ATEP classrooms under construction

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PARK RANGER BOB keeps telling me about the new classrooms at ATEP, and since I was sorta in the neighborhood today, I drove over to Redhill & Valencia to check 'em out.


I was pretty impressed. The buildings aren't your usual square, cheapy boxes. At least from the outside, they look kind of industrial and technical--like they've got something to do with Technology. ("ATEP" refers to the Advanced Technology and Education Park.)


They also look like they've got something to do with the color yellow. Dunno what that's about, but yellow's a good color, I guess.


As you can see, some of the rooms are plenty roomy inside. They look pretty sharp, near as I can tell.



Below is a Cyber Cafe kind of place--you know, where people can fire up their laptops, sip coffee, and shake like a leaf for hours.

The room below has a view of the intersection of Valencia and Redhill. No doubt students will see some wrecks. Check out the high ceilings.

At least for now, TREES:

I couldn't resist the urge to drive over to the hangers and take a few snaps. Love them hangers!

Here Comes the Judge(ment)!

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WORD HAS REACHED us here at DISSENT about the recent judgment against the now legendary former dean of Humanities and Languages, author of the book length poem, The Avenger of Blood, (Northrup University Press, 1987 and ranked 3,543,831 on Amazon as of this morning), lawyer, amateur architect, and current tenured professor of economics and political science at Saddleback--Howard Gensler.

Yes, Howard lost.

Howard, ever litigious, sued the district asserting that both his chair and his dean [wrongfully -CW] denied his request to teach six classes over the course of last summer. (Six! Zounds! The man is a teaching machine!) The chair recommended four classes and the dean eventually assigned him three. Howard took offense and he was off to court.

The judgment features figures well known to Dissent readers, including Sherry Miller-White and Armando Ruiz (offering declarations in support of Howard, natch.) -- but at its heart is Howard's glorious tortured, twisted logic. Ah, it takes me back.

Details to follow, right Chunk?

NOTE FROM CHUNK:

I Googled "Howard Gensler" and "Board of trustees" and up popped the judgment: Gensler loses appeal. Here's the last paragraph:

Since there has been no showing that the decision to deny Genlser's request to teach six summer session classes was arbitrary or capricious, and it is supported by the evidence, the petition for writ of mandate was properly denied. The judgment is affirmed. Respondent is entitled to costs on appeal.

I especially like that last line. I like it very much indeed. --CW

UPDATE: a lawyer friend informs me that "costs" will not likely amount to much in the case of an appeal (filing fees). "Attorney fees" would have been another matter entirely.

Above: an actual illustration from Howard's "epic poem". Really.

For more on the Howard Gensler saga, see The Howard Hilton

Mostly foreign womink

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WENT TO THE Accreditation “dialog” at IVC yesterday. I got there a few minutes late, but it hadn’t started yet. The room was already nearly packed: maybe 50 people or so fit in Library 203, a studio of sorts. And more people kept drifting in.

There was an air of—dare I say it?—positivity. Well, that coulda been the chocolate chip cookies.

As you know, the Accreds recently sent their “action letters” to the two colleges. IVC got dinged again for Board/Chancellor micromanagement, ill-defined roles and responsibilities, and the plague of despair—but at least we didn’t get a “site visit.” That is, the Accreds didn’t feel the need to actually come back here and look under the rugs and behind the couches to see if Raghu or Dave continue to lurk there.

I’m told that Saddleback College wasn’t so lucky. They got dinged for pretty much the same thing, I think, but they’re gonna get visited again. Too bad. Both colleges will be expected to make "significant progress" in responding to the recommendations (about board micromanagement, etc.) by October, I think. That’s when the Reports are due.

Yesterday’s presentation, “facilitated” by Glenn R and Wendy G, was pretty good. It was clear and helpful. Glenn or Wendy said we could ask questions along the way, and so during Wendy’s report on the Action Letter, I asked something like:

"For our next report, we’re supposed to indicate 'progress made,' but how is the COLLEGE supposed to make progress with regard to the BOARD'S (and chancellor’s) actions?

OK, that’s a pretty obvious question, but somebody’s gotta ask it.

Essentially, Wendy said that we’re already making progress. I guess the idea was that the board is getting the message that they’ve gotta stop micromanaging, and they seem to be backing off. That’s progress. (I'd be surprised, though, if Trustee Tom Fuentes were to ever straighten up and fly right.)

Later, I asked if the board knows that their failure to cease micromanaging would threaten our accreditation. Wendy said the only thing she could say, I guess: that we’re not in a precarious position right now, accreditationwise. No warning status or anything. We might end up having to write an endless series of progress reports—we might become the Accred Sisyphus!

There’s a problem with the system, of course—namely, that colleges, not districts, are accredited, and yet each college is overseen by a powerful district board, which can F*** UP. When a board does F*** UP, then what are the Accreds supposed to do? Tell the colleges to fix what they have no real power to fix, is what.

But we’ll muddle through.

Wendy reviewed the Accred saga since 2004. At first, we got dinged pretty bad, but, now, we seem to be “digging out of that hole."

Next, the college researcher, Sibylle G, got up to declare that our college’s planning efforts are “research-based.” She talked about “planning assumptions”—educated guesses, based on data. She seemed to know what she was doing.

I think she’s from Scandinavia or something. All women should have foreign accents, in my view.

During the transition from Sibylle to Andreea Serban, Wendy decided to drag a big fake tree outta the way. She never was much good at that sort of thing, so, naturally, in mid-drag, the tree fell over and crashed into the audience (it is possible she was aiming for me). A chunk of the tree—a plastic leaf—flew off and landed on my stuff.

I feigned terror.

Glenn jumped up and tried to help. So the two of ‘em wrestled with that goddam plastic tree whilst Andreea smiled and nearly broke up. Everybody was in a good mood, it seemed, and this tree-falling business was just gravy!

Glenn & Wendy's efforts to right the tree were somehow even more comical than the dragging & crashing had been, if you can believe that. Too bad they didn't just set fire to it. [NOTE: Wendy informs me that it was Cal, not Glenn, who assisted her in her heroic struggles with the hideous one-eyed Tree Monster.]

Andreea was her usual funny and highly competent self. I love the way she pronounces words: “student” becomes “studink.” “Moving” becomes “movink.” Later, somebody told me that our Transylvanian Vice Chancellor reminds her of Boris's Natasha. "Yeah," I said. "But who are MOOSE and SQUIRREL?"

She talked about “institutional effectiveness,” a process that, she said, is like a “health check.” It starts with a look at the data, and that stuff is usually “uncomfortable.” A college looks at the data and realizes that it’s got high blood pressure, cuz that’s what the charts say, so deal with it.

Yeah, we’re at the doctor’s office, and that’s what they’re showing us, and, of course, we already know why we’ve got the high BP, but we’re not gonna say it. Nope.

Andreea knows her audience: she brought doughnuts into the picture. Hey, it’s hard facing the brutal facts, but you’ve gotta “admit that you ate the doughnut.” Come on! Fess up!

She showed us data concerning the proportions of vocational (including "basic skills") vs. non-vocational courses in the last five or six years at IVC, and it was pretty clear that we’re cutting back on vocational courses, while productivity for vocational courses is declining. [NOTE: earlier, I had this reversed, erroneously.] The data was surprising. It was uncomfortable.

Well, deal with it. And get that thermometer outta there, wiseass!

At one point, Miriam the Cubano spoke, and that’s when the picture was complete. Evidently, IVC is run by women, smart women, and almost every single one of ‘em has a BIG FREAKIN' ACCENT, which is just fine by me. But, hey, my mom sounds like Heidi Klum.

Lazy ass comeuppance

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Ms. J of Tustin alerted us to something she read in the Times. It was in the sports section! ("Summertime, and the grading is easy.")

It reports that USC has acted to “disallow” grades that their athletes received in Spanish classes they took at a local community college.

Uh-oh.

Last June, students flocked to the college to sign up for Spanish. Among the flock:

three 300-pound Trojans linemen…[, a] beefy linebacker son of television’s “Incredible Hulk”[, and] millionaire ex-USC receiver Kreary Colbert…They all wanted the same class—a shortcut around the tough advanced foreign language courses required at USC.

They didn’t want just any course at the community college. No, they wanted Ms. Senora Rose Mary Ross's Intermediate Spanish course.

Ross has a reputation as an easy grader.

The Times interviewed her. She's no easy grader, says the 73-year-old. “I’ve never given an easy grade in my life."

OK, sounds good.

“You come to my class and work, and I see you want to learn, I’ll give you an A,” she declares.

—Well, all right. I guess.

She continues: “I see some lazy ass, coming late all the time, acting like he doesn’t care, I won’t give him an A.”

No? You sound mighty tough, lady! I like your style! Whatcha gonna do to that lazy ass?

Here's what:

“I’ll give him a B”!

The Times checked, and it turns out that, of the 25 students in Ross's summer Intermediate Spanish class, 20 received A's.

The other 5 were lazy asses. Yep, all B's.

Not a "team player"

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JUST A QUICK UPDATE on the Facilities & Maintenance situation. As you know, numerous F&M workers have long complained about the actions and management style of Wayne Ward, IVC’s Director of F&M. The recent “Flesh-eating cart” brouhaha is typical. Reportedly, the Director consistently ignored warnings about the safety hazards created by this ragged little golf cart. Finally, the problem was corrected, but only at the direction of an outside party, namely, district Risk Manager Earl Pagal.

I’ve been told that Wayne was pretty steamed about that—so much so, that he kicked a rock. But, no, contrary to my earlier report, he did not kick the rock into a window. Rather, he kicked it into one of those metal roll-down doors, thereby producing a very loud and conspicuous noise.

Such is the morale of F&M workers these days that this story has been gleefully repeated by them (or some of them) for many days.

Not long ago, Wayne hired a new lead custodian. I believe his name is Ernesto Gomez. Well, ten days ago, Gomez was fired. But why? I can find no one who has anything bad to say about Mr. Gomez. On the contrary, I keep hearing that he was a “hard worker.”


Why, then, was he fired? I am attempting to contact Mr. Gomez (I do hope I have his name right). No luck so far.

But custodians have told me that Gomez has told them that Wayne fired him for failing to be a “team player.” How so? Well, evidently, Wayne told Gomez to find "dirt" on custodians, and Gomez refused to do that. Gomez instead reported that the custodians were doing their job, and so there was no "dirt" to report.

As you know, some of the custodial staff have led the chorus of complaint about Wayne. They have even pursued formal grievances.

One more thing: some custodians speculate that Gomez was made the fall guy for Wayne's recent snafus, e.g., the great restroom paper-towel deficit, which caused much scramblage.

Has anyone heard Wayne's rationale for dumping Gomez?

MONDAY’S QUIZ: Which IVC manager was caught filling his car’s gas tank with college gasoline?


That’s a tuffy. Send your answers to DtB.

Another Think Coming

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REBEL GIRL STILL languishes deep in the kingdom of winter headcolds and so, instead of offering her own cogent observations about the state of our little college in the orange groves, she will instead quote from Jane's Smiley's novel Moo, first published in 1995 and read by Rebel Girl shortly thereafter. Reb remembers liking the book well enough then, but her revisit to its pages this weekend left her laughing and reading aloud certain passages to those friends and relations who visited her sickroom.

For those who don't know, Moo is in the tradition of academic satires, those books that send up the ivory tower (Hey! Where's our ivory tower?) and provide comfort to ailing professors of English and their comrades everywhere.

From Moo, chapter 4: The Common Wisdom:

It was well known among citizens of the state that the university had pots of money and that there were highly paid faculty members in every department who had once taught Marxism and now taught something called deconstruction which was only Marxism gone underground in preparation for emergence at a time of national weakness.

It was well known among the legislators that the faculty as a whole was determined to undermine the moral and commercial well-being of the state, and that supporting a large and famous university with state monies was exactly analogous to raising a nest of vipers in your own bed.

It was well known among faculty that the governor and the state legislature had lost interest in education some twenty years before and it was only a matter of time before all classes would be taught as lectures, all exams given as computer-graded multiple choice, all subscriptions to professional journals at the library stopped, and all research time given up to committee work and administrative red tape. All the best faculty were known to be looking for other jobs, and this was known to be a matter of indifference to the state board of governors.

It was known to the secretaries in every office and every department that the faculty and administrators could, in fact, run the Xerox and even the ditto machines. They were just too lazy to do so.

It was well known among the janitorial staff that if you wanted to maintain your belief in human nature, it was better never, ever to look, even by chance into any wastebasket, but to adopt a technique of lifting and twisting the garbage beg in one motion and tossing it without even remarking to yourself that it was unusual in weight or bulk or odor.

It was well known among the students that the dormitories, like the airlines, were always overbooked, and that temporary quarters in corridors and common rooms happened by design rather than accident. It was also well known to the students that there had been three axe murders on campus the year before, that the victims' names had started with "A" or "M" and that the murderer had never been found, and that the university would do anything to hush these crimes up….

It was well known to all members of the campus population that other, unnamed groups reaped unimagined monetary advantages in comparison of one's own group, and that if funds were distributed fairly, according to real merit for once, some people would have another think coming…

More to follow, perhaps. Now to sleep, perchance to dream.

"I have a lot of stuff going on," he said.

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• TINY SKULLS AND BONES. From this morning’s OC Reg: Visiting the Tustin hangars:

The first hangar I went into was the base's south hangar. It was empty, dark and very quiet. The floor was littered with tiny skulls and bones that, from what I assumed, were from raptors that once perched high above. Doorways were covered with cobwebs. Paint was peeling off the walls. Signs of the Marines' tenancy was apparent everywhere.

The north hangar was my next stop. Inside, to my surprise, was the Goodyear blimp. It seemed dwarfed sitting on the floor of the enormous hangar. This hangar appeared in more usable shape, and movies and commercials had been shot in it over the years.

• HUSH-HUSH. A commentary in this morning’s OC Reg: [Orange] Diocese continues its evasions:

…I'm left with the sinking feeling one gets whenever there is a miscarriage of justice. Most of those priests and teachers who committed abuse have paid no penalty for it. Many of the same church leaders who protected the abusers and stonewalled the public are still in influential positions within the diocese. The D.A.'s office has far more excuses than convictions. And the diocese is still fighting to keep matters quiet, apparently having kept secret several alleged abuse cases even as it was championing its new policies and financial settlement.

• ONLINE HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES: TIDAL WAVE? From this morning’s LA Times: Online classes go mainstream:

[There are] 1 million kindergarten through high school student enrollments in virtual schooling across the nation, according to the North American Council for Online Learning….

…To deal with the growth, the University of California is launching an extensive effort to make sure applicants' online high school courses are on par with traditional classroom instruction.

Nearly half the states offer public school classes online, and last year Michigan became the first in the nation to require students to take an online course to graduate from high school….

Online learning "is going to reinvent high school in the United States," said Ken Ellwein, executive director of Lutheran High School of Orange County, which created its online school last year.

…Paul Riscalla, 17, a senior at Orange Lutheran who lives in Orange, splits his time between online classes and the traditional school so he can work 40 hours a week at two jobs and play drums in a rock band. "It was a way for me to have more time outside school, because I have a lot of stuff going on," he said.

…Orange Lutheran's online school, created because enrollment at the 1,150-student school was at capacity, began accepting students in the fall of 2005. Currently, 243 are enrolled in 21 courses offered in eight-week semesters. More than half the students have never set foot on the school's 12 1/2-acre campus, while the remainder are Lutheran High School students who split their time between the traditional school and online learning.

Virtual students at Orange Lutheran must log into their classes daily and read lectures, answer questions, participate in class discussions on message boards and do homework. Students are free to schedule their schoolwork whenever it suits them, as long as they log in daily….