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?

Education: the good news and the bad news

1. College newspapers to be protected!

Looks like the law in this state might soon protect college newspapers. In this morning’s LA Times (Bill Would Protect College Newspapers), we learn:

Without debate, the state Senate on Thursday sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill that would make California the first state to prohibit college and university administrators from censoring student newspapers.

Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) said the bill would give college journalists the same free-press rights as high school reporters and their professional colleagues. Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the measure, a spokeswoman said.

The bill came in response to a ruling last year by the U.S. 7th District Court of Appeals in Chicago. The court said administrators at Midwestern universities could review student articles before publication if their student-run newspapers were published under the auspices of the college.

The California Newspaper Publishers Assn. and free-speech advocates said college administrators might try to apply the ruling to campuses in other states. Bowen referred specifically to a memo from Christine Helwick, general counsel for the California State University system, suggesting that campus presidents may "have more latitude than previously believed to censor the content of subsidized student newspapers."

In 1992, California adopted a law protecting high school students from censorship, except for material that is obscene, libelous or slanderous.

Anyone who's followed the sorry college newspaper saga of Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College knows that this new law could come in pretty handy!

IVC once had a student newspaper. It was called the Voice, and, in its early days, it did some good work. For instance it broke the story concerning Trustee Steve Frogue's alleged Holocaust denial. (See Is Trustee Frogue a Holocaust denier?.)

I recall that, when now-Chancellor Mathur became President of IVC, he eventually took control of the Voice and used it as a house organ for the college. Faculty were appalled.

Back in about 1997, when the advisor for the Saddleback Lariat, a part-timer, allowed students to write stories critical of the board, her dean was ordered to relieve her of her duties. Here's how Peggy Goetz reported the situation at the time:

Saddleback College cans newspaper adviser [LARIAT? 6/5/97]
Student paper has been critical of district board

Kathleen Dorantes received word May 20, without warning that she would no longer be the adviser to the Saddleback Valley College newspaper, The Lariat.

She was told the decision came from the office of the college president, Ned Doffoney, and Doffoney had given no reason, Dorantes said last week from her home in Riverside.

Some sources at the Mission Viejo college , governed by the same board as Irvine Valley College, say the move was politically motivated. The student paper has been critical of the majority of the college district's board of trustees since the election in the fall.

The faculty member appointed to take Dorantes' place as adviser, Lee Walker, is an outspoken supporter of the board majority.

Dorantes was adviser of the paper for two years on a part-time contract with the district. According to other employees as well as students who worked on the paper, Dorantes was respected by the students and worked well with them.

"Kathy has done a good job. Advising a student publication is a difficult educational task," said Mike Reed who leads the journalism program at the college.

During one of the years she was the adviser, 1996, the paper won one of the top awards in the state for community college newspapers, the General Excellence Award from the California Journalism Association of Community Colleges.

Dorantes said she was told by humanities dean Daniel Rivas that Doffoney had said she should apply to teach English classes at the college and that it was the college paper advisory position that would no longer be open to her.

Doffoney said in a telephone interview that the decision had been a "contractual" one. He said that any full-time faculty member can bump any part-time faculty member at any time. Doffoney said that Walker had approached him and indicated that he wanted to advise the newspaper.

Walker could not be reached for comment.

Journalism program head Reed said that he had been asked recently to take over the paper as well.

Doffoney said in the telephone interview that Reed could have had the position if he wanted it.

When asked about reasons for the change or reasons that the college president, rather than an immediate supervisor, would make a decision about a faculty teaching assignment, Doffoney said, "I think this conversation has gone about as far as it can," and indicated he did not want to comment further.

I recall Ned telling me--and telling numerous others--that the board had ordered him to fire Dorantes. He was plenty pissed, boy.

2. Are college students learning enough?

This morning’s San Diego Union-Tribune reports on a federal commission’s new report on higher education (U.S. panel endorses standards for colleges):

A federal commission approved a final report yesterday that urges a broad shake-up of U.S. higher education, calling for public universities to measure student learning with standardized tests, for federal monitoring of colleges' quality, and for sweeping changes to the financial aid system.

The panel also called on policy-makers and higher education leaders to find new ways of controlling costs, saying that college tuition should grow no faster than median family income, although it opposed price controls….

Eighteen of the commission's 19 members voted to sign the report, which assails rising tuition costs and points to signs of complacency on some campuses.
…..
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings established the panel a year ago, drawing members from various sectors of higher education – community colleges, for-profit trade schools, liberal arts colleges and large research universities, public and private – as well as from the ranks of executives at IBM, Boeing, Microsoft and other companies….

Spellings urged the commission to examine access, affordability and accountability in higher education, to determine whether colleges and universities were turning out students qualified to compete in the global economy.

The answer in too many cases, the panel said in its report, is no.

“Too many Americans just aren't getting the education that they need,” the report said. “There are disturbing signs that many students who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and thinking skills we expect of college graduates.”….