Share a cringe with me, College Boy

WELL, MY RECENT POST concerning the college’s alleged (by me) failure to note the accomplishments of a certain Rebellious instructor and writer has produced a fair number of sour comments, both here and in the hallways.

Evidently, not everyone is happy with college leadership, at least with regard to its routine announcements and the values thereby evinced. Is that really surprising?

Here's a news flash for IVC leadership: a college ought to embrace the values of higher education and to encourage and celebrate “the life of the mind”—and by this I do not mean the life of the mind of a ten-year-old who “invents” Swiss Army sneakers and (therefore) takes a stretch-limo to Burbank to meet Jay Leno and his Jaywalkers.

And so the consistently successful endeavors of, say, a writer, editor, blogger, and writing conference organizer among the faculty really should be noted now and again. Surely, at a college, even one so near Del Taco world headquarters, academic  successes among faculty (and students) should be of particular importance.

—And not only that, but, internally at least, such accomplishments should receive more attention than, say, “Broadway Stars” fundraisers, “astounding” kiddie competitions, and balloonish, junk-foodular PR extravaganzas. It’s a matter of proportions. We’re a college. We educate people. We’re not about greasy carnival come ons or piety-from-Hell ceremonies, important though such things may be. Sure, we'll pull on the clown pants and bake them brownies now and again, but mostly we're about getting these kids educated, which, for many of us, is a bookish thing in a world that has turned its back on books.

Dude, we're shovelin' shit against the tide! Help us out here!

Speaking for myself, I do wish that our college leadership, here at IVC, would make more of an effort to embrace and value academics and academia. I think that would be nice. Quaint even. Definitely refreshing.

It wouldn't hurt if, bullshit-wise, college leaders would go off-script once in a while and actually connect with us. You know, they could remove their plastic smile and sneak up behind us while we gape anew at the throngs of kids hopping idiotically upon those blue and yellow bounce-house monstrosities and queuing up for Double Grilled Factory-Farm Burgers. With all that thumpin' an' throbbin' and caterwauling in the air, we'd never hear 'em as they slowly positioned their mouths next to our ears and then screamed: "Good Lord, they don't pay me enough for this SHIT!"

Just one such tender moment would boost this instructor's morale for months.

Straightening out the transfer knot?

Cutting through the transfer maze (John Fensterwald)

The failure of the community colleges and state four-year universities to agree on common transfer requirements creates tremendous waste and confusion. It has become one more factor discouraging students from pursuing a four-year degree.

To their credit, California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott and California State University Chancellor Charles Reed have worked out an agreement that, should the Legislature approve it, will provide an important fix.

SB 1440, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, which the Senate Education Committee will take up on Wednesday, would guarantee an associate’s degree and admission to a CSU campus to any student who successfully completes a standard number of general education credits and courses in the student’s major.

This is monumental, because the transfer requirements to the 23 California State University campuses differ from school to school. The 110 community colleges have created individual articulation agreements with CSU campuses to which they feed the most students. Beyond that, it’s a maze to negotiate. Unsure where they’ll transfer to, community college students hedge their bets by taking more courses than they need. And once they’re admitted to a CSU school, community college grads learn they often have to take extra courses peculiar to that school’s requirements for a major.

According to the New America Foundation, which favors the bill, community college transfer students are graduating from CSUs with more than a full year of classes beyond what’s required for a BA degree. They’ve been taking half of these 40 extra semester credits at community colleges trying to anticipate different CSU requirements; they’ve been taking the other half at the CSUs, at an average cost of $20,000 to families and $160 million to the CSUs, when they discover some of their credits won’t match requirements for a major…. (Continued)

Chancellor Mathur's curious "welcome"

• GOO'S FADING PRESENCE. Today, someone drew my attention to something odd at the district website. If you go there and then to “about the district,” you’ll come upon “Chancellor.” If you click on that, you’ll arrive at the Chancellor’s welcome.

But guess what?

There ain’t no chancellor’s welcome there! Not anymore. Just some impersonal boilerplate BS.

What’s that mean?

• DEVRY ADVERTISES "ACCESS" ON LARIAT. Have you been to the Lariat website lately? I visited there this morning and noticed the ads, including the revolving banner at the top of the webpage.

Dominating the kinds of ads at the Lariat website are those for for-profit colleges and universities!

One ad concerns something called NexTag, which in some sense comprises the likes of the U of Phoenix, Kaplan U, Argosy U, etc. Blecccch.

Another ad is for DeVry University, which scrolls through the following messages:

Californians deserve access to higher education
Californians deserve smaller class size
Californians deserve committed faculty
That’s why we’re here!

Um, am I the only person who finds it odd that these hinky for-profit operations are advertising on a website for a community college newspaper?

We sure can be clueless around here. Well, at least our administrators aren’t asking faculty to allow the U of Phoenix to come to class, pitching their wares! (Hehe. Alas, that’s already happened.)

Another ad is for something called Funk Flex Full Throttle. I think that’s a promotional thing for Ford automobiles, featuring some guy named Funk Master Flex, a DJ who appears to have provided some of the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto IV.

What does this mean? Does anybody know? Isn’t “Grand Theft Auto” something unsavory? --You know, a violent game that is, uh, very incorrect?

Another ad: Model surf camp. Gosh, what do you suppose that is? The graphic answers the question, I guess.

• COUNTY GOVERNMENT'S OLD FOOLS NETWORK. In today’s Voice of OC, Norberto Santana reports that

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has opened investigation into how Assessor Webster Guillory has implemented a $20 million computer system and whether he is properly collecting taxes on businesses using government property.

Last month, Orange County Employees Association General Manager Nick Berardino alleged that Guillory has not collected up to $125 million in taxes that he should have over the last 27 years

And critics inside the Assessor's office say the $20 million spent on the ACS computer system has been badly misspent. They say Guillory has mislead the county supervisors in terms of the system's effectiveness and cost….

Evidently, this Guillory fella is a blockhead. OK, so there’s a big investigation of his activities going on.

Boy, OC’s County government sure is shitty. The Treasurer just lost a big lawsuit accusing him of fraud; not long ago, the County Administrator/Guardian (John Williams) was the subject of two scathing Grand Jury reports about inefficiency, cronyism, and unprofessional practices; last year, County Sheriff Mike Carona had to step down ‘cause he’s a convicted felon (and, BTW, a racist rat bastard from hell); and the Supes are mostly stupid people who look at a  featherbedding idiot like Williams and then give ‘im a big “okey-dokey.” (See also O.C. investment advisor accused of fraud)

• FAKE CREDS. Meanwhile, the OC Reg reports that a long-time instructor of a Christian school in Huntington Beach falsified his credentials:

Police: Christian school teacher faked credentials

A Christian school instructor in Huntington Beach taught for several years using falsified credentials, police officials said Monday. ¶ On Friday, officers arrested Rudolph A Baker, 47, at Grace Lutheran School on suspicion of teaching with false or fraudulent teaching credentials, said Huntington Beach police Lt. Russell Reinhart….

The Reg quotes the evidently peevish Pastor of Grace Lutheran, who says: “Our school did not ask the police to come to the classroom and to be arrested."

Huh? The school didn’t ask to be arrested? I don’t get it.

Evidently, the teacher in question claims to have a BA from the U of Phoenix and a Master’s from National University.

It isn’t clear whether the problem is that (a) those degrees are fake or (b) they are fake because they are degrees from U of Phoenix and National.

• PATIENCE! Heard back from IVC's Public Info Office today. I was reminded that that office ain't exactly the speedball express, and so I shouldn't have expected any announcements about Lisa Alvarez and her recent achievements so quickly. --OK, point taken.

Let’s have a national day of thought instead

Playing a little catch-up here.

On Thursday, everywhere (but in my world, evidently), it was reported that

A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional…, saying the day amounts to a call for religious action.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb wrote that the government can no more enact laws supporting a day of prayer than it can encourage citizens to fast during Ramadan, attend a synagogue or practice magic.

"In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision whether and when to pray," Crabb wrote.

Congress established the day in 1952 and in 1988 set the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison-based group of atheists and agnostics, filed a lawsuit against the federal government in 2008 arguing the day violated the separation of church and state. (National Day Of Prayer 2010: Federal Judge Rules Unconstitutional)

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSCS), which is handling the current SOCCCD “prayer” suit, immediately issued a press release:

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, said, “This decision is a tremendous victory for religious liberty. Congress has no business telling Americans when or how to pray.

“The Constitution forbids the government to meddle in religious matters,” Lynn continued. “Decisions about worship should be made by individuals without direction from elected officials. That’s what freedom is all about.”

Lynn said the National Day of Prayer is of recent vintage. It was created by Congress in 1952. The scheduling of the event used to change, but it was codified by Congress in 1988 (after pressure from the Religious Right) as the first Thursday in May.

Lynn noted that America’s Founders did not intend for government to intrude in Americans’ individual religious choices. Thomas Jefferson, for example, refused to issue prayer proclamations, observing, “Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.”

James Madison, considered the Father of the Constitution, issued a few prayer proclamations at the behest of Congress during the War of 1812. But he later wrote that he regretted the move.

Governmental religious proclamations, Madison observed, “seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion.” He warned that there would always be a tendency “to narrow the recommendation to the standard of the predominant sect.”

Sounds pretty good.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT (to the CONSTITUTION):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

VaVoom

TigerAnn, about noon today

TigerAnn, cat, enjoys hunting

Rude radar

That Rebel Girl—aka Lisa Alvarez—is a retiring soul. She’s shy and quiet, unassuming. She's not someone who seeks the limelight.

Still, manifest facts collect around her. The Reb is plainly a mover and shaker. Over the years, she’s occasionally held central roles in trustee campaigns, and she's had her fair share of leadership roles within her School. As a writing instructor, she’s made a big—sometimes, a huge—difference in the lives of many of her students, the continual evidence of which I experience first-hand as her friend and office mate.

She is, you know, the radical conscience of the fitfully pestiferous Dissent the Blog. 

But the world is bigger than SOCCCD politics. The Reb produces "The Mark on the Wall," the best literary blog in Orange County. And, as many of you know, she has long been associated with the prestigious Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, where, along with novelist Louis B. Jones, she directs the Writers Workshops.

But there's much more. Together with National Public Radio’s Alan Cheuse, she edited the well-received Writers Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction.

Her own work has appeared in many publications—and in several noteworthy anthologies, including Norton’s hot new Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America, which has received terrific reviews (see), and seems destined to make a lasting splash in the literary/academic pond.

Owing to the latter, she was invited to the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) in Denver, Colorado. By all accounts, the Sudden Fiction Latino session was a blazing success.

Naturally, she's been invited to speak in various other forums. Not for the first time, she's in demand.

So, why am I blowing Rebel Girl’s horn?

Because, it appears, the college refuses to.

This has long been the case, I believe. Naturally, some who deserve to be celebrated at Irvine Valley College are celebrated, and that's great. I don't want to take anything away from them. Still, often, the college's rude radar fails to detect prominent corsairs on the academic horizon. The pattern is a curious one.

So, a few days ago, I contacted the relevant person and informed her of some of the above Rebellious factoids. She responded immediately and positively, eager to correct the oversight. Good!

Then Wednesday passed. Then Thursday. Then Friday.

Nothing.

Inviting the Stupid People?

We are rapidly approaching the date of the big reveal of Saddleback College’s much ballyhooed Veterans Memorial. According to a Saddleback College press release (here), on the 29th (a Thursday),

Saddleback College will welcome hundreds of veterans, community members, elected officials, students, faculty and staff to the college’s Veterans Memorial Dedication … to celebrate the completion of the most significant tribute to veterans at any community college campus in the nation. … The college’s dedication of the memorial is the exciting culmination of six years of work put forth by community members, students, faculty, staff and administrators.
. . .
In addition to honoring the service of our veterans and military personnel, the inaugural will include a Color Guard, military band and raising of the American flag at the memorial….
. . .
The concept for building the Saddleback College Veterans Memorial began on Veterans Day 2004, when a Saddleback College committee comprised of veterans and those interested in honoring the men and women who have served our country met to find a way to permanently pay homage to veterans. This lasting tribute to veterans will memorialize their service, their bravery, and their dedication to protecting our freedom….

Yesterday, at Art Pedroza’s odd and noisy blog (“Orange Juice”), Larry Gilbert suggested to “patriots,” I think, that they attend the Saddleback event:

Saddleback College Veterans Memorial dedication

Now that patriots have departed from the Mission Viejo TEA Party let me now suggest attending the following “free” event to honor our veterans and the freedom for which they have fought to preserve. On Thursday, April 29th Mission Viejo’s Saddleback College will honor veterans with a Memorial dedication….

Patriots? Ex-Tea-partiers?

Good grief. I do hope our sister college won’t have to put up with a gathering of the Stupid People on the 29th.

For me, that would really take the starch out of the whole thing.

Meanwhile, today, at the OC Blog (Red County), Tony Beall makes like a right-wing Paul Revere:

Greed & Power Politics – Teachers Union Members Authorize Strike in CUSD!

The seven conservative republican [sic] trustees serving on the Capistrano Unified Board of Trustees are under attack by the powerful California Teachers Association – and they need the immediate support of all conservatives who are sick and tired of the abuses and undue influence exerted by this powerful union.

I don’t know about that, but I’ve been following CUSD politics for some time now, and I can tell you that the CUSD board is even more clueless than our own. Board members don't seem to understand the Brown Act. Most or all of 'em are affiliated with Tustin’s ultra-right-wing Education Alliance, which got its start with a chunk of cash from Howard Ahmanson, Jr., a pal-o'-Fuentes who has no problem with the idea of executing gay people. Or so he says.

Education Alliance: that’s one of Don Wagner’s favorite organizations. He's on their board.

A few years ago, EA invited that gasbag Dennis Prager to yammer at 'em. I think EA wants to bring back the stocks and to bury pumpkin papers.