Golden Oldie: an aerial tour of the SOCCCD

Music:
   "Dawn is a Feeling," Moody Blues (1967)
   "Chances Are," Bob Marley (1968)
Created on Google Earth by R. Bauer

Justice DeLayed

     Driving home from the college, I tuned into NPR and was informed that Tom DeLay has at long last been convicted of money laundering, etc. I am very pleased.
     Naturally, OC Weekly's Matt Coker is pleased too, and he takes the opportunity to explain that Orange County’s own Dana Rohrabacher has been a big defender of the “Hammer.” Indeed, Rohrabacher was the recipient of some of DeLay’s creepy Jack Abramoff-derived dough:

Remember Dana Rohrabacher's Vehement Defense of His Pal (and Felon) Tom DeLay?

     OC Republicans, man. What’s the deal with those people?

• Steve Cooley concedes race for attorney general to Kamala Harris (LA Times)
• DeLay convicted of money-laundering charges in campaign finance scheme (Washington Post)
• Ward Churchill Loses in Colorado Appeals Court (Chronicle of Higher Education)

No confidence

Vote of No Confidence at Northeastern Illinois (Inside Higher Ed)
     The Faculty Senate at Northeastern Illinois University voted no confidence Tuesday in Sharon Hahs, president of the university, and Lawrence Frank, provost and vice president for academic affairs. The Faculty Senate cited a series of instances involving budget and curricular matters in which it says the views of faculty members were either ignored or not sought….

Report Faults For-Profit Colleges as Providers of 'Subprime Opportunity' (Chronicle of Higher Education)
     Students who enroll in for-profit colleges take on high levels of debt in pursuit of credentials that have little chance of leading to high-paying careers, and those who enroll in four-year-degree programs graduate at lower rates than students at nonprofit colleges, according to a new report from the Education Trust, a Washington-based policy group.
     The authors of the report, "Subprime Opportunity: The Unfulfilled Promise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities," analyzed information from a number of federal studies about student-loan debt, and default rates, as well as data the Education Trust collected about graduation rates. They concluded that, while proprietary institutions are providing higher-education access to underserved students that other colleges are not, they are "paving a path into the subbasement of the American economy" for many of the students they enroll.
. . .
     Mr. Cruz and his co-authors, Mamie Lynch and Jennifer Engle, say the sector needs more government oversight. The title of their report deliberately alludes to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, which they say was a failure of government to correctly regulate a quickly growing sector of the economy that, while expanding "opportunity" to an underserved group, ended up taking advantage of those same people and leaving many of them worse off. The authors see the same thing happening with for-profit education.
     The report finds that, on average, only 22 percent of students who enroll in four-year-degree programs at for-profit colleges graduate within six years, compared with 55 percent and 65 percent at public and private nonprofit colleges, respectively….

REMEMBERING 2003: No, IVC instructors may not discuss the war. Not while Glenn Roquemore is President