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,
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:
Rocky Cellophane
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