The Big (Faculty) Sleep; downtown corruption club; a letter to the Opacity Twins

 “The girl gave him a look which ought to have
stuck at least four inches out of his back.” 

     It’s been quite a day.

     PROP 8 STILL UNPROPPED. It was a huge day for advocates—including, of course, DtB—of gay and lesbian rights. As the Times explained, “A federal appeals court panel … threw out a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage passed in 2008, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the ban, known as Proposition 8, violated the constitutional rights of gay men and lesbians in California.”
     I look forward to watching this story unfold. I have high hopes.

     A (TEMPORARY) VICTORY FOR THE MACHINE. It was known that the appellate panel would release its decision today. And so it was no accident that, also today, we learned of John Williams’ agreement to retire from the Public Administrator’s office as per his original agreement in March. Whatever else might be said about Williams’ and the County’s “settlement,” it ensures that the public will never see Special Counsel Michael Colantuono’s “highly critical” report of Williams’ performance.
     Many of us believe that the Supes fear releasing the report because it reveals, well, too much about how things work in the County.
     You know. After a dozen years of Fuentes, you know. Unless you’re brain dead.
     Could be. Hello?
     So I’d have to say that Johnny’s Big Bye-Bye counts as a defeat for the Good Guys, a victory (but a close call) for the Bad Guys.
     Meanwhile, Williams will get $25,000 to help the County make the painful transition to competence. No doubt, one of these days, Johnny will show up again at the district to receive some resolution or award. I'd like to staple it on his forehead.

     MASSIVE FACULTY BALL-DROPPAGE. At this point, some of the dust is settling after the curious appearance last week of the draft report of the “Civility” workgroup. (It appears that administration does conceive the report that way, whatever members of the workgroup might think.)
     In the last two days, several people have suggested to me that faculty members on the workgroup really dropped the ball on this one. Why did no one insist on Faculty Association (union) representation? Why have we not heard from these faculty in the four or five days since the appearance of this report—a report that pretends to speak for the group and that includes obnoxious elements of an Orwellian nature?
     I still can’t figure out why a guy like Erwin Chemerinsky didn’t stand up in the middle of this Duck Workshop and squawk, “What the fuck do you people think you’re doing?!”

     FACULTY: ADRIFT, ASLEEP, APATHETIC. IVC faculty are, I think, enduring a shameful period—after years of focus and attainment, owing, to a great extent, to fine leadership and the usual fortuities and alignments of stars.
     It is plain that the faculty’s present leader, Texas charmer and Academic Senate President Lisa Davis Allen, has long been angling for an administrative position (Dean of Fine Arts, no doubt).
     (Obviously, I do not object to such ambitions per se. I do, however, object to conflicts of interest.)
     Almost from her first day at the college, she has made no secret of her ambition to become an administrator.
     It seems to me that her behavior as Senate President suggests allegiance, not to faculty, but to administration. She needs to please them, and so she does.
     Consider: faculty have expressed consistent strong skepticism about the college’s absurd Early College Program. LDA has at best tolerated the Senate’s efforts to push back to the modest degree that it has. When administration’s notion of IVC ownership of ATEP ran into rough weather (i.e., Hurricane Burnett), LDA was there to steady the ship for Rocky and His Friends.
     Last week, years of work to reform and improve the deliberations and values of the Commencement Speaker Committee were, well, simply tossed away—with the blessing of our Senate President, who somehow placed herself there. (Is there a committee that she isn’t on?)
     —“Good grief! Only one female commencement speaker in the last twenty years!?”
     So what, says the leader of faculty.
     “No intellectuals or artists sent forward? Back to businessmen, fish taco entrepreneurs, and exercise gurus!?”
     Well, as far as LDA is concerned, that’s well and good.
     (Where are faculty? Are they even awake?)
     Near as I can tell, LDA did all that she could to be a team player for administration in its efforts to deal with the Accred’s warnings and recommendations. But, in truth, there really are serious problems at this college—low morale, poor communication, lack of transparency, bullying managers and administrators, incompetent leadership, etc. But LDA—and faculty at large—have done virtually nothing to deal with these very real problems.
     No doubt our Accreditation efforts secured a favorable accreditation outcome. That’s important. I get it.
     But what about those very real problems that remain? (Let's face it: the accreditation process is one thing; actually recognizing and solving our problems is quite another.)
     Don’t count on the Academic Senate even to recognize them. Reminds me of the time one of the Byrds was interviewed and, when asked about all the changes since the 60s, he said, "We're all Republicans now." May as well shoot ourselves in the head.

Major Kong, aka Slim Pickins

     IT’S THE FACULTY, STUPID. I don’t mean to lay all this on LDA. She is what she is, and she’s pretty open about her values and intentions (a think she had a close personal relationship with Slim Pickins). Faculty have allowed her to go in the directions she has gone. They could have resisted her, slowed her, diverted her a bit, but no. (And, yes, I attempted to be Obstacle Man, but, it seems, to no avail.)
     Consider the benighted “CAFÉ” idea. Why, exactly, did we do this?
     Did you know that there is a sign on the door of the CAFÉ that says that no students are allowed? Yep.
     Remember the CAFÉ’s first (and, as it turns out, false) opening in August? The flier that announced and advertised the event made clear that only “full-timers” were welcome. Nobody seemed particularly bothered by that. How come?
     It’s no secret that classified, or a healthy proportion of that crew, do not require much coaxing to perceive elitism and high-handedness in faculty plans and projects. By late summer, a perfect storm of negative perception prevailed. And then….
     Sorry to be so negative.
     Some very good things have come about in the last two years. The various speakers’ series sponsored by the Senate have been great. Other things, too.
     Here’s a big positive. When union Prez Lewis Long learned of the draft report re “Civility” yesterday (I had sent it to him; it had originally been promulgated in a fashion that seemed designed to achieve oblivion), he saw the problems immediately. He wasted no time firing off a letter to the Opacity Twins. No fucking way, said Lewis.
     Boom. Just like that.
     And I have every hope that he’ll prevail, too.

Union President writes to administration: this is "more than a little disturbing"

From: Lewis Long
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 2:52 PM
To: 'Glenn Roquemore'; 'Craig Justice'
Cc: 'Lisa Davis Allen'; Allison Camelot; 'Bill Hewitt (Bill Hewitt)'; Diane Bales (FA); 'Lee Haggerty (Lee Haggerty)'; 'Loma Hopkins; 'Paula Jacobs'
Subject: FW: Proposed Final Draft of ["Civility"] Report

[IVC President] Glenn [Roquemore] and [IVC VP of Instruction] Craig [Justice],

I have been reviewing the forwarded attachments and minutes from the Civility workgroup, which contains a so-called “final draft.” As I was working through the documents, I noticed that there were several faculty members participating in the workgroup. However, I respectfully suggest that this faculty representation has a rather serious omission, which makes the results of the process subject to questions and doubt: none of the faculty representatives were appointed by, or appear to represent, the designated bargaining agent responsible for the faculty’s working conditions, the Faculty Association.

IVC Prez, Glenn Roquemore

Even though this workgroup is a response to an accreditation report, I would suggest that “civility and mutual respect” are essential elements of the overall climate of the campus, and thus part of the working conditions of faculty, and thus within the domain of the Faculty Association. Since the discussion involves “acceptable” and “unacceptable” behavior, and asks what the campus can do when supposed “acts of incivility” do occur, it is obvious that evaluation of the behavior of members of the campus community, including faculty, are under discussion, and some form of remediation for violations is being considered (“training the recidivists” and “progressive discipline” are particularly disturbing phrases among the recommendations!). The following sentence appears among the final recommendations from the report, “Supervisors should call attention to uncivil behaviors of persons they supervise, and when necessary, note such behaviors within with the processes of evaluation or progressive discipline” (emphasis added). If violation of the policies developed by the workgroup results in any sort of reprimand, censure or negative evaluation, or even a stern talking to, for a faculty member, law would require that the Association be involved, and should have been involved from the beginning of the process.

That no one even thought to ask if the Association would be interested in participating is more than a little disturbing. Any time that a question comes up in which the welfare of the faculty is a consideration, the Faculty Association should be on the short list of contacts. However, at the end of the report, this sentence appears among recommendations: “Create a civility statement, obtain approvals from key entities (e.g., academic senate, classified senate), . . ..” Although the list is obviously not meant to be exhaustive, the omission of the Faculty Association as one of the “key” entities is obvious from the process.

Please be aware that the Association will be represented on the Board Policy and Administrative Regulation Committee which considers the recommendation of the working group, and will be presenting some very serious misgivings and reservations regarding the recommendation, which may have been easily avoided had we been included in the discussion from the beginning.

Thank you,
Lewis

Administration: team IVC (Roquemore, Plano, Justice)

Williams & the County settle

Set for life

Settlement reached with locked-out public administrator (OC Reg)

UPDATE 2: The Reg has added this verbiage:

     Those original terms include the possibility of Williams being retained as a consultant to the county for transition purposes. Williams is to be paid $25,000 for the consulting work, said John Moorlach, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.
     Williams “got nothing new by this perturbation of the universe that he caused in the last week or so,” said Supervisor Bill Campbell, who was chairman last year when the terms of Williams’ departure were first negotiated. “We’re going to honor what we agreed to last March.”

UPDATE: The Reg has added this verbiage:

     “Mr. Williams has agreed to honor the terms of his original March 2011 resignation, which became effective Jan. 23, 2012,” Page said in a written statement. “A letter reaffirming his resignation is on file with the Clerk of the Board.”
     Those original terms include the possibility of Williams being retained as a consultant to the county for transition purposes.
     We went to the Clerk of the Board’s office and obtained a copy of Williams’ letter, dated Monday. “This letter shall serve as my resignation as the Public Administrator of Orange County effective at 5 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012,” it says.

Original article:

     A settlement has been reached in the case of locked-out public administrator John S. Williams.
     Williams sued the county after the Board of Supervisors held him to his statement that he planned to retire as of Jan. 23.
     When he didn’t, the locks on Williams’ office were changed, and a battle over whether he would stay or go began.
     Leon Page, deputy county counsel, said a dismissal of the case with prejudice — meaning it can’t be re-filed — will be filed this morning.
     County spokesman Howard Sutter said he didn’t immediately know the terms of the settlement, but we’ll try to get you details on that as soon as possible.
     Williams’ attorney, Phil Greer, declined to discuss terms. He said he met with supervisors Bill Campbell and Shawn Nelson and came to an agreement “in best interest of the county.”….

     — Interesting timing. — BvT

Best comment so far:

I hope part of the settlement is not allowing the Register to continue posting that stupid smug picture of this guy.

• John Williams, Ex-Public Administrator, Finally Agrees to Leave Office (Navel Gazing)
• OC Public Administrator John Williams Retires (Voice of OC)

Prop 8 decision expected today

UPDATE: Court Strikes Down Ban on Gay Marriage in California (New York Times)

Ruling expected on constitutionality of gay marriage ban (LA Times)

Reporting from San Francisco – A federal appeals court is expected to decide Tuesday whether California's ban on same-sex marriage violates the federal Constitution, a ruling that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court next year….
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Nearly four years ago, Dissenters celebrated the day the first marriage licenses were granted to same sex couples in California. It was a post that inspired a record number of comments. Going to the Chapel...

Also:

Profs Criticized for Insufficient Love of Reagan (Inside Higher Ed)

Roquemorean tales

An oldy but a goody.

IVC’s “civility” initiative: "make things nicer!"

Part 4 of a series

HOPPING MAD!

     It seems that my attempted “heads up” to the campus community—regarding IVC’s “civility initiative” and the associated “report”—has inspired strong reactions in some quarters.
     Certainly, many readers have reacted strongly. (See Readers have lots to say.)
     And, I learned today, one important player among district governance groups (to whom I sent the report) is—not to put too fine a point on it—hopping mad. Why weren’t they invited to be part of the "Civility workgroup"? WTF!?
     They especially reacted to the following element of the report’s “Statement on Civility and Mutual Respect”:

Supervisors should call attention to uncivil behaviors of persons they supervise, and when necessary, note such behaviors within … the processes of evaluation or progressive discipline. (See Report, attachment 3)

     Golly. I wonder if the faculty members of the workgroup are aware that such language made it into this proposed statement—a statement supposedly inspired by the group’s reflections on Dec. 16?
     And that ain’t all. But I’ll let things unfold in their own time and in their own way.

UNWILLING TO PARTICIPATE

     As I suggested yesterday, IVC’s “civility initiative” raises some obvious issues—aside from the “representation” problem: not all groups were represented on the “Civility workgroup”—e.g., the Faculty Association, adjuncts, et al.
     Two of the three I mentioned yesterday were (1) that bullying really does occur at IVC and (2) the worry that administration (et al.) might exploit this initiative to pursue policies and other instruments that can be wielded against critics and dissenters.
     Late last week and again today, I walked around campus and spoke with several employees, trying to determine whether and how they see their situation as blighted by bullying.
     I encountered classified employees who communicated a remarkable degree of fear. So great is their fear, they told me, that they are unwilling to participate on committees.
     But who do they fear?
     Let’s just say that they fear very senior administrators. I’ll have more to report about that in future.

A MOMENT FROM THE PAST:

     Call me cynical, but I now suspect that powerful people (indeed, bullying people) are indeed planning to use the civility initiative to create instruments to control or silence critics. You might want to go back and read the Report, attachment 4.
     I have a special interest in that sort of thing. As you know, the district has tried to wield policies to silence me before. Back in 1998, a letter was placed in my personnel file according to which I had violated the district’s workplace violence and discrimination policies. Evidently, Raghu Mathur really thought that I was going to drop a “two ton slab of granite” on his head. And my moniker for Mathur—“Mr. Goo”—well, wasn’t that an allusion to “gook”?
     I was ordered to seek anger management counseling.
     I refused. I secured a lawyer (the estimable Carol Sobel) and went to court.
     From the start, jurists (first Judge Manella, then Judge Feess) looked at the facts and saw things just as I did: The district was wielding questionable policies questionably* just to silence a critic. What they were doing to me was nothing short of “Orwellian” (Manella). No reasonable person would be threatened by Bauer’s writings of “slabs” and graphics of crashing Messerschmitts (Feess). No, contrary to the district, Bauer is not the cause of the colleges’ accreditation woes. Yes, Bauer does have a right to offer vigorous criticisms of leadership. Etc.

BE NICE!

     At one point, the district’s lawyer noted that I had actually disobeyed an express order! I had been directed by my college president, Raghu Mathur, to embrace niceness and harmoniousness. Yup, that was in a letter I got. And what did I do? Well, I continued publishing the Dissent.
     I had refused to embrace niceness, embracing criticism instead!
     Sound familiar?
     Well, here’s what happened in court**:

MR. LARSEN (the district’s lawyer): …[T]hese are a clear insubordinate violation of a direction that was given in evaluation by the president and an attack upon the president—

THE COURT: You mean a direction of, you know, "Make things nicer"? "Make this atmosphere more harmonious"? Is that the directive that you're talking about?

MR. LARSEN: That's [it] in essence. The directive was to cease being negative and destroying the organization itself through negative comments and the very types of comments that exist here….

THE COURT: Maybe [that directive is] a First Amendment violation in and of itself, to tell [that to] a tenured professor of the college. I mean, look, this is a college campus. If people can't speak their minds on college campuses, I don't know where they can speak their minds. It is supposed to be the bastion of free speech and discussion!

Um, well, yeah!

*Judge Feess judged that these policies were unconstitutional (in themselves) and were unconstitutional "as applied." But in oral arguments, he backed away from declaring one of the policies as unconstitutional (in itself).
**US Central District of California, The Honorable Gary Allen Feess, judge presiding, Los Angeles, CA, Monday, October 25, 1999, 9:46 a.m.

From actual court transcripts: verbatim

“I celebrate your staggering wrongness!"

     Over at Confessions of a Community College Dean, Rebel Girl unearthed a vintage post on the perils of constructing a "civility code."

excerpt:

     This story in IHE made me laugh out loud. Apparently, a community college in New Jersey briefly floated a policy to encourage 'civility' that was anything but. The provisions were:

1. Honesty, integrity, and respect for all will guide my personal conduct. 2. I will embrace and celebrate differing perspectives intellectually. 3. I will build an inclusive community enriched by diversity. 4. I am willing to respect and assist those individuals who are less fortunate. 5. I promise my commitment to civic engagement and to serve the needs of the community to the best of my ability.

     Yes, they overshot. I'd say, comically so. (Number 2 is my favorite. “I celebrate your staggering wrongness! I embrace your breathtaking, fundamental category error!”) But there is some value to the idea of civility that apparently animated the original idea. If we understand civility as something like “the rules for participating in the organization,” then it seems reasonable to me to go beyond “I know it when I see it.” The mistake wasn't in trying to write it down; it was in absurdly overreaching.

     My proposed code of civil conduct for higher ed, or speech code, if you prefer:

     I will separate the speaker from the speech.

To read the rest, click here.

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