Morons have the upper hand

Gosh, I don’t know whether to be pleased or horrified. I was getting used to the idea that our nation is more anti-science than others:

Teach both evolution and creationism say 54% of Britons (The Guardian)

More than half of British adults think that intelligent design and creationism should be taught alongside evolution in school science lessons – a proportion higher than in the US.
…
About 54% of the 973 polled Britons agreed with the view: "Evolutionary theories should be taught in science lessons in schools together with other possible perspectives, such as intelligent design and creationism."

In the US, of 991 adults responding to the survey, …51% agreed that evolution should be on the curriculum alongside other theories, like intelligent design.

Across the 10 countries, 43% agreed with this statement.

It was found that Britons were almost three times more likely than Egyptians to want creationism and intelligent design to be included in the teaching of evolution….

Yeah, Egypt. That’s where they killed all of those pigs ‘cause of swine flu. You can’t get swine flu from pigs, but they killed ‘em anyway.

If Creationism is a “theory,” it is a remarkably bad one. It implies that our planet is only a few thousand years old. Clearly, it is not.

In science, when a hypothesis implies X and X is not true, you dump it.

Meanwhile, “evolutionary theory,” by which I suppose people understand some sort of synthesis of Darwinian natural selection and genetics, implies all sorts of things, including some very remarkable things, and those things turn out to be true.

“Intelligent design” is merely a recasting of the old “argument from design,” which received a stake through its heart when Wallace and Darwin described the mechanism that explained the apparent fact of “evolution,” something that seemed evident to many scientists long before the publication of Origin of Species in 1859.

All of this is plain to anyone who has any understanding of the natural sciences.

Many people do not share that understanding, evidently.

Curious suspensions

Creative writing instructor Andrew Rempt (Nelvin C. Cepeda / Union-Tribune)

Some of you have asked... Nope, I was not aware of the disturbing recent events at Southwestern College, about 100 miles to our south. So it's time to get up to speed.

At the administrative (and trustee?) level, Southwestern (SC) has been a troubled college for some time. You can read about some of that below. (Yes, felonies, accred troubles, former SOCCCD employees, and administrative rat bastardry are all part of the saga.)

SC faculty and classified have long expressed dissatisfaction with the Superintendent/President, Raj Chopra, who has been accused of familiar heavy-handedness and worse. (He's been described as a "dictator.")

A few years ago, the Southwestern Community College District board was spanked (by the Accreds) for micromanagement.

At one point (not so long ago), all of SC's VPs were gone for one reason or another (fired, etc.).

Naturally, these days, like many other community college districts, the SCCD is confronting severe budget cuts. Many in the district, including students, are very unhappy with how the situation is being handled by Chopra, et al.

Less than a year ago, Chopra received an 8% raise, and this outraged many.

Last Thursday, there was a protest involving mostly students on campus. Not long after the protest, four (or more) faculty--they seem to have participated in the protest--were informed that they were suspended.

At least some of these faculty are, or have been, in leadership positions. Our own "100 Miles Down the Road," formerly the president of the Southwestern College faculty union, was among them.

Based on reporting since last Friday, it is not entirely clear whether the suspensions are related to the protests. But the timing certainly is odd.

Here’s the San Diego Union-Tribune article from Friday:

Southwestern College instructors suspended following rally

CHULA VISTA — At least four Southwestern College instructors have been suspended following a recent campus rally to protest plans to eliminate more than 400 course offerings and to demonstrate growing dissatisfaction with the administration.

A crowd of about 300 assembled on the Chula Vista campus Thursday to demonstrate against the cuts. The group of mostly students walked across campus and circled the president's office before breaking up.

It wasn't until 25 students showed up for their 9 a.m. creative writing class Friday that they realized instructors – including their own – had been suspended. When the students walked toward the president's office, they said campus police intervened and accused them of participating in an unlawful assembly.

College president Raj Chopra is on vacation. His executive assistant, Mary Ganio, released a statement saying Southwestern is investigating a personnel matter that is unrelated to Thursday's protest.

The College “will not comment at this time about the substance of the investigation or any particular employee,” Ganio stated.

The memo went on to say: “I can share that the investigation is unrelated to the student rally. The College shares our students' concerns about reductions in State funding for the College. The College respects, values and is committed to freedom of expression.”

Creative writing instructor Andrew Rempt is among the faculty members who have been suspended with pay following the incident. He said the campus human relations chief and a police officer showed up at his home Thursday night to give him notice of a paid suspension.

The popular instructor declined to discuss details of the suspension letter, but said he didn't see how it couldn't be related to the rally.

Naturally, people often fall prey to post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking--i.e., erroneously reasoning that since A happened prior to B, A must have caused B. On the other hand, the best explanation for these events might be that, among other things, administration seeks to send a message to faculty: dissent at your own peril. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Reporter Maureen Magee provided a somewhat updated version of the story yesterday:

4 faculty at college suspended after rally

...The latest in a string of controversies is Southwestern governing board's recent decision to cut 429 course selections for the spring semester. The cuts represent an estimated 25 percent of all offerings.
...
But tensions have been brewing at Southwestern long before the course eliminations were proposed. Faculty and students have criticized Chopra for having a heavy-handed management style and for excluding instructors and department chairs from important decisions.

“There has been a climate of fear here for some time,” said Andrew MacNeill, acting president of the faculty union. “I think this is about intimidation.”

Resolutions of no confidence have been passed by several groups, including the faculty senate and the union representing non-teaching employees.

Many are still angry over a 7.9 percent pay raise the governing board gave Chopra in November, MacNeill said.….

THE SOUTHWESTERN SAGA:

That's Supe Chopra at right

AUGUST 2008:

We’ve reported events at Southwestern before, e.g., a year or so ago (The seriously wacky world of California community colleges, August 18, 2008):

…On Friday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported (3 college trustees boycott over Sandoval agenda item) that three trustees of the Southwestern cc district “boycotted” a board meeting last Wednesday to prevent its being held—in order to prevent discussion of an item to extend a Southwestern College vice president’s job for a month or two.

It’s a tangled tale. Greg Sandoval, the VP, resigned not long ago after someone claimed he’d sexually harassed them. Then he tried to unresign, but the district’s Supe, Raj Chopra, wouldn’t have it. Then, when Chopra left town, Southwestern board president Dave Agosto hastily snuck a new item onto the board’s agenda for August’s meeting. The item was for an action that would have extended Sandoval’s administrative employment to January. Why? ‘Cause, that way, Sandoval would be old enough, while still employed, to receive lifetime medical benefits!

So three of the trustees put the kibosh on the meeting, thus deep-sixing Agosto’s agenda gambit. Maybe that was the right thing to do. Dunno.

The Trib quotes Chopra as saying, “In my 35 years as an administrator, I have not seen ... an agenda item changed the way (this) did.”
...
This Southwestern story doesn’t end here. In fact, it starts to get seriously convoluted at this point, ‘cause Sandoval is on the board of another district that does business with Southwestern, and it turns out that it was somebody on that other board, who benefited from the relationship, who urged Agosto to….

Well, you know....

From the Southwestern student newspaper (the Sun)

JUNE 2008:
Two months earlier: “Vice” Presidents (June 9, 2008):

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

Two administrators at Southwestern College [Greg Sandoval, vice president for student affairs, and Arthur Lopez, director of financial aid] ... have quit their jobs after being accused of sexual harassment, while denying wrongdoing, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. With one of the resignations, all of the college’s vice presidents have quit or been fired in the last year.

MAY 2008:
And a month before that: “The governing board tended to interfere too much”

From yesterday’s San Diego Union-Tribune: Grand jury expected to urge community college ethics panel:

The [San Diego] county grand jury is expected to release a report tomorrow that will recommend an ethics committee establish and enforce an ethics code for local community colleges.
...
The 17-page report is largely anecdotal and rarely mentions a specific person or even a specific college, except in three instances:

• MiraCosta College accepted the resignation of its president last year in exchange for a severance package of nearly $1.6 million, exceeding the 18 months' salary permitted by state law.
• The employment contract of the chancellor of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District was changed without board approval in 2006. The chancellor deleted a clause that limited his severance pay to 12 months in the event of his dismissal. The clause was later re-inserted. [See Serafin Zasueta.]
• The organization that accredited Southwestern College four years ago noted that the governing board tended to interfere too much in day-to-day operations. Since then, the college has had two interim and two permanent presidents and three of its four vice president positions need to be filled.....

MAY 2006:
And two years before that: Serafin Zasueta (May 3, 2006):

Some at IVC will remember Serafin Zasueta, a Vice President of Instruction at IVC ten or fifteen years ago. I barely remember the guy, but I asked around, and I could find few who had anything good to say about the fellow. ... Most seemed to think that he was a rat bastard.

Said one colleague: "He's as rotten as Mathur, only a little smarter."

Well, smart or no, the fellow has gotten himself into serious trouble.

Back in the early years of the new millennium, Zasueta was the President of Southwestern College, in Chula Vista. But, soon enough, faculty complained that he left them out of decision-making.

Imagine that!

They took a dim view, too, of Zasueta’s use of district vehicles and his purchase of $1 million in life insurance with district money.

With the help of the CTA, faculty backed and secured the election of a trustee candidate who, upon joining the board, tipped the balance against Zasueta. After a board "no confidence" vote, Zasueta was placed on “administrative leave pending investigation of a personnel matter” (CCA Advocate, March/April, 2003).
...
Well, not long after, Zasueta was indicted together with a political consultant named Larry Remer:

A high-profile political consultant illegally conspired to spend public funds on a commercial promoting a community college bond campaign five years ago and then tried to cover it up, a prosecutor told jurors yesterday.

“This is a case about abusing power and violating public trust,” prosecutor John Rice said….

Defense lawyer Michael Pancer [said] that there was nothing illegal about the way consultant Larry Remer went about getting a bill for $5,890.47 paid following the successful campaign for an $89 million bond…Pancer didn't dispute that college funds were used to pay the bill, but he said it was legal because the school wasn't paying for the production of the commercial, but rather to purchase outtakes for education and marketing.

It is illegal to use taxpayer money to advocate positions in political campaigns.

Remer and former Southwestern College President Serafin Zasueta were indicted on conspiracy, theft, and wire and mail fraud charges in 2004.

Both have pleaded not guilty. The trial of Zasueta, who was fired in 2003, is scheduled to begin April 24…Zasueta claims he didn't know anything about how the bill was paid and that Remer defrauded him and the college, according to court documents.

The case centers around a bill for a television commercial for Proposition AA, which passed with 69 percent support in November 2000.

The commercial was produced by an Alexandria, Va., firm and shot on Southwestern's campus. It shows several students talking about how the money from the bond would be used.

A month after the election, the Virginia company, Murphy Putnam Media Inc., sent a bill for editing and production of the ad to Friends of Southwest College, a campaign committee set up by Remer.

However, the committee had spent all its money.

At that point, the prosecutor said, Remer and Zasueta had a choice to make. They could have raised more money. They could have told the company the bill was late and couldn't be paid. Or Remer could have paid the company out of his own pocket.

“But there was a fourth option,” Rice told jurors. “An illegal option.” And that was to use school funds, the prosecutor said.

“They couldn't use public funds, but they did,” he said.

Rice said that after Zasueta decided to disguise the payment as the purchase of outtakes, Remer asked the company to send the college a bill for “dubs and commercial footage.”

The bill was paid out of the school's theater budget.

In the fall of 2002, Carla Kirkwood, a theater professor, reviewed her department's budget, found the payment to the Virginia company and alerted a trustee.

That prompted an inquiry, during which Remer sent Zasueta a memorandum stating different uses the college would have for the video outtakes.

That, Rice said, was part of a cover-up…. (“Legality of funds’ use contested,” San Diego Union Tribune, 3/29)

Here, then, is the last chapter of this story. Yesterday’s LA Times (“Consultant Admits to Misuse of Funds”) reported as follows:

In a plea bargain, a political consultant Monday pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor criminal count stemming from alleged misuse of public money in exchange for six felony counts being dropped.

Larry Remer, 55, agreed to pay restitution to Southwestern Community College in Chula Vista and a fine of $5,000, and to perform 100 hours of community service.

Serafin Zasueta, 63, the former college president, pleaded guilty to the same count and accepted the same conditions.

…On April 7, a jury deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of convicting Remer of six counts stemming from $5,890.47 spent by the college for outtakes from a TV commercial favoring an $89-million bond issue for improvements at the college on the 2000 ballot.

Zasueta was awaiting trial.....

• OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA:

NEWS RELEASE SUMMARY - May 1, 2006

United States Attorney Carol C. Lam announced today the guilty pleas of Lawrence “Larry” D. Remer, a San Diego political consultant, and Serafin A. Zasueta, former President and Superintendent of Southwestern College. Both defendants pled guilty before United States District Judge John A. Houston to an Information charging them with illegally using public funds from the Southwestern Community College District to pay for political activity in relation to the Proposition AA Bond measure which was on the November 2000 ballot. Proposition AA was a bond measure seeking $89 million in bonds for Southwestern College

• OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA: NEWS RELEASE SUMMARY - July 21, 2006:

United States Attorney Carol C. Lam today announced that Lawrence “Larry” D. Remer, a San Diego political consultant, and Serafin A. Zasueta, former President and Superintendent of Southwestern College were sentenced today in federal court in San Diego by United States District Court Judge John A. Houston to serve three years probation for violating18, United States Code, Section 600, Promise of Benefit for Political Activity, a misdemeanor. As part of his guilty plea, each defendant agreed to pay full restitution to Southwestern Community College in the amount of $2,945.24, pay a fine of $5,000, and perform 100 hours of community service.


. . . . .


● You might be interested in visiting the website of the SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION.

According to the website, the union's leadership appears to be (or was):

Phil Lopez, President [?] (a Dissent the Blog reader)
Jordan Mills, Vice President
Shannon Gracey, Secretary
David Brown, Treasurer
Carol Stuardo, Part-time Representative
Rob Unger, Grievance Chair

● A blog covering Southwestern College issues:

Save Our Southwestern College: A collective effort by concerned faculty, staff, students, and members of the Southwestern College community.

● Evidently, about two years ago, a group of faculty sought to challenge the SCEA (Southwestern College's faculty union): Challenge. Don't know what that's about.

● Naturally, one wonders what the Southwestern Community College District (SCCD) board of trustees is like. Go to SCCD board.

President, Jean Roesch, Ed.D. - Seat 1 (since 2000)
Yolanda Salcido - Seat 4 (since 2002)
Nick Aguilar - Seat 3 (since 2008)
Jorge Dominguez, Ph.D. - Seat 5 (since 2006)
Terri Valladolid - Seat 2 (since 1998)

$10,000 for In-N-Out Burgers; $35,000 for "investigations"; $60K for sniffin' out grants

I'VE BEEN grading all day, but occasionally I’ve taken a few minutes to peruse the agenda for Monday’s SOCCCD board meeting (see October agenda).

Some things just pop out at you!

● CURIOUS CONTRACTS

Item 5.17 is Sept/Oct contracts, the ratification of which the Chancellor recommends. (See below.)

I’m not saying there’s anything hinky here. But each of these recommended contracts seems to me to be at least curious.

CATTLE FECES. For instance, looks like the Chancellor (et al.) wants to pay In-N-Out Burger nearly $10,000 for mobile units (two different days, evidently).

Gosh, that’s a lot of money. It oughta pay for one hell of a lot of burgers.

They’re not good for you, you know. It’s all that cattle feces. People who work around the killing floor like to say, "Eat sh*t and die."

Just sayin’.

APARTMENTS? How come we’re paying for "Heritage Point" apartments for foreign students? No doubt there’s a very good reason for this. Too bad perusing the agenda provides not a clue (aside from the factoid that the students are here “via a grant”).

I don't think Raghu and the board are into the democracy thing.

LET'S GET HONEY WEST.  Looks like we’re paying one private investigator over $15,000 and another private investigator $20,000. That’s $35 K.

Gosh, what are they investigating? Not me, I hope. Inquiring minds wanna know. (Does anyone remember Honey West? God, I feel old.)

$60,000? Prima facie, it strikes me as odd that we’re paying “Greene & Associates” $60,000 just to be on the lookout for grants. But whaddoo I know. Does anybody know how this works?

But really. $60K, just to be sniffing out grants? Does John's brother work for Greene, is that it?

Click on graphics to enlarge them

● INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER

Item 5.9 is approval for expenses for scheduled Saddleback College and IVC guest speakers.

Each college is requesting money for one speaker. At IVC, a “college studies” instructor needs $2,500 to accommodate a California resident named Azim Khamisa.

According to Wikipedia, he’s an inspirational speaker. Doesn’t seem to be an academic. He hangs with the likes of Oprah, I think. You see 'im on TV.

Evidently, he’ll be speaking for two classes: “Introduction to Assertion” and “Helping Relationships.”

The topic: “Achieving peace through forgiveness.” See recent interview of Khamisa on the CBS Early Show.

At first, I wondered if Khamisa is some sort of New Age flake. Apparently not.

Speaking of New Age flakes (not Khamisa), I hear that Trustee Fuentes knows Werner Ehrhard’s brother. Maybe Tom could get est boy for us on the cheap!

"Fabulous cash prize" for Perez tonight

(OC Reg)

Top O.C. teachers to get $15,000 cash tonight

William Habermehl, Orange County Superintendent of Schools, left, congratulates Lawrence Perez, math professor at Saddleback College on May 7, 2009, as being an Orange County teacher of the year finalist, as Raghu P. Mathur, Chancellor of South Orange County Community College District and Tod A. Burnett, president of Saddleback College, applaud. [Perez was among five selected as winners. See Reg article above.]

Student who sued over anti-Christian remarks must pay district (OC Reg)

Silverado Canyon

California Sierra Nevada, c. 1972

After the terrible fire (two or so years ago): Modjeska Grade

Up at Roy's place, recently

Tom Fuentes to inspect faculty salaries

The October meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees will occur on Monday, Oct. 26. (The closed session is at 5:00 p.m.; the open session starts at 6:00.)

As usual, the meeting will be held in the "Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room," which is attached to the Health Sciences Building, Saddleback College.

Item 7.5 concerns “Salaries of College Professors.” Reference is made to Exhibit A.

You’ll recall that Mr. Fuentes, a fellow who contemns district faculty, requested this information two or three months ago.

Exhibit A explains that this report is “a comparison of the faculty salaries at SOCCCD with those of other institutions of higher education in OC…."

Below is the main part of the graph that appears there:

Exhibit A explains that the “last column is entitled, 'All', which represents the average of actual salaries paid to all faculty members.”

As you can see, according to this report, average salaries (at OC community colleges) are as follows:

NOCCCD -- $102,816

CCCD -- $93,681
SOCCCD -- $92,785
RSCCD -- $90,464

Our district's full-time faculty have the 3rd highest salaries of the four districts.

Salaries at the NOCCCD are more than $10,000 higher than those of the SOCCCD.

Academic senate: an earthenware head

And how could I deny that these hands and this body are mine, were it not perhaps that I compare myself to certain persons, devoid of sense, whose cerebella are so troubled and clouded by the violent vapours of black bile, that they constantly assure us that they think they are kings when they are really quite poor, or that they are clothed in purple when they are really without covering, or who imagine that they have an earthenware head or are nothing but pumpkins or are made of glass.

—René Descartes

As you know, I teach philosophy at Irvine Valley College.

I’m a member of one of ten “schools” of the college, namely, the glorious and abiding School of Humanities and Languages.

I’m one of two senators representing H&L in the Academic Senate, a body of about twenty souls who represent faculty on, well, academic matters. (The union represents faculty on contractual matters, God help us.)

Over the years, I’ve generally made a point of keeping senate affairs out of the blog, but, for various reasons, I’ve decided to reverse this policy. And why not? We all believe in transparency, don’t we?

Yes we do.

TODAY’S SENATE MEETING:

So, today, the Academic Senate met (it meets every second Thursday from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.), and the meeting, with its new President, went well.

At one point, an instructor who helps direct and “facilitate” our college’s efforts to “implement SLOs” (student learning outcomes), gave a brief demonstration of software designed to assist instructors in this, um, implementation.

What are SLOs? Nope, they’re not anything common sense might gravitate towards. (“Stuff students learn.”) They’re balderdash. I won’t even bother to define SLOs. It would be pointless.

Nevertheless, the ACCJC, our accreditor, requires of colleges that they provide “evidence of the achievement of student learning outcomes.” The accreds regard this as a matter of “institutional effectiveness.” (And what’s that? Don’t ask.)

I like the two instructors who facilitate this SLO thing, but, when they present at Senate meetings, I can’t help but react to the absurdity and idiocy of it all. It is as though we were Scholastics charged with determining how many succubi can ravish a turnip on the head of a pumpkin.

Today, one of the SLOers demonstrated accessing a program called eLumen, which is supposed to assist faculty in doing those things that must be done re SLOs for courses/programs.

I asked a series of peevish questions about the unavoidable ugliness of the verbiage and forms projected upon the screen (alas, I even used the word “incoherent”), and this clearly pissed off the SLO maven. Later, I made a big show of saying (as an aside) that I sometimes overreact to SLOs (mea culpa), owing to their hideous, spirit-sucking, counter-productive quality and the similarity of this whole dang SLO initiative to the events of dystopian novels such as 1984. (Well, I didn't really say all that, but I thunk it.)

She seemed to accept this as an apology. I was glad.

No doubt I seemed like an anti-SLO extremist, but, in truth, I was holding back. This SLO business is the product of clueless right-wing reformers (“Show us the pedagogical widgets!”) and even more clueless education theorists (don’t get me started) pursuing educational reform (or alleged science). As their various “outcomes” notions passed through and were transmogrified by clueless/jaded/moronic legislators on their way to the undeniably mediocre (or worse) Accreditation bureaucrats, early on they took on a monstrous quality such that they bore no resemblance to anything anyone dared embrace, except as a joke or perverse objet d’art.

No matter, the SLO freight train was unstoppable and flew headlong through the bureaucratic intestine (er, I’m experiencing metaphorical confusitude) until it ended up at long last as a highly dubious set of “standards” demanded by ACCJC, an organization presided over by that notorious pinhead and jackass Babs Beno.

OK, maybe I’m wrong (don’t thinks so), but any decent and intelligent person would at this point reject, condemn, curse, and generally piss upon this SLO business and all of the forms and tasks and reassigned time with which it is associated.

But no.

Today, at the senate meeting, Ms. K got out her soapbox, climbed upon it, and then declared that she is no friend of SLOs. Still, said she (with a palpable high self-regard and an aura of imminent self-contradiction), you can approach these SLO requirements as crap and get nothing out of it—or you can embrace them and let them do the good and wonderful things they were designed to do.

Yeah, it’s like getting handed a sack of cat poop to, say, wash your hands. Now, you can curse the sack—or you can be mature and good and do the dang hand-washing. With that poop.

STRATEGIC PLANNING: We had an interesting—even a good—discussion about the College-wide Strategic Planning process. (These processes, too, are demanded by the Accreditation Pinheads.) Somebody yammered about that for a bit.

Then, essentially, I asked: OK, is this more bullshit, or is this stuff for real?

Once again, soapboxes materialized and were mounted. You’ll never get anywhere not participating. You’ve got to participate, or shuddup. People are so cynical. Do a good turn daily. Every vote counts.

“Yeah, but no freakin’ wonder people are cynical,” said someone. Mr. T then referred to our college’s “dark period.”

It’s been tough believing in anything here at IVC.

On the other hand, Mr. J (an often sensible fellow) seemed to think that there are real opportunities here to make good things happen. Someone else expressed her distaste for those hinky backroom deals we all heard about in the dark days (and even recently). Participating in the planning process is a way of being transparent and avoiding all that. It’s a good and open process. So everybody should get on board.

“Doors are now opening,” said someone.

“Things are changing,” said Mr. S, earlier during the meeting.

“Oh, yeah? What do you mean?”, I asked.

Um, well, uh, they’re changing is all. You know.

“OK, so does this change shed some positive light on anyone in particular?” I was hoping that S would say, “yes, Don Wagner will be firing that rat bastard Raghu next week, so be of good cheer!” – but no. Things are changing is all, and for the better.

Believe it.

Yeah, but I want particulars. I’ll accept vague ones. Winks and nudges even.

In the course of today’s meeting, I was assured that IVC’s Accreditation steering committee—the one including Wendy, Don Wagner, Tracy, Lisa, et al.—is moving along nicely and Don (that former basher of faculty) is still showing up and taking faculty remarks seriously.

All is well, I was told.

OK, guess so. And I mean that.

SOME BACKGROUND (AN OLD DtB POST):

 SLOs: “We think this is crap,” says the respected conservative scholar  (7/21/08)

From Inside Higher Ed: Could the Wrong Assessment Kill the Liberal Arts?:

Unlikely critics gathered Friday to offer strong criticisms of the Education Department’s push for assessment using standardized instruments.

One of the participants in the gathering was Peter Wood, the executive director of the conservative National Association of Scholars, which has pressed for greater rigor in college curriculum. He is no fan of the DoE’s approach:

The department’s insistence on testing for specific learning outcomes … provide what he called a “severely impoverished view of what higher education should be.” The push to focus on learning outcomes at the college level, according to Wood, are “a distraction and, at worse, a menace” for instructors. Promoting learning outcome assessments, Wood said, assumes all collegiate courses have a specified skill-set of knowledge that can be identified in advance of having these courses instructed.

Wood noted that instructors often simply ignore SLOs:

“We bluff,” Wood said of some instructors who identify quantifiable sets of skills or knowledge, noting that accreditation reviews typically verify only what a college sets out to accomplish. “We think this is nonsense. We think this is crap. We put on paper what we’re going to do and then do something else anyway.”

See also Outcomes Based Assessments are Destructive of a Liberal Education written, it appears, by a conservative.

Making sense of SLOs, a recent DtB post

P.S.

I've already heard from some faculty who share my low regard of SLOs. They write:

• Your comments on [SLOs, which are now part of Program Review] were so cathartic. I have to do the damn thing but just reading your notes made me feel a sense of relief. I always feel that I am betraying someone when I dis the whole process. It has already taken far too much time and energy that could be spent improving my classes....

• I loved your take on SLOs! I have attended a few mind-numbing workshops on SLOs and always managed to leave more confused than when I arrived. They piss me off and make me brain dead at the same time, and I know they have no bearing on my teaching and less bearing on the results from the student side. They just take up even more time that I could spend developing great classroom materials. I finally decided to suck it up and tackle them and just give them what they want....

Our most popular video —or 1000 Dissent fans can't be wrong!

I've been awful busy in the last year or so, and so  I've neglected "Dissent the Blog videos." Gosh, it's been ages since I've made one of 'em.

But I just noticed that some of our videos have been getting a fair number of hits!

Above is Dissent's #1 video, which has been viewed over 1000 times.

It appears that Raghu P. Mathur is a ham. If so, he's probably as pleased as we are that so many have seen this video.

As Raghu would say, it's a win-win!

My personal fave:


Hey, everybody complains about low morale, but I'm doing something about it.