Sunday, April 15, 2012

Evidently, the IVC Academic Senate cabinet won't agendize whether IVC should support Saddleback faculty's "shared governance" resolution

Cabinet "determination": Senators will
not consider the question of supporting
the SC Ac. Senate resolution
     Back on March 5, a colleague at Saddleback College emailed me about a resolution recently approved by the Saddleback College Academic Senate (i.e., the faculty). Here it is:
   Whereas, Commencement is an important event for all members of the Saddleback College community…, and
   Whereas, the College Commencement Committee includes representatives from all of these groups to ensure that their voices are heard in planning this ceremony, and
   Whereas, the principle of shared governance is that all constituent groups should have a real role in the decision-making process, and
   Whereas, President Burnett’s decision in 2011 to override the Commencement Committee’s unanimous vote to offer a moment of silence instead of an invocation in that year’s ceremony is inconsistent with the principle of shared governance, and
   Whereas, such top-down decision making has repeatedly caused problems for our College in the Accreditation process,
   Therefore, be it resolved, that
   The Saddleback College Academic Senate affirms that the College’s Commencement Committee is the best group to decide whether or not to include an invocation at the annual Commencement ceremony … [and] The Commencement Committee as a whole should be explicitly charged with making this decision and their decision should be final, …And, … This should go into effect beginning with the 2012-2013 academic year, as an invitation for a speaker to deliver an invocation has already been issued for the 2012 Commencement ceremony.
     The colleague wrote:
… I’m not 100% sure how the decision to invite a Rabbi for the invocation this year was made….
…Do you think there’s any chance that IVC’s Senate would consider a resolution backing up ours?
…Be aware that we tried to keep the focus on shared governance and not on the prayer issue itself….
     I wrote back: “I read the resolution and it looks great. Yes, I think we can get the IVC senate on board, as long as we don't just give it to the Senate President….”
     Normally, our senate meets every two weeks, and the cabinet meets on the off weeks to put together the agenda for the next meeting. So, on Thursday of the 8th, hours before what I assumed was the cabinet’s biweekly “agenda” meeting, I wrote the Senate cabinet:
     I request that we agendize the following item for the upcoming meeting of the IVC Academic Senate Rep Council: whether our senate should support SC Academic Senate's recent resolution re President Burnett's action to ignore or overturn the SC Commencement Committee decision re a prayer at commencement.
. . .
     Friends at Saddleback College tell me that, last week, the SC Academic Senate passed a resolution in response to President Burnett's action of overriding the decision by the Commencement Committee regarding whether there would be a prayer or invocation at SC Commencement. Here is that resolution….[see above]
. . .
     I'm told that President Burnett has already arranged to have a rabbi give the prayer.

—Senator Roy Bauer, Humanities and Languages
     A few minutes later, IVC Academic Senate President Lisa Davis Allen wrote me: “Roy, I will bring it to the cabinet. The agenda for the next meeting has already been set due to spring break. —L” (Note: Spring break was the week of March 11.)
     I also heard from another cabinet member, who wrote me to say “I support this” for reasons echoing the Saddleback senate's reasoning.
     I responded: “LDA has already responded that this [item] can't be agendized for the next meeting because the agenda has already been done—something about the Spring Break.”
     The cabinet member then responded, indicating surprise that it had already been decided that my item was not to be included on the agenda. They said they would themselves request the item formally.
     I didn’t hear back.
     The item didn’t make it to the agenda.
     And so, a week after the March 22 senate meeting, I requested yet again that the matter be agendized (for I was never told whether my item had been discussed by the cabinet; I assumed it hadn't been). LDA responded by writing: “Cabinet will consider it today when we create the 4-5-12 agenda.”
     But then, again, I was never informed what the cabinet had decided, if anything.
     So, on April 12, prior to the senate’s cabinet meeting, I once again wrote the senate cabinet, “asking that this matter [i.e., whether we should support the Saddleback College Ac. Senate resolution] be agendized for the next meeting.”
     I soon got a response:
Roy,
     Your agenda item request concerning Saddleback Commencement plans has been considered by the IVC Academic Senate cabinet. The item will not be placed on the Senate Rep Council agenda because the cabinet has determined that it is not an IVC issue or a district issue, but rather a Saddleback College internal issue addressing their commencement plans.
     —Lisa
     When this "determination" occurred—I have no idea. No one has informed me.
     And since when is an administrator's act of blowing off shared governance at Saddleback College not an IVC issue? If Saddleback’s Burnett can do it, then IVC’s Roquemore can do it too.
     Good Lord do we ever need new leadership of the IVC Academic Senate.

Young Americans filled with glee

Young Americans filled with glee
     Remember when the “Young Americans” people showed up at SOCCCD BOT meetings, aiming to house all those wholesome young people of theirs at our ATEP campus? We said "no." (See Will ATEP be home to the "Young Americans"?)
     They eventually built a “college” in beauteous Corona. (Several present and former SOCCCD/college personnel have joined the YA's advisory board.)
     The organization just turned 50 and the OC Register (natch) is all over it:

Young Americans turns 50
     The group that began in 1962 is considered the granddaddy of show choirs and has trained thousands of young performers.
     Milton C. Anderson, a one-time high school music teacher in Los Angeles and TV music director, saw a disconnect between the emerging images of young Americans in the 1960s and the kids who had been in his classrooms.
     Those kids weren't rabble rousers and hooligans. How could Anderson show to the world what he thought was the true nature of American youth?....
Anderson makes his pitch, early 2007

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...