Cumpleaños de César Chávez en Irvine Valley College (Rebel Girl)

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Thursday, IVC's MEChA celebrated Cesar Chavez's birthday in style, transforming the sun-drenched area outside the Student Services into a canopied ofrenda to the labor leader's memory.












Historical notes: In 1988, Rebel Girl and Red Emma hung out with Cesar Chavez, members of the Western Shoshone nation and hundred of other activists in the desert north of Las Vegas, home to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site.

Those were the days.

Around the same time, Reb, then a noted vegetarian chef, was chosen to cook a meal for Cesar during his visit to the People's Republic of Santa Monica; she chose a Mediterranean theme: tabouli, hummus, tszatiki, marinated beans and olives, fresh tomatoes, bread. She was so nervous that she bought bottled water in which to cook the beans and bulgur. She is still proud that he ate everything, including the garnish.

Then, in 1993, along with thousands of others, they followed his wooden casket through the dusty streets of Delano.


Si se puede!

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: Of Ice Cream and Emperors

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IT'S AFTER 8:30 on Thursday March 29th so Rebel Girl knows now that she lost the contest to predict just when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would resign. She's been bragging for days that the confluence of her 46th birthday and his scandal would create the ideal circumstances and thus her victory -- so she predicted that Gonzales would either tender his resignation or be fired this morning.

The prize was a year of ice cream (Ben and Jerry's, natch) and Reb has spent what little spare time she has had musing whether or not the amount of ice cream is determined by the winner's own ability to consume or some standard formula, no doubt resulting in less ice cream consumption. She speculated on storage problems and choice dilemmas (Peanut Butter Cup? Chunky Monkey? Karamel Sutra? Dublin Mudslide?) Also: would she be restricted to a certain number of flavors?

Alas.

Alberto remains and Rebel Girl can buy her own birthday ice cream today.

His reluctance to resign does gives Rebel Girl time to develop her own line of Alberto Gonzales products – more on those later but suffice to say one item is the car odorizer that can hang jauntily from a rear view mirror, looking at a distance like the Virgin of Guadalupe. A close inspection reveals it is Alberto with George W. cast as that little angel propping him up.

In honor of the ice cream and emperors, the irresistible Wallace Stevens who I often read but decline to teach:

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

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Indeed!

From Inside Higher Ed

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March 28: Inexorable March to a Part-Time Faculty

New data from the U.S. Education Department confirm what faculty leaders increasingly bemoan: The full-time, tenure-track faculty member is becoming an endangered species in American higher education.

A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that of the 1,314,506 faculty members at colleges that award federal financial aid in fall 2005, 624,753, or 47.5 percent, were in part-time positions. That represents an increase in number and proportion from 2003, the last full survey of institutions, when 543,137 of the 1,173,556 professors (or 46.3 percent) at degree-granting institutions were part timers….

March 29: Portrait of the Occupational Student:

…A report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Education Department attempts to provide more information about the subset of college students — one that is more diverse and disadvantaged than students on average — that is seeking occupational training.

… The group was predominantly female (57 percent), and had higher rates of underrepresented minority groups than other sectors do: 16 of the students are black and 9 percent are Hispanic. The average age of these students when they started their programs was 24.

…Generally, students seeking certificates or associate degrees are less likely than are those seeking a four-year degree to complete their programs — whether the credential they are seeking is vocational or academic. And the new study offers additional confirmation.

…The top reasons cited by those who left their programs were: job or financial demands, family demands and moving to another city or state. In some cases, people citing these reasons did not abandon their quest for a credential but enrolled in less demanding programs.

March 29: Ohio U revokes degree:

Ohio University announced Wednesday that it has revoked the master’s degree of a former student in mechanical engineering, having concluded that the student’s thesis contained plagiarism. The action is the first degree revocation coming out of an investigation into numerous theses, which was prompted by another former student’s charges of widespread plagiarism in the department.

March 28: Distance ed not so distant:

In theory, distance education is supposed to open up an era when all students have a range of options not limited by geography. But a new report from Eduventures finds that most distance students enroll at distance programs run by institutions in their own geographic regions, and that more than a third of these students take online courses offered by an institution within a 50-mile radius.