Rebel Girl Has a Dream: The Girl Can't Help It

nce again, Rebel Girl is humbled by the thoughtful, inspired programming commemorating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. offered by the college.

Some colleges are satisfied with a day of events or even a single event, but not IVC. No. Only an entire week of activities will do.

This surely demonstrates the college’s commitment to inclusion, civil rights and all that is good and just in the world. It shows our community that this little sector of Orange County is committed, nay, dedicated to living the legacy of Dr. King. It makes her proud.

One glance at the heft of the Schedule of Events booklet shows the depth of our respect.

The week begins with a free pancake breakfast on Tuesday morning, with all the trustees taking their turns behind the griddle, clutching spatulas. Performing will be a local interfaith chorus. Representatives of local peace and justice, community and environmental organizations will be present. Irvine Valley College will announce its institutional adoption of an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and unveil plans for a Peace and Justice Center adjacent the (former) Terry Burgess Greenhouse. Chancellor Mathur will cut the ribbon. President Roquemore does the honors with the shovel.

Throughout the week, district administrators will visit classes, encouraging involvement in service projects both on and off campus, toward helping provide for the needs of those without. Furthermore, each administrator has made a personal pledge to tithe amounts equivalent to the unprecedented raises each received last year: the monies will go to local groups battling poverty, including the Catholic Worker. Rebel Girl was told that the meeting where this decision was made was very, very emotional.


Noontime events on the lawn in front of the Student Services Center include college trustees giving the King speech of their own choosing. The event is free, and community members are welcome. While reports suggest there was indeed a friendly tussle for the honor to recite the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Trustee Fuentes, former chair of the Orange County Republican Party, prevailed and will offer the landmark speech--from memory--on Tuesday. Wednesday’s presentation has been claimed by Trustee John Williams who will read, not a speech but instead King’s 1963 “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.” On Wednesday, Don Wagner will recreate King’s classic anti-war speech given at Riverside Church a year before his death: “Beyond Vietnam.” In accepting the responsibility of this controversial address, for which Dr. King was attacked at the time as a “demagogue” by Time magazine, Wagner quoted King: “Our lives begin to end on the day we refuse to speak.” Thursday’s schedule includes a “Civil Rights” recreation event, the 1965 nonviolent confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, facilitated by Dave Lang, Nancy Padberg, Marcia Milchiker and Bill Jay.


Throughout the week, the Orange County Lego League will honor Dr. King by staging various interactive scenes from his life in the A-quad. The centerpiece is their distinctive and award-winning recreation of the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The OCLL is particularly proud of, not only its ability to re-create the mall, Washington Monument and reflecting pool, the Lincoln Memorial, but also its construction of uncanny models of historical figures who took the stage that day alongside King: Peter Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan, SNCC’s John Lewis and Mahalia Jackson.

Finally, in honor of King’s commitment to labor justice, the district has announced that it will settle the contract dispute with the Classified Union. It will be, indeed, a “fair contract.”

As you can probably tell by now, Rebel Girl dreams too.


Now some may gripe that Rebel Girl is simply eating a plate of sour grapes. That she, given lemons, lacks the vision to make lemonade. That she is one of those who sees a glass of water for what it isn’t, not for what it is: wet.

It’s true that when she was newly hired and full of all sorts of ideas and full of the energy that comes from working at an institution that seeks to nurture rather than oppress, that she and her colleagues had the temerity to put together a modest but singular King Day offering for a number of years: a showing of the award-winning documentary: "From Montgomery to Memphis." It was an effort that sought to fill a need. It did. Of course, she secretly hoped that the institution would take on what is obviously an institutional obligation.

Years passed, the college underwent its “changes” and so-called “multicultural programming” was taken over by people who imagined Yul Brynner’s “The King and I” offered relevant lessons in assimilation for college students. Say no more, though Rebel Girl could say plenty.

But Rebel Girl can’t help to add that the deafening silence by which King Day is celebrated on this campus is a sharp contrast to another day that she still remembers: on April 27, 1994, our district distinguished itself by becoming the only college district in the nation to close in an official day of mourning in honor of the passing of Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Say no more.

Yabba Dabba Doo

ON THE SECOND DAY of the Spring semester, I awoke in bed bleary-eyed and glanced at the clock. Good Lord! I had a class to teach in five minutes!

I ran to the phone to try to find someone at the college to tell the class that I would be a tad late. As it turns out, the School secretary was not at her phone. I then tried “IVC information,” but, as usual, that only gave me a recording. I tried some of the extensions mentioned on the recording, but that only yielded more recordings!

Boy was I steamed. How hard is it to hire actual human beings to answer the gosh darn phones?

I guess we’re a pretty peevish bunch at Dissent. Even our friends are peevish.


bout a week ago, I ran into a couple of student friends at Rutabegorz in Tustin, an old-school vegetarian restaurant. One of them, Jonathan, said hello, while the other, Mr. E. Debs—an occasional contributor to Dissent—grunted diffidently, as is his custom.

“What’s up?”, I said.

That prompted a torrent of abject peevitude from Jonathan. He explained that, several weeks ago, he had tried to register for classes at IVC online, but he was immediately stymied because, somehow, his enrollery was premature.

He had not waited, it seems, for his “enrollment window."


“What’s that?” I asked. Well, nobody at IVC had actually told Jonathan what his enrollment window was. He had one, though.

Jonathan then explained that, when he proceeded to try to enroll anyway, he received an error message according to which, owing to his prematurity, he was preventing other students from enrolling! Imagine that!

None of this meant anything to me. “So what’s your beef?” I asked. Jonathan looked at me like I must be kidding or something. He then patiently explained:

"Any well-designed system will have excess capacity built in to handle things like this—busy periods, network attacks, and so on!”

But of course! Any idiot knows that!

Well, that was about it. Jonathan said goodbye, Mr. Debs grunted, and off the two went.

A few days later, Jonathan sent me a message to which he attached two emails regarding the above-mentioned incident. The first, dated November 22, was addressed to Glenn Roquemore, President of IVC:

Dear Dr. Roquemore:

It has come to my attention, through a message placed on the Web by your programmers, that your system is unable to handle the extra load placed on it by students attempting to enroll prior to their enrollment window. I had no idea how determined my fellow students were to register, or that two or three of them might attempt to register prematurely at the same time! I also had no idea how starved for funds you truly were! In order to see any appreciable delays from an extra three users per second, you must be running your college enrollment software on a ten-year-old Pentium laptop with 48 megabytes of memory.

I am prepared to help. If asked, I will donate to the college my dual processor Pentium Pro server, circa 1998, with four 9Gb disk drives and 512 megabytes of memory. With Linux, the Apache web server, and the MySQL database engine, you ought to be able to get 100 users/second out of that machine, easily enough to accommodate over-eager enrollers. If, by some astronomical windfall, you get hold of an off-the-shelf computer from Sam's Club—well, your limiting factor becomes your network capacity.

In the interim, you have my profound sympathies, as does the engineer who has to prevent that poor Pentium laptop from melting down.

Very truly yours, Jonathan

Weeks passed, but Jonathan received no response from the Roquester. Jonathan commenced seething in peevitude.

He then turned to plan B. On December 9, he emailed one Jim Phaneuf, the district’s “Associate Director of Information Systems & Services”:

Dear Mr. Phaneuf:

I am a registered student at IVC. When I attempted to register prior to my registration window, I got an error message stating the following:

You are being denied access to the registration system for the following reasons: You may only use registration during your assigned appointment periods. By trying early you are preventing others from gaining access to the system. Please do not try again until Tuesday, November 29, 2005 after 02:00 PM

Is it literally true that I was inadvertently preventing others from gaining access to the system? Don't you have sufficient system and network capacity to handle requests from people accessing the registration system by mistake, without undue stress?

My brother works on online multiple listing service solutions for the real estate industry. His systems can handle tens of thousands of Web transactions per second, each involving multiple page builds and database calls. The data centers are modest—four or five dual processor machines facing the Web, four database servers, and four application servers. The connectivity in each facility is also modest—two peered T1 lines.

I can't believe that SOCCCD can't field that kind of architecture for its students! If you have something reasonable like this in place, why do you say that people who attempt to register early are preventing other people from using the system?

Sincerely, Jonathan

Once again, he received no response whatsoever.

Yesterday, I ran into Jonathan yet again. He was still steamed about the enrollment snafu. Said he:

“My guess is that either they were being stupid and moralizing for the hell of it, or that students were trying to game the system by trying to ‘snipe’ the first available classes in the enrollment window. If the latter, there are obvious technical steps to solve the problem, e.g., decoupling the authentication phase from the subnet used to run the rest of the enrollment system.”

I guess so. Absolutely!

The "toxic plume"

"The long-term effects of trichloroethylene [TCE, a solvent] on human beings is unknown. In animal studies, chronic trichloroethylene exposure has produced liver cancer in mice, but not in rats. Studies on its effects on reproduction in animals have been similarly inconsistent, and so no conclusive statements about its ability to cause birth defects in humans can be made."

--Wikipedia on "TCE"

or some reason, we never seem to hear much about the toxic plume beneath us here in Irvine, caused by 40 years of solvent dumping at the former El Toro Marine Base.

When I say "we," I mean denizens of Irvine Valley College in particular. (See plume map below.)

If you visit the Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD) website (IRWD contamination history), you'll find this helpful "History of El Toro Contamination":

* 1985: [TCE] Contamination discovered
* 1989: Installed Well ET-1 [across the street from IVC] to slow plume movement. However, one well is not enough to remove the plume completely
* 1990: Dept. of Navy accepted its responsibility and Superfund site created
* 1994-2001: Negotiations with the Navy and the Dept. of Justice
* 2001: Settlement agreement reached: Navy agreed to pay for removal of the volatile organic compound contamination
* In October 2003, proposed project modifications were made, including changing well locations, and adding a shallow groundwater unit (SGU) volatile organic treatment facility near the former MCAS El Toro
* In February 2004, well site acquisition in Woodbridge was unsuccessful
* IRWD reached agreement with The Irvine Company (TIC) to take over existing TIC agricultural wells and pipelines, some of which can be incorporated into the Irvine Desalter Project. Therefore, construction costs were lowered, resulting in a more cost effective project



ecently, the IRWD has attempted to build a much-needed second toxic cleanup pump, but that got NIMBYd into oblivion. For the story, go to "Woodbidge nix sends well back to drawing board"

Some excerpts from that Irvine World News article:

The Irvine Ranch Water District is back to re-evaluating options in the project to clean up the plume of toxins in the groundwater under Irvine.

The Woodbridge Village Association board voted Feb. 4 to not allow the water district to drill a cleanup well near the community's North Lake Lagoon and to work with IRWD to find another solution in dealing with the "toxic plume."

The board had initially agreed to allow the water district to use the Woodbridge Lake well to pump trichloroethylene (TCE)-contaminated water from the plume in groundwater that extends from the old El Toro air base. The well would have been part of the larger project, dubbed the Irvine Desalter Project, which would clean up toxins from the air base that seeped into the groundwater over a period of about 40 years. One such cleanup well has been in operation at Irvine Center Drive and Jeffrey Road since 1989, but the water district says that one well is not enough.

Other wells will pump uncontaminated water upstream from the plume to help slow the progress of the plume's expansion and slow movement toward areas in the underground water that provide drinking water.

The plume also is headed toward areas in the aquifer that might be used in the future to supply Irvine with drinking water. And, the contaminated part of the water basin is a potential source of drinking water for the future.

...Some residents questioned why the project was named "Irvine Desalter Project," when it's a toxic plume clean-up.

...Without the cleanup well, the lake will continue to be filled with water pumped from the toxic plume by an existing well owned by the Woodbridge Village Association, as it has been since the lake was created. About two years ago, the association stopped using the well water to fill the swimming lagoon beside the lake, which is now filled with drinking-quality water. No TCE has been detected in the lake, according to association official Bob Figeira, though it has been detected in the existing well.

...At [a] meeting, environmental medicine specialist Mary McDaniel said that measures would be taken to ensure the safety for the community during the drilling of the proposed toxic plume well.

She said a study indicated that the project did not present a health risk during the drilling of the well or during the clean-up operation, which is estimated to last about 40 years.... (Feb. 12, 2004)


P.S.:

I ran across an interview of Ray Watson, former President of the Irvine Company (Watson). He designed the Woodbridge Village Association, which opened in 1976. In the interview (evidently in 2001), he explains why North Lake is warmer than South Lake:

The main idea was to have a recreational community connected by paths. We also came up with the idea of lakes. I don’t know if you ever heard the story, but the water that goes into the North Lake Lagoon is warmer than the water that goes into the South Lake Lagoon. This happened by accident in the sense that when we were drilling for water for the North Lake, we hit a natural hot water spring.

Yeah, but that's not all they hit.


Note: NIMBY = "not in my back yard"
It would seem that opposition to the El Toro Airport was largely fueled by NIMBYism, although other motives existed.
Trustee Fuentes was among the leaders of the opposition movement. Oddly, given their differing politics, so was Irvine's Larry Agran.

“Decomposed materials of organic origin”

s you know, dear readers, Dissent has chronicled the IVC A200 “mold monster” story right from the start. When Mr. S was found hyperventilating in a pool of his own drool over by the A200 water cooler, Dissent was there. When some guys were spotted standing and pointing on the roof of A200, Dissent was there. When technicians showed up in A200 with what they called a “really expensive gizmo,” yes, Dissent was there.

Dissent has now secured a copy of a report, dated December 5 (hmmm, why is it circulating only now?), from The Machado Environmental Corporation, a company that, evidently, the college has hired to conduct “limited inspection and testing” of HVAC systems (I think they mean “air conditioning”).

The testing will be in two phases: one before and one after the HVAC systems are cleaned. This particular report concerns phase 1.

Here’s my report on the Machado report:

STINKAGE:

According to Mr. Huff, the author of the Machado report, “A number of sewer vents are all located between three and seven feet from an outside air intake of one or more of the A/C units.” “This situation,” he continues gravely, “could result in complaints from occupants of sewer odors due to sewer gases….”

“Could result in complaints”? Well, yeah, that could happen. But the situation could result in complaints because the situation could result in wafting stinkage.

ROOF:

We now know what those guys were doing on the roof. “The roof was quite clean,” reports Mr. Huff. One wonders what he expected to find up there. Zoroastrian bone yards?

INTERIOR, SMALL OFFICES:

In a section of the report entitled, “Inspection of building interior,” Huff writes that “the [A200] building consists of numerous classrooms and a variety of offices. The office area, apparently for professors and instructors, consists of a number of relatively small offices.”

I’m glad he noticed the smallness of our offices. He is pleased by the "variety" of office configurations. That's nice.

Huff says that, in the few offices he could enter—many, he says, were “locked”; apparently, no one had bothered to arrange for Huff’s crew to actually enter anything—things looked pretty good.

“No unpleasant odor,” writes Mr. Huff. Evidently, at least one hallway was stink-free. Oh good.

IT STINKS LIKE THREE GUYS, NOT TWO:

On the other hand, “The supply vents in some of the offices were closed or nearly closed.” Huff seems to focus on one hell hole in particular: “In the Kaufman [sic] /Frets office the supply vent was almost completely closed. There were three desks in this office, suggesting three occupants. [Nope. Just two.] The supply vent appeared to have mold growth on the exposed surface.”

Um, what's the point of noting that three people occupy this space? Can somebody explain that to me? Is Huff thinking that, if toxins are gonna fill the room it's best to keep the number down to two?

Further, writes Huff, “We inspected the supply vents in a number of classrooms. Each of the supply vents we inspected was dirty inside….”

Well, to make a long story short, a “surface sample” was taken from the supply vent in the “Kaufman office.” This and some air samples were sent to a laboratory for “analysis by direct microscopy.”

That sounds pretty technical. It's science.

KAUFMAN HOSTS SPORES:

The result: “Analysis of…[air samples throughout the building] revealed only background or normal mold spore levels….”

Mostly, the samples didn’t show much, but then there's the hell hole sample: “Kaufman’s supply vent had very high levels of fungal hyphae and fungal spores, which is consistent with the mold growth detected there.”

That can’t be good.

So you’ll probably want to avoid going inside Jeff and David’s office—an office that, incidentally, opens up to the infamously uninviting “faculty lounge” (which sports one ratty sofa and a fake tree) and that is right across from Mr. S’s notoriously mold-infested office. (Have I mentioned that Mr. S has evacuated his office? He now resides down the hall, far from the madding spore, seething in peevitude.)

DUST:

What about dust? Mr. Huff helpfully notes that “inhaling dust is unhealthy….” But he and his gizmo-wielding crew didn’t find much dust, except in the case of some “Fabric chairs.”

I think he means to say that when you bang on the cushion of that ratty sofa in the faculty lounge, a dust cloud forms and a great fetid stink envelops the building, choking all life.

In the “discussion” part of the report, Huff declares that, in general, the air conditioning supply ducts were “dirty.” He refers to the “growth of Cladosporium on the supply vent in the Kaufman office….”

Huff suddenly gets clinical (and grammatical): "Cladosporium is capable of eliciting allergic responses in certain individuals. This mold type can also produce toxins that are potentially harmful to humans.”


RECOMMENDATIONS:

In the “Recommendations” portion of the report, Huff opines that the “ductwork of all 15 A/C systems should be thoroughly cleaned.” Plus stuff should be vacuumed once a month. Not once a decade, Glenn. Once a month.

Appended to the report are lab reports for each of the samples. One air sample was typical. It showed a

~ 38% concentration of dander, i.e., “animal epidermal cell remnants” [rat dandruff],
~ 12% concentration of “organic detritus,” i.e., “partially decomposed materials of organic origin” [rat turds]
~ (less than) 1% “fungal spores,” “insect body parts,” “spider webs,” and so on.

Yum.

Also appended to the report are “photographic documentation.” These photos look like Nineteenth Century daguerreotypes of pipes and walls. Huff or somebody even squiggled over some of them, further obscuring their nature.

What does it all mean? Hell if I know. But we certainly are looking forward to “phase 2”!

Senate Bill 55 passes!

"Then the Law, sir, is a ass!!"

--Bumble the beadle in Dickens' "Oliver Twist"

t appears that Senate Bill 55 (see Earlier blog) passed yesterday. A majority of members of the (California State) Senate Committee on Education voted in favor of an amended version of the bill, which requires that

when the presiding officer of a local academic senate notifies, in writing, the executive officer of a community college district governing board that a motion of no confidence has been adopted by that academic senate with respect to a campus or district administrator of that district, the executive officer of the governing board shall cause that matter to be placed on the agenda of the next meeting of that governing board. The bill would also require the matter to be placed on the agenda of a second meeting of the governing board, to be held no sooner than one month, and no later than 2 months, after the first meeting for which the matter was placed on the agenda in order that the governing board may make certain determinations regarding that matter. (Link: Lowenthal's Bill as passed)

The bill in its original form was introduced by State Senator Alan Lowenthal a year ago (January '04) and was amended apparently by Committee Chair Jack Scott. Reliable sources have informed us, however, that the amended bill should be an improvement over the original bill. Lowenthal voted for the amended version.

The original bill was supported by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges (FACCC). It was opposed by the California Community College Trustees (CCCT) and the Chief Executive Officers of the California Community Colleges (CEOCCC).

According to what appears to be a recent analysis of the amended version of the bill (See Senator Lowenthal--click on "legislation"),

This bill clarifies exiting legislative intent language regarding members of the public placing matters on the agenda of a community college governing board. Specifically, this bill clarifies that "members of the public" includes, but is not limited to, representatives of community college organizations [e.g., reps of Academic Senates].

…Current law allows, essentially, any member of the public to directly address a publicly elected governing body and states legislative intent that any member of the public be able to place an item on the agenda of a community college district.

…Staff is advised that the intent of this bill is to address the situation where a community college academic senate adopts a vote of no confidence but the governing board does not publicly address the issue.

…The way current law is presently written, at best, creates confusion for local districts and, at worst, incorrectly implies that local boards must allow the public to place matters on their agenda (which staff is advised is not the case).

… The Brown Act, commonly referred to as the 'Open Meeting Act', among other things, requires that governing board agendas provide opportunity for members of the public to directly address the board…By adopting this bill's provisions, it is unclear whether we could inadvertently be superseding the Brown Act. [Evidently, later bills take precedence over earlier ones, when there is a conflict between them.] For this reason, staff recommends that, if the committee chooses to pass this bill [it did], the action should be to re-refer the bill to Rules Committee for subsequent referral to Senate Local Government Committee, which traditionally has purview over Brown Act provisions.

I must confess to being a bit hazy on what all of this means. (So, are members of the public entitled to place items on the agenda or not? --Apparently not. But Academic Senates are so entitled, in the case of votes of no confidence.) But, given Lowenthal & Scott's records and their support of the amended bill, it seems that we've got a victory on our hands. (Go to Lowenthal's website.)

You’ll recall that, back in May of 2004, 93.5% of full-time district faculty voted "no confidence" in Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur. (The fellow had suffered overwhelming votes of "no confidence" twice previously, when he served as IVC's President.)

At the time, the two senate presidents presented that result to the Board, but the board declined to discuss it then or later. (I don't think they like faculty much.)

SB 55 passed with a 7 to 2 vote (three committee members did not vote or abstained or were absent).

Among the "no" voters was committee member Bill Morrow, who represents the district starting in San Juan Capistrano and going south.

Morrow, of course, is a Board Majority crony going way back. Here's his picture (he's the guy in the middle) on the back page of the infamous homophobic "same-sex flier" of 1996:



lso, did you happen to read the article in the Times the other day about some new troubles brewing over in FUENTES crony Mike Carona's Sherrif's Office? Check it out. The Times article ends with this lovely paragraph:

George Jaramillo, who was fired as assistant sheriff last year, is facing bribery charges. The son of another former assistant sheriff is awaiting sentencing in a high-profile sexual assault case. The attorney general is investigating complaints lodged by two women who say Carona sexually harassed them. And a reserve deputy who also was the sheriff's martial arts instructor is facing felony charges for allegedly pulling his service revolver on a group of golfers he thought were playing too slowly.

As you know, a few years ago, the IVC Foundation Board of Governors (i.e., the Foundation Board of Fuentes Cronies) gave their pal Carona the "Hometown Hero" award.

In the meantime, Fuentes crony (I think) Dana Rohrbacher has come out in support of his good pal Jack "Sleazeball" Abramoff, inspiring some to speculate that Rohrbacher is hoping that his friendly remarks will inoculate him from Abramoffian squealage. (See recent Times article and the Parsons column.)

Maybe our foundation will be honoring that Abramoff fella soon. And then Rohrbacher!


REATIONISM UPDATE

You might want to check out Bob Park's "What's New?" (What's New?) The latest issue explains:

CREATIONISM: KITZMILLER V. DOVER SCHOOL BOARD DIDN'T END IT. Who thought it would? In Dover, the issue was that intelligent design was misrepresented as science. So why not misrepresent it as something else? In Lebec, CA, a course on the Origins of Life is listed as Philosophy, but it's still intelligent design. The Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, CA is suing the University of California for not giving credit for courses with a "Christian viewpoint." At Calvary Chapel, that's everything but mathematics. In Ohio, they don't bother to disguise it. The Board of Education voted to keep a controversial biology lesson, Critical Analysis of Evolution, that tells students to examine "alternate theories of evolution." Lamarckian perhaps? In a fundraising letter, Discovery Institute founder Phillip Johnson dropped all pretense, "our ultimate goal is to affirm God and defeat Darwinism...to shape public policy in accordance with conservative Christian philosophy and get it into our schools."

The SOCCCD Match Game

by Red Emma
he recent spectacle of a right-wing born-again Christian Indian-American former Chemistry professor turned community college district Chancellor dressing up as the whimsically racist Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” seer “Carnac the Magnificent” offers to the willing seat-warmer in our stuffy Theater of the Absurd yet another opportunity to mine previously unexplored strata of irony, mystery and horror. As if having a Holocaust denier on the board, Creationists and homophobes in positions of policy-making, and a low-level dean who proposed (all on his own, bless his tiny little head) construction of a 700 million dollar entertainment complex on the campus (See) were not, well, enough already.

One weeps with despair and delight, as if peeling the world’s largest onion, a fragrant and generous bulb of paradox and incongruity, an organic life force. It is an impossible and rotten fruit. While trying to find its center one laughs and cries at the same time, simply overwhelmed at the fecundity and awesome pungency of it even as it disappears in one’s hand.

Hell, it’s like watching those people who, genuinely awed by M.C. Escher drawings, can be tricked into giving you their credit cards, cars, and young children. “Neat,” they marvel, “the way the fish becomes the chicken and then a gull. Neat-o!”

o, kids, here’s a fun game. In light of Chancellor Raghu Mathur’s unlikely moment of inspired or simply insane vaudevillian performance art, we know you’ll enjoy playing a game of modest subliminal political association and speculation, all for entertainment and more of the jolly sado-masochism so darn available here at Dissent the Blog.

Match the real-life district personality with the fictional, literary, or historical character you’d expect them most likely (and by that we mean least likely) to dress up as in, say, an official college function, e.g., the Chancellor's Opening Session.

Choose as many as you can stand.

Extra points for an essay answer in which you use the phrase “laser beam” or “fiscal conservative.”

Oh, and remember to bring your camera!

Warning: Any resemblance to characters living, dead or in administration is simply a realistic audio-video simulacrum powered by the work of the little hamster. You know, the one trapped on that treadmill now installed in your head courtesy of Human Resources.

Steven Frogue: Franz Liebkind, Aloys Shicklgruber, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Marshal Philippe Petain, Vidkun Quisling.

Dave Lang: Inspector Clouseau, Elmer Fudd, Polonious, Super Mario.

Don Wagner: Hamilton Burger, Newt Gingrich, Whittaker Chambers, Donald Segretti.

John Williams: Officer Krupke, Major-General Stanley, Sergeant Joe Friday, J. Edgar Hoover, Barney Fife.

Howard Gensler: Frank Lloyd Wright, Albert Speer, Howard Roark, Conrad Hilton, Dagwood Bumpstead, Alfred E. Neuman, or Randall from “Monster’s Inc.”

Thomas Fuentes: Generalissimo Francisco Franco, Roy Cohn, Spiro Agnew, Tom DeLay, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Robert Schuller.

Dennis White: Betty White, Barry White, Macy’s parade balloon of Snow White, Dennis Mitchell.

Glenn Roquemore: Raghu Mathur, Thomas Fuentes, Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd, the Horta, Ruff the Dog, Jackie Battley Gingrich.

Voting No Confidence with Confidence

he most recent edition of the State Academic Senate’s publication Senate Rostrum (this is a pdf file) contains some interesting articles, including

1. Critiques of the Accrediting Agency’s decision to pull Compton Community College’s accreditation. (The issue: most of the college was willing and able to function properly; the problem involved but a few administrators and trustees.)

2. A discussion of threats to Academic Freedom, referring to a recent address by the AAUP’s Marcus Harvey. (Harvey spoke at IVC regarding the same topic two years ago.)

3. An article about (California) Senate Bill 55.

You’ll recall that, in early December, Dissent reported that the IVC Academic Senate had voted to endorse this bill. (Legislating From the Stench)

But just what is SB 55?

Here are excerpts from an article in Senate Rostrum that explains the bill. The larger issue: in the late 80s, California legislators passed legislation (AB 1725, etc.) to empower faculty in the manner typical in colleges and universities, but they failed adequately to provide for implementation and enforcement. Hence, Boards of Trustees have been largely free to flout the law with impunity.

Our district's academic senates have been crucial in this regard, for they have taken our lawless board to court and have prevailed, forcing the BOT to give faculty its rightful role.

Creating a Uniform Response to Academic Senate Motions of No Confidence

by Jonathan Lightman, Executive Director, Faculty Association of California Community Colleges
_
… The …[community college system] has almost no ability to assure that the best, or even good practices for that matter, are met…[W]e’re left with 72 ma and pa shops (districts), each invariably sweet or sour depending upon their moods. Now it’s not that I have anything against small family businesses…but running large public agencies, like community college districts requires a different level of commitment. Management cannot pick and choose which laws to follow, and which to ignore….

[F]or over a decade, faculty members from across the state have justifiably complained that their districts have been summarily ignoring the prescriptions contained in title 5 §53200—the regulation defining local academic senates, and obligating boards to “consult collegially” with them through primary reliance or mutual agreement….

[W]hat’s to be done with a campus or district environment whose management-faculty relations have deteriorated? …[H]ere’s the rub: the very academic senates that have complained about being shut out of the participatory governance process, have also been foreclosed the opportunity to resolve tensions through further discussion. It’s a classic scenario—one side offers to talk, while the other states that “when I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.” …A motion of no confidence may be the only option on the table.

According to a CCLC study, between January 1994 and August 2003, there were at least 35 no confidence votes across the state. About 40% of these votes occurred because faculty did not have an appropriate voice in the decision making process.
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What’s occurring is painfully obvious. AB 1725 [(Vasconcellos) of 1988)] established clearly defined functions for local academic senates in the context of a complex higher education governance structure. While the mandates on the local senates are clear, the remedies for a district’s non-compliance don’t exist.

A complaint at a public or private meeting is only as good as the audience receiving the message. Going to court might compel a district to act, but it requires a lot of money and could be risky. The no confidence motion may be the only option.

That leads us to the most challenging question—once the motion of no confidence has been approved, now what?
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That’s why FACCC introduced SB 55 (Lowenthal)—legislation implementing a uniform process across all districts about how local governing boards must respond to motions of no confidence. When a local academic senate notifies a local governing board that a successful motion of no confidence in a campus or district administrator has occurred, SB 55 would require the local governing board to place the matter on its agenda at two meetings within a specified time frame. At the first meeting, the board would be required to inquire what happened to initiate the motion; and at the second, to determine whether there has been a resolution to the underlying problem, and whether technical assistance is needed.

…SB 55 is the first effort in recent history to provide local academic senates with the voice that was intended with the passing of AB 1725. Under the current structure, local governing boards can ignore motions of no confidence, preferring a deteriorated campus environment over the hard task of insisting that communication and dialogue occur to resolve underlying problems.
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SB 55 will come for a hearing in the senate education committee in January. Our legislative author, senator Alan Lowenthal (D – Long Beach), is committed to assisting FACCC with the measure. He is a former faculty member at California State University Long Beach who completely understands and agrees with the aims of the bill.

Phone calls and letters of support are needed to senator Jack Scott, c/o State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-5976. Please send copies to Senator Alan Lowenthal, and to FACCC at 1823 11th street, Sacramento 95814.

[All emphases are my own. --CW]

Note: Lightman may be correct that SB 55 is the first legislative effort "in recent history to provide local academic senates with the voice that was intended with the passing of AB 1725," but it certainly is not the first effort.

Perhaps that honor goes to our district's two Academic Senates, who took our lawless board to court and forced them to include faculty, as an equal partner, in developing a hiring policy. --CW