Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Chancellor Mathur makes an announcement

As you know, last night, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur got canned. Near the start of the open session of the January meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, Clerk Marcia Milchiker announced that, in closed session, the board passed (in a 5-2 vote) an agreement according to which Mathur will exist in June and retire a year later.

At about 3:30 this afternoon, Chancellor Mathur spammed the district community with the following letter:
Dear Colleagues:

After a great deal of reflection and discussion with my family, I believe it is the ideal time for me to consider and pursue my next professional challenge.

I am very pleased and proud of our tremendous accomplishments over the past eight years as your chancellor. We balanced the budgets every year while maintaining substantial reserves for rainy days, and investing wisely in expanding our full-time faculty ranks to support existing and new educational programs. Online course offerings have exploded over 200% in the past few years and our overall student enrollment has grown over 25% in the past two years alone. Major construction and renovation initiatives continue to flourish on college campuses in compliance with our education and facilities master planning efforts. Investment in technology has increased services to students and resulted in bringing state and national recognition to our District. All these successes are due to broad-based discussion of ideas from all constituency groups and support of our board of trustees.

I derive great satisfaction in knowing that our colleges, the Advanced Technology and Education Park (ATEP) campus and District Services are positioned to successfully meet the educational challenges of the 21st century.

My last day in the office will be June 30, 2010 and I look forward to working this semester with the board and executive staff to foster a productive transition. I consider it a privilege to have served our District for the past thirty-four years and have treasured every moment of working with each of you in dedicated service to our students.

Thank you.

Raghu

Here's the latest version of an OC Register article concerning Mathur's new status:

College district chancellor resigns
Raghu Mathur, chancellor of the South Orange County Community College District, has sent out a letter to district colleagues announcing his resignation. He was reportedly voted out of his job by district trustees on Monday night.

The vote was first announced on Dissent the Blog, a blog run by Irvine Valley College philosophy professor Roy Bauer. The district oversees Irvine Valley and Saddleback Valley colleges. Bauer reported that the 5-2 decision was made in closed session.

[Here’s exactly what trustee Milchiker reported: “In the closed session, the board approved an agreement with Dr. Mathur persuant to which Dr. Mathur’s service as the district chancellor shall end on June 30th, 2010, and provides for his retirement from the district effective June 30, 2011….” Mathur's staunchest supporters on the board--Tom Fuentes and Dave Lang--were the only members of the board to vote against the "agreement."]

"It's official," he writes. "During tonight's board meeting, Board Clerk Marcia Milchicker read out board actions taken during tonight's closed session. She reported that a decision was made essentially to end Chancellor Raghu Mathur's continued tenure as Chancellor."

Mathur, who took the job as chancellor in 2002, has been criticized for the district's declining enrollment and poor accreditation reports. He was originally hired as Irvine Valley president in a closed-door decision that a judge later found violated the state's open-meeting law.

Mathur survived a May 2004 vote of no confidence by 93.5 percent of the Irvine Valley and Saddleback College faculties, the third no-confidence vote in his district career. In May 1998, 72 percent of the Irvine Valley faculty cast a vote of no confidence in Mathur. And in November 2000, 90 percent of the Irvine faculty voted no confidence.

In 2001, Mathur settled a negligent supervision and breach of contract lawsuit against the community college district for $36,000. The lawsuit came after Mathur lost an earlier suit against a teacher and a former college administrator. That suit charged that the two illegally obtained information from Mathur's personnel file and published the information in a newsletter.
The article ends with Mathur’s letter (which I had forwarded to the reporter).

Comments
Anonymous said...
I don't get it. Did he and his family ASK he board to fire him?
Anonymous said...
He crossed Don Wagner too many times - just ask Steven Choi.
Anonymous said...
I "treasure" all those moment where Raghu stood in front of faculty and told some of the hardest working people in the district that they simply weren't doing enough, that they failed to get involved in the process...(you know who I'm talking about).
He lies and lies and continues to lie. He was forced to "reflect" and "discuss" with his "family" - because the board was finally going to do what they should have done a decade ago. He is just trying to save what is left of his face.
Anonymous said...
Retired? Fired? same result - he's GONE.
Anonymous said...
Go Raghu! (Go away!)
Anonymous said...
Raghu's letter? Painting lipstick on a pig. How typical.
Anonymous said...
"... *exist* in June and retire a year later"? Don't get everyone's hopes up by implying that he might disappear from the universe a year later! -- ;) MAH
Anonymous said...
Love that picture of the girl with the mysterious smile.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't get it. Did he and his family ASK he board to fire him?

Anonymous said...

He crossed Don Wagner too many times - just ask Steven Choi.

Anonymous said...

I "treasure" all those moment where Raghu stood in front of faculty and told some of the hardest working people in the district that they simply weren't doing enough, that they failed to get involved in the process...(you know who I'm talking about).

He lies and lies and continues to lie. He was forced to "reflect" and "discuss" with his "family" - because the board was finally going to do what they should have done a decade ago. He is just trying to save what is left of his face.

Anonymous said...

Retired? Fired? same result - he's GONE.

Anonymous said...

Go Raghu! (Go away!)

Anonymous said...

Raghu's letter? Painting lipstick on a pig. How typical.

Anonymous said...

"... *exist* in June and retire a year later"? Don't get everyone's hopes up by implying that he might disappear from the universe a year later!

;) MAH

Anonymous said...

Love that picture of the girl with the mysterious smile.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...