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| Board Prez Nancy P |
All of the trustees ‘cept Bill Jay were present. I’ve seldom seen so much boardulosity outside a board meeting.
Earlier, from 12:30 to 2:00, the same crew (with Roquemore instead of Burnett) held a forum at IVC. Here and there, trustees alluded to that. Sounds like getting the IVC crowd to say something, anything, was like pulling teeth. Teeth got extracted lots easier under Bonzo’s Bigtop.
Natch, the board did a prayer, which turned out to be a moment of silence for veterans and typhoon victims. That was followed by the Pledge. At that point, there were maybe 40 in the audience, though the number later swelled to 60 or so.
Board Prez Nancy P welcomed everyone in her usual minimally friendly manner. When it comes to spending friendliness, the woman is thrifty. She enjoys these forums, she said. She then turned the whole shebang over to the Chancellor, Gary P.
As Gary spoke, Tere or somebody started distributing a hideous pamphlet about “Barriers.”
Surely others in the room were thinking what I was thinking: that, sure, during the Mathur years, the district/colleges tanked, mutual-respectwise. But then the district moved onto another species of tankage: we lurched, hideously, into a permanent death-spiral of mindless committeeization, yielding idiotic lists of “barriers,” “recommendations,” and whatnot. Inanity and self-delusion most foul.
Have you seen the “five barriers to mutual respect, cooperation and collaboration” that these committees came up with? Here they are:
No, I’m not making this up. These are the alleged “barriers” to mutual respect, etc. Only administrators—with their ed degrees and enthusiasm for sheer uselessness—could come up with verbiage that inelegant and muddle-headed.B1: unhealthy competition within and between IVC, Saddleback, and District Services.
B2: lack of utilizing [blecch] data and metrics for decision making [sic]
B3: circumvention and lack of established policies, procedures, and protocols [commas, anyone?]
B4: lack of district-wide perspective and mutual understanding and acceptance of the roles of each college and district services
B5: lack of district policy encouraging civility, respect, and collegial behavior
Attached to the five barriers are 34 “task force recommendations,” which are almost as useless.
KNOBS. As Wittgenstein wrote, “he turned a knob which looked as if it could be used to turn on some part of the machine; but it was a mere ornament, not connected with the mechanism at all.” Yeah, the shiny knob called “five barriers.” The august knobs called committees. Watch 'em turn. Make sure the world watches; watch the world feel relief. Jump off cliff. Repeat.
Burnett chirped that, now that we’ve produced all this, “our district is operating much, much better.” “Everyone agrees,” he said, that “results are being felt.”
He read the five “barriers.” The barriers, we were told, produced five task forces. They in turn produced recommendations to alleviate the barriers. Now, it seems, we need to create committees to consider whether these recommendations will work. So we’ll next develop a survey to get feedback on the barriers. After that, we’ll consider how we’re going to implement, um, whatever. (Then we’ll go to a cliff somewhere and dutifully jump.)
Then, said Burnett, “we’ll get back to the college community.”
He smiled.
COLLABORATIN'. Burnett, feelin’ pretty dang good, passed off to Poertner, who commenced yammering about “collaboration.” One can get lots more accomplished, he said, if one collaborates. With others.
One example is the VETS program (I think that was it). Next was a Dept. of Labor grant. Blah, blah, blah.
Collaboration, man.
We scored $2.7 million thanks to all that collaboratin’. These examples of collaboration, said Gary, “can be repeated all over the district.”
Where’s that cliff?
We were one of the first multi-campus districts, said Gary, to get tagged by the Accreds for a lack of d-w planning. So, said Gary, we acted quickly. We identified four goals. Then came the objectives.
Gary went through the four goals. My eyelids grew heavy. Time seemed to stand still. Nevertheless, I had the presence of mind to give Dave Lang the stinkeye.
Gary noted that we’re feeling pressure to get students through the system tout de suite and to amp up technical instruction. It isn’t natural for us to do things quickly, said Gary. We’re more glacial, said Gary (maybe he used another word).
Then Gary launched into something about “business process analysis,” which seemed to be about increasing efficiency, overcoming duplication, culling administrators (well, no), etc.
Nancy then noted that there were a fair amount of students in the room. She espied them as though she were birding dodos. I think she speculated that they wandered in by mistake.
Awkward.
The trustees then took turns saying something—anything, evidently.
Lang started by saying, uselessly, that he looked forward to questions from the audience. This is the best place to ask questions, he said, since board meeting follow a “rigid agenda.”
Jim Wright was next. He thanked everyone for coming. His voice started trailing off like it always does, like he was an aural version of the Incredible Shrinking Man. By the time he was finished, I think his mouth no longer produced any sounds whatsoever; crickets everywhere gradually commenced their chirpy song.
Prendergast made some kind of joke, but I didn’t hear it.
Jemal declared that he wanted to hear from “you” (the audience), that his desire was genuine. He challenged the audience to come up with a question, “having just come from our sister college”—where, evidently, the audience simply gaped, silently, like fish. It seemed to horrify him to recall that moment. He sought to avoid more such horror at any cost.
Milchiker yammered chirpily like she does. Everywhere she goes, she said, “I hear wonderful things about the college.” There’s lots of “respect and love out in the community for Saddleback College.” We need to keep hiring the “best and the brightest.” Leave ‘em alone; they know what to do.
That seemed to be the message.
Bob Cosgrove got up to say that he agreed that “cooperation and mutual respect” are better, I guess. “It is a lot duller though.” Laughter.
He mentioned the nasty business up in San Francisco where the ACCJC (Accreds) are about to pull Frisco’s ticket. There are three lawsuits pending against the ACCJC, he said. Evidently, some (ACCJC) Commissioners are asking for “letters of recommendation.” Bob urged our board not to provide any: “don’t get into this fray.”
The inevitable Lee Haggerty had a question. It was about parking. I guess these Saddlebackians have it bad, parkingwise. There seemed to be more interest in parking issues than in anything else. Burnett offered soothing yammerings about the future of parking. In the long run, he said, we’ll have to turn to a parking structure.
Said Padberg: what about a tram?
“Doesn’t work,” said someone, grumpily. Others agreed. There was snortage.
Somebody named Babs Cox asked another question about parking. Whatever.
Dave Anderson, the Emeritus guy, told some goofy yarn about his two daughters and how the bright one decided to go to Saddleback (not IVC?), where she got a great education. Meanwhile, the dullard of the two went to some pricey private college and just did OK. Laughter. (Well, titterage.)
Nancy asked if there were “any other hands?” She was referring to people with questions, I suppose. I think she was hopin’ to book.
A student journalist (with the Lariat) asked about the fate of the old Math and Science building as the new Science Building is constructed.
Haggerty asked about the district’s fiscal solvency. Boy are we ever solvent, said Nancy.
Deb Fitzsimons explained that we’re “blessed” owing to “basic aid” (local property taxes), which allows us to spend like drunken sailors--on buildings and whatnot. She noted our unusually large reserve (7.5%, not the required measly 3-5%).
Oddly, Cosgrove asked if anything interesting came up during the IVC leg of the forum.
Prendergast had something: he seemed to suggest that the board had to “prime” the moribund IVC audience to get them to say anything. They were like carps, evidently.
Prendergast mentioned that recent OC Reg article about Coast CC and those wacky four-year online degrees they’re gearin’ up for. What a stupid idea.
Milchiker said something about how the college gets the same amount of money per student despite the higher price tag for some kinds of instruction, such as CTE. Nancy got all peevish: why doncha explain what CTE is, she said. So Marcia did. ("Career Technical Education," I think. Used to be called "Voc Ed.") Then she launched into yet another account of her adventures as an instructor at Santa Ana College back in the days of yore. I scanned Nancy’s face for eye-rollage, but she did a fine job keepin’ her peepers in place.
That’s about when a series of big, fuzzy softballs were launched toward the board by that goofy SC crowd. Somebody got up to yammer about how she “loves the new progress.” (My notes just say: “rosy horseshit.")
Brandye D got up, all chirpy, to ask the trustees to list their committee assignments.
Good Lord! Another big fuzzy softball! Why?!
They really loved listing their labors. One at a time.
I was dying.
Then somebody got up to ask: hey, maybe you should explain just what it is that trustees do!
Really. I couldn't frickin' believe it.
And so they took turns up at bat. Good grief.
Then Martin W, the real estate guy, got up to say something like this: hey, doesn’t Saddleback teach way more CTE than IVC? And isn’t CTE instruction really expensive? So is this (injustice!) taken into account by DRAC or by district budgeting?
There were movements in the audience: hey yeah! What about that!
I considered walking over to punch Martin in the face. (Not really. I guess we talk lots of trash, too, up at IVC.)
Poertner sensed that he needed to soothe the savage breast, so he warbled about how there are “many factors” that enter into budgeting and whatnot, and, besides, given the new pressures, IVC is really “stepping up” its CTE instruction.
Then Deb Fitz launched into something about DRAC. I dunno what.
Then a student, referring to the board as “you guys,” asked if it’s really true that they’re gonna get rid of the [golf?] driving range?
Nancy barked: there’s no truth to that.
Then somebody asked about ATEP. By then, it was getting pretty close to 4:30, and I got the heck outta there.
