"Organizational restructuring"—asking for "input" Thursday of finals week? WTF!

     Today, at 2:52 p.m., denizens of Irvine Valley College received the following email from VPI Craig Justice. It proposes substantial organizational and leadership changes to the college--the day before commencement and the summer faculty diaspora.

TO ALL FACULTY IN THE SCHOOLS OF FINE ARTS, LIBRARY AND LEARNING SERVICES, AND BUSINESS SCIENCES

CC: Members of VPI’s Council, President Roquemore 

Hello everyone, 

Rocky Cellophane

     As you may know, numerous initiatives and new mandates face California’s community colleges at this time, and yet budgets are shrinking while student demand is growing. As IVC itself has grown significantly, some areas of administrative responsibility have grown larger relative to other areas, creating an imbalance of workload for our deans.  Here are four specific challenges that we currently face: 

   1) The student success task force recommendations will require an identified administrative liaison to coordinate instruction with student services and our sister college.
   2) Online education coordination with district IT and Saddleback needs to be enhanced and efforts to improve student readiness for online learning need to be more effective.
   3) The workload of the deans—especially the dean of humanities & languages, social sciences, and library services—needs to be realigned so that the deans’ jobs are roughly comparable.
   4) ATEP class scheduling and ATEP site management needs to be aligned.
   Since we cannot add additional new personnel to address these challenges, the next-best (and only sustainable) solution is to think about some realignments of our existing deans’ assignments that will optimize performance. In plain language, I have been doing a lot of research and thinking about some organizational restructuring that will address the challenges cited above. The reason I am asking for your input is that this proposed restructuring will affect each of you in one way or another. My hope is that the changes will be positive.

     Please meet with me before Commencement tomorrow at 3 p.m. in Conference Room BSTIC 203D to discuss the following proposed reassignments: 

   1. Roger Owens to continue as dean of online education and also dean of library and learning resources and student success initiatives. His new title will be dean of online education, library and learning resources.
   2. David Gatewood to continue as dean of career technical education and also dean of fine arts and business science and technology. David has an M.B.A. and a degree in music.
   3. Kathy Werle to continue as dean of academic programs but become site manager at ATEP and coordinate grants. She currently coordinates class scheduling at ATEP and this new assignment would also enable her to be the site manager as well. 

     In addition to the open meeting tomorrow afternoon, I will also be available next week to meet with interested parties to discuss issues, concerns, and hear your thoughts. Drop in, call, or send me an email with your input. 

     I will post the proposed final plan (following everyone’s input) on the OOI Sharepoint site on Friday, May 25. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. 

     Craig
     S. Craig Justice, Ph.D.
     Vice President for Instruction
     Irvine Valley College

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "the dust of some educational bone"

A poem for the end of the semester, written by a poet who once visited the Irvine Valley College campus, Gary Soto — he is a Fresno native, a former community college student who went on to earn his MFA from UC Irvine and teach at Cal and who, one evening in the mid-90s, held court in our old Humanities Center, a standing room only crowd. One of the children who sat cross-legged at his feet that night appeared this semester in my Writing 1 class, all grown up.

Teaching English from an Old Composition Book

~Gary Soto

My chalk is no longer than a chip of fingernail,

Chip by which I must explain this Monday

Night the verbs “to get;” “to wear,” “to cut.”

I’m not given much, these tired students,

Knuckle-wrapped from work as roofers,

Sour from scrubbing toilets and pedestal sinks.

I’m given this room with five windows,

A coffee machine, a piano with busted strings,

The music of how we feel as the sun falls,

Exhausted from keeping up.

                                       I stand at

The blackboard. The chalk is worn to a hangnail,

Nearly gone, the dust of some educational bone.

By and by I’m Cantiflas, the comic

Busybody in front. I say, “I get the coffee.”

I pick up a coffee cup and sip.

I click my heels and say, “I wear my shoes.”

I bring an invisible fork to my mouth

And say, “I eat the chicken.”

Suddenly the class is alive—

Each one putting on hats and shoes,

Drinking sodas and beers, cutting flowers

And steaks—a pantomime of sumptuous living.

At break I pass out cookies.

Augustine, the Guatemalan, asks in Spanish,

“Teacher, what is ‘tally-ho’?”

I look at the word in the composition book.

I raise my face to the bare bulb for a blind answer.

I stutter, then say, “Es como adelante.”

Augustine smiles, then nudges a friend

In the next desk, now smarter by one word.

After the cookies are eaten,

We move ahead to prepositions—

“Under,” “over,” and “between,”

Useful words when la migra opens the doors

Of their idling vans.

At ten to nine, I’m tired of acting,

And they’re tired of their roles.

When class ends, I clap my hands of chalk dust,

And two students applaud, thinking it’s a new verb.

I tell them adelante,

And they pick up their old books.

They smile and, in return, cry, “Tally-ho.”

As they head for the door.

*