WOO! Remember that big hit by that awful band, “The Knack,” back in the late 70s? It was called “My Sharona.” (Don't recall? Go to YouTube's My Sharona.)Blecch!
Well, today, Rebel Girl was feeling feverish or something, and so, while I tried to grade midterms, she kept doing that du-du-du-du DU DU DU DU DU du DU du-du-du-du DU DU—and then she’d sing out “My My My—Mike Carona! WOO!"
Well, OK, that’s pretty friggin’ hilarious, I've gotta admit. Woo!
On the other hand, that tune has been stuck in my head ever since, and it's driving me nuts. 'Cept for the “Mike Carona” part. Love that.
OK, so I need to get this thing out of my system. I dug up the lyrics and I replaced the “Sharona” parts with “Mike Carona”:
Ooh my little pretty one, pretty one.
When you gonna give me some Mike Carona?
Ooh you make my motor run, my motor run.
Gun it comin' off the Mike Carona
Never gonna stop, give it up.
Such a dirty mind. Always get it up for the touch of the younger kind.
My my my i yi woo. M M M Mike Carona!
Good Lord! The song is even worse than I remembered it!
SPECIAL BOARD MEETING. As the Reb and I were leaving campus today, we noticed something hanging from the wall in the Administration Building. Nope, not a pumpkin—an agenda. So we checked it out. Turns out the Board of Trustees is having one of their special meetings tomorrow (Wednesday) at the Hyatt (I think) on La Paz. I do believe that’s where they always go for their super-duper extra-special-secret meetings. I think they have them catered and stuff, you know, with little weenies and cookies and punch.
Unless I read it wrong (we just glanced at it), the only thing on the agenda is “evaluation of Chancellor.” It starts at 2:00 and grinds on until 7:00. Can you imagine?!
STRESS FOR GOO. Meanwhile, my sources tell me that the Chancellor has been showing signs of stress. He’s been saying and doing more than his usual share of stupid things. I can’t go into it.
Well, one thing he did is stick his nose in a dean hire here at IVC. Naturally, that’s none of his business. What kind of Chancellor fools around with interim dean hires? Is he daft?
The popular and respected Dean of Humanities and Languages/Fine Arts just left us for a job in Long Beach, which is closer to her home. And so we need an interim dean until her replacement is hired.
Right away, everybody said, “What about Dan Rivas?” He’s universally respected, he’s got lots of experience, and he’d be perfect! (I understand that Dan is willing to do it—but only until June.)
But Mathur hates Dan, cuz, back about nine years ago, Dan in fact was the dean of Humanities and Languages, and, at one point, Mathur ordered him to change faculty evaluations for certain faculty critics—you know, make ‘em negative instead of positive—‘cause Mathur's a rat bastard and that's what rat bastards do. Well, Dan flat wouldn’t do it. Thus it was that Dan ceased all deanery. He’s been teaching ESL and French here at IVC ever since. And he's happy, too.
But now: not only did Mathur try to blackball Dan re this temp dean gig, but he then tried to engineer the hire of a certain former IVC MORONIC administrator who is known for his distaste for “shared governance.” Plus Mr. Won't-Share recently pleaded guilty to some kind of corruption, which abrubtly ended his gig as a Superintendent or something for a community college down in San Diego.
You can really see why Mathur was attracted to the guy.
Well, somehow, the word got out that Mathur was up to no good, as per usual, and the kibosh was put on the whole thing, near as I can tell. I'm told that certain trustees applied pressure in the right places on faculty’s behalf. Wagner? Not sure. Thanks, though.Now if this kind of Mathurian meddling isn’t micromanagement, then what is? And don’t these trustees periodically pronounce that the college presidents should be left alone to preside over their colleges? Hire people? Get all autonomous? Sure!
Plus, if you're gonna be a rat bastard, well OK, but don't try to hire a guy who was just convicted of corruption! C'mon!
Like I said, tomorrow, the Goo gets evaluated. No doubt, they'll shower him with praise.
Or not!
LOADS OF FACULTY HIRING. Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly clear to all intelligent life in the district that our huge “50%” SNAFU has Raghu Mathur’s name all over it. The problem has got nothing to do with spending at the colleges. It’s all (or almost all) about spending at or by the district.
—Plus it was a long time coming. Five years. Why did Mathur let it spin out of control? What, is he a moron?! Could be.
Our SNAFU is so MASSIVE that it appears that the district is pressing for 15-20 new faculty hires at IVC and about 30 at Saddleback College!
Well, that’s just impossible. Faculty, especially at Saddleback, are carping bigtime. How on earth can we get that amount of hiring done with all the other things that faculty and administrators have gotta do? And if you're gonna hire full-time faculty, you've gotta slow down and do it right.
(BTW: there’s no way that any old-timers are gonna be allowed to expedite their retirement, cuz geezers are the most expensive instructors, and our “50%” problem is all about spending as much on “instruction” as possible (at least 50%). So geezers beware. You ain’t goin’ nowhere.)
Mathur’s feeling the pressure BIGTIME, or at least that’s my fantasy. And don’t forget that, toward the end, last month's Accreditation midterm report imbroglio was making the district look like total a**holes, and that whole business, too, had Mathur’s name all over it. As Chancellor, he’s supposed to keep the trustees out of trouble—and especially keep them from looking like a**holes. But, time and again, Mathur just leads them off of a cliff.
No wonder they pay him $300K a year!
Plus I keep hearing that the city of Tustin is none too keen on Mathur’s BIG PLANS for ATEP—you know, Camelot and Young Republican Hoofers for Christ (or whatever they're called). The word is that the Tustin folks have been giving us the slow stink eye and, if they’re sufficiently unhappy with us, they’ll pull the plug.
Pulling the plug on Mt. Goomore! Can you imagine!? His head will surely pop.
FLASH! Someone just told me that, tomorrow, there’ll be an OPEN SESSION, too, and it will be devoted to evaluation of the board!Wait a second! An open session? Evaluating the board? How come we didn't get an email about that? Do you suppose that Mathur is trying to thwart faculty participation, Hmmm?
My my my i yi woo!
(Pics & graphics by Chunk; click on 'em!)
11 comments:
In a perfect example of "Great minds think alike" our recently departed Cissellmonster has also got his Death Star in a similar fix. Repeated rounds of buyouts of faculty and program cuts (supposedly to save money)through his 5 year reign of terror have taken their toll on the 50% rule. We're out of whack by about $300K out of the $10,000K general fund. Without the faculty we had here, we suffered the attendant enrollment loss (DUHHH). He laid off Classified too. But the ice wore thin with a 45% drop in FTES. Instead of firing the bastard (BTW, he REALLY is) for his incompetence, mendacity, and corruption, the Board Four paid him $165K to quit. Before I worked here I thought colleges were just quiet places where people came to teach and students to learn. Now I know they are also places where rat bastards come to nest... My sympathies to your Classified. The farmer is headed to your chicken coops with an ax. Look out Copy Guy!
Whoa! Julie! Babe in that dress!
Some party - why wasn't I invited?
Chunk must've touched up the photos. Everybody looks great!
Chunk must've touched up the photos. Everybody looks great!
OK, now that I've actually watched the video and listened to the song, I guess it does rock. Maybe my musical tastes have changed.
Still, Doug Feiger is obviously an a**hole and the lyrics are dumb. Bad dumb, not good dumb. --CW
If the plan to hire the guy who got fired for corruption is dead, then count yourselves lucky.
If it's not, then please let me know. I've got some, well, interesting information.
--100 miles down the road
I don't remember getting an invite either. I even checked the blackboard thingy and there was nothing. This wasn't one of those secret private parties was it, where everyone wears plush robes?
How much have they spent now, just to get (they hope) myspace off campus library computers? Go to http://occourts.org yourself and look up case number 06CC09702
There are 110 "actions" in this case already! Plus a whole lot of other stuff listed. Assuming they pay their crack legal counsel $5000 per action (which I think means a court appearance) what does that add up to? Half a million bucks? And there's THREE lawlers on it.
Hey, 100 Miles Down the Road, what is your information? Inquiring minds want to know.
Wendy
The Serafin hire is definitely dead, but, still, we wanna know the skinny on the guy. He been sleeping with farm animals? Classified? STUDENTS? --What?
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