WENT TO THE Accreditation “dialog” at IVC yesterday. I got there a few minutes late, but it hadn’t started yet. The room was already nearly packed: maybe 50 people or so fit in Library 203, a studio of sorts. And more people kept drifting in. There was an air of—dare I say it?—positivity. Well, that coulda been the chocolate chip cookies.
As you know, the Accreds recently sent their “action letters” to the two colleges. IVC got dinged again for Board/Chancellor micromanagement, ill-defined roles and responsibilities, and the plague of despair—but at least we didn’t get a “site visit.” That is, the Accreds didn’t feel the need to actually come back here and look under the rugs and behind the couches to see if Raghu or Dave continue to lurk there.
I’m told that Saddleback College wasn’t so lucky. They got dinged for pretty much the same thing, I think, but they’re gonna get visited again. Too bad. Both colleges will be expected to make "significant progress" in responding to the recommendations (about board micromanagement, etc.) by October, I think. That’s when the Reports are due. Yesterday’s presentation, “facilitated” by Glenn R and Wendy G, was pretty good. It was clear and helpful. Glenn or Wendy said we could ask questions along the way, and so during Wendy’s report on the Action Letter, I asked something like:
"For our next report, we’re supposed to indicate 'progress made,' but how is the COLLEGE supposed to make progress with regard to the BOARD'S (and chancellor’s) actions?
OK, that’s a pretty obvious question, but somebody’s gotta ask it.
Essentially, Wendy said that we’re already making progress. I guess the idea was that the board is getting the message that they’ve gotta stop micromanaging, and they seem to be backing off. That’s progress. (I'd be surprised, though, if Trustee Tom Fuentes were to ever straighten up and fly right.)Later, I asked if the board knows that their failure to cease micromanaging would threaten our accreditation. Wendy said the only thing she could say, I guess: that we’re not in a precarious position right now, accreditationwise. No warning status or anything. We might end up having to write an endless series of progress reports—we might become the Accred Sisyphus!
There’s a problem with the system, of course—namely, that colleges, not districts, are accredited, and yet each college is overseen by a powerful district board, which can F*** UP. When a board does F*** UP, then what are the Accreds supposed to do? Tell the colleges to fix what they have no real power to fix, is what.
But we’ll muddle through.
Wendy reviewed the Accred saga since 2004. At first, we got dinged pretty bad, but, now, we seem to be “digging out of that hole."
Next, the college researcher, Sibylle G, got up to declare that our college’s planning efforts are “research-based.” She talked about “planning assumptions”—educated guesses, based on data. She seemed to know what she was doing.
I think she’s from Scandinavia or something. All women should have foreign accents, in my view.
During the transition from Sibylle to Andreea Serban, Wendy decided to drag a big fake tree outta the way. She never was much good at that sort of thing, so, naturally, in mid-drag, the tree fell over and crashed into the audience (it is possible she was aiming for me). A chunk of the tree—a plastic leaf—flew off and landed on my stuff.
I feigned terror.
Glenn jumped up and tried to help. So the two of ‘em wrestled with that goddam plastic tree whilst Andreea smiled and nearly broke up. Everybody was in a good mood, it seemed, and this tree-falling business was just gravy! Glenn & Wendy's efforts to right the tree were somehow even more comical than the dragging & crashing had been, if you can believe that. Too bad they didn't just set fire to it. [NOTE: Wendy informs me that it was Cal, not Glenn, who assisted her in her heroic struggles with the hideous one-eyed Tree Monster.]
Andreea was her usual funny and highly competent self. I love the way she pronounces words: “student” becomes “studink.” “Moving” becomes “movink.” Later, somebody told me that our Transylvanian Vice Chancellor reminds her of Boris's Natasha. "Yeah," I said. "But who are MOOSE and SQUIRREL?"
She talked about “institutional effectiveness,” a process that, she said, is like a “health check.” It starts with a look at the data, and that stuff is usually “uncomfortable.” A college looks at the data and realizes that it’s got high blood pressure, cuz that’s what the charts say, so deal with it.
Yeah, we’re at the doctor’s office, and that’s what they’re showing us, and, of course, we already know why we’ve got the high BP, but we’re not gonna say it. Nope.
Andreea knows her audience: she brought doughnuts into the picture. Hey, it’s hard facing the brutal facts, but you’ve gotta “admit that you ate the doughnut.” Come on! Fess up!
She showed us data concerning the proportions of vocational (including "basic skills") vs. non-vocational courses in the last five or six years at IVC, and it was pretty clear that we’re cutting back on vocational courses, while productivity for vocational courses is declining. [NOTE: earlier, I had this reversed, erroneously.] The data was surprising. It was uncomfortable.
Well, deal with it. And get that thermometer outta there, wiseass!
At one point, Miriam the Cubano spoke, and that’s when the picture was complete. Evidently, IVC is run by women, smart women, and almost every single one of ‘em has a BIG FREAKIN' ACCENT, which is just fine by me. But, hey, my mom sounds like Heidi Klum.
