Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Union President writes to administration: this is "more than a little disturbing"

From: Lewis Long
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 2:52 PM
To: 'Glenn Roquemore'; 'Craig Justice'
Cc: 'Lisa Davis Allen'; Allison Camelot; 'Bill Hewitt (Bill Hewitt)'; Diane Bales (FA); 'Lee Haggerty (Lee Haggerty)'; 'Loma Hopkins; 'Paula Jacobs'
Subject: FW: Proposed Final Draft of ["Civility"] Report

[IVC President] Glenn [Roquemore] and [IVC VP of Instruction] Craig [Justice],

I have been reviewing the forwarded attachments and minutes from the Civility workgroup, which contains a so-called “final draft.” As I was working through the documents, I noticed that there were several faculty members participating in the workgroup. However, I respectfully suggest that this faculty representation has a rather serious omission, which makes the results of the process subject to questions and doubt: none of the faculty representatives were appointed by, or appear to represent, the designated bargaining agent responsible for the faculty’s working conditions, the Faculty Association.

IVC Prez, Glenn Roquemore
Even though this workgroup is a response to an accreditation report, I would suggest that “civility and mutual respect” are essential elements of the overall climate of the campus, and thus part of the working conditions of faculty, and thus within the domain of the Faculty Association. Since the discussion involves “acceptable” and “unacceptable” behavior, and asks what the campus can do when supposed “acts of incivility” do occur, it is obvious that evaluation of the behavior of members of the campus community, including faculty, are under discussion, and some form of remediation for violations is being considered (“training the recidivists” and “progressive discipline” are particularly disturbing phrases among the recommendations!). The following sentence appears among the final recommendations from the report, “Supervisors should call attention to uncivil behaviors of persons they supervise, and when necessary, note such behaviors within with the processes of evaluation or progressive discipline” (emphasis added). If violation of the policies developed by the workgroup results in any sort of reprimand, censure or negative evaluation, or even a stern talking to, for a faculty member, law would require that the Association be involved, and should have been involved from the beginning of the process.

That no one even thought to ask if the Association would be interested in participating is more than a little disturbing. Any time that a question comes up in which the welfare of the faculty is a consideration, the Faculty Association should be on the short list of contacts. However, at the end of the report, this sentence appears among recommendations: “Create a civility statement, obtain approvals from key entities (e.g., academic senate, classified senate), . . ..” Although the list is obviously not meant to be exhaustive, the omission of the Faculty Association as one of the “key” entities is obvious from the process.

Please be aware that the Association will be represented on the Board Policy and Administrative Regulation Committee which considers the recommendation of the working group, and will be presenting some very serious misgivings and reservations regarding the recommendation, which may have been easily avoided had we been included in the discussion from the beginning.

Thank you,
Lewis
Administration: team IVC (Roquemore, Plano, Justice)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Lewis.

Anonymous said...

Yes, thanks for looking out for us, Lewis!

Anonymous said...

Lewis, you are my hero! You go! Thanks very much for having the courage to stand behind the faculty. I'm sending in a check to PAC in the morning. I ask everyone else to do the same so we can do something about the serious issues at IVC.

Anonymous said...

The Academic Senate should stand behind Lewis to insure that civility statement is discussed opening on the senate floor before the senators vote a resounding NO. Notify your senate reps now. While we are voting no, let's include a vote of NO CONFIDENCE!

Anonymous said...

I don't understand why the union wasn't included in this "endeavor." Seems like a no-brainer to me.

No comment on the report itself.

I agree with the others. Much of the behavior alluded to here is covered in other policy but the college and district culture has been one to ignore enforcement of said policies.

Anonymous said...

I am so happy to have someone like Lewis defending the rights of the faculty. He is a leader of integrity.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Lewis. Seems these sociopathic know-it-alls don't really know much afterall.

Anonymous said...

it is unfortunate that the very committee that is supposed be addressing matters of civility, inclusion and healthy communication left important units out of the process. Intentional or not, in the very least it brings this committees' work and process and document into question. thank you Lewis for addressing this on behalf of the faculty

Anonymous said...

That picture looks like Gumby, Martha Stewart & Fred Flinstone, yaba daba do!

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness for Lewis!

Anonymous said...

AND thank goodness for Roy and this blog!

Anonymous said...

hate to disagree with some of the folks here but there must have been a process in place in which administrators, faculty and classified staff were selected by those they represent to serve on this committee. why didn't this issue come up then ?

Anonymous said...

I think the senate (exec council? rep?) put who they wanted on the committee.

The fact that they didn't realize they were overlooking the role the union plays in all this seems unlikely to me.

I don't think it was an oversight.

Anonymous said...

8:52 you are right, they probably should have known and included the unions

The committee had appointed membership? Why would that be required? Are you sure? This IS beginning to look odd

Anonymous said...

The four faculty representatives on the Civility Taskforce were Lisa Davis Allen, Traci Fahimi, Jeff Kaufmann, and Priscilla Ross.

Anonymous said...

Errr, make that three faculty representatives.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me while they've made sure to dot all the "i"s & cross all the "t"s to get this shared governance thing right in order to satisfy the accreds, somehow overlooking both employee associations (by mistake) doesn't seem to hold any water. It was no mistake.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

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