair, the very hostility he’s supposed to be working to end. It must be said: at no time now or in the past have faculty members sought to “take over” the colleges or the district. Faculty members have rightfully demanded to be included, as required by code and statute…[A]ssigning blame, especially from a televised public pulpit, benefits no one….

CODA:

After perusing the board agenda, I ran into another colleague, who explained that the trustees continue to be angered at Chancellor Mathur. As you know, Raghu recently pissed off the board by recommending that he receive a substantial raise—at a time when positions in his office were being eliminated to cut costs.

Evidently, the board is now angry anew--this time because it has finally figured out that Mathur has been listing goals that he has achieved that, in truth, have already been achieved or have been achieved by others. (See I will prepare for meetings "in advance".)

The story could be true. After all, months ago, addressing the board, faculty made public remarks concerning the very curious nature of trustee “goals.” “These have already been accomplished!” we said. “The colleges are already doing this!”

Why won’t these people listen?