Earlier today, I forwarded, to Dr. Bill Vega, Chancellor Mathur’s recent email announcing Vega’s sudden “discontinuance” as consultant. As you know (see yesterday's post), in that email, Mathur declared that he, Mathur, made the decision to discontinue Vega’s work. Mathur’s exact words were:I’ve decided to discontinue the work of the consultant, Dr. Bill Vega, effective immediately. He has graciously concurred.
Oddly enough, Vega offers a different account of the "discontinuance" decision, for he wrote back to me, saying, “Roy, no, it was my recommendation.”
He then explained that he was struck by the trust established among the members of the IVC Accreditation Focus Group and the progress that they believe that they have made. Evidently, this persuaded him that there is no need for the report that he was being asked to write. And so he recommended discontinuance.
That is, it was Vega's recommendation, not Mathur's.
In fact, during Vega's "open forum" at IVC on Tuesday, he hinted that he might well pull the plug on his consultation gig. He also clearly implied that he agreed with the strong objections that were voiced during the forum to the Chancellor's involvement in or interference with IVC decision-making.
Nevertheless, in his email yesterday, Mathur attributed to Vega the judgment that "the decision-making process seems to be working well and any further assessment work is not necessary at this time."
31 comments:
Mr. Mathur,
Why didn't Saddleback have the benefit of a seasoned former Chancellor who clearly knows his job based on information we have gleaned? Mr. Vega's presence may well have helped us with roles and responsibilities and meaningful exchanges, open and transparent communication?
Excellent Roy. I'm glad you contacted Bill Vega and recieved clarification regarding Vega's decision to discontinue his services. Vega's decision was obvious based on his comments at the Open Forum. Obviously, Dr. Vega is a a person of integrity. He simply could not validate Mathur's incompetence. Good for Vega.
Now, will the BOT continue to support their only employee, depsite clear evidence of Mthur's incompetence and pathological disorder.
At this point, the BOT is complicit in perpetrating the crime on the SOCCCD.
The BOT has crossed the line. Don, announce Mathur's retirement at the next BOT meeting. Begin the search for a real chancellor, otherwise you are complicit.
Thanks for posting this Roy. However, I still don't trust Mathur as far as I can throw him. Unfortunately, I don't have any confidence that the board majority will have the guts to "encourage" Mathur to take an "early retirement," especially since he's pretty much been a good little soldier for Fuentes. Mathur is more or less his lap dog.
A recommendation is just that a recommendation - Mathur accepted Vega's recommendation and made the decision to discontinue the consultation - one can easily see by this example why faculty have so much difficulty inderstanding decision-making processes.
6:41 - yes, the BOT will continue to support Mathur - and why not? New buildings, new faculty, increased enrollment, higher transfer rates. According to any metric that matters to the public, the SOCCCD is enjoying great success under Raghu Mathur.
... but do keep fighting the good fight folks. It's fun to watch :).
The reason why faculty appear to lack "understanding" of the District decision-making process is because there simply is NO district decision-making process. What Mathur unilaterally decides is simply told to adminstrators. If they attempt to discuss a Mathur decision, they are fired. THERE IS NO DISCUSSION OF MATHUR DECISIONS, by adminstrators let alone faculty. MATHUR RULES. Period end of story. And, the BOT allows this type of management style to persist in the District. Therefore, they must condone a unilateral, dictorial, top-down leadership style wherein adminstrators risk their jobs if they disagree with the chancellor or have a different opinion. Faculty, do not even rate on the radar. We are toast. Thus, faculty do "understand" their role in District decision-making because there is NO role for faculty in District decision-making. The only thing faculty have is a few Ed. Code Statutes and a few Title 5 regs. Other than that, the Cancellor can wreck total havoc on the SOCCCD.
We need a new BOT that will hire a competent chancellor.
The faculty "understand" the role of a competent chancellor and we "understand" our role in decision-making with a competent chancellor.
Perhaps our BOT could consider hiring a competent chancellor, since that is defined in Ed. Code.
Since the faculty have no authority to hire a competent chancellor, we must rely on our elected officials, the BOT. Is the SOCCCD BOT appropriately expending tax payer dollars to pay a totally incompetent chancellor?
C'mon. The facts are clearly documented.
7:59, you don't read well. Mathur's statement about a "recommendation" simply isn't a true statement! Mr. Vega resigned, had the integrity not to work for such a man under such circumstances--this wasn't some mutual decision; Mathur didn't "discontinue" the consultation--Mr. Vega did!
Mathur has been caught publicly in another of his multitudinous lies. He's been uttering them and slandering innocent individuals for years--and still the BOT believed him. Today he's been shown up for the liar he is. So now what will the Board do? Probably not much.
Faculty understand decision-making--and they also understand how to play fair. Mathur doesn't, and apparently, 7:59, neither do you.
Mathur a success? Let's look at the facts. Buildings: built with basic aid money that could also have gone to classes, classrooms, reasonable salaries for part-time faculty. Instead, IVC has cavernous, halls, built for business classes and students that don't exist, Chem labs for chem students that aren't there and who are offered musty curriculum that universities scoff at. But where are the buildings for the real work-horses on that campus--Humanities, Social Sciences, Biology? Nothing for them--just buildings for Raghu's buddies!
New faculty? Only because this district couldn't even meet the 50% law and HAD to hire--not because faculty are appreciated by Raghu (or 7:41).
Higher transfer rates? Not because of anything Raghu did--it's the TEACHERS who bring students to study at our campuses, and the TEACHERS who inspire them to continue. Raghu? The students don't have a clue as to who he is. So all metrics point to Raghu? Only if you're a person who allows an incompetent administrator to assume credit for the hard work and effort of everyone else. Name ONE positive thing for which he is personally responsible! I defy you. Now, after all these years, we faculty down south see what IVC suffered.
Sounding like Clayton County.
I'm a little nervous.
Are my credits I've completed marked as "accredited"? Or if IVC bottoms up, do I lose all that?
Bohrstein, have no fear. Even if the worst happens, your credits will be fine. For one thing, there is an appeals process. And, if necessary, the campuses will fall under the aegis of a local district that has managed to hang on to its accredited status. Coast maybe. They don't take away credits retroactively in any case.
Where ARE the buildings for the classes that fill?
WHERE is the study about classroom usage?
WHO decides this?
(take a look at the classes with 12 students who get whole buildings, rows of classrooms...)
This is in response to Bob Cosgrove's post: Bob, Vega was not hired to help us with our roles. Vega was hired by Mathur to prove to the BOT that the faculty are the problem, not Mathur. Vega was hired by Mathur to prove to the BOT that Mathur is competent and a great leader. When Vega realized that he was not going to be able to provide the report Mathur wanted, he bailed.
Mathur is the problem. Had he visited Saddleback College, he would have found evidence supporting the same conclusion, Mathur is the problem.
In any event, if this district is going to hire a person to "help us", shouldn't there be some type of decision-making process with meaningful exchanges, and open and transparent communication as to whether to hire someone? Shouldn't there also be some meaningful communication as to who the individual would be?
Neither college had any input into the decision to hire a consultant. Even board members did not know what was going on. Mathur's memo explaining Vega's decision to discontinue this project was a flat out lie.
This is simply no way to run a railroad.
What? Raghu lied? What a revelation! Thanks though, Roy.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED to find lying going on!
Community college enrollment is up across the state due to economic factors, not anything the Chancellor did. Amazing he would take credit for it. What's next? Will he take credit for inventing distance education? The internet, maybe?
Raghu told me that it's all God's plan - him as chancellor, etc. Really.
God's plan? He once asked academic senate faculty to get down and pray with him when he was IVC's president. No kidding. No wonder no one wants to be near him--at home or abroad.
In fact, not only do I not see the board as "encouraging" Mathur to retire, I can see the majority as giving him another pay raise. Oh yes, our tax payers dollars at work.:-)
The real problem is that not only did he fix the 50% problem, but the way he did it (hiring new faculty) now looks like pure genius because of the increased enrollment. That and getting the new BST done in time for fall?
Yes Raghu is not directly responsible for these things but it happened on his watch.
It's like saying - "It's the economy, stupid!".
Around here, "It's the enrollment, stupid!".
That is some crazy ass sh!t but he probably will get a raise. And if the faculty are dumb enough to vote 'no confidence' again, he'll get a bigger raise.
Ain't that a bitch.
The faculty are not about to pursue a "no confidence" vote. What would be the point?
I added the poll (re no confidence) only as a means of venting.
Be clear: Mathur CAUSED our 50% problem. The district fixed it in part by that massive hiring in the Spring. Even Wagner said that this was no way to hire faculty. And it wasn't.
The latest issue is that Mathur not only lied to faculty, it appears he pursued the Vega "consultation" largely behind the board's back. As near as I can tell, the board never approved the consultant.
And the Vega affair was a total fiasco, which cannot NOT be mentioned in our Accred reports, due in a month. Mathur is making a mess of things, and no trustee can be happy about that.
"cannot NOT be mentioned in our Accred reports"??
Whether it's in or not won't affect anything. Someday I hope that people will start to see that the accreditation reports are not supposed to be an indictment.
Roy - you preach logic so I have some hope for you. You did some digging into where SLOs came from. Dig into where the 2002 ACCJC standards came from.
Keep an open mind. Think about it from the ACCJC's point of view. They need certain things to happen in order to keep their jobs. This trend goes well past the Bush administration. Sure it's good to hope for a reversal, but for right now we need to get behind these standards.
We're not out of the woods yet.
No, we are not out of the woods at either school. After calls from Saddleback campus staff and faculty were made to the Commission, it's clear that we WILL lose our accreditation at one or both schools IF we do not remedy the recommendations and demonstrate clearly and accurately that we have changed, that we have done SLOs.
Who made the calls? When?
1:06, DtB has already examined the origins of the accrediting standards (see, e.g., Whence SLOs?).
The reason that we cannot NOT mention this fiasco in our reports is because (1) at least in the case of the IVC Accred Focus Group, a commitment was made from day 1 to be honest and factual, and (2) given that the ACCJC likely already knows about the “consultant” fiasco, we would risk being accused of white-washery were we not to mention it.
Nobody on the Focus Group thinks of the report as an “indictment.” You seem to be tilting at Straw Men.
If you were to read DtB more regularly, you’d be aware that we’re way ahead of you, 1:06. I suggest that you get up to speed.
Hi Roy! Thanks for posting this. This just ran through my head and that is if you think it's true that any of the trustees (well, maybe w/the exception of Fuentes) would be happy w/Mathur's latest fiasco (on top of others) I wonder if they'd vote to dump him before the election? Could they do this? Of course, again, perhaps I'm being really, really optimistic but I'm wondering.:-)
Roy,
I didn't mean the current focus group. I meant the people who want to insert the Vega thing.
Some on the focus group will probably want to insert the Vega thing, some will not.
Personally, I hope they do insert it. The long-term benefits would outweigh the short-term problems created by that move.
Sort of like a "sacrifice fly"
Regards,
1:06
Did the Vega thing happen? Yup, it did. Can the IVC Accred Focus Group simply ignore it. Nope, it can't. It happened. It must be reported in the Accreditation Report because it happened.
This is just another last minute attempt by Mathur to circumvent the work of the college(s), which have clearly identified Mathur as the continuing source of the plague of despair throughout the District. This attempt by Mathur failed and he is wearing a dozen eggs on his face. Hoever, my bet is that we have not seen the last of a Mathurian attempt to alter the college reports.
But does Mathur have Wagner/Lang support to alter the colleges' reports this time? Wagner and Lang served on the colleges' Focus Group/Task Forces. Will Wagner and Lang support Mathurian interfence, betraying our colleges and making a mockery of their participation in the preparation of the Accreditation Reports?
Wagner is on record as a firm supporter of the efforts of the IVC Focus Group. Can Wagner withstand the wrath of Mathur/Fuentes? C'mon Don. We know you can.
We know Lang can't stand up to the Mathur/Fuentes axis. Sorry SC.
All bets are on the leadership of Donald Wagner, the Board President.
Are you a leader Don? The ball is in your court. You can hit it out of the park any day, if you are willing to step up to the plate.
Don, you are in "the cage" and the next "at bat". Sure hope you don't strike out.
Swing level and step into it.
Hello Monday, September 08, 2008 9:47:00 PM!
First, I absolutely loved the baseball metaphors you used to word your comment. Definitely well thought out.:-)
2nd, I agree w/you. Right now it is all in Trustee Wagner's court (I know, that's basketball). Hopefully he'll do the right thing & get on Mathur's case over this. I would really like to see that at the next board meeting, but who knows. Mathur was doing this to show off to the board & it blew up in his face, & embarrassed the district once again.
A "home run" is reaccreditation, not making Mathur look bad. The thing for Wagner and Lang to do now is whatever it takes to keep the two focus groups from striking out and get the colleges reaccredited. That's the leadership we need of them. Making a big deal out of Vega and embarrassing the Chancellor hardly accomplishes that.
Hello!
I hate to say it, but the "Chancellor" embarrassed himself, and IMO we really don't have to try to do this. Pretty much he's a one man embarrassment, and IMO needs to go.:-)
This Chancellor embarrasses himself frequently but people who think they walk on water often do that.
Vega is a fact: time was well spent or well wasted. IVC profited because of what he heard the faculty and staff say--with passion and conviction and with accuracy. Vega came, without the faculty or, it seems, administration's knowledge OR their participation in the process of recruiting him. At SC we took two days away from our accreditation work and other duties (teaching included) to prepare for this non event with a set of explanations in the chancellor's e-mail announcing Vega's departure that were NOT true.
What kind of leadership is this that smacks of lies and deceptions, omissions and commissions?
This is what that part of Accreditation is about: validating what occurred when communication and transparancy fail. And they fail nearly always at one end--the third floor corner office.
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