"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.
8 comments:
Ask Dean O'Connor. He removed full time faculty from the role of advisers years ago. Only PT faculty work with the students from the paper.
A dozen years ago, an adjunct named Kathleen Dorantes did a fine job advising the Lariat journalists. The Lariat was then pretty hard-hitting and actually covered the issues (e.g., the endless misbehavior of the union and trustees). That's when the then-corrupt faculty union pressured its board friends (Frogue, Williams, et al.) to pressure the Saddleback Prez to order the Liberal Arts dean to sack Dorantes and replace her with the odious and appallingly stupid Lee Walker, the cronyist of union cronies (he was, of course, a full-time instructor).
Our Lariat students probably wouldn't ask these questions because our students in general don't seem to understand why any of this would be a problem. Ask your typical student what they think of prayer at college events and they'll likely not see that there is a problem. Actually, ask many faculty and staff the same question, and they also don't get it.
Socialist.
2:54--
Have you see what happens to the students when THIS guy comes around?
http://jasondavisphotography.blogspot.com/2009/08/photdocumentary-sign-guy.html
There are many who pay attention, and who have questions. Mostly, questions go unanswered, and students transfer before they can get involved.
Howard Gensler destroyed the IVC journalism program - with consent of Raghu and Glenn.
And look where Howard Hilton is now. At Saddleback as full time faculty.
Time to look at the amount of money spent on lawyers. They seem to be given carte blanche in finding billable hours. Talk about misuse of public funds.
Great suggestions, Dissent. Instructors might also consider using the actual paper in class, along with the hard copy editions of the NY Times and other papers. Students do not read any papers at all. Sure, the Times is what it is, a liberal corporate status quo old gray lady. However, its reporting today and yesterday in a series on homeowners in the doomed "conservative" national sacrifice zone we call the Inland Empire (Moreno Valley, CA) is excellent, if incomplete. I am hoping that the reporters tie the policies of its all-GOP elected officials to the horror of living there. Unlikely, but exactly the kind of thing instructors might ask students to consider. Just sayin'.
Post a Comment