Catch-23

ACCREDITATION NEWS: CATCH-23. A few weeks ago, the Accrediting Teams visited our colleges, maintained their best poker faces, and then went off to write their reports, quickly. The relevant parties (the college presidents, primary authors) received the teams’ drafts back on the 18th or so of December.

Those parties have an opportunity to correct factual errors and whatnot. The Teams’ corrected reports, which amount to recommendations, will eventually go to the ACCJC decision-making body, which will meet later this month. That body will decide on the appropriate actions re our two colleges. Then they’ll issue letters to the two colleges reporting those actions. That should occur on January 31.

Remember that colleges get accredited, not districts. But among the problems that can be cited during the Accred process are those created by, not college, but district persons—e.g., the chancellor, the board. For instance, each of our colleges has been told that trustees, those district authorities par excellence, should stop micromanaging.

What will the ACCJC do? It seems likely that the Accreds will inform each college once again that Mathurian despair production and trustee micromanagement must cease immediately!

How are the colleges supposed to see to it that their Higher Ups--the Chancellor and the trustees--behave themselves? IVC and Saddleback are in a dilemma, a catch.

This doesn’t seem to be a Catch-22. It's some other catch, though no less wacky-pestiferous. I’m gonna call it a Catch-23.

I can hear Yossarian now: "That's some catch, that Catch-23!"

INMON: NOTA BENE & HEADS-UPPERY. During Wednesday’s Faculty Association (union) luncheon, CAROLYN INMON (President of CCA, the community college part of CTA) blasted the recent OC Register article and editorial concerning community colleges’ allegedly low transfer and degree completion rates. She spoke of ongoing and nefarious efforts to “redefine” the mission of the CCs. She noted that the “retirement discussion” is coming back. That is, those looking to trim the state budget are sniffing around our retirement bucks yet again! Inmon emphasized “solidarity,” which is more important than ever, she said.

NEW CONTRACT. Also during the luncheon, contract negotiator LEWIS LONG reminded us that the current contract expires in June! So it’s back to the negotiation table. I KID YOU NOT. Toward that end, faculty will soon be filling out surveys. Expect crayons in your mailbox.

NO MO’ GOLDEN GOOSERY. During his luncheon presentation, the CCA's budget expert, the cantankerous ALAN FREY, explained that our state's “archaic and complicated” program-based funding system is being replaced at long last. As you know (or maybe not), years ago, the Supreme Court determined that students should benefit from state funds equally. Nevertheless, “equalization” has not yet occurred. In the case of CA community colleges, equalization progress will be made in the transition to the new & improved funding system. It appears that the new system, and the transition, will not threaten us. (So said Frey: maybe he said that on the assumption that districts rely on state funds. But of course some rely primarily on local property taxes.)

Well, yes: ours is among the few districts that acquires funding largely from local property taxes, which are high. This mechanism, known as “basic aid," is our Golden Goose, our Gravy Train. Basic aid, said Frey, will likely be eliminated within a couple of years. (Because of equalization? Not sure.)

Frey explained that community colleges get money from the state, from the Feds, and from their “beginning balance”—i.e., money left over from their budget of last year. Notoriously, the community colleges perpetually beg for greater funding, claiming poverty and injustice. (Consider the Chancellor’s remarks on Wednesday.) The problem, said the Freyster, is that community college districts routinely fail to spend all of their budgets. The SOCCCD, for instance, started the year with $26 million in the bank (I think I got that right). Apparently, starting with money from last year is typical.

Hence, when we go begging to the legislature, lawmakers just point to our unspent bucks and scream, “You're desperate for money, are you? Then how come you've got piles o' cash squirreled away? ANSWER ME THAT!"

SALARIES. Frey noted that SOCCCD is now 6th in the state for starting salaries (full-time faculty). You’ll recall that, during the Old Guard days (six or so years ago), faculty salaries rose, but the bucks were slathered all over senior faculty, leaving starting faculty in abject Dickensian paupertude. (We should hunt down those Old Guardsters and pants 'em, I say.) Evidently, the newer leadership has undone that. Somebody has.

But what about part-timer salaries? Are they high too? Well, no, they're WAY DOWN on the state list.

Once again, I must say: that really sucks.

Meanwhile, the general trend in higher ed is a gradual decrease in the proportion of instructors who are tenured and full-time. Hey, in a few years, we’ll wake up and realize that higher ed will be staffed by academics who lack tenure, lack a decent income, and lack effective mechanisms of representation!

One way to look at this: Gee, we’d better improve conditions for part-timers. Of course, we always had a reason to do that!

WHO GETS ACADEMIC FREEDOM? We all know what Academic Freedom is. We know that it is threatened. But here’s another issue: is there a difference between full-time & part-time, or tenured & untenured, with regard to faculty Academic Freedom?

In practice, the answer seems to be “yes.”

And yet we’re moving away from a Higher Ed that is staffed by full-time and tenured professors.

You might want to check out ”A Freewheeling Academic Freedom Debate” in yesterday’s Insider Higher Ed.


THE A200 FACULTY LOUNGE: OUR NEW FURNISHINGS. DtB readers know that faculty in IVC's A200 building have the world's shittiest faculty lounge--a lounge (to paraphrase St. Anselm) a more shitty than which cannot be conceived. About a year ago, faculty were promised new and loungy furniture to replace the ratty and nonexistent furnishings.

Well, to paraphrase the Chancellor, "we ain't seen nothin' yet." It's stunning.

Actually, new furnishings have appeared in A200 recently--namely, rodent traps. They are everywhere. Near as i can tell, they effectively repel rodents: each one has remained pristine and entirely rodent-free. Here's a pic: