Open forum at Saddleback College

Today, the Saddleback College Accreditation Task Force held an "open forum" in the Student Services Building. The meeting started at 1:30 and ended about 45 minutes later.

Since I teach until 1:45, I couldn't get to the meeting until about 2:05, at which point Carmen D. seemed to be wrapping up her account of the contents of the group's report draft.

Saddleback College's new President, Todd Burnett, was on hand. He alluded, cheerfully, to the absence of questions from the meager audience of twenty or thirty.

I decided to ask what apparently was the only question of the meeting: was any mention made in the report of the strange "consultant" episode?

Yes.


P. 81 of the group’s Accreditation Progress Report draft does indeed include a section that describes the consultant episode. According to the draft, early in September, the community was informed that the task force and various other groups would be meeting with the consultant, Bill Vega, on Sept. 9 and 10. At that point, task force members felt they lacked “clarity about the purpose of the visit.” Who had hired the consultant? What was his charge? To whom would he submit his report?

According to the draft, the task force learned that the consultant had been hired at Chancellor Mathur's direction to “facilitate the clarification of the decision-making processes at selected district locations.” Supposedly, Vega's work was a continuation of the technical assistance visits of 2 ½ years ago.

Those visits were arranged in consultation with all involved groups.

But then, on Sept. 3, the Chancellor sent an email, which stated:

Dr. Vega began his work yesterday at IVC. Today he reported to me that, based on his interviews with many faculty and staff members, it is his observation that the decision-making process seems to be working well and any further assessment work is not necessary at this time. Therefore, I’ve decided to discontinue the work of the consultant, Dr. Bill Vega, effective immediately....

All remaining meetings with Vega were cancelled, including the meetings at Saddleback College.

The draft then notes that “the decision to engage the services of a consultant to ‘continue the dialog’ [of the long-ago technical assistance visits] was made solely by the Chancellor and bypassed the consultation process.” (My emphasis.)

Readers of DtB will recall that, on Sept. 3, I forwarded Mathur’s email to Bill Vega. Vega immediately responded, explaining that he (not Mathur) had recommended discontinuance.

Given his public comments during his visit to IVC on Sept. 2, it is highly doubtful that Vega offered the rosy assessment of decision-making that Mathur attributed to him in his Sept. 3 email.


AT IVC:

This afternoon, the IVC's Accreditation task force (which is called a "focus group") met mostly to discuss whether to include language concerning the odd consultant episode. I’ve been told that the group has decided to make a brief mention of it, quoting the part of Mathur’s memo in which Mathur attributes to Vega a positive assessment about decision-making processes.

Gosh, I wonder what Bill Vega thinks of all this? (These days, he teaches at CSLB. Drop him a line. Say hello.)