The SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT —
"[The] blog he developed was something that made the district better." - Tim Jemal, SOCCCD BoT President, 7/24/23
It's all Pride rainbows. Some will tell you that the administrators so present at today's event did not attend IVC's first ever Pride in 2018 when this photo was taken. Yes, that's Rebel Girl in green on the left, with the big chip on her shoulder.
LAST year during August FLEXweek, IVC denizens who showed up to the President's Welcome were treated to information about the dangers of texting while driving and advised how they too could sign up for the services offered by the Automobile Club of America, aka Triple A, a favorite organization of Rebel Girl who still can't change a tire on her own but not what she, or many others expected from FLEX week. You can read all about last year here: Flex Week Follies. This year was a very different story.
Gone was the usual triumphal braggadocio. In its place, the college president offered personal testimony about how he understood his place of privilege and shared his own story of encountering diversity and that of his wife. This was followed by two noted equity in education activists - The Campaign for College Opportunity's Audrey Dow and USC's Dr. Shaun Harper - who notably did not ask us to sign up for Triple A insurance plans but instead challenged us to do better. They were great. Unsparing. Direct. Pie charts. Data. They called out institutional racism and the white supremacy and the failure of our educational leader to address it. It's not enough to hang well-intentioned banners, Mr. President. Funny too.
Some say this is Glenn's doing. Many claim it is the influence of the new chancellor. After all, so many of us have seen what Glenn's priorities have been for nearly two decades. Equity assessment that looks at how institutions perpetuate racism and sexism instead of combat it have never ranked this high before. For example, just take a look at the college website page for DACA students which continues to languish. We are beginning to lose a generation of students here who are too afraid to enroll at community college once they graduate high school, so worried are they that doing so will risk themselves, their families. So what has changed? And why? You tell us.
Then everyone else in the room, which was pretty full. It took a while.
Lots of applause.
Board Prez Prendergast speaks
Blah, blah, blah
New budget from governor.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you” to everyone
"Have a great start of the year"
IVC Prez Roquemore (Good Lord!) comes up to introduce new hires, I guess
Blah blah blah
Saddleback Prez Elliot Stern is next. (I like him, so far.)
Bah blah blah
Again, lots of applause
Vice Chancellor (HR), Dr. Cindy Vyskocil, comes up for district services. Seems like a good egg.
Chancellor’s remarks
My notes:
Slide show accompanied by Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” Laughter in response to clever fortuities. Applause.
75th Anniversary of D-day. I love travelling. Been to Normandy beaches. Life-altering experience.
My father is an immigrant. Immigration in the news these days. Immigrants make a tremendous contribution!
50 years ago: the moon landing.
Day after moon landing, “Abbey Road” recorded. Last album recorded by Beatles together. “Come together.”
Woodstock.
Something about a “Mindset List.”
GUN VIOLENCE. 254 victims as of August 8 – gun violence, mass shootings. (Anything involving 4 victims or more.)
Naturally, we’re concerned, afraid. I’ll do everything I can to support you, she said. Inclusivity. Her theme. Talked about the current student generation’s assumptions, notions (based on surveys and such).
1995-2012 generation: “iGen” or “plurals”
Inclusivity (diversity, etc.) is appealing to this gen
Poll taken: they value it, man
Ideal: equal attention paid to students by professors
Protect students from attack, harassment
Student’s job to be open and respectful
Social segregation a hindrance
Characteristics of this gen:
Diverse, driven, open-minded, altruistic, creative problem-solvers
High levels of anxiety and depression (!)
What has influenced these characteristics? Over-parenting, etc.
Students think professors should protect their comfort. “This feels uncomfortable, so something must be wrong.”
Faculty (in the classroom, and elsewhere): two faculty recently lost. She honors mentor lost.
He's taken some bows.
New slide show. Plays Queen’s “We are the Champions,” a much misunderstood song, she said. (Yeah, I guess it champions the underdog, like Freddie, not the “winners.”)
During the part of the slide show that shows IVC’s Prez Roquemore, we hear Freddie sing: “I’ve taken my bows.” — Ha ha ha. (See Let’s compare IVC’s Prez Roquemore with Saddleback’s Prez Stern!)
Very nice [END]
Musical offerings: Saddleback College “Chamber Singers”
“I’m the one who can make the difference.”
“Against all odds,” etc. Pretty professional.
Keynote speaker: Michelle Deutchman: “free speech on campus: new challenges”
Iconic pic: Berkeley free speech, 1964? Berkeley 2016: “out of Berkeley, Nazi sum!” (Oops)
Today’s challenge on campus:
Polarization, lack of civic knowledge, increased use of heckler’s veto, misunderstandings about hate speech, impact of anti-bullying campaigns….
Polarized incoming class
Most politically polarized group in the 51 year history of the survey
Can you name specific freedoms that are protected by First Amendment? Few can.
Heckler’s veto is not protected speech; it infringes on the rights of speakers and of the audience
Protest and disruption: where do you draw the line?
Hate speech IS free speech
48% of students think the 1st Amendment should not protect hate speech!
Voltaire’s famous remark: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it
Many Americans think defending hater’s free speech is contrary to free speech. Nope
Those targeted by white supremacist groups, which are on the rise,
Highest number of incidents are in Cal
Impact of social media.
Free speech Is not free. Marginalized communities pay a high price
What can we do?
Education!
Historical context, etc.
Cleveland State U flier. Encouraging members of the LGBT community to commit suicide!
Yes, but: protected speech!
Can’t stop that speech. But you can speak out against it. (Not against right of speaker; against content of speech)
You have a right not to speak, too.
Speech codes have been struck down; counterproductive
Policy making:
Create, review and update policies, include feedback by campus stakeholders
Make sure people are aware
Institute clear, time place and manner policies and permitting requirements
Amplified sound is permitted in designated campus outdoor locations from noon to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday
Where do we go from here ? [END]
NEXT came what I like to call the annual pinning of the tail to the donkey—i.e., the distribution of service pins.
C’mon, man. Ray got the biggest one. The biggest pin for the biggest asshole.
I noticed that, once again, my service (I was hired in the middle of the Reagan years: 1986) was not listed in the program.
What’s up with that, Glenn?
I booked
Overall, it was a fine opening session. Notably absent were descents into anti-intellectualism and patriotism (leaving aside that pledge thing) or any reference to idiotic buzz words and harebrained initiatives.
… The county that nurtured Ronald Reagan’s conservatism and is the resting place of Richard Nixon is now home to 547,458 registered Democrats, compared with 547,369 Republicans, according to statistics released early Wednesday morning by the county Registrar of Voters. The number of voters not aligned with a political party has also surged in recent years, and stands at 440,711, or 27.4% of the county’s voters…..
“I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee,” said the principal of a high school in Boca Raton, Fla.
A high school principal in Florida has been removed from his position over his refusal to state that the Holocaust was a factual historical event, saying that he had to stay “politically neutral” about the World War II-era genocide of six million Jews.
“Not everyone believes the Holocaust happened,” the principal, William Latson of Spanish River Community High School in Boca Raton, Fla., wrote in an email exchange with an unidentified parent in April 2018. He said that the school offered an assembly and courses on the Holocaust, but that they were optional and could not be “forced upon” all students.
. . .
The comments set off an intense backlash in South Florida, which has a significant Jewish population and has among the highest concentrations of Holocaust survivors in the world. Thousands signed an online petition calling for Mr. Latson’s resignation, and on Monday, the Palm Beach County school district announced that he would be stripped of his position as principal and reassigned to another job in the district.
The debate comes as memory of the Holocaust is fading and anti-Semitism is on the rise. Florida is among the states working to combat that; under state law, all school districts must offer Holocaust education. In 2018, the gunman who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., about a 20-minute drive from Spanish River Community High School, opened fire during one of these lessons, a class called History of the Holocaust.
. . .
In its statement, the school district said that Mr. Latson had made “a grave error in judgment” when he had refused to state the Holocaust as fact in the email. Officials counseled him in a series of meetings, and he also spent several days at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to increase his awareness, the district said.
Mr. Latson, who did not respond to a request for comment on Monday, also apologized in a statement to The Palm Beach Post. “I regret that the verbiage that I used when responding to an email message from a parent, one year ago, did not accurately reflect my professional and personal commitment to educating all students about the atrocities of the Holocaust,” he said.
But by Monday, school officials had decided that Mr. Latson had become a “major distraction.” “It is, therefore, in the best interest of students and the larger school community to reassign Mr. Latson to a District position,” the district said.
. . .
A study released in 2018 found that even among adults, many Americans lacked basic knowledge of the Holocaust, a problem that was especially pronounced among people ages 18 to 34.
For example, 31 percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believed that two million or fewer Jews had been killed in the Holocaust; in fact, the number is around six million. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, could not say what the death camp Auschwitz was. And 52 percent of Americans wrongly thought Hitler had come to power through force....
California Legislation Targeting For-Profits Progresses
Inside Higher Ed California moves toward creating the strictest regulatory landscape for for-profit colleges in the U.S., but proposed legislation has already been weakened.
By Lindsay McKenzie
A package of seven interrelated bills proposing tighter regulation of for-profit and private colleges in California moved closer to becoming law this week – but not fully intact.
One of the bills, a proposal to create the nation’s first state-level gainful-employment rule, was watered down to require only the collection and disclosure of data around employment outcomes of graduates at for-profit colleges.
Another bill, which proposed to toughen the 90-10 rule in California – a regulation that allows for-profit institutions to claim up to 90 percent of their revenue from federal financial aid – was delayed. It is possible the bill will be considered again by the committee next year.
Robert Shireman, director of higher education excellence at the Century Foundation and a former Education Department official during the Obama administration, helped to draft the language of the seven bills. In an emailed statement, he expressed disappointment that the California Senate committees failed to adopt these “critical protections for students.”
“At a time when veterans are at significant risk of being ripped off by for-profit colleges, and just days after [Education] Secretary [Betsy] DeVos shamefully repealed the federal gainful-employment rule, these two bills in California were desperately needed to fill the void that the Trump administration is currently widening,” he said.
“Still, taken together the five bills advanced out of committee represent a positive step forward for California students and, if enacted, would be the strongest for-profit college regulations that any state has passed,” said Shireman. “It is yet another sign of the growing recognition across the country that for-profit colleges, by design, are inherently different and pose greater risks to consumers and taxpayers.”….
