On Exhibit: Dada at IVC

This is not a drinking fountain.

A rarely seen Marcel Duchamp readymade is currently on exhibit at Irvine Valley College.

Created a few years after Duchamp's seminal "Fountain" (1917), this heretofore unknown work was thought to be lost until its recent rediscovery and installation on the second floor of  the B-300 building.

The exhibit runs indefinitely.

Marcel Duchamp. "Fountain." 1917.

 *

Senate capers: a ray of sunshine—plus mo' MOU fallout!

Ray Chandos

     RAY OF SUNSHINE.
     Normally, I do not report on the actions and deliberations of the IVC Academic Senate, of which I am a member. Today, I'm making an exception.
     During the senate meeting of two weeks ago, senators were told that Ray Chandos, a long-time faculty member in the School of Math, Computer Science & Engineering, has "volunteered" to serve on the district Board Policy and Administrative Regulation Advisory Council (BPARAC). That's the committee that works to revise and improve all those BPs we keep hearing about.
     It's an important committee. Board Policies and ARs are important. Obviously.
     As things stand, Ac. Sen. Prez Kathy Schmeidler represents IVC faculty on that committee. She is permitted, however, to appoint another faculty member to serve in her stead.

María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez

     Enter Ray.
     But here’s the problem. At least insofar as college business is concerned (Ray has been a prominent foe of development in Orange County, and I do not object to his efforts on that front), Ray Chandos is a stunningly corrupt fellow. I won’t provide a complete enumeration of Ray’s spectacular sins. I’ll mention two.
     First, Ray was a card-carrying member of the secretive group of “old guard” unionists who, back in the 90s, took control of the faculty union and pursued a series of disastrous actions that, by 1996, scandalized most of the rank and file. This group engineered the arrival of the notorious 1996 Board Majority (Frogue/Williams/Fortune/Lorch), dominated by Holocaust denier Steven Frogue, that initiated a district decline from which it has only recently started to recover. Then, in 1998, largely in secret, this group used union funds to pay for the campaigns of anti-union trustee candidates Don Wagner and Nancy Padberg, thereby bringing about the second Board Majority, one dominated by Don Wagner. (See The Board’s Unlikely Secret Allies.) Further, in 2000, the group fully supported (and helped engineer) the appointment of the rabid anti-unionist Tom Fuentes to the board. (As I recall, during the key board meeting in July of 2000, Ray, along with other Old Guardsters, spoke passionately in support of Fuentes’ candidacy.)
     So that’s one.
     Second, there was Ray’s remarkable conduct with regard to IVC’s 1998 Accreditation self-study. After Mathur appointed Ray the faculty chair of the report—against Academic Senate recommendations—the various standards committee chairs produced a draft that was replete with references to Mathur and the board’s disastrous and ruthlessness actions. Ray, as chair, simply bowdlerized those references, a cleansing so brazen that it attracted the interest of the LA Times and the OC Register, among other publications (See The 1998 IVC Accred White-Wash.)
     So, at today’s senate meeting, Schmeidler again mentioned Ray’s desire to join the BPARAC. Is it the will of the senate, she asked, to appoint Ray to that committee?
     I raised my hand. “It’s certainly not my will,” I said. I was prepared to say more, but, immediately behind me, another senior faculty member (Ms. F) spoke. She said simply, “Nor mine.”
     Not missing a beat, Kathy asked for a straw poll. How many want Ray appointed? Few if any hands arose. Next, she asked, how many want her to continue to serve on this committee?
     Hands shot in the air.

Roquemore

     MO’ FALLOUT RE ROQUEMORE’S MISBEGOTTEN MOU.
     For some reason, at today’s senate meeting, mention was made of the college's recently announced MOU with the University of Phoenix. You’ll recall that DtB objected loudly to IVC President Glenn Roquemore’s inexplicable decision to enter into an arrangement with this scandalous For-Profit. (See Clueless IVC Prez Glenn Roquemore smiles as he makes nice with the enemy.)
     From the discussion, I gathered that an administrator had asserted (to the Senate Prez, I guess) that "the counselors" backed this MOU idea. But the counselors at today’s meeting rebutted that claim. One counselor, evidently speaking for her colleagues, stated that she/they knew nothing about the MOU until the day it occurred (one of Roquemore’s grand photo-ops). Further, she seemed to say, the counselors are disinclined to encourage students to transfer to the U of P, given its track record. That led to a more general discussion, and it soon became clear that more than a few faculty at this college are scandalized by Roquemore’s noisy U of P MOU.

     I put in my two cents. In the end, a certain Chemistry instructor (who may or may not be married to a certain college president) spoke up and offered some sort of defense of this MOU business, but it was peppered with retorts by various senators. Also, a senator who is one of Glenn's vacation companions offered a defense. He suggested that, since we hire people with U of P degrees (that’s true; as I recall, Glenn’s pal Wayne Ward had a degree from that Cracker Jack Box), we can’t also complain about this MOU. –Something like that anyway. I think he said that, by hiring folks with U of P degrees, we benefit from something we seem to claim to object to.
     Well, that "reasoning" is just too ridiculous to merit a response.

Chirpy, vacant

'Aspiring Adults Adrift'
(Inside Higher Ed)

     In their 2011 book Academically Adrift, authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, argued that colleges are failing to educate students. Many undergraduates, the authors wrote, are "drifting through college without a clear sense of purpose," with more than a third of students not demonstrating any significant improvement in learning over four years in college.
     Now Arum and Roksa have revisited a large sampling of those same undergraduates for a new book examining how they've fared after graduation. They're no longer students, the authors write, but they are still adrift.
. . .
     Many four-year universities attend to students' social adjustment rather than developing their characters, [Arum] said, allocating resources toward what will attract teenagers to their campuses rather than what will help them learn. Campuses cater to satisfying consumer preferences instead of providing rigorous academics and connecting what students learn to the real world, Arum and Roksa write. Like students and aspiring adults, they argue, colleges and universities are also adrift.
. . .
     Many of those living at home and looking for skilled, full-time work were still financially dependent on their parents, and were "meandering" to and from potential career paths and jobs.
. . .
     "Large numbers of students today do not apply themselves or develop academic skills in college," the authors write. "Thirty-six percent of full-time college students reported studying alone less than five hours per week."....

Anthem Bows Out (Inside Higher Ed)

After years of enrollment losses, Anthem Education, a for-profit chain of colleges and career institutes, filed for bankruptcy Monday….
. . .
The Senate report described the company’s aggressive recruiting tactics as among “the most troubling” behaviors the investigation of 30 for-profits had revealed. One Anthem admissions representative would not let an undercover applicant speak with a financial aid representative until after she enrolled. In another instance, an Anthem financial aid worker fraudulently removed $250,000 in listed savings from an undercover applicant’s FAFSA in order to make the applicant eligible for federal loans. For-profit advocates said the Senate report cherry-picked data to cast for-profits in an unflattering light....

Cerritos College Police Chief Richard "Buk'' Bukowiecki Takes Own Life in Local Motel (NavelGazing)

Glenn Roquemore is an embarrassment

     It's quite a college we've got here. Last week, President Glenn Roquemore had a photo op with a rep from among the most scandalous higher ed "for-profits," namely, The U of Phoenix. Apparently, Roquemore doesn't have a clue what that organization represents—namely, hoodwinking young people, and especially veterans, selling them a bill of goods, in order to secure huge sums of taxpayer funds.
     And here's the latest: evidently, Roquemore has arranged for Army recruiters to bring one of their silly fantasy-land, snake oil recruitment "semis" to the college next week (Tuesday, the 2nd of Sept).
     The dang thing will be located in the vast expanse of concrete in front of the cafeteria. (See pic above.)
     It appears that recruiters in Army World have a fleet of semis loaded with the usual infantile and meretricious whizbangery (lasers, weapon simulators, battle simulators, XBOXs, "theme" motorcycles, etc.). —Yes, they've even got an exhibit the centerpiece of which is a fake-military chopper fabricated by those fat-heads at OC Choppers! (See below.)

Naturally, this TV chopper is not used by the Army—except for recruitment. However, says the Army, "its unique features generate positive conversations about the Army." Conversations or fantasies?

     Choppers? Lasers? XBOXs? Cool guns and tony camo? It seems to me that a college should stand for honest critical thinking and a rejection of snake-oil salesmanship. And what could be less honest and more serpentine than the kind of appeal these recruiters lay on young people?
     Here are some relevant photos I found in a document distributed among Army recruiters called Asset [Semi, etc.] User's Guide for Maximizing Accessions. "Accessions," I suppose, is Army-speak for bodies recruited. Recruiters who manage to snag one of these semis for a recruitment event are the "asset users," I guess. What the recruiters are looking for, of course, are hot "leads." That's the language of boiler-room operations.
     It's the language these people use, I kid you not.

Gosh, I wonder what an "Army Story" is?

Did you read that last one? Collecting quality leads!

Have fun shooting at stuff in the Army!

"Leadership activities"?

"Engaging virtual enemies." Yeah.