THE "BOARD OF SECRECY," by Chunk Wheeler

As you know, the district’s Board of Trustees (BOT) is the poster child, not only of the "eliminate locally elected boards" movement (check out the 1998 report of the Citizens’ Commission on Higher Education), but also of the "stamp out secretive government" movement. Arguably, the "secrecy" story begins in December of 1996, but I’ll skip ahead to the juicier stuff.

Back in April of 1997, during a closed session, the board acted to install Raghu P. Mathur (aka "Mr. Goo") as interim President of IVC, despite its having failed to include the item on the agenda—a clear violation of the Brown Act, the name of California’s anti-secrecy (in government) law.

Faculty and citizens were outraged; during the May Board meeting, we handed the Board a “demand” to “cure and correct.”

Naturally, the Board—or at least its “majority” of Frogue, Williams, Lorch, and Fortune—simply blew us off. Indeed, two months later, the Board violated the law anew: it held a closed meeting in which it reorganized the district, despite not having placed a reorganization, or anything like it, on the agenda. Further, administrative reorganizations are not among the actions that, according to the Brown Act, may be done in closed session.

We warned the BOT again; again, it blew us off.

In the following September, the Board did it yet again, this time in connection with Mathur's "permanent" appointment (and re an address by a visitor in closed session). To make a long story short, we sued the district for its multiple violations of the Brown Act (these suits came to be known as “Bauer I” and “Bauer II”), and all of that culminated in court decisions according to which the BOT was guilty of “persistent and defiant misconduct,” as one judge put it.

Naturally, the Board appealed—hell, they weren’t spending their own money—and, again, they lost.

It is worth noting that the most egregious Brown Act violator on the BOT was JOHN "BROWN BOY" WILLIAMS. In the course of the lawsuits, it came to light that the fellow had tried to broker a deal in order to secure the unopposed appointment of Mathur to the Presidency of IVC. Secretly, Williams approached Dave Lang with a proposition: if he (Lang) and his allies on the board (Hueter and Milchiker) were to not oppose Mathur’s appointment, then the Board Majority would reciprocate by refraining from firing the Board Minority’s “favorite” administrators, namely, Terry Burgess and Pam Deegan.

This is WAY illegal.

Amazingly, Lang did not reject the deal outright! He actually took the dang thing to Burgess and Deegan, but, to their credit, those two would have nothing to do with it, and so the Williams/Lang compromise came to nothing. Mathur was appointed on a 4 to 3 vote, and, soon, Burgess & Deegan went on to greener pastures.

HERE WE GO AGAIN:

It appears that the Board of Secrecy is back, only now it is led by Mr. Bean (Lang). On September 13, the Board scheduled a special closed session of the BOT. The agenda listed one item: an “Employee evaluation of Performance”—an evaluation of the Chancellor. (See graphic below.)

That was odd. As you know, very recently, the chancellor was given a raise (it was in part retroactive) and a new contract. He now pulls down a quarter million dollars a year (if you include the car allowance and benefits), making him the highest paid Chancellor in the system.


Now it is clear that, during this very long meeting, held in the “Catalina Room” of the Laguna Hills Marriott (in Dana Point), other matters were discussed than Mathur’s performance. I have it on good authority that the board also discussed some of the major issues cited by the accrediting agency in its reports of February: the “plague of despair,” the problem of delineating roles and responsibilities, and so on. But, again, none of that was on the agenda. Further, as far as I know, discussions of the kind occasioned by the Accrediting reports are not among the items that, by law, may be discussed in closed session.

I checked the district’s website under the heading “Governing Board.” There, one finds a list that includes

Board Meeting Schedule
Board Meeting Agendas
Archived Board Meeting Highlights
Nothing on the website indicates to Joe Public, or to me, that a special meeting occurred at all. I looked everywhere on the site: nothing.

Stay tuned. --CW [RB]

FOR MORE about the Board and the Brown Act, please go to "The Brown Act and Williams' Hypocrisy" in the BLOG's Archives (June 2000)

MOUSEBERRIES by Rebel Girl

All the PR boilerplate about student recruitment strategies makes a peevish Rebel Girl wonder just what these folks imagine they are recruiting students into, I mean aside from the obviously false surf, the moolah and the hotties.

(Peevish aside: Do I really work at an institute of higher learning which sees fit to insult our students, in particular, our female students, this way? Hotties?)

So, let’s consider, then, the actual physical conditions of our colleges. You don’t have to be a feminist Latina cartoon character-cum union activist to ask what students find when they arrive at IVC after forking over their money to attend a community college located in one of the wealthiest districts in the state, where the board has currently socked away tens of millions of dollars, some of which was used to renovate their boardroom last year in an apparent effort to resemble something like the helm of Star Trek’s Enterprise. That’s the vivid dream reality which board members experience--expensive Captain Kirk swivel chairs, electronic control panels, a gleaming golden dais (“Engage!”) and, if rumors prove true (and mostly they do around here), mighty towers of gourmet smoked meat sandwiches stacked on broad platters on newly varnished furniture arranged behind closed doors (no frozen vending machine burritos for our proud fiscal conservatives).

But what do the students experience?

Let’s examine the scene in just one classroom on a single day last week. I should say that I had begun a few weeks earlier by commenting to students that we were all lucky, very lucky this semester. Though enrollment numbers were low for this literature class, the Powers That Be had allowed us to continue. The classroom itself was newly painted--a first in my 14 years of employment. The previous year, walking into that same room suggested the act of lowering oneself into a grimy bathtub whose sides were marked by generations of dirty bathers attempting to cleanse themselves. (What does go on in these rooms?) Now the room was as sterile, barren and charmless as an operating room, but teaching is, at times, something like surgery and so, with that in mind, I slipped on my mask and gloves, and began the semester’s operation to excise ignorance and superstition, aiming to transplant into my patients a love of critical thinking, literature and the humanities after further congratulating us all on the clean walls, working clock, sturdy podium and reasonable collection of furniture in which to sit.

It all seemed a good omen. And so we began the semester.

Still, this room, despite its blindingly white walls, is no catch. It’s smaller than most classrooms and is stuck on the end of an old building famous for being turned inside out. The upshot is that we’re subject to the moans and groans and odd door slams of people we cannot see, namely, the denizens of the theater department, who inhabit the interior hallway and adjoining rooms. But over the years I have learned to take this in stride and have worked up a number of jokes that I deploy when necessary to acknowledge the interruption and move the class along. I find that teaching literature in the room gives me even more material to work with as I can invoke any number of literary references to account for the unseen opera next door: the shrieks are undoubtedly those of Poe’s unfortunate Fortunado, walled up in the catacombs; the amorous chuckles surely belong to Kate Chopin’s Calixta and Alcee; the slams of the invisible door? Why, of course, Ibsen’s Nora on her way out.

This morning in particular, deep into Anton Chekhov’s “Gooseberries,” I noticed a student looking distracted. I was reading at that moment from Ivan the narrator’s central soliloquy:

Apparently those who are happy can only enjoy themselves because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and but for this silence happiness would be impossible. It is a kind of universal hypnosis. There ought to be a man with a hammer behind the door of every happy man, to remind him by his constant knocks that there are unhappy people, and that as happy as he himself may be, life will sooner or later show him its claws, catastrophe will overtake him--sickness, poverty, loss--and nobody will see it, just as now he neither sees nor hears the misfortunes of others. But there is no man with a hammer, the happy man goes on living and the petty vicissitudes of life touch him lightly like the wind in the aspen tree, and all is well.

At first, I attributed the student’s roving eyes to her indifference to the great but sometimes inaccessible Russian, but then, following her eyes, I saw what she saw: a single mouse, rambling across the flat panels of fluorescent lighting fixtures, through which he (she?) was exquisitely illuminated from furry tail to pink foot pads. It was like watching the Discovery Channel. The eyes of the rest of the students then followed, with the predictable surprise and oohs and ahhs, not of delight but something else which is triggered by vector in the human cerebellum, an autochthonic revulsion which Rebel Girl has herself learned to control, but to which she sometimes succumbs in too-close proximity to administrators and Republicans.

Class stopped while we watched the critter make its confident way out of our illuminated line-of-sight, which took some time as the mouse seemed not in any hurry.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured the students, a couple of whom seemed ready to run, “it’s not heavy enough to dislodge the panel.” This sounded authoritative, even to me. “It won’t fall on you. After all, it’s not a rat. Rats are much heavier.”

I know that I am not at my best when confronted by a mouse, especially in public, but I felt like I had done a reasonable job under the circumstances, notwithstanding my complete unfamiliarity with vector zoology. I didn’t squeal. I didn’t run. I held my ground and my podium and discoursed on the relative weight of mice versus rats. Pretty good, I think.

In due time, we returned to Anton Chekhov, but somehow, the moment was different. Something had been lost when the mouse was found. It may have been a tiny moral, one as uncomfortable yet unavoidable as the rodent in its magnificent silhouette.

As a colleague’s students have recently reminded me, in their thoughtful work with Linda Barry’s fine essay, “The Sanctuary of School,”-- the physical conditions of school facilities, the available or unavailable resources--all these telegraph a message to students about how much or little they are valued, respected, supported.

Through the years, my students and I have worked hard to transcend our humble, dilapidated surroundings, knowing that our goals are greater than the places in which we toil. So we continue to write, discuss, review, argue, analyze, even as the trails of ants crisscross the ceiling, walls, floors, desk tops and yes, the white board on which I make notes. (Fun fact: Did you know that an ant will not cross a fresh marker line? It will wait until the line is fully dry. Lasso a few and see for yourself.) We carry on despite the leaking ceiling, the windows that either won’t open or close, and the air conditioning system that either freezes or roasts us or else is utterly indifferent to its purpose. When we discover broken furniture, we carry it out by ourselves so no one will be hurt--only to discover the broken furniture miraculously returned, as broken as ever. And don’t get me started (at least not right now) on the state of sanitary facilities that the college provides. I am confident that many Orange County homes have more toilets than are provided for the women frequenting A-200 (four!)--this for a building with 10 classrooms (25-45 students in each throughout the day) and at least 25 faculty offices. Additionally, our restroom extends by default its ungenerous accommodation (if you can call it that) for the nearby restroom-less A-400 (theater, several classrooms and offices). You do the math; I’m only an English major who sometimes likes to visit a restroom. My students have told me that in order to avoid the conditions they find, they will not void on campus. Perhaps this may explain student retention issues. Ha ha.

Clearly what is needed is a mouse with a hammer to knock at the doors of the satisfied trustees and administrators, to, as Chekhov advises, remind them of those others who are not-so-satisfied.

But the marketing types are busy creating an illusion of shiny high-technology, of surfers, of manicured lawns and hotties.

And the trustees and administrators would rather believe that illusion (after all, they paid for it) than what my students and I see with our own eyes on a daily basis. As another Russian, Pushkin, once said, “The lie which elates us is dearer than a thousand sober truths.” --RG

STEVE FROGUE COMMITS PHILATELY WITH FORMER OPPONENT! by Big Bill

A coupla weeks ago, I got a letter from your pal and mine, Steve Frogue, the man who resigned his trusteeship in 2000 so that his cronies on the board could hand-pick his replacement. (Click on graphics below.)

They chose TOM FUENTES. D'oh!



A guy like Fuentes would never make it onto the board through the front door. So Steve and his pals snuck him in through a back alley.

I thought you'd like to see the letter. Steve is pretty chatty and friendly. He even sent me some vintage "Boy Scout" stamps (see). He almost makes me feel bad about all those Messerschmitts I used to put him in, via Photoshop.


Back in the mid-90s, students swore up and down that Steve, a High School teacher, denied the Holocaust in class. (Several signed affidavits to that effect.) Steve, an avowed conspiracy nut, actually told the LA Times (11/25/96) that he thought the ADL (a Jewish civil rights organization) killed JFK. And, sadly, Steve really did invite the head reporter of Liberty Lobby (an undeniably anti-Semitic publishing "empire") to his ill-fated "Warren Commission" Forum. Plus, in the course of his trustee duties, Steve really did recommend to audiences that they read the publications of the Institute for Historical Review--a prominent and notorious Holocaust denying organization.

On the other hand, he's nice to his cat Buster. --BB

P.S.:

Oh, what the hell. Let's do it one more time!

I call this, "Steve beats a hasty retreat!" (Click on it to see larger version.)

MONEY AND HOTTIES by Chunk Wheeler

ARE YOU INTO "FAMILY VALUES" LIKE ME? If so, go to the part of the district website that is devoted to “The Chancellor’s Opening Session”:

http://www.socccd.org/chanc/update8-16-05.htm

There, you will discover, among other things, a 60 second radio spot that has been broadcast on KROQ-FM. The spot presents an exchange between an announcer and a surfer dude of the Keanu Reeves variety. Here’s the exchange:

ANNOUNCER: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all the lessons of life can be found in surfing. Let us demonstrate. Let us propose that this surfboard—

SURFER DUDE: Yeah, dude: one God, one fin!

ANNOUNCER: —is the path you carve through life.

SURFER DUDE: Wow, heavy, the path.

ANNOUNCER: And without wax, that path is—…wipe out!...—slippery. What you need is wax—metaphorically speaking—which is to say, college.

SURFER DUDE: Yeah, dude, wax! …um, college.

ANNOUNCER: College is the wax that sticks you to the board that is the path you carve through life and so the waves can be triple overhead, and you will fear no evil.

SURFER DUDE: No fear!

ANNOUNCER: And you can travel through the green room and blast out of the tube with a career and money and hotties and happiness!

SURFER DUDE: college equals a career and happiness! –and some wax, right?

ANNOUNCER: close.

ANNOUNCER: My OC COLLEGE dot com. –Surf on over! Giving away an iPod a week!

I wonder if the writer of this spot knew that he was peppering his surfer skit with allusions, not only to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but to the Declaration of Independence and Psalms?

Surely he is a scholar of the first rank!

I must be a chump. I keep telling students that getting a good education is important because….well, never mind. Now I’m embarrassed. Gosh, it never occurred to me to mention HOTTIES.

The above site also outlines a presentation made on opening day by Tracy Daly, the district’s marketing person. (She seems nice; why does she always seem to be cowering?) According to the site, Tracy gave an update, which concluded with “three things that everyone can do to promote the Colleges.”

They're pretty good. Are you ready?

1. Be positive.
2) Think what you can do.
3) Keep 5 schedules in your car.

Yes, being positive is so important. No doubt she can trace that particular nugget to the Chancellor, a fellow, who, when he was President of IVC, used to distribute a handout about "attitude." It offered the following positive suggestions:

:-) Give yourself one compliment per day.
:-) Have a “Brag Buddy” to share successes with.
:-) Say to yourself at least ten times per day, “I love myself” or “I like myself.”
:-) Make a photo copy of the palm of your hand and give yourself a “pat on the back.”

That last suggestion's so deep, that its depth stretches all the way from the universe to the black hole in space (to praphrase Tony Orlando).

Tracy offers some concrete suggestions for “what you can do,” including “take as many students as possible in your classes.”

Why didn’t I think of that!?

Ms. Daly also helpfully explains about the “5 schedules”: you've got to have some handy, cuz students, she says, can be found “in hair salons, gyms and shopping malls.”

Is that where we’ve been scrapin’ up students all these years? --CW

MR. DEBS OFFERS SOME ARTWORK FROM HIS IMPRESSIVE COLLECTION

Elegant, is he not? This is what you've gotta wear at graduation if'n you get your "doctorate" from Nova Southeastern. It's called RAGHULIA.

MORONS RUN DISTRICT? by Chunk Wheeler

Have you seen the district’s latest promotional campaign? Evidently, our district "marketing" crew hopes to entice students to Saddleback and Irvine Valley Colleges via the distribution of hacky sack balls, the display of incoherent surfer images, and associations with lurid TV shows.

I don’t know what to make of the hacky sack balls (see image), but it is probably worth noting that they are a pair and they come with a pencil, I think.

The district is also giving away a “waterless tattoo” (see below balls). The tattoo sports an image that also adorns the 12X12 flier (see).

The image is of a surfer who is about to “wipe out.” The picture is cracked or something. Random blurry black lines appear.

I don’t get it.

I showed the graphic to Mark down the hall, and he didn’t see a crack. He saw “barbed wire.” He stared down at the image in silence for quite some time. He cocked his head. We heard cackling in the distance.

Well, whether it’s a surfer wrapped in barbed wire or a surfer who's cracked—either way, the image seems to say: “we oppose surfing.”

I don’t get it. What’s wrong with surfing?

The flier mentions “the OC.” Unless I am very much mistaken, that element of the new campaign is a ploy to exploit the cool vibe of the hot Fox teen-age TV show called The OC. I’ve never actually seen The OC, but the ads make it look like a pile of crap. I would bet my right hacky sack that it is a big steaming pile.

Just for laughs, I headed to the show’s website, which, at first, opens up to swirling spudular Burger King ads. When the burgers and fries clear, one finds a bio of the show’s main character “Ryan Atwood.” It says:

“Ryan slowly warmed to Seth’s ‘The Way We Were’ plan and eventually he and Marissa reunited. But then Ryan’s brother, Trey, tried to rape Marissa. When Ryan found out, he tracked down his brother and they fought. Unfortunately, Trey had a gun and the fight went from ugly to deadly. Before Trey could do in his brother, Marissa grabbed the gun and shot him in the back.”

--Attempted rape, shooting people in the back, Whoppers: I can certainly see why the district wants to associate this show with our colleges.

The promotional tattoo sports a website url: myOCcollege.com. I tried the url on my office computer, and my screen immediately froze. I tried it again. It froze again. I had Rebel Girl try it on her computer. Her screen froze too.

Evidently, the district is run by morons.

Back home, on my Mac, I tried the “OC” url again. This time, it worked, and I was brought to a display of the surfer image, only now the image was even less coherent. Inexplicably, the portion of the image that includes the horizon line now appears isolated on top of the screen. Meanwhile, the portion of the image that includes the surfer is scrunched at the bottom right. In between: pitch black.

What does it all mean? I have no idea.

Suddenly, I see: “Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?”

Japanese music starts to play.

Then: “Want the SMARTEST CHOICE for college?” Then another question: “learn from the BEST FACULTY at the LOWEST COST?”

More Japanese music.

Eventually, one enters the main page, whereupon one encounters this message, among others:

Want a million bucks?

Over on the right, there’s a photo of an attractive young lady who is beaming with joy. She is quoted as saying: “I want to change the world and make it a better place for humanity.” (The “million bucks” thing appears under her.)

Also on the right, there’s a profile of students who are identical twins. We learn that: “With the help of science, multiple birth rates have gone up….”

The help?

Elsewhere on the site, we encounter “Stuff to Do.” Among the things listed:

Hang out at the mall.

Catch a movie, rays or some waves.

Take a surfing class.

Get a bite to eat or great coffee.

Somehow, I really like that last one. “Get a bite to eat”: yes, that is indeed enticing. But I’ve got my own marketing and PR ideas, and I’ll share them with you in my next posting. --CW

Update (9/23/05):

Reliable sources tell me that, a few days ago, at "Chancellor's cabinet," it was revealed that the district is looking to hire yet another outside consultant, this time to figure out our enrollment problem. I'm told that some faculty who were present at the meeting expressed concern (consternation? frustration?). Faculty noted that the district has an expensive crew of administrators, and yet the task of running the district is evidently beyond them, and so, once again, we are forced to hire expensive outside help.

Recently, Chancellor Mathur's salary was boosted to a Quarter Million Dollars.

OK, so the board will hire a consultant. If the past is any indication, once they get the consultant's report, they'll throw it in the trash.

Back in the late 90s, an earlier incarnation of the "conservative Board Majority" dithered about our "governance" problems. In March of '97, they hired an expensive outside consultant, the Sorenson group. In June, they got the report they paid for. The Sorenson Report observed that there is a "very low" "level of trust" between groups in the district and that "Each and every stakeholder group has been disempowered." On the basis of such findings, the Sorenson group urged the board to refrain from making dramatic changes--at least until "stakeholder groups" could be brought into the decison process.

So what did the board do? Wthin days of receiving the report, they (illegally, as it turns out) imposed a drastic administrative reorganization on the two colleges.

In the two months prior to the Reorg, then-IVC President Mathur had instructed his VPI to work on an administrative restructuring of precisely the kind that ultimately occurred. The VPI was told to work in secret. (When the VPI took steps to reveal to other governance groups what changes were being planned, he was formally reprimanded.)

While this was going on, in July, Mathur assured IVC faculty (in writing) that no administrative changes would be contemplated until faculty returned in the fall.

Then, all of a sudden, in mid-July, in a closed session, the colleges were radically reorganized. --CW

THE NEW GOO REALLY LIKES T&A by Chunk Wheeler

As all DISSENTers know, SOCCCD faculty recently experienced abject screwage—by DAVE LANG, the current president of the Board of Trustees. For years, IVC faculty have regarded this conservative Milquetoastian bean-counter as a friend and a stalwart in the crucial enterprise of ridding the district of Mr. Goo (aka Raghu P. Mathur).

We worked on Dave's campaigns, we gave the fellow our time and our money. We knew, we thought, that we could always count on old Dave—just as we could always count on Marcia Milchiker and Bill Jay.

By the beginning of last Spring semester, owing to Trustee Nancy Padberg’s evident change of heart re Raghu—it appears that she now despises the fellow—it seemed that we finally had the votes to rid ourselves of His Pestilence. In December, Mathur's contract was not renewed, and he and his Board boosters (Williams, Wagner, & Fuentes) had but a few short months to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

"No way," said the optimists. In our hearts, we rejoiced and commenced anticipating a new day of heavenly Goo-lessness.

But no.

Suddenly, despite the severe Accreditation spankage the colleges received--thanks largely to Raghu--and expensive Mathur-generated litigation against the district, Lang did a complete 180 re Mathur. Our jaws dropped as Dave helped renew Mathur’s contract. They dropped lower still when Mathur was given a Quarter Million Dollar salary, making him the highest paid Chancellor in the known universe.

WHAT HAPPENED? Naturally, some faculty confronted Mr. Bean. During these confrontations, Dave generally explains himself by insisting that he, Dave, is a CHANGER OF MEN. With Dave’s help, Raghu, he says, can somehow be made anew into a decent human being, one who embraces "open dialogue" and all other things warm and fuzzy.

“You must be nuts,” we say, jaws resting firmly upon the floor.

So is Mr. Goo new? Who, if not old Goo, does he DO?

WELL, HERE’S THE THING. Among the issues roiling the SOCCCD is how to define the roles and duties of the governance groups. (That's like saying that New Orleans is wet.) Recently, the Accreditation people recommended that "the board of trustees, district leadership, and college leadership [should] define, publish, adhere to, [&]regularly evaluate...the respective leadership roles and scopes of authority of college and district constituent groups...."

So it's official. Gotta think about roles.

Naturally, the district and the Academic Senates don't see eye to eye on this. What to do? Well, one approach is to call for "technical assistance," a process whereby a "neutral" party enters the picture and helps resolve conflict.

Now, the Academic Senates of our district have long been promoters of "technical assistance" (T&A). Here's how it usually works in our case: some third party comes in on behalf of the district and another third party comes in on behalf of faculty, and then fair and balanced discussion happens.

That's the theory anyway.

In actual practice, the district usually calls in the organization of community college trustees to be their "third party." That club is way slanted in favor of boards. We faculty counter by asking some pro-faculty entity like the State Academic Senate to by our "third party."

The district's Academic Senates have been calling for T&A for years, but the Imperious Goo has always just said "no." As you know, he has always prided himself on his staunch intransigence.

But the New Goo--the "open dialogue" Goo--has surprised everyone. He is now calling for T&A with regard to this Accreditation-fueled "roles" issue!

Could it be that the New Goo is new for true? Whoo!

NOT SO FAST. Not long after Mathur's surprise suggestion, Wendy G, President of the IVC Academic Senate, TOLD RAGHU that we (i.e., the faculty) were thinking of asking the Association of American University Profs to be our "neutral third party" instead of the silly old State Academic Senate.

The AAUP!? Those tireless champions of academic freedom? Raghu didn't like that at all. He sniffed and snorted.

So what does the True New Goo do? Does he shoot straight? Is his blue true?

Nooooo. Without telling the district's two Academic Senates, and in utter disregard of what Wendy told him, he went off and wrote the State Academic Senate, asking that body if it would represent faculty in T&A!

It was a classic Mathurian end run.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the New Goo! --CW

--CHUNK