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| "I've got a question" |
Our senate has a proud history, as you know. For instance, just a few years ago, IVC’s Senate, along with Saddleback’s, took the district to court regarding Mathur & the Board’s obnoxious unilateral changes to the faculty hiring policy, contrary to the plain language of the law.
That we, an Academic Senate, litigated was unprecedented. The process entailed many stages, many ups and downs, and took years. We stuck with it. And we prevailed. Big time. Our rights and the rights of senates throughout the state were restored.
OPENNESS. One of the things I always loved about the old battlin' IVC senate was the open nature of the communication between Senators and the Senate leadership. At Senate meetings, a senator would never get the sense that he or she wasn't being told what was really happening. Everything was laid out in the open for all to see—albeit some of this openness required, um, body language. (Wendy G. deserves much of the credit for this level of openness—and, of course, for leadership re the aforementioned litigation.)
In the last couple of years, however, things have changed at the IVC Academic Senate.
I want to focus on one of those changes.
Nowadays, during our biweekly Rep Council meetings, there are two groups in the room: the senators and the cabinet, a manifestly tight-lipped bunch. It seems pretty clear that the “new” Senate Prez sometimes* tells her cabinet that, once the decision is made (in cabinet), everybody’s got to be behind it 100% and to not undermine it.
At times, this stricture obviously makes some cabinet members uncomfortable. Their eyes communicate loudly: “I’d love to say something now but I just can’t!”
Really? You can’t be open about the pros and cons of whatever-it-is? Frankly, I don’t know why cabinet members put up with this rule, whatever it is. Most of them were around during the glory days, when things were very open, and the senate nevertheless managed to keep administrators’ feet to the fire.
The “new” Academic Senate’s less-than-transparent ways have bred distrust. “It” does things—the recent opening of the CAFÉ (only full-time faculty invited!) is a good example—that seem wrong and foolhardy. One awaits an explanation. There is silence.
We’ve got enough of that coming from college administration, which, nowadays, does as it pleases with impunity and without justification or explanation.
Let's hold their feet to the fire.
(I should mention that I have been a senator—and at times a senate officer—for many years. This semester, however, I am on sabbatical. —RB aka BvT)
Agenda items of note (Meeting in BSTIC 101; 2:00 p.m.):
Item 4 - Senate Approval of Curriculum for 2012-2013 Catalog
Item 5 - Program Reviews 2011-2012
Item 7 - Board Policies and Administrative Regulations
Item 9 - ACCJC Recommendation Response Report
Item 10 - Full Time Tenure-Track Faculty Hiring Priority List Process
Item 12 - IVC and ATEP
Item 13 - SLO Coordinator and Liaison
Item 14 - Faculty Contract
MEANWHILE...
College professor allegedly led motorcycle gang, drug ring (LA Times)
A Cal State San Bernardino professor who allegedly led a chapter of the Devils Diciples motorcycle gang was charged Thursday with heading up a methamphetamine drug ring that involved several other dealers. [Updated at 1 p.m.: The motorcycle gang intentionally misspells "disciples" in its name, as can be seen in the jackets above.] ¶ Stephen Kinzey, a 43-year-old professor of kinesiology, is considered a fugitive and is being aggressively sought by authorities, Sheriff Rod Hoops said at a morning news conference at sheriff’s headquarters in San Bernardino. Nine others involved in the drug ring have been arrested since Friday, he said….
*A comment by a member (or former member) of the cabinet suggested that I needed to be more precise about my meaning here. (So I added this word.) I do not suppose that LDA in general demands cabinet member tight-lippedness. My point is that, evidently, at times, she has asked for that. If so, it is enough to make my point about openness and transparency. That is, in my view, this should never (or nearly never) be asked or demanded of cabinet members.
