President Roquemore just emailed the campus community with this curious message:
Colleagues,He goes on to list the 19 members of the Commencement Planning Task Force, the 16 members of the Commencement Speaker Task Force, 3 members of the Student Speaker Task Force, the Speech and Debate Faculty and Students, and the 13 Commencement Support Teams.
I am very proud of the Irvine Valley College 2013 Commencement Ceremony. I have received multiple positive comments from students, faculty, district administration, college administration, classified staff, board members, and the community. I would like to recognize and thank our highly talented teams that made this event successful....
Roquemore fails, however, to mention the multiple negative comments about IVC Commencement and his handling of it.
There was a time when the Commencement Speaker group genuinely sought the input of faculty and other groups. In recent years, Roquemore, as is his habit, put one of his functionaries (DO) in charge of the group, whereupon it commenced discarding hard-won traditions and practices designed to maximize thoughtfulness and to avoid folly and embarrassment. (Remember last year’s cheerfully plagiarizing keynote speaker? Yeah, he was Roquemore’s choice.)
The committee’s recent efforts at identifying potential speakers involved a preposterous process that threw every conceivable kind of proposal—including pipe dreams of inviting Hillary Clinton and Tom Hanks—into a huge, amorphous pile. When we heard that the group was once again straying from reason and past practice, some of us managed to get placed on the committee, but the key meeting was scheduled during teaching prime time (as always) when several of us (including me) were unavailable. (Phony Roquemorian inclusiveness. We've complained about this many times before, but always to no avail.)
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| Uncle Tonoose |
Yeah, Roquemore, the rock guy. The guy who deals with crises by dropping out of airplanes.
Hence the recent speechifyin' Disney characters.
When, not so long ago, the process was more thoughtful, we managed to invite such speakers as writer/editor Marty Smith, UCI’s Sharon V. Salinger, MacArthur Fellowship recipient Rueben Martinez, and novelist Maxine Hong Kingston. Now, we get Disney executives and the other usual suspects.
When, recently, an (untenured) faculty member dared question the wisdom of the new & unproved "amorphous pile" "process," a certain administrator on the committee (KS) brutishly dismissed her concerns, leaving many in attendance horrified.
Just today, I ran across faculty—beyond the many with whom I have already spoken—who expressed their reservations or objections about one element of IVC commencement: prayer, and, in particular, references to Jesus. One instructor, a faculty leader and a non-Christian, noted that the student speaker’s final remarks (about Jesus) “certainly made [her] pretty uncomfortable.”
Another recently offered his concerns to the Academic Senate President:
I just have the perennial concern about the "Jesus" prayers. It just seems really rude to pray at commencement. Has IVC ever had a Rabbi, Imam, Buddhist Monk or Hindu Priest do this religious ritual in the middle of our commencement? Perhaps individual religious clubs could organize their own baccalaureate services on campus to celebrate, in a religious way, their achievement, but to impose this on all of us, including our incredibly diverse student body, year after year, seems the height of cultural insensitivity. We talk a lot about celebrating diversity, but then we "do Jesus" every year at commencement.Many faculty (and others) who object to these elements are theists. Identifying this criticism with atheism is, as always, a fallacy.
Glenn Roquemore only hears who he wants to hear.
Still, some seek ways to make their objections heard. Toward that end, I should point out that, as things now stand, the decision to include prayer is made by the Commencement Planning Committee (or “task force”), a product of recent litigation against the district of which I was a part.
According to the settlement of Westphal v. Wagner, reached in May of 2011, invocations would cease at Chancellor opening sessions and at Scholarship awards ceremonies. Further:
The decision on whether to select a speaker to deliver personal remarks in the form of an invocation, moment of silence, or opening and/or closing message, not to exceed two minutes, at important District and college events [e.g., commencement] shall rest within the sole discretion of the event planners, whether they be students, faculty, administrators, classified employees of the District, or a combination thereof. (From the board’s resolution; see at end of this post)
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| Professor Irwin Corey |
Next year, some of us should make damned sure that we make our way onto the relevant committee, namely, the “Commencement Planning Task Force.” According to Roquemore’s email, that task force presently comprises the following folks: Gillian Ashton, Sandra Malagon, James Bettencourt, Shanna Moorhouse, Will Crawford III, Diane Oaks, Christina Dickinson, Nikki Puliyanda, John Edwards, Patric Taylor, Linda Fontanilla, Candice Yacono, Will Glen, Andrew Yirak, Ruben Guzman, David Young, Helen Locke, Mark Zandonella, and Angela O. Mahaney.
—Naturally, this crew only includes people who directly or indirectly answer to Roquemore.
I'm shocked, shocked!
You'd better know the facts. Here is the "resolution" (brought in accordance with the settlement of "Westphal v. Wagner"), approved by the board at its April 2011 meeting (click on graphics to enlarge them; skim down to the "therefore"):
The RESOLUTION:
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| Presidential Malaise |
• "Too Political" - Disney hacks (and corrupt OC Sheriffs) aren’t political, evidently, but Arellano is
• Plagiarism is a form of theft, Glenn - we got ‘im dead to rights
• That's some leadership, that leadership à la Roquemore - the curious manner in which Commencement Speaker Rhodes was selected
