"Wildly unbalanced"

TONIGHT, I attended the August (but not august) meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees.

Some faculty came to object to that seriously in-your-face Christian message stuck at the end of the Chancellor’s silly patriotic video for his Opening Session (nearly two weeks ago).

Jesus Christ, we were informed, died for our souls.

Some faculty said that that nakedly Christian message failed to respect the diversity of the community. (This was a highlight, not a lowlight.)

A few minutes later, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur made a “brief statement.” “It was,” he said, “a diverse chancellor … who was not offended.”

Huh?

I think he was referring to Opening Session guest speaker Michael Drake, Chancellor of UC Irvine. Raghu was saying, I suppose, that Drake did not tell him (Raghu) that he was offended by anything.

Oh.

Fuentes gangster Chriss Street, our county's beclouded Treasurer and Tax Collector, showed up to speak. He had nothing new to say. He gave me a handout.

As you know, in my preview of the board meeting, I noted the odd distribution of “basic aid” bucks among the colleges, according to the Chancellor’s “basic aid priority list.” According to the Chancellor's reckoning, ATEP should get $5 million, Saddleback College should get $8 million, and IVC should get—$650,000.

Evidently, board President Don Wagner had a similar reaction. He found the list to be “wildly unbalanced.”


Essentially, the board decided to put off approval of the list to the next meeting.

Tom Fuentes carped, as usual, about the “high cost” of the study abroad trips, including a trip to Spain. One of ‘em cost $7K, and another cost $6K, I think.

We can send kids to learn Spanish “in our own hemisphere,” he said, harrumphing.

At some point, Fuentes suggested ominously that the college presidents had better come up with some snappy stuff to commemorate 9-11. The sides of his mouth drooped southward hideously, as he leered about the room.

Later, Tom grandly requested a report on the salaries of OC college professors, including a comparison with professor pay in our district. Again, his mouth became hideous. Luckily, there were no children in the room.

Mathur started nodding: “Yes, yes, we’ll have that for you in a month or two.” Heads nodded all around.

Toward the very end of the meeting, a certain faculty leader, apparently referring to this blog, condemned its writing as “inaccurate” and “inflammatory.”

She bemoaned the fact that the “First Amendment protects” such scribblers. “But it does,” she said.

More nodding from the seven elders.

She used to call me, making similar claims. I always assured her that I sought to avoid errors, that I am always glad to correct them. I have done so in the past.

I would ask her, “exactly what is it that we got wrong?”

To date, she has not answered that question.

I am baffled.

Some, it seems, do not see the value of our little publication. They find it neither funny nor enlightening, an ugly thing, unredeemed by any virtue.

What must they think of you, dear reader?

The faculty leader also went out of her way to remark on the three faculty who spoke about the "Jesus Christ" video. These speakers, she said, do not speak for the faculty. Only the academic senate, she said (and, I suppose, the union), speaks for faculty.

As I recall, the three speakers did not claim to speak for all faculty.

On the other hand, not so very long ago, our academic senates passed resolutions to the effect that trustees should cease these public prayers. (See Faculty, students want to ban prayer at college events. See also graphic below.)

Those resolutions expressed essentially the same perspective expressed by these three speakers.

Again, I am baffled.

On Top of Old Smoky

Mount Wilson Observatory boasts the longest recorded history of the sun of any observatory - dating from 1906, two years after its founding in 1904 by George Ellery Hale.

Click here to access the webcam on top of Mount Wilson (elevation: 5,700 feet) and see its unsettling view of the approaching fire.

There hasn't been a fire burn over Mt. Wilson for over a hundred years - today's fire threatens to do just that.

update: Mt. Wilson webcam comes and goes - be patient and try again.

The real problem with distance ed

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed (Going For Distance), Steve Kolowich debunks some myths about online instruction. For instance, one might think that faculty—especially senior faculty—are really dragging their feet on this kind of “distance ed.” Not so, it seems.

But there is a problem with it, at least according to faculty. It is the lack of support for the extra work involved in using and developing this kind of instruction. That's the clear message of a new study involving over ten thousand faculty.

One of the commissioners involved in the study opined that “The leadership of universities has been trying to understand exactly how [online education] fits into their strategic plans, and what this [study] shows is that faculty are ahead of the institutions in these online goals.”

How so? Well, more than a third of faculty who participated in the study had developed and taught this kind of course, but, they say, they aren't getting adequate support.

I suspect that faculty at our two institutions (Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College) are behind the curve on this. In my experience, senior faculty (including me) have been especially wary of online distance ed. (That's just an impression.)

In truth, research seems to show that, at least for many areas of learning, online instruction works.

Well, whether it is a good thing or not, it is developing all around us. It's a tsunami. Sooner or later, we'll be on board. And it won't be easy:

Almost two-thirds of the faculty said it takes more effort to teach a course online than in a classroom, while 85 percent said more effort is required to develop one. While younger professors seem to have an easier time teaching online than older ones, more than half of respondents from the youngest faculty group agreed it was more time-consuming. Nearly 70 percent of all professors cited the extra effort necessary to develop Web courses as a crucial barrier to teaching online.
…
Given the extra work, more than 60 percent of faculty see inadequate compensation as a barrier to the further development of online courses. “If these rates of participation among faculty are going to continue to grow, institutions will have do a better job acknowledging the additional time and effort on the part of the faculty member,” said Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group and the survey’s lead researcher….

Yeah, when you teach online, you're pretty much on call all of the time. Sheesh.

I can just see the likes of trustee Tom Fuentes grinning over this.

“Let’s make the lazy bastards work for a living,” he’ll say.

And, who knows? Just maybe that hateful fellow will be our next board president.

Won't that be swell?

See also Challenging Microsoft With a New Technology (New York Times).

PART TWO: Has student writing ability declined over time? (YES.)

Two things.

First, when, yesterday, I posted about the increase in writing abilities of American students from 1998 to 2007, for some reason, in my haste, I read “1998” but thought, um, “1970.”

Don’t know why I did that. Getting old, I guess. D'oh!

Had I been aware that we were looking at this recent and puny 8-year span (from '98 to '07), I would not have declared, as I did, that the “Teeth Gnashers” were likely in error (in their view that student writing ability has seriously declined in recent decades).

Second, I briefly researched further and I’ve come across what would appear to be much more relevant data: it tracks student verbal performance from 1967 to 2006. Yes! (It might be the closest thing to definitive data that we are going to find.)

More on that in a minute.

That's the good news. The bad news is that those data tend to support the perspective of the Teeth Gnashers (and undermines the perspective of the "oldsters always be carpin' about youngsters, so forgetaboutit" perspective).

I came across a site called the “Humanities Resource Center Online,” which is “a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences” (AAAS). That brought me to their Humanities indicators (for charting trends). That, in turn, led me to their data for “primary and secondary education in the Humanities.”

I clicked on “Indicator I-2 Writing Proficiency.”

There, the AAAS states that

NAEP findings are mixed….
…
Twelfth grade performance slipped between 1998 and 2002, with the percentage of students scoring at the basic achievement level or better declining from 79% to the 75% figure mentioned above. In 2002, fewer than one in four soon-to-be high school graduates were assessed as writing at the proficient level or higher. Students scoring at the proficient level demonstrate a grasp of writing skills that are essential for success in most walks of life; these skills include the use of transitional elements and the ability to select language appropriate for the intended audience….

Again, those data concern the brief period between '98 and '02—hardly the basis for conclusions about long-term trends.

But something caught my eye: “Indicator I-5: Performance on SAT Verbal/Critical Reading & Writing Exams.” There, the AAAS states

Although controversy over the SAT [i.e., the "Scholastic Aptitude Test"] persists on a number of fronts, the verbal portion of the SAT (renamed “critical reading” in 2005) is a valuable measure of college-bound seniors’ linguistic skills because the test has been administered for several decades and thus permits comparison over a fairly extended period of time. The SAT data reveal a steep decline between 1967 and the early 1980s in mean verbal scores, followed by a leveling off, with mean scores ranging between approximately 500 and 510 ever since ….

That's right: 2006 "verbal" scores can be compared to 1967 scores. The SAT is an imperfect measure of verbal abilities, but I suspect that it has significant validity. (No doubt some disagree.)

The trend in verbal SAT scores ain't pretty. The AAAS folks present the chart below. Check it out. That's some serious decline, baby.*

Click on image to enlarge

So, I’m back to being a Teeth Gnasher. Bigtime.

*SAT math scores were the same in 2006 as they were in 1967, although these scores dipped precipitously in the 80s and then rebounded.

Tomorrow’s board meeting: rode hard and put up wet

Hey, it’s time for another meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees, starring Don Wagner and featuring Tom “sourpuss” Fuentes. —Monday night, same time (6:00 p.m.), same place (the “Ronald Reagan” room). (The agenda, a large pdf, is available here.)

As you know, board president Wagner has announced his intention to run for State Assembly, and so it seems unlikely that he’ll remain at the helm of the good ship Agitprop starting December (just 3 or 4 months away).

So, who’s gonna replace him?

Maybe Tom Fuentes?!

We keep hearing, mostly from trustees themselves, that the board is a group of unhappy campers these days, divided by—well, I dunno. For her invocation in July, given only minutes after the board’s closed session, trustee Marcia Milchiker alluded to the need for civility, but since everyone in the audience was genial to the point of comatositude, it seemed clear that she was referring to rank trusteecular kerfufflery.

Don Wagner has made similar allusions.

Kerfufflery? What about? I’ve been studying Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur’s lower lip-language. Judging by that and the perpetually rosy, red glow of his ass, it seems clear that he spends half of his time in the woodshed.

So, just maybe, tomorrow’s board meeting will be interesting. But I wouldn't bet on it.

CLOSED SESSION:

First, the board will hold a brief closed session, starting at 5:00 p.m. As usual, one agenda item refers to possible litigation.

For once, I looked up the section of the code to which the item refers (54956.9). That part of the code concerns legislative bodies (e.g., a board of trustees) and the appropriateness of meeting in closed session concerning “pending litigation.” (“3 cases” are involved, says the agenda.)

The specific parts of the code referred to in the item are:

…[L]itigation shall be considered pending when any of the following circumstances exist: … (b) (1) A point has been reached where, …, based on existing facts and circumstances, there is a significant exposure to litigation against the local agency.
…
(3) (A) Facts and circumstances that might result in litigation against the local agency but which the local agency believes are not yet known to a potential plaintiff or plaintiffs, which facts and circumstances need not be disclosed. [My emphasis.]

Well, whatever. (Republicans, of course, will recognize a fine business opportunity.)

OPEN SESSION:

The open session “reconvenes” at 6:00 p.m.

Early in the open meeting agenda, mention is made of a trustee request for a “report on Salaries of College Professors in Orange County.”

That’s gotta be our old friend Tom. He hates educators, y’know. He thinks they're lazy and wicked.

The “discussion item” for the evening will be each campus’s “strategic planning process.”

Among “consent calendar” items (that, therefore, likely will not be discussed by trustees) is a study abroad trip to Salamanca, Spain. No word yet whether Tom plans to pull the plug owing to some new Spanish treachery.

Looks like the board will approve an agreement between Saddleback College and “Lake Forest Beauty College.” Have you seen the people of Lake Forest? Most of ‘em look like they've been “rode hard and put up wet”—to use an expression my friend Marion used last night.

She’s from Texas. I asked her, hopefully, whether there’s any chance her state will secede soon.

She was not amused. She gave me the South Texas stink-eye.

As usual, the board will approve payment to a trustee who missed a meeting. They never discuss these freebies. They just approve ‘em. That's 'cause they're "fiscally responsible" Republicans, every one of 'em. Very staunch.

“General” action items include approval of final budgets for the district and the two student governments. That could get wacky, but it's more likely to get snoozy.


Item 6.2 is approval of the “basic aid project priority list” for 2009-10. It’s a significant agenda item.

ATEP (the Tustin campus) will get $5.5 million, including $2 million for “Negotiations,” $1 million for “development,” and $2.5 million for ATEP’s “operating budget.”

District IT projects will get $5 million.

Saddleback College will get $8 million, including $5 million for ventilation system upgrades, $1.5 million for “pool deck replacement,” and $1.5 million for “roof replacement.”

IVC will get a paltry $650,000—that's 8% of what its sister college gets—including 240K for various publications, 150K for “new signage and monuments,” 150K for parking lot repair, 90K “A200 & B200 secondary effects and library copy center,” and 20K for “landscape replanting.”

Including a few more odds and ends, it all adds up to about $22 million.

Gosh, IVC seems to be on somebody's shit list.

There’s the usual slew of new and improved board policies, including BP-4011.3, “Weapons on Campus.”


It is my understanding the Police Chief Harry Parmer is finally gonna get that M2 Browning machine gun that he loves so much. It’ll be installed in a fine nest atop the Ronald Reagan Room. (Well, no. But it is a cool weapon.)

Item 6.10 is the “elimination of one categorically funded position due to the termination of funding.” Ouch. (Reference is made to an “exhibit A,” but it doesn’t seem to be attached. What gives?)

That’s about it. Not too promising, but you never know.

Did you miss the Chancellor's "opening session"? It is now available here.

Has student writing ability declined over time?

Some of our recent posts have generated considerable commentary, and much of it has been quite good. Great!

For instance, my brief discussion (School of Fish) of Stanley Fish’s latest NYT column inspired scores of remarks.

One of the issues that has arisen is whether students’ writing abilities are worse today than they once were. Many of us who write for or to DtB are under the impression that student writing ability has definitely gone in decline in recent decades. At least one Dissent reader, however, took issue with that perspective and has reminded us that always elders have bemoaned the alleged decline of young people’s abilities and knowledge.

Well, you know me. “Let’s get empirical” is one of my mottos. So what’s the relevant data (re writing ability)? Who's got the info we need?

I suppose an obvious place to start is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is sometimes referred to as "the nation's report card." According to Wikipedia, the NAEP "is a periodic assessment of student progress conducted in the United States by the National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Education."

I know. No doubt there exists controversy about the quality of the NAEP’s data or tests. But I’m going to proceed on the assumption that NAEP’s data and findings are more or less sound. We can return to the issue of quality later, if necessary.

Here’s what those folks have to say:

The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2007:

This report presents the results of the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing assessment. … To measure their writing skills, the assessment engaged students in narrative, informative, and persuasive writing tasks. NAEP presents the writing results as scale scores and achievement-level percentages. … The 2007 national results are compared with results from the 2002 and 1998 assessments. At grades 8 and 12, average writing scores and the percentages of students performing at or above Basic were higher than in both previous assessments. … Compared with 2002, average writing scores for eighth-graders increased in 19 states and the Department of Defense schools, and scores decreased in one state. Compared with 1998, scores increased in 28 states and the Department of Defense Schools, and no states showed a decrease….

The Nation's Report Card: Writing 2007—Executive Summary:

The average writing score [at grade 12, in 2007] was 5 points higher than in 2002 and 3 points higher than in 1998. ¶ The percentage of students performing at or above the Basic level increased from 74 percent in 2002 to 82 percent and was also higher than in 1998. ¶ The percentage of students performing at or above the Proficient level was higher than in 1998 but showed no significant change since 2002.

State (California) snapshot report 2007 (Nation’s report card: writing):

• In 2007, the average scale score for eighth-grade students in California was 148. This was not significantly different from their average score in 2002 (144) and was higher than their average score in 1998 (141).

• California's average score (148) in 2007 was lower than that of the nation's public schools (154).

• Of the 45 states and one other jurisdiction that participated in the 2007 eighth-grade assessment, students' average scale score in California was higher than those in 4 jurisdictions, not significantly different from those in 6 jurisdictions, and lower than those in 35 jurisdictions.

• The percentage of students in California who performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level was 25 percent in 2007. This percentage was not significantly different from that in 2002 (23 percent) and was greater than that in 1998 (20 percent).

• The percentage of students in California who performed at or above the NAEP Basic level was 83 percent in 2007. This percentage was greater than that in 2002 (78 percent) and was greater than that in 1998 (76 percent).

It seems to me that that above information provides an impressive prima facie case that the Teeth-Gnashers (such as yours truly) are mistaken.

Naturally, it may still be true that students in a particular sector of higher ed (e.g., community colleges) are worse. For instance, despite the picture painted above, it may also be true that great middle of high school graduates are worse than they used to be and the well-performing outliers (those who qualify to enroll in the better institutions) are much better than they used to be.

Seems unlikely though. (See part IIof this post.)

Yorba Linda, California: When Past is Prologue, and Pickled (Red Emma)

Dissenters Attend George McGovern Book Event at Nixon Library…’Cuz We Like Irony…and Gore Vidal, Too (as the Egyptian God Ra)

By Red Emma

Photo: OC Weekly

     HARD TO KNOW whether to envy or pity the poor boob who stood up Wednesday night and interrupted Gore Vidal’s introduction of former Senator George McGovern, there to promote his book on Lincoln.

     Red Emma and Rebel Girl and the apple of their eyes sat in the front row of the mock East Room of the White House with sexy Ace Reporter Gal. Careful observers will notice that the Authentic has trouble, always, overcoming the Spectacular. 

     There we sat, in Nixon's Library in Yorba Linda while also sitting in the elegance of D.C., where the genuine struggled, but triumphed. 

     We waited an hour, with my seven year old, clever lad, passing the time reading “Calvin and Hobbes,” his latest passion. Golly, he is a smart boy. Takes after his mother.

      Suddenly a young, handsome man wheeled in an old, handsome man and somebody, I think it was me, stood up and began an ovation which lasted at least 3 minutes. 

     Gore Vidal was recognized immediately by it seemed a majority of the audience beyond this fan, and the others either thought, boy, George McGovern isn’t doin’ too hot these days or maybe just went along for the hurrah. 

     It was exciting. The Grand Man of Letters seemed to enjoy the reception, wanting to stand to acknowledge it. He couldn’t raise himself from the wheelchair, which he’s been in for some years.

     Happily, weirdly, he was soon lifted three feet in the air by a sturdy little ADA-required elevator right there in the pretend finery, Teddy Roosevelt’s portrait on the wall, up to the riser where he sat until McGovern and director Timothy Naftali arrived to more applause. 

     T.R. only looked on, bull-moosely.

     As an aside, I’ll observe that Naftali, a gifted scholar and seemingly really nice guy, bears an uncanny resemblance to, no, not Nixon himself, but to Harry Shearer, humorist, “Saturday Night Live” writer and NPR “Le Show” host and hard-core Nixonophile doing the Tricky One. Weird. But…fun! 

     After his generous remarks, including noting the death of Senator Kennedy and the half-mastery of Old Glory and the need to celebrate the work of the Library (governmental, nonpartisan, based on fact) and also the Nixon Foundation (private rich people, partisan, silly — my words, not his), Naftali explained that he had indeed invited Gore Vidal, Lincoln scholar and McGovern contemporary and remarked (the evening’s theme, sort of) on the lovely irony of these two liberals right here in Nixonland. 

     Vidal accepted more applause and offered his own reliable drollery and wit, which got big laughs and then suggested he would read “some pages” from Bernard Shaw, proceeding to read the (no surprise here) ironic and instructive (if you were listening) prologue to the Fabian Socialist’s play “Caesar and Cleopatra.” 

     So, to review. We were assembled forty years later in a faux East Room in Yorba Linda, at the real and yet also phony library with the liberal anti-war candidate McGovern who was victimized by Nixon and his gang and voted down by the frightened and not at all silent majority of ’72 AND with the essayist-novelist-playwright-candidate Vidal, two legends who survived to reappear together on the day Ted Kennedy died, as the USA killed on and on in Iraq and Afghanistan and a moderate First Black American President struggled with Blue Dogs and gun nuts and “birthers” at town hall meetings on health care “reform” of a system which is basically a gift to the industry.

       I could go on, but you get the idea. (And if not, you never will, pal.) 

     Oh, and did I mention that I was wearing my “I Don’t Care if He’s Dead, I Still Want to Impeach Nixon” t-shirt? And that Ace Reporter Gal wore a vintage button, “Kiss Me…I Voted for McGovern”? 

     In case you haven’t read “Caesar and Cleopatra” lately, I’ll summarize, briefly. Old Ra, wearing his funky Egyptian hawk’s head helmet appears. We are in Memphis. He talks to us, his modern audience, scoldingly. It’s a warning, a cautionary tale based on the political choices of old and new Rome, between the soldier Pompey (“The way of the soldier is the way of death”) and Caesar, whom the gods seemed to dig. Pompey, who represents “Mammon” (and, for our purposes, Northrup Grumman and McDonnell Douglass) makes war on Caesar, who runs away to learn a lesson from the gods, eventually gathers his wisdom and beats Mammon’s army, which runs off to Egypt, which is basically a colony of Rome.

     Afghanistan, Iraq, Bush-Cheney, get it? Hubris, war, empire. 

     Lucius Septimius seems to embrace Pompey in Sphinxville, but instead “welcomed him with one hand and with the other smote off his head, and kept it as it were a pickled cabbage to make a present to Caesar.” Wow, sauerkraut!

     Now, friends, if you were lucky enough to be sitting in the audience at this remarkable occasion on a summer evening in the waning days of our own pickled empire, waiting to hear from the man who should have beaten the war criminal, and were, yes, being read to by one of the greatest thinkers, writers in the history of our republic, wouldn’t you, like me, count yourself a pretty lucky duck, soak it up, be enthralled and feel just a little bit of, okay, hope for us all? 

     Not the boob. He stood up from the tenth row, and interrupted Gore Fucking Vidal! 

     “With all due respect, Mr. Vidal…” he began. Some members of the audience, expressing their own boobery, applauded in seeming consent. 

     Vidal only smiled, as if he had organized the whole thing, as if he had orchestrated not only the moment that we saw, but the moment, now, of the silly man, and what would follow. 

     The sly and wise old dude waited for the crowd to settle back down, and resumed. He just kept reading, as, of course the Big Moral had arrived, Bernard Shaw’s timing and Vidal’s own seeming to anticipate the chucklehead:

“Are ye impatient with me? Do ye crave for a story of an unchaste woman? And what I am about to show you for the good of your souls is how Caesar, seeking Pompey in Egypt, found Cleopatra; and how he received that present of a pickled cabbage that was on the head of Pompey; and what things happened between the old Caesar and the child queen…All this ye shall see; and ye shall marvel, after your ignorant manner, that men twenty centuries ago were already just such as you, and spoke and lived as ye speak and live, no worse and no better, no wiser and no sillier.”

     I kid you not. That’s how it happened, with Vidal completing the passage and the goof revealed as a sort of unknowing actor in the Great Man’s dramaturgy. Vidal is a playwright, after all. 

     He got another big applause at the end. Some people got it, some didn’t, and then McGovern took the podium. 

     He made some good cracks himself, including thanking Vidal and noting that, of all the events he’d read at lately, it was this one, at the Nixon Library, where circumstance and history conspired to get the introducer a standing ovation. I looked over in the direction of Mr. Interrupter, lost in the crowd but gifted at least with an embarrassing story to tell his friends and family, about being both a player and an object lesson. 

     Senator McGovern offered his thoughts on Lincoln, all solid and entertaining and thoughtful, including his observations about Lincoln’s own personal challenges (clinical depression, as the South Dakota senator’s own doomed daughter) and pointed out all that Abe got done while trying to save the union, and admired Lincoln’s writing, too. I think C-SPAN might have got all this for broadcast, which you can view I hope after reading my color commentary. 

     Then, during the Q & A, sexy Ace Reporter Gal sprang up to ask a question about McGovern’s recollections of Ted Kennedy. She got him to tell some pretty darn sweet stories. And afterwards, we three waited while she got in line to get McG’s signature. 

     I watched the crowd assembled around Vidal’s wheelchair, a dozen people wanting to shake his hand. I wondered if Interrupter might apologize, but he had gone off to audition for some other performance as stooge in life’s rich pageant, perhaps to ask Yo-Yo Ma not to play so loud.

 

Sexy Ace Reporter Gal peppers the speaker with sexy, ace questions

     My little boy shook the old peace candidate’s hand while I tried to identify all the names of “benefactors” of the foundation and library (more fun) and tried to make sense of the weird shit for sale in the gift shop, including a t-shirt with Tricky Dick’s face and the question “What Would Nixon Do”? I wondered who bought that, and I wondered about the occasion when they might find themselves looking down at their chest to ask themselves that. 

     Answer: Smear Jerry Voorhees, red-bait Helen Gahagan Douglas, develop a racist “Southern strategy,” bomb a country illegally, start an enemies list, beat up Pat, spy on Dan Ellsberg, get drunk with Kissinger, resign in disgrace, like that. Hmmm.

 

Limber Lou meets B-17 pilot and great guy George McGovern

     We stuck around long enough to take in the fountain outside and enjoy the warm night, congratulating ourselves on being part of a generous civic moment, then went to Mimi’s for dinner. I had fish’n’chips and a cold Newcastle Brown Ale in a tall glass. 

     At the intersection of Yorba Linda Boulevard and Imperial Highway on the way home we read the flashing Cal-Trans-style sign which warned, over and over, “Coyote Alert.” (They have, it seems, pretty alert coyotes out there in the Yorba that’s linda.) And what, friends, is that stretch of Imperial (SR 90) called, which we were helpfully reminded as we departed to our canyon home? 

     The Richard Nixon Parkway.

     From the conclusion of the “Caesar and Cleopatra” prologue:

“And fear not that I shall speak to you again: the rest of the story must ye learn from them that lived it. Farewell; and do not presume to applaud me.”

     Peace out!

The Rands love Randi

I'm not a fan of Ayn Rand (1905–82), but the Ayn Rand people share my admiration for James Randi--the "Amazing Randi."

Check out this tribute to the little fellow made by the AR people.

Wendy's new assignment

About five minutes ago, the IVC community received this email from Vice President of Instruction Craig Justice:

Colleagues:

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Wendy Gabriella, Professor of Anthropology and Academic Senate President, to Instructional Coordinator of Academic Programs, Office of Instruction, for the 2009-2010 academic year. Wendy will continue to co-chair the 2010 Accreditation Self-study Steering Committee. She will coordinate numerous operational projects for the Office of Instruction, including the Basic Skills Initiative grant program, Early College Program (Instructional Planning), some research projects conducted by the Office of Institutional Research, and will assist the Vice President of Instruction with enrollment management, program review, strategic planning, as well as other important projects.

According to the Academic Senate Bylaws, Professor Lisa Davis-Allen, Academic Chair of Visual Arts and Academic Senate Vice President, will become the President of the Academic Senate.

Please join me in extending our enthusiastic support for Wendy and Lisa as they serve in their new assignments.

It is my understanding that Wendy is receiving 100% reassigned time (i.e., reassignment from her regular teaching duties) to serve in this capacity and that she is not teaching any courses this semester.

It is no secret that VPI Justice, who has a reputation for intelligence and hard work, has been encumbered by startlingly numerous responsibilities since he came to IVC two or three years ago. (At IVC, deans, too, seem chronically overburdened.) That problem led to a proposal, last spring, to create a new IVC deanship—a Dean of Academic Programs, Student Learning, and Research. The proposal, however, was rejected by the SOCCCD board, perhaps owing in part to the need for frugality (or, anyway, its appearance) during this period of fiscal stress. (See April board meeting.)

A champion of openness and "process":

Wendy Gabriella has long been a faculty leader, but particularly starting in late 1996, with the emergence of a controversial conservative "Board Majority." (Arguably, the controversial "board majority" era continues to this day, though with somewhat different players.) In 1997, she and I twice sued the district board for its violations of the Open Meetings Law, when, repeatedly, the board met in closed session to make decisions that should have been made openly and with clear notice to the public.

(In those days, many objections to the board's conduct boiled down to the charge that the trustees and chancellor violated or circumvented established and legal "process"—something that nowadays is sometimes expressed in the demand for "transparency." It was during this period that the board violated its own policies and "best practices" (or so said the accrediting agency) in promoting the administrative career of Raghu P. Mathur over seemingly far more qualified candidates, especially in selecting him as chancellor of the district. Mathur continues to be chancellor of the district.)

Wendy also assisted in district students' repeated and successful challenges to the board's restrictions on student protests (initially with regard to administrative and board behavior that jeopardized the colleges' accreditation) and adoption of new "speech and advocacy" policies that violated student speech rights.

Most recently, Wendy led the effort to challenge the district over its disregard of a state statute giving faculty (i.e., the Academic Senates) the right to mutually develop (along with the district) a faculty hiring policy. That effort was successful and, by some accounts, constituted a landmark victory for faculty governance rights in the California community college system.

Epoch-shatteringly delightful!

Recently, I posted about a district almanac page that presents the distribution of grades given to students at our two colleges (during the Spring semester of 2006). The upshot: the faculty of our colleges—and especially Saddleback faculty—give lots more A’s than any other grade. (See What we have here is failure to evaluate.)

I’ve done a little research since then, and, as it turns out, this kind of grade information is fairly readily available, owing to such entities as the website Pick-A-Prof (PAP). According to Wikipedia,

Pick-A-Prof is a pay-to-use online website found at www.pickaprof.com that hosts professor reviews and other academic tools and services for university students and professors. …
…
The site posts grade histories of professors. The grade history graphs display the distribution of grades from A’s to F’s.

This feature displays the semester(s) a professor teaches a particular course and the average GPA each professor gives in that course. While searching for a course, the site shows the professors teaching the course, a 5-star rating system ..., the number of student reviews submitted for each professor and the percentage of students who dropped the class.
…
Many professors say the website portrays their courses unfairly and students will hesitate to take their classes if the grade distribution reported on Pick-A-Prof does not match their definition of earning an “easy A.” ….

I found a year-old article in UC Santa Barbara's Daily Nexus (New Web Site Evaluates Professors) that reports that

Pick-A-Prof won a lawsuit against University of California, Davis in 2006 that opened the gateway for the widespread publication of professors’ grades. The site sued the school claiming that professors’ grades were public record after the university had originally given out the grades but then refused to release them.

I’ve been told (but need to verify) that our own district has handed over grade distribution records per instructor to Pick-A-Prof.

So I visited PAP, and, sure enough, PAP has the data, at least for IVC. (One must register to access PAP's data, but there's no charge.)

I looked up Professor Roy Bauer and found that the fellow gives lots of A’s but many more B’s and his “G.P.A” (i.e., the average grade he gives) is slightly below 2.0 (C) for “Intro to Philosophy” and slightly above 2.0 for “Ethics.”

Bastard!

Naturally, I provided a review of this fine fellow. I gave him five stars (the maximum) and wrote that he is “epoch-shatteringly delightful.”

And it's all true.

For those youngsters who were mystified by my earlier allusion to Cool Hand Luke:



I think I'm beginning to like this Anderson Cooper fella:

Exit Tuffy

Tuffy the Titan gets pink slip from Cal State Fullerton (OC Reg)

Poll: Should O.C. colleges slash liberal arts to save money? (OC Reg)

One on One Interview with George McGovern (OC Reg)

McGovern gave a talk last night at the Nixon Library.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "that which we are, we are"

A lot of poetry invoked today by people who don't read enough. Sigh.


Here's the one that they are all looking for, the final stanza from Tennyson's poem, "Ulysses":

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

(photo by Ted Soqui)

The school of Fish: "sham" writing courses

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce
Special orders, don't upset us
All we ask is that you let us
Serve it your way

The New York Times’ Stanley Fish is at it again. (See What Should Colleges Teach?) Peevitudinal hectoring. You know.

He's worried about writing ability. Even grad students, he carps, can’t write “a clean English sentence.” What’s up with that?

According to Fish, it seems, the problem is that composition classes teach “everything under the sun,” but they don't teach composition.

Years ago, her writes, he secured the lesson plans of 104 composition classes and he found that

instruction in composition was not their focus. Instead, the students spent much of their time discussing novels, movies, TV shows and essays on a variety of hot-button issues — racism, sexism, immigration, globalization.

Yep, that’s what they do. Is that a bad thing? Students have to write about something, don't they?

Fish, being Fish, adopted a bold and unpopular position and then commenced bulldozing: “unless writing courses focus exclusively on writing they are a sham, and I advised administrators to insist that all courses listed as courses in composition teach grammar and rhetoric and nothing else.”

“Nothing else,” eh? Is that even possible? Perhaps, our readers who teach composition can weigh in.

Oddly (or no?), Fish says he now has “support” from a right-wing organization:

Now I have received (indirect) support from a source that makes me slightly uncomfortable, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni …, [f]ounded by Lynne Cheney and Jerry Martin in 1995….

Yep, that Lynne Cheney, the wife of you-know-who and the author of the notorious novel Sisters. (Gosh, it’s got lesbian action. OK, but surely this is surprising coming from Cheney, that right-wing culture warrior.)

He’s only “slightly” uncomfortable?

Fish does criticize the ACTA’s willingness to “monitor academic work from the outside.” The “cure for the politicization of the classroom by some professors is not the counter-politicization urged by ACTA,” he says.

Still, he finds much in ACTA’s recent report (“What Will They Learn?”) to agree with:

With respect to science, composition, foreign language instruction and mathematics, ACTA is simply saying, Don’t slight the core of the discipline.

In essence, Fish adopts the mantra: “teach the subject matter and don’t adulterate it with substitutes.”

Got that, comp instructors?

Students are offered too many choices, too many options, says Fish (and Cheney, et al.). Instead, college instruction should focus on a coherent “core curriculum.” Fish quotes Cheney and Co.:

An “important benefit of a coherent core curriculum is its ability to foster a ‘common conversation’ among students, connecting them more closely with faculty and with each other.”

Yeah, that’s been E.D. Hirsch’s big point. Communitarians sometimes harp on this. Makes sense to me. Up to a point.

From there, Fish does part ways with the restrictive right-wingers:

The nice thing about this benefit is that it can be had no matter what the content of the core curriculum is. It could be the classics of western literature and philosophy. It could be science fiction. It could be globalization. It could be anything so long as every student took it. But whatever it is, please let it include a writing course that teaches writing and not everything under the sun….

OK, comp instructors. What do you think? Are your comp classes a “sham”?

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "everybody passes"

Here's a poem by Tony Hoagland for the first day of classes from your comrade and colleague, Rebel Girl - who is on sabbatical this fall, missing you all. Really.


Memory As a Hearing Aid

Somewhere, someone is asking a question,
and I stand squinting at the classroom
with one hand cupped behind my ear,
trying to figure out where that voice is coming from.

I might be already an old man,
attempting to recall the night
his hearing got misplaced,
front-row-center at a battle of the bands,

where a lot of leather-clad, second-rate musicians,
amped up to dinosaur proportions,
test drove their equipment through our ears.
Each time the drummer threw a tantrum,

the guitarist whirled and sprayed us with machine-gun riffs,
as if they wished that they could knock us
quite literally dead.
We called that fun in 1970,

when we weren’t sure our lives were worth surviving.
I’m here to tell you that they were,
and many of us did, despite ourselves,
though the road from there to here

is paved with dead brain cells,
parents shocked to silence,
and squad cars painting the whole neighborhood
the quaking tint and texture of red jelly.

Friends, we should have postmarks on our foreheads
to show where we have been;
we should have pointed ears, or polka-dotted skin
to show what we were thinking

when we hot-rodded over God’s front lawn,
and Death kept blinking.
But here I stand, an average-looking man
staring at a room

where someone blond in braids
with a beautiful belief in answers
is still asking questions.

Through the silence in my dead ear,
I can almost hear the future whisper
to the past: it says that this is not a test
and everybody passes.

Fluffy ruminations about the Deity

Check out Nathan Schneider’s fluffy ruminations on the “ontological argument” for God’s existence (in yesterday’s New York Times). Included: this caricature of Anselm's famous a priori reasoning:


Thomas later rejected the argument, but then Descartes revived it. Immanuel Kant is often thought to have driven a stake through its abstract heart. It's dead, and yet it isn't. It is a zombie.

What we've got here is a failure to evaluate

This morning, I visited the SOCCCD “almanac,” and I checked out some of the curious info available there.

In particular, I came across a page that presents the distribution of grades in the various divisions and schools of our two colleges. (See Grade Distribution Matrix.)

For some reason, the matrix concerns only Spring ‘06, i.e., three years ago. But that's OK. I figure that, since the population of instructors doesn't change much from year to year (yes, we've done lots of hiring recently, but do the math), it is likely that these distributions are fairly constant. And so I would bet that the '09 distributions are close to these '06 distributions.

The most commonly assigned grade: A

Well, call me Mr. Oblivion, but I was amazed by what I found. “A” is by far the most common grade awarded, followed by “B,” then “C.”

Shouldn't the grade distribution resemble a bell curve? I.e., shouldn't A's be less common than B's, which in turn are less common than C's? Shouldn't C be the most applicable grade for the hoi polloi?


In the matrix, “F” grades are twice as common as “D” grades. That makes sense to me: my guess is that this reflects the large number of students who, upon doing poorly, simply bail, thereby ensuring an F even though, had they remained, they would have had a shot at a D or C.

E.g., Liberal Arts and Humanities:

Let’s look at some of the details, focusing--for no particular reason--on Saddleback's division of Liberal Arts and IVC's comparable School of Humanities and Languages. Why the hell not?

Saddleback College:
Liberal Arts:
6,981 grades given.
Grade distribution in percentages:

A: 34
B: 24 (A&B: 58%)
C: 12
D: 4
F: 7 (D&F: 11%)

Incomplete: 1
Credit: 14
No-credit: 5

Irvine Valley College:
Humanities and Languages:
5,027 grades given.
Grade distribution in percentages:

A: 31
B: 21 (A&B: 52%)
C: 12
D: 4
F: 9 (D&F: 13%)

Incomplete: 0
Credit: 13
No-credit: 9

Gosh, Saddleback instructors sure do hand out lots of A’s! But IVC faculty manage a pretty close 2nd in the "A" giveaway sweepstakes.

"Ah," you say, "nobody's surprised when humanities instructors give away A's. What about the other areas of the colleges?"

Here, then, is the data per college:

Saddleback College:

A: 37
B: 23 (A&B: 60%)
C: 15
D: 5
F: 11 (D&F: 16%)

I: 0
C: 7
NC: 2

Irvine Valley College:

A: 35
B: 19 (A&B: 54%)
C: 13
D: 5
F: 12 (D&F: 17%)

I: 0
C: 10
NC: 6

Click on image to enlarge

When we look at the colleges as a whole, the "A" giveaway phenomenon gets worse, not better.

What we've got here is a failure to evaluate, or something like that. No way do these grades reflect the competence of actual students. Yes, yes, I know: some students do very well. They deserve their A's no matter how you cut it. But the vast majority of our students are, well, distinctly non-excellent. In truth, there should be lots of F's, D's, and C's. A's and B's should be relatively rare.

But, in fact, A's are by far the most common grade. (Note: at many private colleges, virtually all grades are A's and B's. Gradewise, compared to those institutions, community colleges look positively miserly!)

The pattern we are seeing here goes beyond "grade inflation," for instructors issue grades as though the vast "middle" of studentry were excellent and only outliers can be found on the trail down to B, then C, then D.

Preposterous!

Instructors enjoy playing "Santa Claus"?:

Tell me if I'm wrong: What we are seeing here is (a) a disinclination on the part of faculty to designate students' work "mediocre" or "average"--even when it is--and/or (b) an inclination on the part of faculty to designate students' work "excellent"--even when it isn't.

Call it the Santa factor--or the "Santa, and if not Santa, then at least not Mr. Meanie" factor.

It's everywhere!

Naturally, there are differences between areas: compare, say, the life sciences and, say, the social sciences. But these differences are not as dramatic as one might expect. Further, this perverse pattern or something nearly as odd afflicts all academic areas at our colleges.

Obviously, one would want to compare these distributions with those at other colleges. (My impression is that the teacher-as-Santa phenomenon is very common, but it is more pronounced at private colleges. For instance, at Brown University last year, a majority of undergraduate grades were A's,)

I wouldn't be surprised if we were to find pretty much a duplication of the above at other local districts. (If I find the time, I will look up the data.)

Whence giftage?

The reasons why instructors grade as they do are various and complex. It's not just the desire to play Santa (or to not play Satan). As we've noted previously, research shows that today's students expect to receive A's and B's just for showing up.

Really.

Hence, instructors who call a spade a spade pay an unceasing price in student anger and disgruntlement. That can be taxing.

And given the context of routine A giveaways, any instructor who gives A's and B's only to good students and assigns D's and F's to poor students will likely become unpopular.

Driving away students: that's no small thing. At the very least, it's bound to be demoralizing.

And then there's administrative "leadership":

Meanwhile, the community college system tacitly (explicitly?) promotes the idea that students can be fully employed, carry on a significant social life, and take a full load of courses all at the same time. After a while, students assume that doing little-to-no homework and attending half the scheduled classes is normal. Alas, that seems to be what many students are indeed assuming.

I've tried insisting that students do 6 hours of homework per class per week. Forgetaboutit.

And so our system daily promotes student decline and delusions of competence.

See also

Grade Inflation Seen Rising (Inside Higher Ed, 3/12/09)

This article reports the results of a study done by Stuart Rojstaczer, a retired Duke University professor:

Rojstaczer's findings will probably resonate with professors, many of whom regularly bemoan grade inflation and say that students are conditioned to expect good grades just for showing up, and that professors who refuse to go along get punished with harsh course evaluations. Many professors who are off the tenure track or who are pre-tenure report great fear of being punished by students (and then not rehired) if they gain a reputation for tough grading, and studies have found correlations between being an easy grader and earning good ratings at RateMyProfessors.com.…

Grade inflation—and deflation—in higher ed (DtB)

Students fail--and professor loses job (Inside Higher Ed)

Wikipedia on "grade inflation"

Wikipedia on "grades"

UCI Law school's B-day, tomorrow

In this morning’s OC Reg:

After tough birth, UCI School of Law opens Monday

What with UCI’s School of Law opening tomorrow, Gary Robbins reminds us of its “tough birth,” most notably the fubar of Chancellor Michael Drake’s choice of dean:

Chancellor Michael Drake raided Duke University in September 2007 for a high profile dean, constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky, who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. About a week later, Chemerinsky was fired in a flap over his liberal political views. An uproar followed, leading Drake to rehire Chemerinsky, a gregarious scholar who emphasizes the word you when asking people, “Who are you doing today?” [Who?]

“(Drake) received intense pressure over a short period of time from some very influential conservatives that convinced him that I would not succeed as dean and if he went forth with me … he would not succeed in some things he had worked hard to achieve,” says Chemerinsky, 56.

“In light of that, I understood why he did what he did.”

There were some tense moments when the brouhaha occurred. But Chemerinsky says, “I adore (Drake). I would not have accepted this job if I didn’t respect and admire him so much.”

(Last Monday, Drake gave a well-received keynote address for SOCCCD’s fall “opening session.” We at the SOCCCD have wondered if Trustee Tom Fuentes was among the “influential conservatives” who sought to block C’s hire. Fuentes did not attend Drake’s address.)

Robbins notes that the controversy has faded and, since then, things have gone well:

UCI crowed about the applicant pool in April, saying in a news release that the school “has chosen its inaugural class by accepting only 4 percent of its applicants, making it the most selective of any law school in the nation.”

According to Robbins, that claim “was wildly out of context.” Still, the school really has done well:

…[T]here is no disputing that UCI fared well in recruiting founding faculty. Brian Leiter’s influential Law School Reports blog says Irvine’s law faculty ranks among the top 10 nationally in scholarly productivity. The scholars include internationally known psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, an expert on eyewitness testimony.

(Loftus is most famous for her work on memory. She’s a major critic of the notion of “repressed” or “recovered” memories. See the Jane Doe case.)

Chemerinsky’s still making with the big talk. He made a promise:

“I sincerely believe that from the moment that we first get ranked (by U.S. News and World Report) we will be ranked in the top 20. Top 25, of course.”

Meanwhile, in the city of Orange:

Fancy dining in an O.C. college dorm? Look, and drool (Robbins, OC Reg)

Earlier, we told you that Chapman University in Orange had just opened a 200,000 square-foot residence hall that’s distinctive for its 51-foot high climbing wall, the tallest of any at a California college or university. We should also have mentioned that the $46 million dorm also has a dining hall that resembles a chic Vegas-style food court and offers up dorm food that’s far from the gut-bomb goulash you can still find at many schools. The upscale dining hall, in part, is the sort of amenity that schools like Chapman are using to try to attract top students and keep them living on campus. The hall, located in the dorm quad, near the football field, is open to the public. The building will be formally named next week.

House organ grinder

"Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable."

—Finley Peter Dunne

The Lariat is making available (here) some sort of preview of its Fall Orientation Edition, set to hit newstands in a week.

Read “police strive to protect students,” “painless registration process,” and other fluffy stories that inspire the question, “What’s the difference between the Lariat and a college house organ?”

house organ n.

A periodical published by a business organization for its employees or clients. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Dear Lariat kids: we suggest leaving college and district PR to college and district professionals who are paid to make these institutions look good. (They seem pretty good at it.)

Your job? Cut through the fluff. Find out what's really going on, what students should know, if they are to be genuinely informed.

Suggestions for stories:

• Will Don Wagner be too distracted by his run for Assembly to do his job as SOCCCD board president?
• Gosh, what's it mean when one of our trustees (John Williams) is publicly spanked by the OC Grand Jury for gross incompetence, etc. re his county office? That he responds to said spankage with open defiance? That he continues to claim to be among our board's "fiscal conservatives" who believe in small and efficient government?
• Just what is the deal with ATEP? The district has sunk (and continues to sink) huge money into this property, but it remains unclear what the campus will even be!
• Given the (increasing) religious diversity of South County communities, is it appropriate for SOCCCD's Chancellor to publicly show (as re recently did) a video that assumes that everyone is a Christian?
• What are the issues raised by SOCCCD's odd circumstance--that, at a time of state-wide and county-wide draconian budget cuts, it continues to sit atop a huge shitpile of money and it's "fiscally conservative" trustees have no intention of returning any of it to taxpayers?
• Why have there been no negative political consequences for our trustees for their continued support of the despised and incompetent Raghu Mathur and their record of abject folly (historically and recently) re the colleges' accreditation?
• As a recently released survey of students and faculty (at IVC) makes clear, students haven't a CLUE of the issues that have roiled this district for more than a decade. Just why is that? How can that be overcome?
• Given the harsh economic realities of the moment, can our colleges' student governments justify jacking up textbook prices as a source of revenue?

No doubt our readers can come up with further suggestions.

Needy entrepreneurial German academics

This story is from the Associated Press:

Germany: 100 Professors Suspected of Ph.D. Bribes

German prosecutors are investigating about 100 professors across the country on suspicion they took bribes to help students get their doctoral degrees, authorities said Saturday.

The investigation is focused on the Institute for Scientific Consulting, based in Bergisch Gladbach, just east of Cologne, which allegedly acted as the intermediary between students and the professors, said Cologne prosecutor's spokesman Guenther Feld.
…
According to … two publications, students paid between euro4,000 to euro20,000 ($5,700 to $28,500) to the company, which promised to help them get their doctorate degrees through its extensive contacts within university faculties.
…
So far, evidence points to the involvement of about 100 professors across the country spanning ''numerous disciplines,'' Feld was quoted as saying. Most are people teaching classes on a contract basis, rather than full-time professors, he said.

Evidently, it is possible that the students did not know they were paying for bribes.

One professor (a law professor no less) who has been convicted of a crime in connection with this scheme “said he needed the money to renovate his Hamburg mansion.”

Normally, I do not condone this sort of "argument."

Save SAAS @ UCI (Rebel Girl)

UCI's Student Academic Advancement Services is slated for closure at the end of this month, a casualty of the current budget crisis, Among SAAS's programs is the long-running Summer Bridge program. For years, Rebel Girl and Red Emma, along with so many others, taught in that program - and were taught by it.

• • •

In today's OC Register:

We've got our share of Stupid People