Tom gets feted, Repubs get fetid, students get paripatetic

1. Fuentes gets freedom prize

OC.Blog (http://www.ocblog.net/) has pics of a recent Orange County Young Republicans event in which Tom Fuentes received the OCYR’s annual Freedom Award. Not sure who’s sayin’ it, but, on the blog, someone gushes: “Thank you Tom for all that you have done and all that you do for our party and the conservative cause.”

Sheesh. Why doncha get a room?

What’s conservative about unscrupulous hardball tactics? Like black-balling a college program just to get back at a critic? Or spouting flat false factoids about the district’s instructors on TV? (Has he apologized? No.) Or imposing an incompetent and despised chancellor on a college community?

Nothing that I can see.

In one of the pics, Bruce Herschensohn (do you remember his diatribes on channel 7?) is shown giving our Tom the Freedom Fry Goblet. It’s a wonder the stage didn’t catch fire and spew sulphurous flames.


2. What to do?

There’s still lots of buzzage about George W’s OC visit tomorrow. Local Republicans don’t know whether to show up or not, what with the Prez siding with his big business cronies and gettin' all kind and gentle on illegal immigrants.

Check out this morning’s Times article, which quotes a Republican academic describing W’s visit as a “blunder”: Many in GOP will sit out Bush talk

3. Huell Howser at Joe's Garage

The IVC Foundation is doin' up a fundraiser Tuesday night at "Joe's Garage" in Tustin. The Foundation comprises more than its share of conservative Republicans (Fuentes' crowd). So it's at least a little odd to discover that the inimitable Huell Howser (of California Gold fame) is the guest speaker. Golly!

I wonder if those right-wingers know that Huell hosts another show, the environmentalist-friendly "California Green," or that Huell's "California Gold" is endorsed by the California Teachers Association(!), the California Federation of Teachers(!!), the California State Library Foundation (!!!), and the California Library Association(!!!!).

D'oh!

I'd go to this shindig, but I don't wanna miss Tuesday night's California Gold, which has Huell visiting a Cheeze Whiz factory at the absolute geographical center of the state.

4. “Celebrate Quack Day”

Tomorrow, IVC (student government/clubs) will host an Earth Day event, and that's great.

But wait a minute. The official flier says: "Join us for a Day of Holistic and Earth Preservation Activities!"


These include the usual "Recycling opportunities" and a trip to Caspers Wilderness Park.

But they also include "free massages," "Natural and Holistic Vendor Displays," and "Optimum Health."

What on earth do massages have to do with Earth Day?

And Natural and Holistic? Those are "alternative medicine" code words. What's the supposed link between environmentalism (Earth Day) and alternative medicines? There is no link, aside from the pesky fact that the "New Age" crowd and the "environmentalist" crowd overlap.

I gnash my teeth regularly.

Students who are fans of "holistic" and "natural" medicine might want to look up the word "quackery" in the Skeptic's Dictionary. (Quackery) They might want to visit Quackwatch as well. (Quackwatch) The upshot: if you learn a little critical thinking or a little scientific method, you'll stop wasting your time on holistic nonsense.

The flier mentions something called "Optimum Health." I Googled the phrase (with the caps), and I found mostly pseudoscientific claptrap. There's a laboratory called "Optimum Health." According to Quackwatch, Optimum Health Labs "cater to practitioners who engage in nonstandard practices." Translation: quackery practiced here.

The phrase "Optimum Health" seems to be associated with Dr. Andrew Weil, the "alternative medicine" guru. Maybe the Earth Day Optimum Health "activity" has something to do with him.

Stephen Barret (of Quackwatch) has this to say about Dr. Weil:

…According to Weil, many of his basic insights about the causes of disease and the nature of healing come from what he calls "stoned thinking," that is, thoughts experienced while under the influence of psychedelic agents or during other states of "altered consciousness" induced by trances, ritual magic, hypnosis, meditation, and the like.

…Weil's later books make many claims for ... "cures," as we shall see, but despite his reference to "abundant evidence," he almost never gives us anything more than the claim itself -- unsupported by objective and documented observations. To Weil, subjective belief, if persuasive enough to the patient, should be adequate to support the claim of reality. And by "reality" he does not refer simply to the patient's state of mind, but to the physical dimensions of the disease itself. The allegedly miraculous "cures" are not simply dramatic improvements in symptoms, but the disappearance of all physical evidence of disease. And why shouldn't this be reasonable if one believes, like Weil, that consciousness is the primary reality and that the physical aspects of disease, indeed the entire material world itself, are simply another aspect of mind?

A department of the NIH (the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine [NCCAM])--created by the lamentably New Agey Mr. Clinton--has been funding the testing of "holistic" and "natural" medicines for nearly ten years.

Guess what? So far, it has found no evidence that any of this stuff works.

No doubt, Bill feels NCCAM's pain.

5. “Swirling”

This morning’s New York Times ("College, My Way," by Kate Zernike) offers an interesting article about the phenomenon of dissatisfied students jumping from college to college to get what they want. It's called "swirling."

Community colleges are a part of the story. Here are some excerpts:

ERIN MADDEN laughs a little self-consciously referring to what she calls "my college tour." Not the kind that high school students take to look at potential campuses; hers started after she went to college and discovered she didn't like her choice. She transferred to another, and another, and another, and another, ultimately ending up with five colleges on her transcript when she graduated last year.

… These days, a majority of students take a similarly nomadic path to a degree; about 60 percent of students graduating from college attend more than one institution, a number that has risen steadily over at least the last two decades.

In large part, those numbers reflect the growing population of nontraditional-age students, adults who go to college later in life and often start at a two-year institution. But even traditional students like Ms. Madden — those who head to a four-year college right out of high school — are approaching the experience in a nontraditional way.

They transfer to get a more agreeable major or social life, or take classes at a college back home during the summer to get a leg up on the next year's credits. They take an online class, or earn credits during the year at a nearby community college where they find a required course cheaper, less demanding or at a more convenient hour. Or they do some of each.

College officials call it swirling, mix and match, cut and paste, grab and go. Whatever the term of art, it makes sense for the so-called millennial generation, students famously lacking in brand loyalty, used to having things their way, and can-do about changing anything they don't like…Some college officials see all this as the behavior of an overindulged generation, raised by helicopter parents and lacking in resiliency.

Polish utopian farm experiment plus monkey berry trees

t was a dreary day, but I enjoyed it, cuz the Reb, Red Emma, Limber Lou, some friends (including Red's German cousin w/boyfriend), and I visited "Arden," the seriously cool home of Madame Helena Modjeska, out in lovely Modjeska Canyon (Santiago Canyon).

A pleasant and nervous elderly lady gave us the tour, which started with a goofy video, narrated, it seems, by your Aunt Gerda from Nebraska. At one point, Gerda explained that, at first, Americans didn't know what to make of Modjeska, a serious actress, cuz they were used to "bombast."

That made some of us laugh, but our laughter made some others of us annoyed, but whaddyagonnado.

The house is just what you'd expect. Very cool, very dark. Somehow both Wild West and Victorian.

It was designed in 1887 by the great Stanford White. You remember him. He designed one generation of Madison Square Garden plus lots of other familiar stuff. He was murdered in 1906--the subsequent scandal and murder trial involved White's mistress, the lovely Evelyn Nesbit, an artists' model and actress.

Coincidentally, I've got pictures of that gal, cuz she was seriously beautiful.

The interior of Arden is all wood--the color of cherry, or darker. Lots of nooks and crannies. In one closet, some of the original insulation is revealed: old newspapers. You can still read some of them.

Turns out Modjeska's husband, "Count" Bozenta, wanted to be a farmer, but he had a dark brown thumb. Black even. Originally, the couple settled in Anaheim in 1876, where they started some kind of Polish utopian farm experiment. The experiment failed. So, in 1877, they moved out to remote Santiago Canyon. There, they tried, but failed, to grow olives for olive oil.

They were broke, so Madame M was forced to return to the stage. She started her American career in San Francisco. Pretty soon, she was the most famous actress of her time. (No doubt, I've left out a chapter or two.)



e toured the grounds, too, and they contain a few surprises. There's an odd and rickety two-story building that served as a wine cellar. The stair to the top floor has rotted away.

Somebody on the tour said that, inside the cellar, "it goes into the hill for over fifty yards."

I thrilled.

Evidently, Modjeska had a bear, and the bear had a bear house, which still exists. Limber Lou stared at it.

They had alligators, too. No alligator house though. Evidently, in the teens or twenties (after the Modjeskas died), these gators washed down the creek during a rain. They gobbled up lots of the neighbors' farm animals.

Cool.

There are some unusual trees on the grounds. I picked up some twiggy things that fell from an especially strange tree. Can't think of the name of it. I'll just say it was a monkey berry tree. Could be.





hen I got home, Sunny, my cat, was all pissed off. She nearly knocked over one of my bowls. It occurred to me that the bowl, which is quite old, was likely used here in California at about the same time that Madame M and her brown-thumbed hubby lived in Modjeska Canyon, about two miles from my house as the crow flies.

Think I'll keep that bowl.

Fuentean heroes, duelling powwows

1. ANOTHER FUENTEAN HERO. One of Fuentes' pals is Chriss Street, a Republican candidate for OC treasurer-tax collector. Fuentes is endorsing him, as is Chris Norby (brother of the erstwhile trustee) and Tony "Rat Bastard" Rackauckas (who's come to SOCCCD board meetings).

This morning, the OC Register reveals that Street oversaw the bankruptcy of Fruehauf Trailer Corp's pension fund. Well, all of that went south, and now taxpayers may end up spending $7 million to bail out the fund.

It appears that Street was paid handsomely for his work. According to the Reg,

Operating with virtually no oversight, Street ran the trust for seven years, more than twice its expected life span, while ringing up hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses. He also enjoyed such perks as a trust-owned SUV with XM radio.

"This is way out of line," said Richard Marshack, an Orange County bankruptcy attorney who frequently worked as a trustee. "You don't need a Phi Beta Kappa to tell you that."

This is standard stuff in the Fuentesphere.

Check out the article: $7 million bailout


2. DUELLING POWWOWS. I do hope you're all planning to attend the Shootout at the OC Corral--monday afternoon, from 2-5, at Saddleback College.

While that's happening, George W will be hangin with some of Tom's pals at the Orange County Business Council, at the Hyatt Regency (Irvine). None of us is invited, I'm sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tom is there. And John and Don and Nancy. It's gotta be a Republican magnet.

Local right-wingers are hopping mad because W has decided to carry water for his rich friends re illegal immigration. Those politicians who are trying to ride the latest anti-immigrant wave will want to be there to look displeased. They'll squawk, too.

See the Reg article: Rough neighborhood

I sure hope this George W shindig doesn't keep the trustees away from the big district POWWOW. Trust me, you don't wanna miss the powwow.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tom offers a prayer and then pulls out a paint ball gun and splatters every single liberal busybody in the room.

Preparing for Monday's Big Meeting

Chancellor Mathur's secret motto: Magister mundi sum!

Twenty years as the county GOP chair has given Tom a keen ear for ridiculous utterances. (Like "Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women.")

Nancy, Marcia, and Bill are a force to be reckoned with. Boy, they really finessed that ALA vote.

Really, Raghu is plenty worried. But Big Daddy Tom calls the shots, apparently.

Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.

OK, let's start calling it the "Libary"

1. THE “TURD IN THE PUNCHBOWL” AWARD. On Monday, like many of the rest of you, I received a communication from the irrepressible Tracy Daly, district flack. It said:

All employees are welcome to submit nominations for the 2006 Outstanding Administrator Award and the 2006 Outstanding Manager Award. Nominations are due by Monday, May 15th.

According to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, “outstanding” means:

…standing out from a group: CONSPICUOUS

Well, there you have it. I’m nominating Raghu!

2. AN ATTRACTIVE HEADSTONE ARRAY. Naturally, Tracy’s announcement got tongues wagging and eyes rolling. I ran into a colleague who suggested nominating victims of the great administrative diaspora of 1997-8. How 'bout “Terry Burgess,” she said. Another colleague suggested Nick Kremer.

“Nick Kremer?” I asked. “Who the hell is Nick Kremer?”

It’s hard to believe that The Darkness started nearly ten years ago! I’ve begun to forget the names of some of its earliest victims.

Did you know that, until a couple of years ago, we at IVC would keep track of the dozens of administrators and managers who fled or who were expelled from the district by creating for each a cardboard headstone-on-a-stick? We’d hammer these things into the grass in front of the Student Services Center. Reporters and photographers would come around and check ‘em out. At one point, I think we had like fifty or sixty of ‘em. We lined 'em up a la Arlington.

An Irvine World News reporter once asked Raghu what he had to say about the diaspora and the attending headstone display. Luckily, I have preserved his answer:

“[Mathur] said it is a ‘feather in the cap of the district’ that people who have gained experience here have gone on to find excellent positions when they have chosen to go elsewhere.” (Irvine World News, 7/9/98)

3. WHERE THE HELL ARE THE LIBRARIANS? Jonathan, a student friend of ours, has been poised to start a project to scrape up the money to pay for our libraries’ memberships in the American Library Association. As you know, in January, Don Wagner and the board acted to end our colleges’ memberships in that organization, owing, I guess, to its being a group of “liberal busybodies.” Or so said Don.

After at least one trustee realized the folly of what she had done, it became clear that the board would need to revisit the matter. Thus, at the March meeting, “staff” recommended reinstating the ALA on the list of “institutional memberships.” Someone--Marcia?--made the appropriate motion.

It failed in a 3 to 3 vote. (The swing vote--Padberg--had stepped out for an emergency.)

Meanwhile, starting in early February, library-loving Jonathan informed us of his plan to help pay the needed membership dues (a few hundred bucks). The Reb and I discouraged him, thinking that the January action would soon be reversed. “Just wait,” we advised.

But then, in March, the reversal effort flopped. Who’d have thunk?

So Jonathan, an IVC student, wrote the chair of IVC’s School of Library Services, offering to head an effort to scrape up the dough to pay for IVC’s ALA membership. She wrote back, explaining that

Though your intentions are honorable, we do not want students to pay for the school’s membership fee…Thank you for your support, but the librarians, faculty, and administration will work out the details through cooperative discussion.

Naturally, Jonathan is pissed about this blow-offery. “So much for trying to do some good,” he says.

It is difficult to understand what the School chair means by saying that the librarians (and “faculty”?) “will work out the details.” The ALA matter was reagendized and discussed at the March meeting. The motion to reconsider the matter failed. So, now, it’s pretty much a done deal.

I mean, you don't want our board to be like the Orange County Republican Central Committee, do you? Those guys keep voting on issues until the membership finally votes "correctly." Then there's no more voting.

I’ve been to all recent board meetings, and I have yet to see a librarian speak to the board about the ALA matter. At the March meeting, Claire, Saddleback’s Academic Senate President, addressed the board about the issue, essentially repeating what IVC’s Senate President had said in February. But no librarian spoke.

As near as I could tell, there were no librarians in the room. Not one.

4. SALACIOUS AND ILLITERATE COMMENTS. Rebel Girl’s recent blogs remind me how much we’ve lost since the Dark Side took over the union (which, thanks to the hard work of the usual suspects, has since been reformed) and hurled us into the era of total Fuentean and Mathurian excrementitious crapulosity. “Reassigned time”—by whatever name—is an utterly routine and necessary mechanism for supporting academics as administrators (chairs, department heads) and as heads of important projects and organizations (Senate Prez, Program Review Coordinator, etc.). Thanks to Sherry and Mike and Tony and Patrick and all the rest, in our district, that mechanism was blasted into oblivion about nine years ago. And that has hobbled the faculty's part in shared governance.

We don’t hear much from the “Old Guard” these days. They’re pretty sheepish, I guess, what with the horrible mess that they've created. Don’t forget that the Old Guard gave us Mathur, Wagner, and Fuentes, among others.

But at least one Old Guardster is still squawking, albeit anonymously.

Recently, I drew attention to our “brief history of the SOCCCD.” (Dissent's Very Short History of the SOCCCD) Evidently, one of the Old Guard read that history and felt compelled to comment upon it:

At 7:53 AM, April 19, 2006, Anonymous said...

Very good, Chunk ... you've done a magnificent job outlining the perspective of the power structure that is no longer in control ... But when and where can we read about what was "wrong" with "your" group of feather-bedding hand-wringers ... the rampant nepotism, the inflated release-time salaries for faculty, the non-written, floating processes that were based on personal feelings and relationships, and the condescending holier-than-thou liberal elites who are convinced that leadership comes from a committee singing cumbaya?

Two minutes later (just as I was walking to my morning class), another reader, also named “anonymous,” responded:

At 7:55 AM, April 19, 2006, Anonymous said...

hey anonymous - I think it's spelled "Kumbaya."

An hour later, our Old Guardster returned that volley:

At 8:58 AM, April 19, 2006, Anonymous said...

To some, perhaps. But when referring to "Chunks" group think [sic], "Cum" is more appropriate.

That last remark is similar in tone to a series of gratuitously salacious and illiterate responses Dissent the Blog has occasionally received in recent months. (I delete crassly salacious comments, unless they make a point or exhibit some sort of intelligence or artistry. This is essentially a family blog!)

I’m getting a pretty good idea who this guy is. I'm thinking of a real creep. Guess who?

It turns out that another Dissent reader had his/her own theory as to this crass/illiterate/ignorant Old Guardster’s identity, for, 36 minutes after the above remark, this comment came in:

At 9:34 AM, April 19, 2006, Anonymous said...

Patrick - is that you?

5. BIG MEETING MONDAY!!!! Yesterday, faculty received a reminder from the Academic Senate Presidents concerning the big "technical assistance" shindig on Monday:

We are writing to remind you of the Special Board Meeting on Monday, April 24, 2006 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the Auditorium/Health Sciences Building at Saddleback College. The April 24th Special Meeting is a follow-up meeting concerning the formal process of Technical Assistance to address the remaining accreditation recommendations...

The meeting will be facilitated by Dr. Diane Woodruff, Interim Executive Director of the Community College League of California, Ian Walton, President of the State Academic Senate, and Dr. Barbara Beno, Executive Director of the Accrediting Commission. We would like to encourage all faculty to attend this meeting. Your support and presence does make a difference.

A regular meeting of the Board of Trustees will also occur on April 24, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. If you are so inclined, you are encouraged to attend the regular meeting of the Board and voice your opinion during public comments regarding the Board’s action to deny the colleges’ institutional membership in the American Library Association.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that faculty (including Librarians!) attend the afternoon meeting. The Accreditors and the Board need to see that faculty care about these issues that threaten our accreditation (board micromanagement, plague of despair, poorly defined roles, etc.).

Again, if faculty wish to make their views known concerning the ALA matter, the time to do so is during "public comments" near the beginning of the 7:00 p.m. regular board meeting, also on Monday.

ESCHEW ASSHOLERY. Be there!

Hurtling (Reb's dream)

ast night I dreamed that I was riding to San Francisco on a train, in one of those fancy old-time private cars. There was a party going on, with lots of elegant people wearing elegant clothing, saying elegant things, and drinking lots of elegant drinks out of glassware big enough to house fish. Music played. The scenery rolled by outside the windows: the Pacific on one side, the rolling green of springtime California on the other.

In that peculiar way that dreams spool out their logic and rules, I slowly discerned that the train was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco in time to “catch” the 1906 earthquake.

Needless to say, I recognized this as a bad idea, and understood that we must stop the train. I tried to tell people, but, no, they wouldn’t listen. They kept partying. Finally, I decided to save myself and so I resolved to jump from the train, but the windows and doors wouldn’t open. If they had opened, the train was moving so fast that, had I leapt, I would have been sucked under the wheels.

So I sat there inside the train, waiting, consoling myself that Amtrak, our under-funded national rail transportation simulacrum, generally ran late. Our salvation depended on incompetence.

Why we were deliberately headed so gleefully toward a rendezvous with disaster remained unknown.

Then I awoke.


told my husband the dream. He said, without hesitation, “It’s your job.”

I told the former chair of my department my dream. (Yes, that’s what we do in Humanities and Languages—we exchange dreams, Jungian interpretation.) She replied, “Yes. The dream of the English chair.”

(Did I mention what an extraordinary job she did as chair for many years? Extraordinary woman, working under extraordinary conditions. Forget Amtrak. Think Japan Bullet Train.)

I told my lawyer my dream. (Yes, it’s still a good thing to have one on hand around these parts.)

He said I should tell it to my analyst, and then sue the district for damages.

Fear, cynicism, hostility, and despair

hem. Rebel Girl has been especially busy of late, what with the predictable tumult of paper grading that comes, lo, as if a seasonal floodwater. The winter of their discontent has ended, the glacial icepack of student disinterest or ennui has melted after many cold weeks, and so she is drowned, ironically, in her own spring rains. Then there is her relentless inspection of classroom facilities for real flooding and rodents and insect infestation, not to mention the mid-term carpeting adventure, which found her packing and unpacking her office as if auditioning for some strange Olympic event.

—And then there is her ongoing adjustment to her duties as department chair.

Anyone who knows her will affirm Reb’s own careful assessment of her abilities: she has get-up-and-go, you bet; she loves teaching; she possesses a sense of duty imbued from years of Girl Scouting. She looks good in a uniform and distributes cookies. But she often lacks organization and struggles with prioritizing her obligations and responsibilities. Still, more often than not, she comes through, albeit slightly rumpled and grumpy.

This academic year is different though. For the first time in her professional life, she feels failure. She is doing more than ever before, but little of it feels like her best and some of it is clearly beyond her grasp.

Yes, Le Chaise Rebel Girl—well, she’s looking a bit rickety.

She now oversees a department of 13 full-timers and 33 part-timers.


As you know, a chair is responsible for scheduling (this means communicating with each instructor at least twice but, more often, multiple times in order to set the schedule—and we now, in case you haven’t noticed, run classes pretty much year-round).

A chair is responsible for holding meetings and holding forth, she supposes, on all things departmental. She did fairly well at this last semester but has yet to muster a meeting this semester, relying instead on email exchanges and brief hallway encounters—thus contributing to her growing sense of failure.

A chair is responsible for hiring. Last semester, she reviewed at least 50 applications and, with a committee, interviewed upward of ten and hired five for the spring. Hiring is ongoing as part-timers come and go, especially when offered contract pay. Last semester, two part-time instructors up and left with little notice. This semester one instructor declined assignments due to the specter of contract pay and others have bowed out for fall. (This is the subject of another rant-to-come where Rebel Girl imagines contract pay for administrators who are responsible for enrollment management.)

A chair is responsible for providing guidance, especially for new faculty, and thus far, she has been able to give some, but not as much as she would like.

A chair is responsible for dealing with grade grievances and strife in the classroom. Last semester produced a bumper crop of disturbances and this semester was off to a fine start. (Here Rebel Girl would like to extend thanks to the campus police for their fine assistance—really—they’re terrific! She doesn’t want to think where she’d be without them.)

A chair is responsible for evaluating the part-time faculty on a regular basis—for example, all new hires need to be evaluated during their first semester. After that, part-time faculty are evaluated every couple of years. Last semester, she received a memo advising her that she was behind on evaluations. This semester, since she did none last semester, she is even more behind.

Question: how can a chair evaluate faculty when she is often teaching at the same time as the faculty she needs to evaluate?

In case you forgot, we dwell in the Land of Fiscal Conservatives with Little Foresight, so consider the other factor in all this: Rebel Girl teaches a full load whilst chairing. Yes, that’s right—4 classes (3 preps!), some hours in the Hum Center, five hours of office hours—and all the above and more.

Rebel Girl discovered this scheduling conundrum firsthand when she covered for two faculty members who were out of town during Week One of classes (also one of her chair duties). There she was, giving an assignment in one class, then running across campus to take roll in another. It was a Marx Brothers movie—a cultural reference lost on her students but not, she hopes, on you, her loyal readers.

Of course she is compensated for this work by a stipend—according to her pay stub, for ten hours of labor a month. This stipend covers the salary of the person who now cleans Rebel Girl’s home twice a month (Rebel Girl believes in a living wage)—with a bit left over that is expended toward childcare to cover the additional hours on campus. This means, thinks Rebel Girl to herself, that the housecleaner is indeed, paid more per hour than Reb is for her duties as chair of the department. (Don’t get her started about the summer—for which she is not compensated but still expected to serve.)

This means, she thinks, all things considered, the chair is sort of a wash.

Of course, people offer to pitch in and they do (hers is a generous department), but still—they shouldn’t. They have enough to do. And there she is. Failure. Rebel Girl has never felt more irresponsible in her life, not even during the weeks of her misspent youth.

But Rebel Girl worries too. It’s not all about her. She knows that part-time faculty need evaluations so they can apply for other positions. The institution also needs faculty to be evaluated on a regular basis to insure quality instruction—you know, preserve the integrity of the place.

What’s a girl to do? Cancel classes? (And if she does so—cancel a class or two or three or four in order to supply the needed evaluations—does she also have to use her “personal necessity days” in order to cover her absences? How does that work exactly? Woo hoo! Union! Need advice!)

She could, of course, evaluate only faculty who teach when she is not teaching—say, generally before 10 am and after 3 pm.

Should she cut back on her own teaching in other ways? She could push that auto-pilot teaching button. You know the one. You’ve seen those folks. Hell, she could show videos to her writing classes and use the time she would have spent in class being a chair.

She could, of course, just stop bitching about it. Except that, by this time in the semester when she is wondering whether or not to grade papers, prep for classes, write memos to new instructors, set up meetings with new instructors, mend the fall schedule, adjust the summer schedule—or, well, chuck it all.

The other night when all this was keeping her up—it does—she had one of those Joycean epiphanies. She suddenly realized that Those That Be don’t really care. They care about appearances, that’s about it.

Of course, she thought, oddly relieved, the administration doesn’t really care if she evaluates faculty or not. They don’t care if she handles grade grievances in a timely and generous manner or not. Or if she is available to assist in all the ways needed or not.


No. The bottom line is bodies in the classroom—one at the podium and those students in their seats. What they care about is how it looks. And, on paper, it may look like everything is working, especially from afar—say wherever that Accreditation Team sits and writes their reports. It looks functional on paper—even if it can’t really work out in the real world without shafting students here or shafting students there, or putting faculty in impossible positions.

Now, Rebel Girl really shouldn’t paint with such a broad brush. It isn’t the administration per se—it’s the policy. (Some administrators have actually expressed sympathy, understanding. Imagine that!)

Yes, the policy puts her in this impossible position. The policy creates stress and tension so she must choose between one obligation and another—or do what she is doing, where she fails at nearly everything a little bit, and barely succeeds at some.

The policy reveals its priorities—meeting student needs with quality instruction isn’t among them.


Rebel Girl isn’t alone—there are other chairs out there, other sofas, davenports and chaises, teaching full loads and receiving their stipends. It could be that they are pleased with the arrangement—the nonexistence of summer pay notwithstanding (now that she thinks about it, Rebel Girl—resisting cynicism—imagines this arrangement was devised before the campus became such a jolly-year-round place to work). Perhaps the other chairs somehow make it work. Sacrifice. Compromise. You know.

Rebel Girl knows too. She works, always has, always will. She is proud that her car is often the last to leave on Thursday nights. Sacrifice? Sure. But how much? And to who? To what end?

Meanwhile, Rebel Girl awaits the seasonal return of the Accreditation Team. She’s got a story for them and she thinks that they might appreciate the themes of her tale: fear, cynicism, hostility, despair.