Milder climate—ceptin’ for Wayne’s World

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HEY, things aren't so bad around here. Raghu's miles away, Owen's been chased outta town, and the IVC Big (and little) Cheeses mostly mean well.

Ceptin' for Wayne. I have no idea what he means, but it ain't well.

While we’re on the subject of WAYNE WARD: you should read the ACCJC’s "Progress Visit Report" of 11/30/06, which was recently made available on the IVC website.

It paints a reasonably good picture of the college. Yep, things are looking up, moralewise. But there's a big exception. Consider this passage found under the heading “Findings and Evidence”:

Members of the college community describe the climate at IVC as more relaxed with greatly diminished fear and hostility on the campus. They describe faculty and administrators, and student leaders and the college president working together effecively; and report more trusting relationships. Among classified staff it is important to note, however, that while they view things as going in the right direction and are very pleased with the increased involvement they have in college and district governance leadership and committtees and councils, the[y] reported that how well things are going depends upon who their supervisors are. They described one unit of the college in which in their view a hostile work environment still exists. This information was shared with the college president, so he could invistigate their concerns. (9)

MEANWHILE, THE WORLD LOOKS PURTY

Took some snaps on my way home this afternoon. It's lookin' pretty moody up by the twin peaks:

These are taken from in and around Rancho Santa Margarita:


This is Live Oak Canyon Rd. very near my place:

Be For Me, Like Rain: Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner (Rebel Girl)

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TOMORROW is Valentine's Day - get ready. Here comes the love.

Few do it better than Robert Creeley, in my humble opinion. Here's the poem that helped Rebel Girl land (or at least confuse) Red Emma way back when in 1984. Those were the days.

The Rain
- Robert Creeley

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

Piling on the U of P

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Didn’t Wayne Ward get his BA from the U of P? Yeah, I think he even took its advanced “5 minute” seminar on Employee Relations.

Got a C!

As you know, the University of Phoenix is an EPOC (i.e., an evil pile o’ crap).

This morning’s Inside Higher Ed mentions an “article on Sunday in The New York Times reviewing problems at the University of Phoenix.” The scathing article has evidently inspired the praise of many academics. According to IHE, the U of P issued a response yesterday, “calling the piece ‘ridden with factual errors and misrepresentations.’”

Yeah, sure.

Check out the NYT article. It reports that the U of P’s “reputation is fraying as prominent educators, students and some of its own former administrators say the relentless pressure for higher profits, at a university that gets more federal student financial aid than any other, has eroded academic quality.”

Didn’t I see a 60 Minutes episode about this a couple of years ago?

According to the NYT,

[M]any students say they have had infuriating experiences at the university [of P] before dropping out, contributing to the poor graduation rate. In recent interviews, current and former students in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington who studied at University of Phoenix campuses in those states or online complained of instructional shortcuts, unqualified professors and recruiting abuses. Many of their comments echoed experiences reported by thousands of other students on consumer Web sites.