Tonight's board meeting

(Be sure to check out Tere's Board Meeting Highlights.)

Tonight’s meeting started with board clerk Tom Fuentes reporting actions taken in closed session: there were none.

The audience was unusually large because of board resolutions concerning Saddleback College’s 40th Anniversary (tomorrow). Numerous politicians, including stunningly corrupt Congressman Gary Miller—represented by an underling, made presentations to honor the college. It was fun. I’ll have video tomorrow.

Saddleback College President Tod Burnett managed to scrape up and display 4 or 5 former Saddleback College Presidents, including the first one (1968). Naturally, lots of photos were taken, and Chancellor Raghu Mathur and board president Don Wagner managed to get in most of them.

Professor Bob Parsons was honored—he’s been working at Saddleback College continuously these forty years. He offered some entertainingly gruff remarks. Nurses Terri Whitt and Judy Krieg were honored too, though I don’t think their efforts (volunteer work in Beliz) had anything to do with the 40 year thing.

During trustee reports, John Williams presented a few artifacts from the beginning years of Saddleback College, including a college catalog that was the size of a small pamphlet. He read from the "dress code," which forbade open-toed shoes, etc.

Tom Fuentes praised the Chancellor for organizing some sort of "ethics" training event (at Saddleback College). That produced a moment of silent weirdness. Do you suppose these people are insensible of the irony? 

There were public comments. Saddleback College Academic Senate President Bob Cosgrove spoke, as did Faculty Association President Lee Haggerty, who objected to trustee Fuentes’ and Steve Greenhut’s recent remarks in OC Blog and the OC Register. Lee referred to factual errors and even the possibility of some sort of “public” negotiating violation by Fuentes.

Two kids presented the IVC 2008-9 Associated Students budget. When they finished, they were praised for the clarity of their graphs and accounting, but they were dinged bigtime for not leaving money for the next year. Evidently, IVC student government experienced some sort of windfall last year (something over $70,000 as I recall), and so their budget (half a million) was unusually large. Evidently, this crew allocated all of that to the usual items supported by SG.

You will recall that some trustees, especially Fuentes and Wagner, have long objected to the cost to students of student government and especially the manner in which student government receives income—a percentage of book sales at the bookstore. Tonight, Lang, Wagner, and Fuentes expressed discomfort with the students’ proposed budget. Wagner, for instance, suggested that it would be better to put the extra $70 K into scholarships or otherwise return the money to students. He mentioned the tough economic times in which students now find themselves.

In the end, the matter was tabled. There can be little doubt that the students are expected to bring back a very different budget next month.

THE ACCREDITATION REPORTS

Eventually, the board got to the IVC and Saddleback Accred reports. The board does not approve these documents but it is informed about them.

Board President Don Wagner, who served on the IVC Accred focus group, offered heartfelt praise for that committee. There can be no doubt that he appreciates the sincerity, dedication, and intelligence of the classified, faculty, and administration of Irvine Valley College with whom he labored for many months. He urged his colleagues on the board to read the report and to appreciate the fine work that the group has produced. He even asserted, half jokingly, that if the ACCJC does not renew our accreditation, that will be “actionable.” Wendy G, who co-chaired the committee and who wrote most of the report, indicated agreement with that sentiment. These two are lawyers.

Trustee Lang similarly praised the committee that produced Saddleback’s Accreditation report. 

It was a love fest.

Chancellor Mathur ended all that. He made a point of praising trustees Wagner and Lang for all of their unpaid work on these committees. No doubt these two deserve praise, but it is no secret that, in the course of producing these reports, some faculty put in literally hundreds of hours for which they were not compensated. Predictably, Mathur was blind to that, an omission that IVC Academic Senate President Wendy G pointedly corrected later in the evening.

There was no indication that any of the trustees were disposed to object to these reports. Fuentes remained silent.

REASSIGNED TIME AND THE "2%" RULE

The board also discussed a report of expenditures for “reassigned time and stipends” for the 2007-08 academic year. Trustee Fuentes and Chancellor Mathur took the opportunity to pretend that reassigned time and stipends are terribly expensive to the district. Mathur, as usual, offered voodoo math in explaining the cost of reassigned time, which Trustee Bill Jay briefly undercut with some impromptu calculating.

At some point, Wendy G noted that the manner in which the original 1998 “action” (there is no policy) was taken greatly exaggerated the cost of reassigned time (the true cost is backfill with part-timers; the 1998 action absurdly requires that the instructor’s pay be used in calculating cost).

The 1998 “2%” rule seems to have changed over the years to 2.4%—a fact that obviously greatly displeased Mr. Fuentes, who sought to nail down when and how that change occurred. Mathur muttered about the accrediting commission’s demands for faculty work on SLOs and the like. Fuentes remained perturbed.

In the course of the discussion, Wendy (I think) noted that the “rule” unnecessarily and unfortunately ties the hands of the college Presidents in their efforts to run the colleges. She underscored the reality that such work as the recent college accreditation efforts (she held the enormous IVC draft in the air) are produced with a great deal of uncompensated work by faculty. (That won't do.) She asked that the trustees bear such facts in mind.

Mathur stared at her homicidally.

Trustee Lang noted that, as a matter of fact, the Saddleback College Accred report objects to the “arbitrary” nature of the “2% rule.” It complains, too, about how it restricts the college Presidents.

In the end, Fuentes recommended that the matter (despite its being only an information item) be tabled so that a more “fleshed out” report can be presented. Much to Mathur's chagrin, he declared the report to be "inadequate." He expressed his hope that the 2.4% figure would be addressed and revised “downward.”