Tonight's board meeting: a pleasant coma

Perhaps owing to Tom Fuentes’ absence, tonight’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees was pleasant. Fuentes, we were told, was at the hospital “finishing up” the process related to his liver transplant. (The new student trustee was also absent—something about minor injuries sustained in an auto accident.)

As near as I could tell, nothing of interest was reported from the board’s closed session.

As you know, tonight, the board was slated to “reaffirm” its “commitment to holding invocations at Board meetings” (item 6.3). Inevitably, therefore, Saddleback College Math professor Carla Westphal arrived to object, which she did during her 3 minutes near the start of the meeting. The board did not respond to her points in any way.

Trustee reports were unremarkable. John Williams praised the Chancellor’s “opening session” (last Tuesday), and others joined him. Trustee Dave Lang made a point of praising various individuals for their efforts on behalf of Saddleback College’s accreditation. Lang also mentioned that he is running for reelection.

During his report, Chancellor Mathur highlighted the good news concerning enrollments, which, district-wide, are up about 10% (they’re way up at IVC). Mathur also reported that, according to recent calculations, for last year, instructional spending was at 51.36%, and thus it was above the 50% line mandated by state law. As you know, for years, Mathur had allowed the district to drift steadily downward in its proportion of instructional spending. Disaster was barely averted by various measures, including the hiring of 38 or so new full-time faculty last Spring.

Padberg later requested a report of this entire 50% FUBAR. Evidently, she was not satisfied with Mathur’s “gosh we made it” speech.

Williams, that staunch Republican, has evidently been bitten by the green bug, for he requested a report about the possibility of more solar panels and “wind farms” at the colleges. He made a point of noting that he got this clever idea before he saw last week’s presentation on “sustainability.”

John’s not bright.

Padberg, no doubt thinking of Williams, requested a report that details all trustee expenses. Voters should know, she said, how much trustees cost the taxpayer. This report, she added, should be ready in September, just before the election.

She smiled.

(You’ll recall that Williams was Padberg's boss until a couple of years ago. He fired her.)

Tonight’s “discussion topic” was “online degree and certificate programs.” The two VPIs and the new technology guy gave predictable rah-rah presentations about the explosive growth of online instruction. They noted that our colleges have been increasing online offerings at a high rate. They made a point of ignoring the fact that, nevertheless, compared to other districts, we are moving slowly.


In the middle of the presentation, Marcia’s purse suddenly emitted the sound of Ray Charles singing “Georgia.” This went on for maybe 30 seconds. As near as I could tell, Marcia was wrestling with her purse somewhere under her chair. When Ray was finally strangled, she emerged, smiling.

In the course of the "online" discussion, it was revealed that, sometimes, UCI calls up to ask about whether and how our courses are taught in an online configuration. According to Rajen, such calls generate anxiety among faculty concerning “articulation.”

I hate when people talk about us as though we were mental patients.

At one point, Mathur put out a call for “discussion topics” for the board. He made a point of including the “college community” in this request.

I cannot believe that he wasn’t forced to do that.

Let’s take him up on it! Maybe the academic senates can work on this?

Mathur and Padberg sniped at each other over the cost of a conference that some trustee indicated he wanted to attend. (Mathur doesn’t seem to understand that, if he hates a trustee, he should seek to disguise the fact.)

The final budget was adopted. Nancy Padberg expressed concern that “basic aid” money is being distributed to the two colleges equally despite Saddleback’s having twice as many students as IVC. Mathur, once again making his hatred of Padberg plain, flatly denied that the money is distributed in that fashion. Lang seemed to say that there is a process now in place for allocating basic aid money, and it is very collaborative and successful, etc.

We finally got to the item about naming the Health Sciences Building the “Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room.” Actually, the item was: should Mathur ask Nancy Reagan whether that would be OK?

There was no discussion. The item passed unanimously. I looked around the room. I do believe that everyone was in a coma.

Padberg and Milchiker actually managed to table the “invocation” item. There was no discussion.

Well, that was about it.