Today's faculty/Accred team "forum"

     Oct. 19: Went to the “open forum” today—faculty’s opportunity to communicate with the visiting Accreditation team. A couple of weeks ago, the Senate held a meeting of interested faculty to organize today's confab—but virtually nobody showed up. We all figured, therefore, that today’s event would be poorly attended.
     But no. It was well-attended, despite the hour: 4:00 in the afternoon, a really dead period at the college.
     The members of the Accred team introduced themselves. They’re all administrators. What’s up with that?
     Academic Senate President Lisa DA kicked things off, explaining that it was indeed an open forum; there was no agenda. So she turned to the audience: any comments?
     Silence. But soon comments flew. Some faculty seemed determined to paint a rosy picture of both the district and the college, and that was fine, as far as it went. Yep, the faculty are great. Students are happy. Birds are chirpin’.
     But one of the team referred to our college/district’s history of problems with board “micromanagement.” How are things on that score?, she asked.

Mostly, we're just trying to avoid those big feet and claws while the epic battle rages

     Things are much better, said some faculty—especially a few who haven’t a clue what the trustees have been saying or doing. These chirpings persisted a while, but the abject cluelessness of it all was starting to get to me, so some of us (well, I) noted such unchirpy episodes as trustee Nancy Padberg’s messing with Saddleback College’s TV broadcasts—“If that isn’t micromanagement, I don’t know what is,” I said. Yeah, and then there were the recent trustee effort to cease the two faculty senates’ memberships in the State Academic Senate.
     To me, the team seemed surprised by these factoids. But it’s hard to say.
     What about curriculum? There was much carping about Curricunet and other software programs, I guess. Plus, said some, for a long time, things were seriously bogged down, but they sure did move fast when a certain person was removed as Curriculum chair.
     They didn’t have to go into that detail, but they did.
     People took turns noting how wonderful we all are. “We’re good,” they said. Yuk yuk.
     There was a fair amount of discussion about the Chancellor search process. One Senator opined that the hiring policy is south of perfect, which is true enough. Others explained that the search committee was stellar, that it did its job well, that it forwarded three good candidates and that a couple of weeks ago, the board interviewed them and, evidently, they just didn’t like ‘em.
     Two of us expressed our concern that “history might repeat itself”—an allusion to the Mathur hire of eight years ago, when the board blew past the committee’s recommended candidates to reach way down to the bottom of the barrel to scrape up, well, Mathur. We said we didn’t know what the board was up to, of course, but things didn’t look good. And we’ve heard no word from them since the last board meeting.
     (My guess is that they’re trying to bring Gary Poertner back. That rumor has never died.)

A disconnect?

     One of us drew attention to a long-time suspicion that the IVC dean hire was proceeding in a less than above-board fashion. Few things are more demoralizing and corrosive, I suggested, than fixed hires. But, of course, despite the highly curious circumstantial evidence (the job description; timeline) of an attempt to, um, determine the process, there is no proof of hinkyness. And the process is not yet over.
     I drew attention to the curious case of the “Early College” program. It was imposed on faculty, I said, without consultation with the Academic Senate, despite clear expressions of faculty misgivings and concerns on the Senate floor. Early on, stories bubbled up of problems with the program, and they persisted. By early last Fall, owing to continual reports of trouble, the IVC Academic Senate decided to form a committee that organized a survey of faculty participants in EC. Finally, at the end of Spring semester, the results of the survey were revealed, and they were scathing. The committee offered a set of strong recommendations, but the matter was (unavoidably) put off until this Fall.
     Nevertheless, during the summer, IVC administrators attended a board meeting in which they portrayed the “Early College” program as a blazing success.
     During the discussion, we had occasion to characterize the politics of the board and the looming circumstance that, in a couple of weeks, the fate of the district will be determined, for either Mr. Wagner—described by some as a crucial “swing vote”—would be replaced by a faculty-friendly candidate or by a candidate likely to fall into Mr. Fuentes’ orbit. The latter outcome would likely thrust the district and its colleges into the bad old days of severe micromanagement and Neanderthalic anti-faculty policies.
     I opined that the district is at the mercy of the curiously violent struggle between the board’s two dominating members, Wagner and Fuentes, who had a terrible falling out a year ago over Wagner's decision to pursue the firing of Chancellor Mathur.
     The direction of the board, I said, is to an extent determined by this great quarrel and its aftermath. I do believe I used the word “ruthless” in describing these guys and, to an extent, top administrators.
     Well, no doubt I’ve left out a few things, but those were some of the discussions. It seemed to be a good meeting: many spoke and offered their honest opinions.
     My congrats to Lisa DA for a successful meeting!