Friday, November 10, 2006

Fabulous cash prizes for the world's highest paid chancellor, etc.

IN PRAISE OF SATAN. At yesterday’s district “docket” meeting (that’s where the chancellor previews what’s on the board meeting agenda), Chancellor Mathur went out of his way to praise IVC Academic Senate Prez Wendy G for her work rewriting a policy. That took everybody by surprise, cuz Raghu spends much of his time telling his "bosses" that Wendy is Satan. Or Satan's lawyer, anyway. (Nota bene Transylvania: Raghu can't abide strong & smart women.)

☛ You’ll recall that, at the last board meeting, Wendy noted (publicly, that wench!) that fabulous cash prizes for Mathur (i.e., granting a COLA to the ruthless toady who already is the world’s most over-paid community college CEO) somehow got slipped onto that night’s board agenda between the time of the last docket meeting and that night’s board meeting. (Immediately, Mathur turned beet red.) She noted, too, that Mathur and (VC Bob) King’s sneaky little deception (Nancy, for her part, spoke of their attempt to "hide" the item) violated the Brown Act, which requires openness. ☛ You’ll be happy to learn that the fabulous cash prize for Mathur is back on the agenda, only, this time, it’s as plain as a turd in a punchbowl. Somebody call Marla Jo.

COLLEGE SPEAKERS. The district’s policy review process is tackling AR6140: “College speakers.” The old regulation said that speakers and events must be approved by the board, and that's served to keep Jane Fonda away. But, as you know, our district has lost a series of high-profile “free speech” court cases—including one involving Yours Truly—starting with the 1997 student lawsuit generated by (then) IVC President Raghu Mathur’s refusal to approve a student protest. (The students sought to express their worry that Mathur’s administration was putting IVC’s accreditation at risk. They were right, of course. See History of the district.) ☛ Well, it appears that the district has decided to throw in the towel, speech-suppression-wise. The proposed policy (penned, I think, by the district’s Warren Kinsler) makes clear that faculty, et al., don't need no stinkin' board approval for speakers or the content of their speech. WELCOME TO AMERICA. The board, according to the new regulation, has the right to be “notified.” ☛ On the other hand, according to the proposed regulation, the board gets to approve any “travel expense or honorarium” recommended by the college President.

SPEECH AND ADVOCACY. The district’s policy review process has also produced a new and improved administrative regulation concerning Speech and Advocacy (AR8000). This new regulation, even more than AR6140, reflects the district’s surrender in its FUTILE years-long, multi-chaptered battle with Free Speech and Free Speakers like us—when we published a campus newsletter called Dissent and got accused of everything they could think of or could make up. ☛ AR8000, which was approved yesterday by IVC’s Academic Senate, seems decent, if imperfect. It does restrict noise (made by speech-makers) to 60 decibels. As long as Dot Fortune doesn’t decide to come back and squawk out in the A-quad, that should be OK. The posting of material is restricted in various ways. For instance, a posting “shall not exceed 240 square inches in size.” —Let’s see, that’s 1 foot by 20 inches, right? Your typical cream pie is a lot smaller than that.

UM, WAIT A MINUTE. Unless, I read it wrong, the new AR8000 prohibits postings on the exterior of office doors. Section V lists among “prohibited locations”: “in interior hallways….” Now, unless I’m an even bigger knucklehead than I think I am, that includes the exteriors of typical faculty office doors. Section V.F then says: “These provisions are not applicable to the interior of faculty offices.” So I can display my Reefer Madness poster inside my office, but I can’t paste it to the outside of my door, right? ☛ —I know, I know: I can stick it backwards against my office’s interior window. Maybe, but not everyone’s got a window, right? So, if I read this correctly, window-less faculty don’t get to post anything outside their offices. Let me know if I’ve got this wrong.

PRIME SUSPECT. Don’t miss the final installment of Prime Suspect on PBS this Sunday. Helen Mirren is to acting what PJ Harvey is to rocking!

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2 comments:

Rebel Girl said...

Chunk - OUR office window faces a brick wall and the only traffic it receives is the occasional lost bunny or mouse or rat...

Hmmm.

Rebel Girl said...

I was thinking of the hallway window. You forgot about it cuz we've got so many posters all over it!

That other window--true, we could put up a "Crack sold here" sign there and nobody'd notice. Except some birds.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...