Thursday, February 7, 2008

The IVC Accreditation letter arrives and it's a doozy

.....The ACCJC's action letter, explaining the agency's latest determination regarding IVC's accreditation, arrived on campus yesterday, and it once again tags the college for the problems identified the last time around: trustee micromanagement, a plague of despair, unclear roles and responsibilities for governance groups, etc.
.....Evidently, we are required to submit yet another report in October.
.....None of this is surprising. What IS surprising is that, apparently, we are now in danger of losing our accreditation.

.....Both letters are now available at the college websites. For IVC's letter, see Jan. 31 ACCJC letter -- a pdf file. (For Saddleback College's very similar letter, go to Saddleback College ACCJC letter.)

.....The letter states:
.....The ACCJC, WASC, at its meeting on January 9-11, 2008, reviewed the Focused Midterm Reports submitted by IVC....

.....The Commission took action to accept the Focused Midterm Report with the requirement that the college complete a Progress Report...[to] be submitted by October 15, 2008.

.....I also wish to inform you that under US DOE regulations, institutions out of compliance with standards or on sanction are expected to correct deficiencies within a two-year period or the Commission must take action to terminate accreditation. [!]

.....Irvine Valley College must correct the deficiencies noted by January 2009. The recommendations below represent deficiencies that were first noted by the Commission in January 2005 (as a result of the Oct. 2004 comprehensive evaluation team), and therefore IVC has exceeded the two years permitted to resolve deficiencies.

.....The Commission has extended the time permitted for good cause because the college and the district have done significant work and have sought and received advice from expert consultants....
The letter again repeats Recommendations 6, 7, and 8: the ACCJC recommends...
6: The Board of Trustees cease involvement in college and district operations....

7: The Board..., District leadership and College leadership define, publish, adhere to, regularly evaluate, and continuously improve the respective leadership roles and scopes of authority of college and district constituent groups....

8: The Board of Trustees, chancellor, president, administrators, managers, faculty senates and unions, classified senates and unions, and students come together and take measures to reduce the hostility, cynicism, despair, and fear that continue to plague the college.

.....So we've got trouble.

.....Our board of trustees has a history of displaying contempt for the ACCJC, and now we're paying the price, I guess. For some of that contempt--especially concerning the charge of board micromanagement, which reaches back to 1997!--check out the video below. Pay especially close attention to Mr. Fuentes' bullying of the student trustee toward the end of the video.



.....For the ACCJC's recent institutional actions, go to: ACCJC actions.

SADDLEBACK COLLEGE'S "ACTION" LETTER:


37 comments:

Anonymous said...

letter is here

Anonymous said...

Saddleback's letter is here

Anonymous said...

pathetic

torabora said...

We've got consultants flying around our district like seagulls on a full trash can. We're on Probation too!

Our recently fired and departed Ex-President (God I love that "Ex" part) referred to Barbara Beno as a "tough old broad". Ha ha ha ha...

The sickest part was the Board paid EX $165000 to quit. The bastard didn't even move. I see him in the grocery store. Makes me wanna puke.

Keep the pressure on your Board. 38 days after we initiated a recall on our Board Four they bought him out.

Accreditation Probation is no picnic. We might not make it but we have a good man as President now but he has a weak hand to play. If we fail Probation, I might have to work at the local prison. Too bad EX isn't already living there.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! 3 cheers for the mighty academic senate - they've finally taken the college to the brink of disaster.

Under no circumstances should Wendy be allowed to write another accreditation report. She's done enough damage already.

Anonymous said...

Excuse me...Wendy does not write the report. She is co-author with the VPSS. There is an Oversight Committee and every single draft is emailed to the college community for input. It is then signed off by everyone and his brother. Bet you think DC can do a better job.

Anonymous said...

7:37--Ray, is that you?

Anonymous said...

DC is TOO busy getting his DOCTORATE approved by Raghu at the renowned ARGOSY UNIVERSITY where our ESTEEMED chancellor teaches part-time because he can apparently run the district and pull down his BIG salary in his spare time.

Or maybe HIS TEACHING doesn't require much.

WHAT a F'n SCAM. ALL of it.

Anonymous said...

Barbara Beno is just a broad, no more no less.

Anonymous said...

8:13 - what oversight? Wendy is the accreditation co-author as well as the senate president.

Faculty need to think long and hard about whom they've chosen to represent them in the academic senate. Apathy has allowed people with personal agendas to take control of the accreditation reports (and, by extension, the welfare of the college).

If you do not act quickly to change the leadership of the academic senate, then you could very well be out of a job next January.

Most of the older faculty (including the authors of this blog) have enough money to survive without the paycheck. Do you?

Anonymous said...

8:02--
You've obviously not read IVC's Midterm report. The authors obviously bent over backwards to put the best possible face on a bad situation.

Remember also that Wendy didn't write Saddleback's report, which was written by the folks down there. So your conspiracy theory is all wet.

You need to deal with such facts as these: trustee Fuentes, before the TV cameras, has expressed contempt for the ACCJC on more than one occasion. In the run-up to the last report, he did everything in his power to suggest that the problem in the district "isn't so much trustee micromanagement as 'macromanagement'" by faculty. Further, you'll recall that, just before we submitted the last report, Mathur and the board suddenly insisted on including their own verbiage--obnoxious and demonstrably erroneous in some cases--and expected everyone in the process to sign off on it. The ACCJC was perfectly aware of this.

The reason we're in trouble isn't faculty. It's Mathur and the board.

Anonymous said...

8:13 - Raghu and the Board are disagreeable folks, but going to war with them won't solve the accreditation problem.

Anonymous said...

Dale Carranza is Raghu Mathur's STUDENT?

Raghu is TEACHING?

How many classes? Doesn't this interfere with his day job? Isn't there a conflict of interest?

What the hell is he grooming Dale for? Glenn's job?

Anonymous said...

What was the Commission's response when El Rey did write the report? Anyone remember?

Anonymous said...

Glenn finally sent the letter out just now to everyone at IVC - note that Glenn's email is dominated by this text:

"The college is required to prepare a progress report that is to be submitted to ACCJC by October 15, 2008. In addition, Irvine Valley College must correct the deficiencies noted in the report by January 2009 or the Commission must take action to terminate accreditation. The Commission has extended this deadline “for good cause because the college and the district have done significant work and have sought and received advice from expert consultants. What remains now is for the institution’s members (District and College levels) to move forward in implementing good practice in governance that they have learned about, renew their commitment to professionalism and to the values of higher education, set aside the hard feelings of the past, and work together to maximize student success and institutional effectiveness.”

The clock is ticking but Raghu and the board have never cared before and they won't now. I predict that they'll respond with their usual tantrums. They also use this as an excuse to get rid of people they see as obstacles and then sugegst that this is the change that was needed.

Anonymous said...

7:37, you clearly know nothing about the processes. The report was written by the colleges to respond to BOARD and CHANCELLOR behavior. That's where ACCJC and a host of other observers rightly see the on-going problem.

The colleges, the faculty, and yes, even the academic senates are doing just fine. It's the board and chancellor who have created these problems, and it's the board and chancellor who risk the colleges' accreditation.

All of them should be thrown out and we need to start anew with people who understand the limitations of their jobs--and themselves--and who know the difference between claims of fiscal responsibility and actual stewardship of taxpayers dollars. A CPA and a lawyer to lead us? Talk about lack of ethics!

We have two years to fix the problem, not merely chip away at it. Take a look at MiraCosta--one of California's premier institutions, now on WARNING from ACCJC as of yesterday because of their 4-3 board. Two years, folks.

P.S. Someone should tell Glenn that he has to make the ACCJC report (not just the letter) available to the public. Did he do so?

Anonymous said...

10:47 - Actually, the ACCJC stated that they wanted it fixed by January 2009. I don't think that's two years away.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, according to my math (and I am just a lowly English major) we got, uh 11 months.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry, lowly English major, the board and Raghu can't count, neither can they read.

Anonymous said...

11 months yes, but the ducks have to be in a row by October. We can squeeze in some small "progress" between October and January, but the bulk of the desired changes have to be evident in the October report.

When you consider all of the other things we're trying to do (strategic planning, 50% law, budget cuts, faculty hiring, contracts, etc.), that's going to be extremely difficult.

The action (or inaction) taken by the college leadership in the next 2 weeks will significantly affect the outcome in October.

Anonymous said...

Torabora:

What college do you work for? Just curious.

Anonymous said...

1:02 PM:
Why are the next two weeks so important? What needs to happen within the next two weeks?

torabora said...

1:42 give me a private way to talk to you

Anonymous said...

A weak, ineffective leader continually points his finger at staff and blames them for the ills of the organization. Ineffective leaders surround themselves with "yes" people that cater to the weak leader's whims.

Effective leaders earn every penny when they can bring all constituent groups together for the good of the students. If a leader can't pull it off (after being given repeated opportunities to do so), they should get out of the way.

Anonymous said...

What text book did you copy that from, 5:53?

Anonymous said...

One not used at Argosy University, apparently.

Anonymous said...

Here we go again.

But will the Accreds really DO anything?

They've let these bozos run the place and us into the ground for years now -

Anonymous said...

9:08 - this is not like before. It would be foolish and dangerous to doubt the ACCJC's resolve.

As for the ACCJC's ability to remove the "bozos", that is not within their power. They cannot remove elected officials or terminate administrator contracts. They can only affect accreditation status.

The only way Raghu gets fired due to accreditiation is after it has been revoked.

To put it in terms that an English teacher can understand, IVC is the Pequod, Raghu+Board is the white whale, and Wendy is Captain Ahab.

Anonymous said...

Call me Ishmael!

Anonymous said...

I followed the link to the ACCJC's recent actions and read with interest - what is likely to happen to us if the board continues its ways and Raghu does what he does so well?

Probation? Show cause? Warning? Continued on Warning? Withdrawal from Accreditation?

Where exatly are we now and where might we be placed?

Anonymous said...

Their letter states "take action to terminate accreditation."

Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Maybe they'll put an excerpt up on the electronic marquee in front of the school.

Anonymous said...

WATCH: Raghu will make it worse and not better and the board will support him.

They'll use this as an opportunity to attack the ACCJC - REMEMBER? like they did before?

the question is: what should we do?

Anonymous said...

so, what's going to happen?

Anonymous said...

The question is, if you your cushy little insignificant colleges lose their accreditation, will all of you sanctimonous whiney dipshits leave The OC and find your nervana in some other dipshit county? If your answer is "yes," it will definitely be worth telling Barbara Beno and the commission to go fuck themselves!

torabora said...

6:21 Maybe YOU"LL replace the $70 million + worth of economic impact that college has on OC! Closing SOCCCD is sure going to help that collapsing housing market too. All kinds of small business is going to suffer and perhaps close as well. You would destroy YOUR college because some faculty want the District run according to the law?

All this chaos is because of Rahgu Mathur and his Board Four. DtB has 11 years of documented corruption in your District. And the latest is the all too cosy relationship between Mathur, the Board Four, your Foundation and (drumroll) Sheriff Carona. You should be hopping mad at the rat bastards.

But you blame the Dissenters?

Get a brain.

Anonymous said...

There's going to be a prayer circle around the flagpole tomorrow morning.

Anonymous said...

What are we praying for?

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...