Pre-break peevitude

1. Raw Journalism:

Have you seen the latest Lariat?

Never mind the stories about the Accrediting agency’s spankage of the trustees or the board’s ridiculous American Library Association action.

No, I’m talking about the Lariat’s coverage of a new play, “Wild Party.”

The paper’s front page (see) presents a vaguely lurid scene from the play, emblazoned with the words, “Taking it all off.” The latter phrase is never explained.

It did, however, inspire me to turn to the rest of the story on the back page (see). That page is devoted to more scenes, also lurid, which appear under the heading, “Sex, Drugs and Jazz.”

A brief article that doubles as a review (glowing) appears at the center. There, we learn that “’Wild Party’ leaves the audience panting after two hours of copulation, cocktails and crime.”

Jeez, if that’s what the audience are doing, what on earth is going on in the play?

The play, we’re told, is a “racy display of immorality.”

So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Not sure. As near as I can tell though, the racy display is the reason the writer liked the play.

The play, he says, “was filled with drug use, underage drinking, raw homosexuality, group sex and murder.”

Group sex? Copulation? Raw homosexuality? Good Lord! —That sounds like—dare I say it?—PORNOGRAPHY!


2. IVC’s Rot Tower:

A few days ago, I walked through the A200’s so-called “faculty lounge” and briefly overheard two instructors. They were complaining about President Glenn “Sandbag” Roquemore. “What does he stand for?” asked one instructor. “What is his vision? During all these years, has he ever had anything that anyone would call a vision?! If so, somebody tell me what it is!”


Glenn does have trouble with the “vision thing.” That wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t also have so much trouble with the “everything else” thing.

As I’m sure you know by now, the people who run IVC are knuckleheads. When they’re not throwing sand bombs around campus or overseeing mold growth, they’re telling faculty to box up their stuff and move it into the hallway. And when do they choose to do this? Smack dab in the middle of the semester, that's when.

IVC has exactly one landmark: its clock tower. It ain’t much, I know, but it’s all we’ve got. We used to have an orange grove, but Glenn tore that out a few years ago, whereupon he leased the land to farmers who immediately sprayed it with a dangerous toxin. “Oops,” said Glenn.

Well, the knucklehead(s) allowed the clock tower to rot to the point that they’ve gotta tear it down before it falls down and breaks something. Near as I can tell, that’s gonna happen, and there’s no plan to replace the tower. I’m not gonna even argue about that. If I have to argue and explain, then forgetaboutit.

Today, Rebel Girl told me that the wood beams that hold up the canopy above our “vending machine complex” are also rotten. “They look just like beavers have been chewing on them,” she said. “Go see for yourself!”

So I went out there today and took some pictures. (See.)


Now, this stuff doesn’t have to happen. If you take care of these things, they don’t rot.


3. Improvements; deterioration:

In the past, we’ve monitored the amazingly poor conditions of the CEC temporary building—you know, the one that is rotting and deteriorating. Among its more rotten aspects is its “handicapped” ramp out back. That ramp is so bad that the maintenance people had to set up Sherry-colored cones to keep people from falling into or through the gaping holes.

Well, today, workers finally replaced the rotten wood. Here’s a pic. It’s about time, Glenn!

One of the workers noticed my camera, and so he walked over to me and explained that the fix was temporary. A more permanent fix will come later. He admitted that the ramp was “bad.” “Real bad,” he said.

As I walked back to my office, I noticed that part of CEC’s roof had rotted so badly that it fell to the ground. (See.)


3. A200 Enigmata:

If you walk into the A200 building (from the clock tower) and walk through the hallway, you’ll encounter two drinking fountains.

They’re side by side, about a foot apart.


They’re at about the same height.

I just wanted to point that out.

That’s all.


4. The Presidential Office Enigma:

IVC is a smallish kind of place. As you walk past the flag pole (which, as I recall, had its flag at half mast for a while when Nixon bit the dust), and walk toward the Clock Tower, you’ll see the Presidential Office just to the left.

The area just outside that office (there’s a large window) has been the scene of many a Dissent story over the years. Especially, the “Clock Tower Incident” (see).

Denizens of IVC have grown accustomed to walking past that office and glancing briefly into the Presidential Lair. That’s all you’ve gotta do: one glance, and you see the whole operation in all its inglory.

Well, all of a sudden, about three weeks ago, Glenn started putting up barriers and such. First, he installed some big dopey blind (brought two-thirds of the way up). And then he placed a coupla big dumb plants in front of the window.


What’s it mean? What’s he hiding?

COMING SOON!

• Rebel Girl on IVC’s “Miracle at Lourdes” (a magical fountain).

• Red Emma’s horoscopes! (Somethin’ about “Phoenix.” I never pry.)

In a possible world

The embattled Mr. Fuentes

Plus the PEEVISH Mr. Wagner:


I picked up this photo from the consultants at the last board meeting:

Trustees, Utah, Red Meat

"As with administrators in any organization, high on the list of expectations of chairs is that they will display loyalty, courtesy, and willingness to participate as a member of the leadership team….”

—John "Brownie" Williams (7/11/97)

n a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article (February 24), Piper Fogg describes problems that commonly arise in the working relationship of faculty and trustees. Fogg, of course, is writing about four-year institutions, not community colleges.

For every college trustee who complains that professors are a difficult, whiny lot, there is a professor who thinks trustees are pompous stuffed shirts.

Governing boards are packed with businessmen, faculty members will moan. They are steering institutions down the dreaded path to corporatization.

Trustees will counter that faculty members don't know how good they have it: They teach just a few hours a week, have summers off, and enjoy more benefits than most professionals.

Boards often think faculty members should be supervised by the administration just as any employees would be by their managers. But faculty members generally feel they are part of a collaborative enterprise and are entitled to a say in how it is run.

Pompous stuffed shirts? (“Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women….”)

“Corporatization”? Business? (Remember when Raghu considered setting up “consumer complaint” stations around campus?)

—Hey, that sounds like our kind of squawking!

Whiny faculty? (Remember when Trustee Lorch referred to faculty as “squealing pigs”?)

Teaching “just a few hours”? (36 hrs. a week, according to Trustee Tom.)

Managers and employees? (“Disloyalty will not be tolerated!”)

That sounds familiar, too.

Faculty and trustees who've grown distant and suspicious of each other are often advised to do lots of commingling and working together—and, evidently, that can work, as Fogg illustrates with examples from around the country. On the other hand, “Trustee organizations warn boards against commingling too much with the faculty, lest their respective roles be confused.”

Go left. No. Go right. D’oh!

It’s common, evidently, for boards not to speak with or listen to faculty. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for pesky administrators who fill up the info vacuum:

Some boards may not talk much to professors, but they all get an earful from the president. The AAUP's Mr. Bowen says it is common for trustees to get most of their information from the college's top administrators. That can be problematic, he says, since presidents sometimes vent their frustrations about the faculty. Trustees, in turn, take those comments at face value. "It's too damn easy to demonize faculty," he says.

At the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, faculty members say the board is getting a warped sense of reality by listening only to top administrators. "I think they don't have much of a clue about what goes on in the trenches," says Mary M. Beck, a professor of animal science and president of the Academic Senate.

A “warped sense of reality”? Clueless trustees? That sounds like the SOCCCD all right. Only our top administrator is a notorious schemer and liar to boot.

In another article, “When Trustees Blunder” (Feb. 17), Richard P. Chait asks:

Is inept governance contagious? Has the germ that infected corporate America contaminated colleges and universities, too? For every Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom, we seem to have an academic equivalent.

Egregious boards, writes Chait, tend to make the news ("Board bites college"), but they’re rare, he says. “In reality nearly all board members work diligently and contribute constructively….”

It must be swell dealing with a board like that.

On the other hand, “the manifestations and permutations of dysfunctional [trustee] governance are so plentiful.” Chait goes through a disturbing litany. We don’t get mentioned, but that’s because we’re a community college district. Or maybe we're just off the scale.

Check these articles out. Faculty, if you don’t have an account with the Chronicle, you can access it freely through “NexisLexis” on our school computers. We’ve got anything that’s ever appeared in the CHE at our fingertips.

WHAT’S NEW?

n this week’s “What’s New?”, Bob Park reports on the continuing “Dover Effect,” that is, the spreading legislative crapulosity among creationists and IDers caused by their huge court defeat in Dover.

Writes Bob, “Utah is one of the most conservative states in the nation, but on Monday, legislation favoring intelligent design lost. Alas, I'm sure the Discovery Institute will be able to find a new gimmick.”

Who funds the Discovery Institute? That would be OC’s own Howard Ahmanson. In the early to mid-90s, Ahmanson was the sugar daddy of Tustin's Education Alliance. The EA, of course, is the organization that helped bring us Nancy Padberg and Don Wagner.

I hope everyone has noticed that Nancy is now battling Mr. Wagner with regard to his red meat tossage--i.e., pulling our colleges’ memberships in the American Library Association just to keep his Neanderthal constituency happy.

Plus she's on the case with regard to Trustee Williams' expensive junketing habit.

But Nancy, give us the details!

Laura Bush and the American Library Association

s you know, at the January 31 meeting of the Board of Trustees, Don Wagner led the board in ending our two colleges' memberships in the American Library Association (ALA), owing to the organization's "partisan" nature and its alleged willingness to make pornography available to children. ALA is, he said, a bunch of "liberal busybodies."

Listen to Wagner's original motion:

Subsequent discussion--Milchiker, Lang, Wagner, Fuentes:

At the subsequent (February 27) BOT meeting, however, Trustees Padberg and Jay sought to reconsider the matter. Trustees Lang, Milchiker, Jay, and Padberg rejected as inaccurate Mr. Wagner's characterization of the ALA's position concerning children and pornography.

Even so, Wagner and Fuentes managed to put off the reconsideration until the March 27 BOT meeting. They needed time to prepare, they said.

During the February 27 meeting, Trustee Fuentes expressed his grave concerns regarding "pornography." (See earlier blog.) He seemed to side with Wagner's view that the ALA favors making porn available to kids.

But other trustees suggested that ALA is not the sort of organization that would advocate that.

Trustee Jay said that he had heard that former librarian Laura Bush, the First Lady, is a member of ALA. He had heard, too, that her husband is a member.

After a Google search, I could not confirm that the President is a member of ALA.

It is clear, however, that the First Lady has many ties to that organization.

found an old website for Texas Governor Bush (Governor Bush) that informs us that wife Laura "serves on several boards, including the advisory board of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom...."


That Laura was on an ALA board designed to protect intellectual freedom is ironic, for, as First Lady, though she has remained cozy with ALA, she has also distanced herself from the ALA's opposition to CIPA (the Children's Internet Protection Act), legislation that requires that "filters" be placed on library computers--supposedly thereby preventing access to pornographic sites.

Naturally, the ALA opposes CIPA on familiar free speech/free access grounds (it appears that CIPA filters such sites for all users, not just children). They recognize that minors' access to internet porn is a concern, but they reject CIPA's ham-fisted approach.

For similar reasons, ALA opposes elements of the Patriot Act as well. Mr. Wagner mentioned that during the January meeting.

I found an interview with Jim Lehrer in which the First Lady discusses CIPA and the ALA (Lehrer interviews First Lady):

May 11, 2001:

LAURA BUSH: Well, I think there's actually legislation or a law that has to do with libraries, public libraries or school libraries, making sure that there's a filter on the Internet on computers that children have access to. I see the point of that. I understand that people don't want their children to be exposed to pornography, for instance, that might be on the Internet. I think librarians always have picked materials that are appropriate for their audience. Children's librarians, for instance, pick good children's books that are appropriate for children, and so I can see why the - why some people want there to be Internet filters -- so that children see material that's appropriate for children.

JIM LEHRER: The American Library Association, among others, object to this very strongly -

LAURA BUSH: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: -- on First Amendment grounds. What is your own view?

LAURA BUSH: Well, I think that - I actually think that they should use things that make the Internet appropriate for children on computers that children have access to.

Despite the First Lady's support of CIPA (and her husband's administration's support of the Patriot Act), about a year ago, the ALA, citing her work to promote libraries, honored Laura with a citation, which she unreservedly accepted.

Some ALA members have cried foul and have accused ALA leadership of "sycophancy."

As far as I know, however, the "citation" has not been rescinded.

AUDIO FILES: (1) "ALA" resolution, (2) philosophical opposition to "bonds" for funding construction

Dissent offers two 4-minute audio clips of two issues discussed at Monday's meeting of the district board of trustees:

1. IVC FACULTY RESOLUTION RE THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

Part 1: IVC Academic Senate Prez Wendy reads a strongly-worded resolution
Part 2: Trustee Padberg explains that the matter will be reconsidered
Part 3: a lighthearted moment during presentation of plaque to IVC instructor Kate Clark (who recently served as President of the Academic Senates of California Community Colleges)



2. BOARD DISCUSSION OF CONSULTANTS' MASTER PLAN (COST) REPORT

Part 1: Trustee Fuentes expresses his philosophical opposition to our district's pursuing a bond to make up the estimated $300 million shortfall for construction envisioned for phase 1 of the master plan. He suggests that the colleges should do less building and more teaching at High Schools and other off-campus sites.
Part 2a: Trustee Wagner offers more of the same perspective
Part 2b: Wagner has difficulty understanding the report (I do believe that the consultants' subsequent answers seemed satisfactory to Wagner)
Part 3: Trustee Fuentes sings the praises of Chancellor Mathur, to whom many, he says, owe a debt of gratitude

FUENTES: nobody sets our agenda but us!

t last night's board meeting, the board was scheduled to discuss the Accediting agency's recommendations. As was made clear during the special meeting on the 13th, our two colleges will have to move quickly if they are to produce adequate responses to the agency's demands on time.

Chancellor Mathur seemed to take that advice to heart, and so he was prepared to facilitate the board's discussion of the recommendation last night. So the discussion was agendized:

25. SC/IVC ACCREDITATION TEAM RECOMMENDATIONS
Item for discussion as approved by the board 1/31/06.

But Trustee Tom Fuentes had other ideas. Take a listen.

THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION--AND PORNOGRAPHY:


ater in the evening (item 49), the board's recent action of ending our colleges' memberships in the American Library Association was discussed. Padberg and Jay wanted the matter reconsidered. Clearly, they were prepared to vote in support of institutional membership in the ALA.

Here we find Trustee Fuentes arguing that the discussion of reconsideration of this matter should be put off until the next board meeting. (It seemed clear that he and Wagner needed to prepare.) Fuentes frets about the specter of "pornography" in our libraries. Padberg briefly responds.