Monday, August 15, 2011

Mickadeit's "ode" to Tom Fuentes

     The OC Reg’s Frank Mickadeit posted a tribute to Tom Fuentes today:
     Walked in the newsroom Monday and told my editor, "I'm going to write an extraordinary column today. I mean, even beyond my usual extraordinariness." He raised an eyebrow. I continued: "I'm going to publish my eulogy, ode, whatever you want to call it, to Tom Fuentes before he dies. So he can read it."
     I'd gotten a call last week from his doctor, Ken Williams, saying Tom had taken a bad turn and it would be "maybe only days," before he passes from his long fight with liver cancer. Now was the time to see him. I didn't want to…. (continued)

What are these mangy, disgruntled Old Guardsters yapping about?

     AS YOU KNOW, the proposed faculty contract will be presented and discussed at tomorrow’s Faculty Association luncheon/gabfest. In their August 11 “faculty alert,” a group of disgruntled Old Guardsters (DOGs) objected to two features of the contract. (My apologies to canines everywhere.)
     ① One objection concerns the proposed fate of “75” senior faculty who (they say) are at the highest paid step in their "column." You see, the DOGs noticed these features of the proposed contract:
• Elimination of the lowest two steps of each column on the salary schedule, increasing the base salary;
• Each faculty member not at the highest paid step in her column will receive an additional step increase, in addition to the regular step increase, in the fall of 2010*
FA Prez Long: often
compared to a Boy Scout,
"only less cynical"
     These grizzled curs are sayin’, “Hey, what about us? How come we don’t get no increase?” (For background, see 1997 Times article re SOCCCD salaries.)
     So they're like a dog without a bone. All snarly.
     ② The other flea-bitten objection concerns alleged “discriminatory lab compensation decisions.” I shall assume that the objection refers specifically to the following mangy feature of the proposed contract:
• Load value equivalency to lecture (1 for 1) for Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Geology and Nursing labs.
     The problem for the money-grubbing mongrels, evidently, is that this “upgrade” in the valuation of an instructor’s “lab” hours is visited only upon Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Geology, and Nursing instructors.
     "What about all us other labbers?" howl the DOGs.
     (Gosh, I had no idea so much labbing went on!)
     Below, I present the relevant verbiage of the old (2007) contract and the proposed (2011) contract:

OLD CONTRACT:
NEW CONTRACT:
*I found the three contract features referred to here in FA President Lewis Long's Aug. 1 email to faculty

Labs come in several varieties
A group of employees--mostly biologists--vandalizing property at Irvine Valley College
One particularly notorious School at IVC actually teaches vandalism.

FYI • OMG/WTF

Ray
     Newer faculty: you might want to learn more about Ray Chandos, Michael Channing, Sharon MacMillan, Mike Merrifield,* Sherry Miller-White, and Ken Woodward—a group of faculty who recently sent out an “alert” regarding contract negotiations between the district and the Faculty Association.
     It is important that you understand what these people are capable of. I have already described (and documented) some of their outrageous antics (see). But there’s much more.
Ken
     To learn more about the Old Guard’s defense of Holocaust denying trustee Steven Frogue, see When is an anti-Semite not an anti-Semite?, Chandos' letter to the Times in 1997.
     To learn more about the Old Guard’s efforts to secure Tom Fuentes’ appointment as Frogue’s replacement (in 2000), see Fuentes’ suspicious appointment, an account from Dissent.

*As I recall, Merrifield was not associated with the union Old Guard (c. 1996-2000). The rest of these characters, however, were.

Drugged? Illiterate? They'll love you at Argosy!

Harris seeks millions in for-profit college lawsuit (California Watch)
     The U.S. Department of Justice and attorneys general in four states, including California, filed a complaint last week against for-profit college giant Education Management Corp., which operates 14 campuses in the state under the Argosy University and Art Institute brands.
     The 122-page complaint contends the Pittsburgh-based for-profit college company illegally paid admissions employees based on the number of students they recruited, regardless of the students' qualifications. The Higher Education Act prohibits colleges and universities that participate in the federal financial aid program from paying commissions, bonuses or other incentive payments to recruiters based on how many students they enroll.
     The exact amount of California's claim is still unclear, but state Attorney General Kamala Harris is suing Education Management for all the state financial aid the colleges have received since 2003, mainly in the form of Cal Grants. The state is also seeking $10,000 per false claim.
. . .
     The lawsuit says the company created a "boiler room"-style sales culture in which recruitment of students was the sole focus. A guide for assistant directors of admissions includes a points-based salary chart, described internally as "the matrix." The chart rewards a set number of points for each type of student recruited in one year.
     The company relentlessly monitors each recruiter's enrollment statistics, the complaint states. Admissions personnel who recruited the most students in a year won all-expenses-paid "President's Club" trips to Puerto Vallarta and Cancun in Mexico and Las Vegas.
     Education Management also instructs its sales force to enroll applicants regardless of whether they can write coherently and even if they appear to be under the influence of drugs, the complaint says.…
Argosy? Cool!
     --I do believe that Argosy reps regularly visit Irvine Valley College. I guess they're looking to see if we have any druggies and illiterates.
* * *
     I did some digging. Sure enough, I reported the following in early March, 2009:

[O]n Saturday, members of the Irvine Valley College community received a curious email from Dean Elizabeth Cipres (Counseling and Library Services). She wrote:
Dear Faculty:

I have attached a Lunch and Learn invitation from Argosy University that will be held in our Career & Transfer Center … on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. Also if you are considering a doctorate program, I have attached the recently updated doctoral matrix for your review.
Liz Cipres
     Like Raghu Mathur, Cipres has a gig at Argosy.
     I made a big point of Argosy's unsavoriness back then. I don't think it had any effect. We're still promoting the crap out of these for-profits.

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...