"The people called it Ragtime." (Rebel Girl)

Showing off his jazz hands.

Meanwhile, Rebel Girl has been spending some serious quality time over at Fullerton College. The little guy has been cast in Ragtime: the musical which means that, at eleven years old, he is now a community college student (enrolled in THEA 174), attending rehearsals four days a week, writing four page character analyses and singing 24/7. While he is cast as a member of the ensemble (playing a resident of New Rochelle, an Italian immigrant and a newsboy) and understudy for the lead child role (Little Boy), he could, Rebel Girl wants you to know, play any other role in the play if called to do so. She has heard him. He is especially impressive as Younger Brother, Booker T. Washington and Harry Houdini.

Rebel Girl wishes to report that she finds our neighboring college to be a vibrant place.  It is instructive to spend so much time in the classroom at another institution, watching multiple instructors work together (music, voice, theater in collaboration) with a variety of students, seeing how those students respond, watching them work together to build something beautiful, ambitious, important. The highly regarded director, Gary Krinke, is retiring this year and this production will be one of his last.

 Fullerton College is celebrating its centennial this year and the semester has been especially full with one celebration after another, though Rebel Girl is impressed less with the big events (smart and impressive as they are) but more with the simple stuff of campus life: the weekly newspaper, the literary journal, the clubs and their service projects, the easy sense of accessible student life happening in small and big ways on a daily basis.  And those activities seem to be the best kind: driven and led by the students themselves.

 Anyway, it's been fun.

The Little Guy at Centennial Day.

The Tony award-winning play opens next week and runs eight performances.  It is an adaptation of the acclaimed novel by E.L. Doctorow and first opened in 1998 on Broadway with Audra MacDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell (and a very young Lea Michelle as Little Girl).  Red Emma used to teach that novel years ago when he taught at IVC.  Doctorow himself taught at UC Irvine back in the 70s, while he was finishing another novel, The Book of Daniel, which features closing scenes in Corona del Mar and Disneyland.   One of Doctorow's students was Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist who read here at IVC back in the vibrant days of the early 80s, before he won the Pulitzer. When Rebel Girl saw Ford last summer, she reminded him of that.  He is 69 years old now but still remembered the little college in the orange groves and the short story he read in the reading series put together by the editor of our now defunct literary journal which was, until its demise, one of the longest lived lit journal published by a community college. Perhaps when IVC celebrates its centennial - or maybe just its 50th - the visit by one of the nation's most acclaimed novelists might earn a footnote in the college's history.  I am sure someone has photos somewhere. Maybe the newspaper covered it.

And now, a shameless plug: consider traveling to central Orange County for a wonderful evening of compelling American theater.  The show opens next week. If you purchase tickets (thank you!) PLEASE remember to credit the Little Guy (aka Louis Tonkovich) at the time of your purchase. As this is a community college production and Louis is now an enrolled student at the college (!), doing outreach for the show is part of his coursework. The cast list has been provided to the box office so they will know who to credit once you mention his name. Tickets are $12.50 for presale reserved seating, $15.00 at the door, reserved seating.

Show dates: Thursday, 10/17 at 7:00PM (opening night!), Friday, 10/18 at 7:00PM, Saturday, 10/19 at 7:00PM, Sunday, 10/20 at 2:00PM, Thursday, 10/24 at 7:00PM, Friday, 10/25 at 7:00PM, Saturday, 10/26 at 7:00PM, Sunday, 10/27 at 2:00PM.

Let Rebel Girl know if you're going.  She'll look for you before and after the shows.  She is there every night because, well, the Little Guy doesn't drive yet. 

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Teddy had a good day

 Young Teddy had a good day.

He's a seriously sweet guy, he is.

Wants to play all the time; note his famous ear tips

His eyes are big magic marbles that see what I do not

Mighty special, Glenn

     As you know, Irvine Valley College President Glenn Roquemore is a remarkably, er, unacademic fellow. For a college president, he’s special, he is.
     Today brought us the fellow’s latest public spasm of super special unacademery, coming this time in the form of singular Roquemorean verbiage—a "resolution."
     Members of the college community just received an email from the IVC Chief of Police, alerting us to the upcoming Great California ShakeOut Earthquake Drill. In support of this effort, the Chief writes, IVC President Roquemore has issued a resolution:

A RESOLUTION OF INTENT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE GREAT CALIFORNIA SHAKEOUT AND WORK TOWARD BECOMING A SAFER CAMPUS COMMUNITY.

     Golly. Do we really need a resolution to participate in this thing? Why not just announce that the college will participate?
     But that's just me.
     The Chief attaches the resolution, a pdf, to his email. I opened it up. I’ve posted it above (see).
     Since it’s a resolution, it offers a series of “whereas”es and ends with a “be it resolved that.”
     Here’s the first “whereas.” It’s a humdinger.

WHEREAS, the [“the”?] Irvine Valley College recognizes that no community is immune from natural hazards whether it [it?] be earthquake, wildfire, flood, winter storms, drought, heat wave, or dam failure and recognizes the importance [sic] enhancing its ability to withstand natural hazards as well as the importance of reducing the human suffering, property damage, interruption of public services and economic losses caused by those hazards….

     That’s one seriously special piece of writing.
     Here’s a subsequent “whereas”:

WHEREAS, the protection of Irvine Valley College employees will allow them to facilitate the continuity of government and assist the campus community following a major earthquake event….

     Is it just me? Are others struck by the oddness of Glenn’s interest in protecting IVC “employees”? I guess the idea here is that, if the college secures the survival of employees, not being dead, after the quake, they can “facilitate the continuity of government.”
     Yeah, cuz that's what community colleges are all about.
     Plus, again, not being dead, they can “assist the campus community.” The idea here seems to be that IVC will target “employees” for protection so that those employees, having avoided earthquake death, can assist students post earthquake.
     See what I mean? This is a special piece of writing, this resolution.
     Here’s one more “whereas”:

WHEREAS, community resiliency to earthquakes and other disasters depends on the preparedness levels of all stakeholders in the community – students, staff, faculty, managers and administrators….

     “Resiliency.” I guess that’s Glenn’s special spin on “resilience.”
     “Stakeholders”? Yeah, everybody in Irvine has a share in M&M Enterprises, and the Big One will make us all rich.
     Here’s the resolution’s “be it resolved” finish:

Irvine Valley College hereby approves participating in the Great California Shakeout hereto by taking time to recognize and acknowledge the importance of preparing our college for the purposes of building a safer campus community and reducing the loss of lives and property from a major earthquake event by taking proactive steps today.

     So Glenn's resolution is a statement of "intent to participate" in the Shakeout; but it's also a statement of "approval" of IVC's (or others'?) "participating" in the Shakeout. Gosh, this nifty Res is a veritable Swiss Army Knife.
     It gets better—er, more special. The Res is a statement of approval (of the Shakeout) "by taking time to recognize" such-and-such. That Glenn sure does know how to write special sentences.
     Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of earthquake preparedness. And I’m not against this “shakeout” extravaganza. Not in principle, anyway.
     But we’re a college. Maybe our public statements shouldn’t be so, um, special.

OC: same old Land o' Corruption

Aide to Supervisors' Chairman Files Claim Alleging Corruption (Voice of OC)

     Dave Zenger, until recently a senior aide to Board of Supervisors Chairman Shawn Nelson, has filed a legal claim against the county alleging that Nelson abruptly fired him after other county supervisors complained about Zenger conducting, at Nelson's direction, numerous investigations into alleged improper use of public funds.
     “Mr. Zenger was demonstrably terminated in retaliation for Mr. Zenger’s conscientious inquiries and investigations into questionable or possibly illegal schemes, projects and activities by county personnel,” reads a June 6 letter sent by Zenger’s attorney, Steven Dial – who also represents county Human Resources manager Kathleen Tahilramani in another whistleblower lawsuit against the county, which is scheduled for trial on Nov. 18….

The A205 saga continues: Roquemore and his merry SNAFUsters

     HERE'S THE STORY: faculty who teach in IVC's A205 (the "Anthro" room) figure out that there’s a disturbing pattern among instructors who use the room: they’re suffering bronchitis and the like. (See The mold monster returns?) They alert the authorities, who blow them off as per usual, but then students who’ve apparently been sickened by A205—four of 'em—come out of the woodwork and that’s when things start jumpin’—in the way that things jump at IVC, namely:
     Administration have the HVAC system inspected, and it checks out A-OK. That means that the problem is specific to A205—likely the mold monster. This information isn’t sent to the faculty or students—it's the usual IVC communication zilchitude. But, somehow, the info does get to faculty.
     Anyhow, the name of the administrative doctrine then embraced is “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing” (aka the prime Roquemorian directive). By this morning, one peevish instructor is under the impression that room A205 is locked and entry is strictly verboten (this morning, I dropped by A205 and took a picture of the "verboten" warning on the door; sure enough, the door was locked).
     Yeah, great. But then an instructor who uses A205 shows up (at 8:00) to teach her class there—nobody’s tells her about this verbotenitude. And so she says, "What's the deal?" and she calls security, who immediately send over a cop who unlocks the door. The instructor is soon happily teaching to her flock in this sick classroom, a fact just then noticed by the aforementioned clued-in instructor and her dean, who happen to be walking (and peeving) along the path outside A205!  (See pic below.) Jeez!
     To make a long story short, the room is again locked and declared verboten. Last I checked it’s still that way, but who knows. Maybe, by now, they’ve moved Early College (or Intro to Mold) in there or something. You never know. Not around here, that's for sure.

UPDATE: I checked the door of A205 this morning (Friday). The "verboten" sign remains, but the door is now unlocked!

Moisture outside the southeast window is a possible source of seepage.
"Hey, they're holding class in there!"

Student-Loan Default Rates Continue Steady Climb (Chronicle of Higher Education)
     …The latest three-year default rates were highest among for-profit institutions, but dropped slightly from the previous year—from 22.7 percent to 21.8 percent. The three-year rate for public institutions was 13 percent, and for private institutions it was 8.2 percent.
     Borrowers who attended for-profit colleges represented about 32 percent of all borrowers entering repayment in the 2011 fiscal year, up from 28 percent in the 2009 year, and for-profit-college students accounted for 43 percent of the defaults….

A:200 - The Mold Monster Returns? or "Faculty keep getting sick"

A-205: "a vague environmental issue"

Late this afternoon, denizens of the A-200 building learned of an announcement shared selectively through email and posted on A-205's classroom door. It seemed somehow eerily familiar and also the perfect capper to a doomed day. (Don't ask.)

If you were (Please note the past tense) teaching in A-205, generally occupied by the anthropologists and their skulls (well, not theirs, poor Yorick, but you know what I mean) but also loaned out to various Hum and Lang types (See, in A-200 we like to share what we got even if it isn't much, unlike some folks—sniff, sniff—better yet, don't sniff—at least not in the vicinity of A-205), well, you aren't teaching there anymore!

A-205 instructors were informed that their classes were no longer occupying A-205 due to a "vague environmental issue" which needs to be "corrected."

Most people, Rebel Girl notes, were moved to other classrooms in the aging A-200.

If you were not teaching in that room or taking a class you may not have noticed the flier taped to the door that forbade entry under any circumstance. Pretty strong language. Rebel Girl, rebellious and foolhardy as always, tried the knob. The door swung open (of course!) and she entered.

She didn't see anything out of the ordinary, unless you want to count the peeling vinyl floorboard near the door which exposed a gap or sorts, a kind of pocket between the wall, floor and floorboard filled with a tangle of hair and other detritus. But Rebel Girl doesn't really count that because as far as she is concerned, that is pretty much par for the course in IVC classrooms—peeling floorboards, hair in the corners, you know.

She sniffed. Nothing out of the ordinary. She took inventory: same skulls, same maps, the usual collection of aging newspapers articles displayed when Clinton was president and another Republican, named for a small amphibian, was holding the federal government hostage.

She wondered what the "vague environmental issue" could be.

After she left, she asked around. Nobody knew. Of course not. (Cuz it was "vague"?)

Even though the whole building is serviced by the same air conditioning unit that blasts air in and out of nearby classrooms and offices, even though walls are shared by offices and classrooms, no one else except those immediately affected had been informed of an "environmental issue"—or hazard—use the noun you prefer. And even those people were not told of what Rebel Girl discovered later as she went home and made a few calls.

"Instructors kept getting sick," one in-the-know faculty member reported, "Bronchitis. Finally someone noticed a pattern."

One wonders what, if anything, the students were told. And why workers (faculty and staff) who spend 20-45 hours a week in  the vicinity were not informed—especially those with existing physical conditions who might make them more vulnerable than others to the presence of the bacteria, mold and other particles that cause bronchitis and worse. Can you spell liability? Responsibility? Responsiveness? Transparency? Weren't some of these words included on that recent survey monkey of wish list values sent out by SPOBDC? (Yup, "spob-dick.")

Rebel Girl also wonders who made the decision that only A-205 was toxic. She hopes it was someone who knows something about the spread of mold and air conditioning units and shared walls, etc. Jeez.

This latest vagueness, of course, points to the pervasive absence of useful communication at IVC. What helicopter? What parking lot fiasco? What mold? 

And, of course, it brings to mind the mold monsters of yore:

Colonies of Mold  (November 1, 2005)
Mold Pie with Mouse Turd Topping (December 9, 2005)
Decomposed Materials of Organic Origin  (January 13, 2006)

There are other stories out there (don't ask), but Rebel Girl will leave you with an unlikely but relevant one:

Tuesday night, after a wretched day at the college (don't ask), Rebel Girl washed up at a meeting of the Inter-Canyon League, one of the local governing bodies in the hinterlands. (IVC's own Chris Riegle is on the board.) Officer Garcia from the CHP was a genial guest speaker, there to answer residents' concerns about speeding on the canyon road and the recent spate of high-profile accidents from such behavior. Rebel Girl listened as her neighbors asked for the impossible—a CHP officer every mile or so, pulling over the reckless and inspiring other to obey the laws.

The officer, she soon realized, was speaking the hard truth: few resources, stupid human nature, one cop for the whole canyon area. There is is no way we're going to stop the foolish and reckless. But you good people should not behave like them. We all need to be better than those fools, and that will make the difference, perhaps the only difference we can make.

A sobering tale for this morning carpool mother, her backseat filled with kids, who is often passed by impatient speeders happy to cross the double yellow line on Live Oak Canyon or Santiago.

An instructive tale for a teacher who wonders how deep the commitment is out there to real teaching, the real work of a real college. (Don't ask.)

Hey, wasn't "intellectually rigorous curriculum" on SPOBDC's wish list too?

Welcome, sulfur dioxide
Hello, carbon monoxide
The air, the air
Is everywhere

Breathe deep
While you sleep
Breathe deep

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