Monday, February 21, 2011

Confusing and jargony "criteria" (as transparent as a bowl of sludge)

Delightfully clear
     Yesterday, denizens of Irvine Valley College received an email from campus leadership, announcing an “all-campus meeting to discuss [the] current status of the educational and facilities master plan” (i.e., the plan for, among other things, construction of new buildings on the campus).
     The meeting is scheduled for noon next Monday, in the middle of teaching “prime time” at the college.
     This means that many of us—including me—can’t attend or can only attend part of the meeting.
     The email came with two attachments, including “The 2011 Prioritization Criteria.”
     “These two documents,” we’re told, “are the result of numerous hours of interviews, open meetings and discussions, and significant amounts of data gathering and analysis.” How all this confabulation produced these documents is not explained. My guess: the gkk team relied heavily on intuition. And hallucinogens. And the Lexicon of Jackasses.
     “The goal of this open meeting,” we’re told, “is to enable faculty, staff and students to provide input prior to ‘pouring the concrete.’”
     Below are the “criteria.” Evidently, the author(s) of these criteria have not yet heard that, in written expression at the college level, clarity is a virtue and jargon should be kept to a minimum. An abundance of jargon usually indicates that the author has disguised from himself a failure to have anything to say.
     You try to make sense of this blather:

Click on graphic to enlarge it.
"Hey fellas, here's where they'll put that 'benefit to a student centered culture' and 'pedestrian orientation.'"

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

BvT, didn't ya know since about 10 years ago everything is now based on performance? Better start perform’n dude!

Roy Bauer said...

Yes, 11:20, my objection to opaque and confused verbiage about establishing a new construction wish list naturally opens me to the objection that I do not perform as a teacher!
God you're an idiot. Go back to Beck. Please.

E.B. said...

"Instructional program needed...Response to external factors." --I think you're being unduly harsh to jackasses.

Anonymous said...

The presentation of gkk was not well received at the SC Senate: it seemed after the fact and the sheet you reproduced makes no sense except to indicate college participation.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand how the criteria "works" - how we are supposed to apply it. But then, I don't understand the criteria either. One wonders if the gkk-sters visted the campus at all except for the boardroom. Maybe they didn't have to. I wish the trustees would visit before they approve the final plans.

Anonymous said...

Can we please prioritize TEACHING FACILITIES over promenades, plazas, parking and towers?

Can we stop the expensive and hysterical renovation of temporary buildings that are rotting from the inside out?

Can we build buildings for programs that exist now and are growing which need facilities?

Anonymous said...

You all might be geniuses but I don't understand that other document that accompanied the criteria: a list of the Master Plan project.

Project description?

Plan Legend?

Footnote? (Well I get the footnotes.)

But how does the "project description" relate to the "plan legend"? The items in the column on the right: New Bell? Auxiliary? Joint? Multiple mentions of "Secondary" - it just doesn't make sense. How does it relate the the columns on the left?

Where is the "plan"? Including it would have been helpful.

Anonymous said...

8:47 -

I think "formatting was lost" when the attachment was sent - hence the jumble.

I do agree that sending a copy of the plan might help those of us out of the know to decipher it.

Anonymous said...

Do you know the leasing costs that the school pays each year for these temporary buildings? It is mind boggling.

2nd, the Lariat is a joke, it is not an IVC paper it is a saddlebags paper, totally one sided and we should not allow it on the campus.

Anonymous said...

BvT, 11:20 here,

I meant perform'n on yer guitar!

Anonymous said...

Oh, well, that's very different. --BvT

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...