Trainspotting in Irvine (Jeffrey Rd.)

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Fear and loathing an' high wages

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A CULTURE OF FEAR

This morning, I read an article in the New York Times about Charles B. Wang, the founder and former chairman of a software company. The company’s board just issued a report that accuses Wang of overseeing an accounting fraud that lasted ten years.

According to the report, Mr. Wang was tyrannical and unscrupulous:

Mr. Wang created a “culture of fear” at Computer Associates—now called CA—and deliberately put inexperienced executives in senior positions so that he would have more control, according to the report. He discouraged executives from meeting with each other and arbitrarily fired managers or employees who disagreed with him…“Fraud pervaded the entire CA organization at every level, and was embedded in CA’s culture, as instilled by Mr. Wang, almost from the company’s inception,” the report said.

THE RAG GOO MONSTER


Gosh, that reminds me of the SOCCCD, albeit mostly the SOCCCD of yore.

I said “mostly.” Lately, we’ve been hearing that our own Charles Wang—Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur—has been on a tear, wagging that finger and popping those veins at everyone—at everyone except, of course, his “bosses,” the trustees.

Have you seen the ashen faces, the wide eyes, the peculiar diffidence and scared-shitlessness?

If you aren’t paying attention, Mathur can seem pretty reasonable, even charming, for a while. But if you hang around him long enough—and if you aren’t one of his “bosses”—you’ll eventually see his dark side. At such times, all his blather about “respect” and “not pointing a finger at others” flies out the window. He’s a Tasmanian Devil, a monster.

Nobody ever believes in the fabled Rag Goo Monster—until, that is, they actually witness it. There are many skeptics. On the other hand, over the years, many have witnessed the fiend, and they all bear the scars of their encounter.

Reportedly, these days, Mathur’s not just on a tear; he’s on a tear to end all tears. The monster has returned for the bloodiest sequel of all.

Don’t know why.

I keep hearing that faculty leaders and administrators of our benighted district are suddenly on Mathur's shitlist. Tenured faculty don't need to worry about that too much. Administrators do.

If you're vulnerable, you don't wanna be prey for the Rag Goo Monster. It's a horrible fate. Something happens. The monster then grows quiet. He slips into darkness. He sweats and stinks and yowls hideously.

Awful semi-rational Mathurian calculations then ensue.

PLAQUES


Last week, a friend wondered aloud why Wayne Ward, IVC’s former Director of F&M, received a plaque from the board of trustees. “I mean, he only worked here for two years!” said the friend. “He was nothing but trouble the whole time! Lots of grievances against him were working their way through the system,” he added.

Yes, the plaque episode was odd. I said as much. My friend then asked: “Do you think that you or I would get a plaque if we quit?"

I recalled a moment several years ago, when Mathur was still President of Irvine Valley College. A year or so before, he had hired Rod Poindexter as dean of Health Sciences, PE and Athletics, passing over a much more qualified candidate (natch, she’s now suing Mathur for discrimination). Almost immediately, Poindexter had proven to be a disaster, committing a series of outrageous blunders, clashing noisily and repeatedly with employees. Eventually, he would be dismissed after a series of embarrassing news reports about violent altercations and ugly lawsuits.

I happened to be in the PE building. Poindexter was still the dean, but his incompetence and volatility were by then legendary. I looked at the glass case in the hallway. For a moment, I was amazed at what I spotted there. It was an award, a trophy.

IVC’s student government had chosen Poindexter as its “administrator of the year”!


In those days, owing to Mathur’s ascendency, faculty assumed (with justice in some cases) that fraud tainted at least some awards processes, especially those associated with IVC’s student government. At the time, the student government president was close to Mathur (the fellow has since gone on to various minor posts in Republican politics; these days, he serves on IVC’s Foundation board). He was notorious for doing Mathur’s bidding.

At one point, the kid wrote a letter to the Times, commending “Raghu Mathur for four years of superb service to the college as president.” According to the student, IVC had been beset, not by a tyrannical rights-violating college president, but by “rebel faculty…and a small number of students” who “have tried to make our campus a war zone by using hate literature….”

Hate literature? That was a reference to Dissent, which Mathur had publicly condemned in just those terms.

I wrote the student a letter. Referring to his accusations, I wrote:

I hereby request that you show me exactly what it is that I have written or published that constitutes “hate literature.” If I…or some unnamed person or persons…[are] to be publicly charged with “using hate literature” by you, surely you are obliged to provide evidence…I await your response.

Naturally, I never heard from the fellow.

Perhaps the best examples of fraud—understood as “deceit” or “trickery,” Perry Mason fans—are the College Accreditation reports produced nearly a decade ago by Mathur’s appointee Ray Chandos. Those who wish to relive those golden years of bold bowdlerization and blatant bunkum are urged to read Dissent’s IVC Accreditation White-Wash.


MAY ADMINISTRATORS GET SO LUCKY

Yesterday, at IVC (yes, some instructors work on Fridays), I was talking with colleagues after my morning class. We talked about the good things about our jobs—the fact, for instance, that we need only walk down the hall to find knowledgeable persons with whom we can engage in intelligent and informed conversation—about politics, biology, psychology, geology, and whatnot. —The fact that we spend our days explaining and discussing matters about which we are truly interested. —The fact that, in our particular building at least, we can work with decent people, actually achieving things, making things better. We marveled at our good fortune.

We are indeed lucky.

May our administrators someday be so lucky. —CW