They need a clue

Glenn's crisis in confidence led to a brief exercise in gravitation

     ANOTHER FINE MESS. I spoke with the Academic Senate President, Kathy S, yesterday. It turns out that President Roquemore has been on fubar patrol again, for he has inserted himself in the faculty hiring process, creating a mess.
     More specifically, he has unilaterally altered faculty hire job descriptions, adding “Ph.D.” or “Ed.D.” as desired qualifications.
     Why is that a problem? Normally, the addition of "doctorate desired" in a job description does no harm and can do some good. But there are some disciplines in which search committees can find themselves overwhelmed by unfortunate applicant pools when a doctorate is listed as a desired qualification (as things are, of course, applicants with doctorates are not excluded as long as they meet the minimum requirements).
     For instance, college writing instructors are largely MFAs (MFA = Master of Fine Arts) and MAs, not Ph.D.s. An English Ph.D. can be focused, not on writing instruction, but scholarship in some particular area—e.g., Romantic Poetry, Elizabethan Literature, etc. There are exceptions, but community college English departments are generally hurting, not for Romantic Lit scholars and the like, but writing instructors. If one adds “Ph.D. desirable” to a position advertisement, one is liable to get many scholars among applicants who are not particularly strong composition instructors. As you can imagine, that can be a problem.
     And what are applicants to a "sign language" instructor job supposed to think when they learn that a doctorate "in sign language" is a desirable qualification? Doctorates are not generally offered in sign language.
     So it's a done deal now. Glenn has f*cked up once again. Why did he make these changes without informing anyone? Why did he fail to run his innovation up the flagpole first? Such are the questions that the Ac. Senate prez told me she would ask the benighted fellow. (She didn't call him that.)
     Another problem, of course, is Glenn’s inclusion (as a desired qualification) of that notoriously dubious degree—the administrator’s degree par excellence—called the Ed.D. Imagine a pool of applicants with some minimal background in English or writing instruction plus one of those curious Ed.D. degrees. I can imagine such a group excelling at “instruction” in anti-writing, anti-thinking, or, say, advanced mind-numbing gobbledygook. I cannot, however, imagine them actually teaching kids to write or think.
     Gosh, thanks, Glenn. We really needed another fubar.

     PRICKLY ADMINISTRATOR. —Speaking of Ed.D.s….Recently, I posted a “profile” of IVC’s semi-new VP of Student Services, Linda Fontanilla—someone who has popped up a lot in recent, um, stories. In my profile, I relied on material readily available online, especially a profile provided by the college itself about 17 months ago. (I found other profiles—from her Cuesta days, etc.—that were composed, it would seem, by Fontanilla herself.)
     She's POed.
     Admittedly, I did do a little digging to discover the year in which Fontanilla graduated from high school. (I found her photo in the 1968 McLane High School Yearbook.) Women do sometimes get touchy about their age, and an identification of Fontanilla’s high school graduation year implied that particular factoid, more or less. But Fontanilla’s age is pretty readily available online, for those who care about such things. (I don’t.) (BtW: she's 39.)
     Or maybe her recent spasm of peevitude was inspired by something else I wrote about her. (See “profile.”)
     So, anyway, imagine my surprise when, on Tuesday, I attended the Scholarship Workgroup, chaired by Fontanilla, and, at the end of the meeting, she goes out of her way to say something like, “Anybody want to ask a personal question, just in case there isn’t enough information about me out there?”
     I'm pretty sure that was meant for me. (When, earlier, she entered the room, she immediately gave me a lingering stink eye. So there you go.)
     Golly. Mighty prickly, if you ask me.

     MONDAY'S BOT MEETING. Do consider attending Monday’s board meeting. (The open session starts at 5:30 p.m.) Make a public comment! Or talk to the trustees during their inevitable break.
     They need a clue, they really do.