The Chancellor's Opening Session (video, part 1) & today's senate meeting

The general assembly of the Irvine Valley College Academic Senate met today, mostly in order to update faculty on the Accreditation Progress Report (which was formally presented late yesterday afternoon).

The turnout was remarkable—every seat in the room was taken. I don't think I've ever seen a larger turnout for a senate meeting.

Unsurprisingly, the report, the product of many months' work, was very well received by faculty.

We were informed that the senate would soon be visiting with a "consultant" who, I guess, will help us with accreditation. —A fellow named Bill Vega, the former Chancellor of the Coast Community College District.

That seemed swell to everybody, but, to me, there's something hinkey about this whole "consultant" business. So I asked two questions: (1) Who chose Dr. Vega? (2) To whom will he report?

All of a sudden, everybody clammed up. Senate Prez Wendy Gabriella said, I think, that she didn't know who selected Vega. We turned to the Vice President of Instruction, Craig Justice. Craig was pretty vague, as I recall. I think he (and/or others) said that the destination of the report is somewhat nebulous at this point. It sounded like we were paying for it and that "we" would receive it. Not sure.

How very odd. I still wanted to know who had selected Vega. Another senior administrator then spoke up to say that she did know this much: that the ACCJC (the accreditation agency) had selected Vega.

Oh. So the ACCJC chose a consultant for us who will write a report and then hand it over to us. OK.

I don't get it.

As promised, here's some video from yesterday's "Chancellor's Opening Session." This is part 1. It starts with a rock band and ends with a performance on the piano by IVC's Daniel Luzko. I think you'll enjoy it.

Part 2 will present excerpts from Scott Lay's presentation, etc.

"Good morning," we said

I arrived for the Chancellor’s Opening Session about five minutes late, and I was pleased to find a nice little rock band—a motley assortment of district employees—offering a respectable version of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle,” an upbeat pop tune from 2001. Propitious!

Mathur’s address started off with a classic Mathurian moment, with the little fellow demanding a more forceful attempt at “good morning” from the audience. “Good morning,” we said.

IVC’s Daniel Luzko tickled the ivories for twelve minutes, and that seemed to be a hit.

Keynote speaker #1, Scott Lay of the CCLC, was excellent. He laid out various fascinating factoids and projections regarding the state budget. Keynote speaker #2, Diana Van Der Ploeg of Butte College, was also fine, presenting her college’s celebrated efforts at “sustainability.”

I’ll have some video of all of this later in the week.

Mathur sought to take his lemons and make lemonade. He actually had each new district or college employee (about 50 of 'em) march up to the stage, one by one. After a half hour or so, most of the audience was up there, leaving just me, my video camera, and Howard Dachslager in the seats. (The “lemons” aren’t the employees but rather the absurdity of hiring 38 faculty within the space of a couple of months. Many of these new employees, including administrators and managers, seemed excellent.)

The union luncheon was festive and unremarkable. Naturally, the gymnasium has the acoustics of the Grand Canyon. Hence, for an hour and a half, we endured indecipherable noise. I think somebody said something about a contract.

At 4:00, the IVC Accreditation “focus group” made yet another “all college” presentation, and it was excellent. The discussion with the sparse but passionate audience was excellent, I thought. (I joined in too.)

Again, I’ll have video ASAP.


One thing is clear: though all acknowledge the excellence of the focus group’s lengthy draft (the product of seven months’ effort), there can be no doubt that, in the minds of many denizens of IVC, the cause of our “climate of despair” (which, admittedly, has improved) is none other than Raghu P. Mathur, a fact that informs virtually every page of the document and that generates some of its best elements, but which, understandably is nowhere to be found stated within it.

I do think that, accreditation-wise, as was stated and seconded during the meeting, the report is likely to "save our ass."

Jimmy Eat World:



In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed, an article (Tolerant Faculty, Intolerant Students) discusses the results of a large survey done within the Georgia University System.

Excerpt:

The results suggest that there may well be a problem with lack of tolerance of political views of others. But according to students (the supposed victims of intolerant professors, according to those who say there is no intellectual diversity), the problem isn’t professors, but fellow students. Only 47 percent of students reported that they believed other students were tolerant of the political views of all students, as opposed to just those whose views they supported (and of that 47 percent, only 17 percent said this was true to a great degree). About 21 percent of students feel that other students aren’t tolerant of the political views of others while the remainder are somewhat in the middle.