"Too Political"

Perennial candidate for IVC's commencement speaker (but one never chosen,) Gustavo Arellano delivered the commencement speech at Long Beach City College yesterday.

During this year's deliberations on the IVC commencement speaker committee, it was said to Rebel Girl that Gustavo, like all of her nominees apparently, is well, a little "too political" to be an appropriate choice as speaker. This came from another faculty member on the committee who later suggested that if Rebel Girl wanted "these kind of people" to come to campus there was money for that and that "these people" could then speak to the denizens of Humanities and Languages where, apparently, they would be appreciated.

Instead the committee forwarded a trio of guys in suits because apparently if you're a guy in a suit, your money transcends your politics. Everyone knows that. Guys in suits don't have politics. Only brown people in guayaberas or hijabs do.

Rebel Girl thinks the implication was that the wider campus community would then be spared the views of "these people."

Uh-huh.

There's a word for that, several words perhaps, but let's just stick to the story at hand. Gustavo Arellano, too scruffy and political, maybe too brown for IVC, but a perfect fit for Long Beach City.

How could LBCC be so wrong?

Here's what Gustavo had to say to their graduating class of 2012:

excerpt:

Gracias for having me here, Vikings.... 

 Society at large laughs at community colleges, but especially the students. We are the forgotten ones, the ones ridiculed for not having the money or grades or supposed drive to immediately enroll in a four-year university out of high school. Once here, we're derided as part-timers, as forever students stuck in a vortex we'll never get out of because it's just not in our station in life to succeed. We are the Land of Nodding Off, of excuses for missed finals, of teens sharing auditoriums with adults that have a foolish notion of going back to school. But that's not the community college student body I know. 

I know people with various academic backgrounds, and it's those of us who went through the gauntlet of community college that tend to take on life better prepared than others. It's community college that has historically accepted anyone regardless your background, a show of social grace much needed in this country. Community college forces people to become scholars, to grow up quickly, and doesn't look kindly on laggers. You can drop out of a four-year school and survive; if you can't cut it in a community college, then you're going to have a hell of a time with life. 

A pervasive Glennitude

Contrary to popular opinion, community college is not easy at all. Yet the community college student rises to the challenge, again and again--look at all of you! I'd love to know your stories, if only to add to the tales I already know of community college success stories. I know the stories of middle-aged mothers who work full time, take care of a family, and take course after course, year after year, to qualify for a professional license--that was my mother. I know the stories of undocumented college students who scraped by with no federal or state financial aid and under the threat of deportation yet excelled and went on to a university--that was my former radio producer Julio Salgado, who continues to proudly call himself a Viking. I know the stories of regular folks, of old, young, white, black, Latino, Asian, native, queer, straight, a mix of some or all of them, who enrolled in community college and emerged a better person. 

And I know the story of a perennial underachiever, someone who couldn't be convinced to give a damn about high school, who was in danger of becoming a statistic like so many of his peers, whose eyes were forever opened to the glories of the studious life by the community college experience: by the generosity of perpetually stressed counselors and teachers who nevertheless made time for clueless students, by peers who had harder paths than him, yet pushed him to bigger and better things. 

That underachiever was me. I have never forgotten what the community college system gave me--and nor should you. ...

To read his speech (which he obviously wrote himself especially for the occasion) in its entirety, click here. 

As you can see, the Mexican's rhetoric was incendiary and inappropriate for the audience and the occasion.   Gustavo certainly exploited the opportunity to push his far-left agenda championing the transformative power of a community college education and the sacrifices of the people who work there. Scandalous.

Yeah.

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(Photo stolen from Gustavo's Facebook page .  It will be returned once Rebel Girl finds a more suitable one.  You know those Mexicans.  Always stealing things. Can't trust them.)

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Gustavo's address begins at about 22:45

That's some leadership, that leadership à la Roquemore

     Some readers have been carping about the IVC Commencement guest speaker. He was entertaining, although some of his jokes were overly familiar—personally, I’m inclined to give ‘im a pass on the Cosby line from “mom”—and some of his sentiments, um, well—have been expressed before.
     I just spoke with Rebel Girl, who served on this year’s Commencement Speaker Committee. (I, too, have served on this committee in recent years.) This year, as in previous years, the committee assembled an initial list of possible speakers and, in the end, chose just three to forward to President Glenn Roquemore. That list of three constituted the committee’s recommendation.

Keith Rhodes

     Our commencement speaker, Mr. Keith Rhodes of “Big Brothers/Big Sisters, OC”, was not among the three names.
     What happened? Likely, none of the three people recommended accepted the invitation or were available for the gig. Let’s hope that was the case, otherwise….
     If that’s what happened, wouldn’t the next step be to notify the committee to come up with further recommendations? I’m told that Rhodes’ name was on the “big” list, but, obviously, it is the committee’s job to make recommendations from that list. So why wasn’t the committee told to do so?
     That would be the process, wouldn’t it?
     Yeah, process. Roquemore and crew’s commitment to process is a bit iffy. Consider the recent “civility statement” snafu. And last week’s curious last-minute call for “input” regarding an administrative reorganization. (That one borrowed a page from the Raghu P. Mathur playbook!) Or last year’s supplantation of the MRC with the Academic Senate’s CAFÉ (an idea that was ultimately aborted, owing in part to massive grumbling).
     (In future, we'll have something to say about serious "process" failures in the distribution of student scholarship this year.)
     At IVC, often, stuff just happens, and people are left wondering how or why. Sometimes, all that’s necessary is a brief answer: here’s why we did that. But we don’t even get that kind of courtesy. Such failures of communication inspire resentment and ugly theories.
     Two years ago, and on a previous occasion, the committee recommended, among others, nationally syndicated columnist Gustavo Arellano. But Gustavo isn’t a businessman or sports guru or seller of fish tacos. And he’s definitely not an OC Republican. So Predictable Glenn nixed the Gustavo-for-commencement possibility.

     Two years ago, Gustavo was passed over in favor of tired old state chancellor Jack Scott, a nice guy, but a guy who showed up late and then offered the usual clichés and bromides. Meanwhile, Gustavo ended up giving the commencement address at UCLA. He was a big hit.
     This year, I’m told, Gustavo, who is now the OC Weekly’s editor, will be doing the commencement address at Long Beach City College (on Wednesday).
     My guess: next year, IVC will have Misty May-Treanor giving the address; she'll instruct everyone on how best to fall on sand. Maybe she'll wear a bikini.
     I noticed that, this year, the commencement ceremony started with a prayer, an invocation.
     You’ll recall that, as a result of a settlement reached after lengthy and costly litigation, the commencement committees of the colleges are supposed to arrive at recommendations about whether to have an invocation—sans pressure from above—and to send these recommendations to the President. (Last year, Prez Burnett down at Saddleback just blew off the committee's recommendation not to have a prayer.)
     Is that what happened at IVC this year? Did the President accept the committee’s recommendation? And, if so, what was the basis of the committee’s decision to have a prayer?
     Inquiring minds wanna know. I mean, after all, there was lengthy litigation and considerable interest in the community about the "prayer" issue!
     But we’re told nothing.
     As usual.
     That’s some leadership, that Roquemore leadership.