What about these commencement pics?

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THIS IS A SHOT I took on Friday of a flower worn by a classified manager.

I do a fair amount of photography, and there's one thing I noticed long ago: if you take enough pics of an event and examine them closely, you start to notice odd and interesting things.

It's especially true for video. If you slow that stuff down — you've gotta do that when you edit — boy, you start to see little things about people that they naturally assumed nobody would ever notice.

WELL, ON FRIDAY, I took about 200 pics of the two district commencements. I looked at them pretty closely. That's when I noticed something.

—Well, maybe. I'll leave that for you to judge.




They're looking right at me, right? I must've pissed 'em off somehow.

Here's a further pic, which is interesting in perhaps a different way:

Check out the young man way over to the left. Creepy, right? This shot reminds me of the famous scene in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train in which the head of each person in a crowd of tennis spectators moves back and forth with the ball—all heads except for Robert Walker's, of course.

OK, here's my favorite "find." When Chancellor Mathur spoke during Saddleback's Commencement, I took a quick photograph of the scoreboard. I didn't notice anything unusual at the time. But look! What does it say?

It's so easy to miss stuff, if you're not paying attention!

Irvine Valley College 2007 Commencement

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IVC's commencement went well, I think. Near as I can tell, students loved it.

It was brief, which worked out well for several reasons, not the least of which being the sub-academic Motivational Claptrap served up by some speakers. Still, there were no howlers, no pratfalls, and for once Raghu didn't utter his "three fingers" bromide.

I came late and missed the invocation, evidently given by Bush Appointee and noted Spanophile Thomas A. Fuentes. No doubt, it was memorable. (If you heard it, tell us about it!)

Here sit the South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees, et al. (Fuentes is off-camera.)

EARNEST, EFFECTIVELY DELIVERED CODSWALLOP:

AS SEEN ON TV: Keynote speaker John Spencer Ellis.

Apparently oblivious of (or indifferent to?) logic or science, Dr. Ellis (he has a doctorate in education, just like the Chancellor) declared that there "are no coincidences" and there "is no randomness." One should, he said, set about to establish "self-efficacy"—evidenty a condition beyond mere efficacy.

He offered "10 words" that are more important, he said, than all other words put together: please, thank you, I love you, how may I help?

Sure enough, they add up to 10. (They're not really ten words, though. Four utterances, perhaps?)

Ellis urged students to find their voice, and "their bliss," too. He was particularly determined that they find their bliss.

The handsome fellow ended with, "Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life."

For more of John's wisdom (and for an opportunity to spend a great deal of money), go to John Spencer Ellis Enterprises. There, one learns that, according to the New York Post, "John is a combination of Tony Robbins & Jack Lalanne."

(Our Rebel Girl was on the "commencement speaker" committee, where, armed with carefully written proposals, she urged its membership to consider other candidates, including prominent writers and editors. Nope. Too boring, it seems.)


Student speaker Alexandra Shaygan, eschewing motivational twaddle, charmed; Trustee Don Wagner, eschewing decorum, scowled, albeit intermittently. He scowled consistently when he looked my way! What's up, Don? (But at least we agree on the Claptrap, don't we Don? I just know you're cringing when you hear that stuff about "bliss"!) (See Raghu Successorizes.)

HAPPY GRADUATES:






THE CHANCELLOR: NO NATTERING NABOB OF NEGATIVISM HE:

Chancellor Raghu Mathur told his "yacht" story. Evidently inspired by his extensive reading list—it runs the gamut from A to B—the Chancellor advised that "you become what you practice most." Were he an educated man, Mathur would realize that Aristotle gave that advice 2400 years ago. It's a tad familiar in academic circles.

Mathur's message: "always do your best." Why? Because of the "new global economy," he said.

Aristotle gave a different answer.

A retiring colleague is honored.

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY:






A GOOD VIBE AT OUR LITTLE COLLEGE:

IVC President Glenn Roquemore and Academic Senate President Wendy Gabriella


One odd factoid that emerged during today's commencements was the increasing dominance of women among the community college studentry. (Soon, it seems, 2/3 of Saddleback's students will be female!)

At IVC today, women seemed to dominate the task of documenting the event.

“Don’t go!”—the Saddleback College 2007 Commencement

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I WENT TO the Saddleback College 2007 Commencement this morning. Initial gloom gave way to sunshine and smiles. It was a pleasant event, especially for the students.


The SC football field and stand offered a beautiful setting: lots of green grass, lots of trees in the background, and lots of red— the graduates' gowns and the elliptical track.

Board President David Lang got up to quote from Chicken Soup of the Soul, one of his favorite books, evidently. He told a story about somebody named I CAN'T who gets buried. "I can't is no longer with us," he read.

The theme to Romper Room played in my head.

Then Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur got up to tell that old saw about the guy who builds his friend a yacht, but he does it on the cheap so he can pocket some dough. When he finishes the build, the friend hands him the keys to the yacht. “It is my gift to you.”


Now, what did we learn from this? Not sure. Maybe: "Do your best," 'cause otherwise you'll get stuck with a shitty yacht.

The “commencement address” was given by one Nico Melendez, the Orange County Municipal Dogcatcher. Well, no, he’s the “Western Field Director, Transportation Security Administration.” Nobody bothered to explain what that is, which was probably wise. He didn’t say anything about transportation or security. He did say that he wasn’t gonna give his prepared speech, cuz he tried it on his wife, and she said it was a snoozer. So, instead, the fellow explained what a shitty student he was (he went to Saddleback College), and how he didn’t go to a university after graduating. Instead, he joined the Navy.


The moral of the story? Some graduates, he said, will now go to a university. “Congratuations,” he said. And some won’t. “Congratulations,” he said again. “You’re just taking a different road.”

Well, at least he was brief. SC Prez Rich McCullough managed to make a joke about Director Melendez—something about asking him to take off his shoes.

Near as I could tell, the audience thought Melendez was great, 'cause he was WAY brief.

ASG Prez Rebecca Cunningham described how Saddleback College saved her from directionlessness. Even at Saddleback, she said, for the first two years, she was a lousy student. Then she took a self-esteem course, and that “changed my life.” Now, she knows that she “can do anything.”

Nevertheless, Cunningham is a decent speaker. Better than the transportation guy.


Next came Ruth McCoy, who is 80 years old and was wearing a “cap and gown” for the fourth time. I’d say she was the highlight of the commencement ceremony, what with her story about going to college (must’ve been around 1945), quitting to get married, and then returning to college in the 60s for a bachelors degree. She described her time at Saddleback, how her fellow students accepted her as a peer and had the good sense not to call her “grandma.”


Don’t ever think, she said at the end, that your education is over! It was a nice moment.


Carmen and the SC Wind Ensemble next provided a rousing version of the “Star Spangled Banner.” They were accompanied by the Concert Choir, and they sounded pretty good, too.

After presentation of the “Professors of the Year,” Academic Senate President Bob C came up and gave an effective little speech. He described an address that Bob Hope gave at a commencement many years ago. Everyone at the college expected Hope to be funny, but, instead, he was very serious. Then, at the end of his speech, the Bobster said that he wanted to give graduates one small piece of advice before they entered the big world out there. He leaned forward and said,

“Don’t go!”


Well, that was about it. Next came the reading of the names, and I was on my way. I do hope you like the photographs.







P.S.:

I arrived a few minutes late for commencement. Tonight, a friend told me that some sort of "protest" against the religious invocation (usually given at the start of the ceremony) was planned. If that occurred, I missed it.

P.P.S.:

5/22: There was indeed a protest. This is the banner that was displayed during the commencement invocation:

Situation normal, all ducked up

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SANS WAYNE, THINGS ARE LOOKING UP!

AS YOU KNOW, facilities for the School of Humanities and Languages at IVC have long been conspicuously excrementitious (aka "way shitty"). Here at Dissent we have occasionally endeavored to reveal that shittitude, and, in so doing, we have often found it advisable to present the PHILOSOPHY ROOM (A405) in particular. Were one to construct a lowerarchy of A405ular shittitudinality, one would surely start with the floor, an expanse of linoleum more scuffed than which can hardly be conceived.


Imagine my surprise, therefore, when, on Monday, students in my philosophy classes commented on the loveliness of A405's floor!

I looked down and—zut alors!—the floor was clean! Spotless!

It even sparkled!

On behalf of my students, Fumiko's students, and I-don't-know-who-else's-dang-students, I'd like to thank the F&M crew for doing such a fine job. Don't know why they did it, but they did, and we thank them.

Vielen Danks!

DUCKED UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION

AT ONE POINT TODAY, Brenda alerted me to the sudden and precipitous duckification of the planter between the Library and SSC. I took my camera out there and found that, indeed, the northern planterama was totally ducked up:

I tried to get close to the peevish beasts, but they quacked & shat & threatened to fly away, so I backed off.

On the way back to my office, I espied a ruminative long-eared, short-tailed lagomorph:

He sat very still for this portrait, and for that I thank him. Viel Spass!

COMING SOON: THE HUMANITIES BUILDING!

I happened to be in the President's Conference Room in old A100 today, and I noticed all that crap they have hanging on the walls. Most of it was the usual stuff, including an architect's rendering of the "Performing Arts Center":

—Somebody must've been hopped-up on stink-weed when they rendered this, cuz it doesn't look anything like the lurid new edifice out in the field, the one they're calling the "Performing Arts Center."

But I noticed another, a much older, architectural rendering. Check it out:

—That's right. It's the long fabled HUMANITIES BUILDING. It is legendary. I had heard about it twenty years ago, when I was first hired, and, once in a while, rumors would fly that the damn thing would finally be built!

And why not? After all, H&L practically carries the whole dang college! I mean, without H&L, we could fit everything in a quonset hut!

I don't get it. Those Chem and Math clowns got a new building a decade ago. And now those Fine Arts knuckleheads are gonna get theirs. Meanwhile, the H&L crew is stuck teaching in friggin' Hooverville!

So help me out here. What does it mean that this particular painting hangs upon the Presidential Conference Room wall? Has it always hung there?

Perhaps it has no meaning at all. That, of course, would be very IVC. —CW

Room 666

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I FIGURED OUT a long time ago that, if you think of the public as a PERSON, that person is a blithering idiot.

I guess that’s obvious. In my case, it took some figurin'.

So, naturally, the latest study to state the obvious—that high schools generally* suck—won’t affect the average American’s thinking.

I mean, if you tell a parent, “Generally, high schools suck,” you’ll get:

“Chunk, why do you hate America?”

Or: “Well, I guess that’s true for lots of high schools, but not my kid’s high school. My kid's high school is exceptional."

No, dude, probably your kid’s high school sucks, too.

From this morning’s New York Times: In Study, College-Prep Classes Left Many Unready:

Only one-quarter of high school students who take a full set of college-preparatory courses — four years of English and three each of mathematics, science and social studies — are well prepared for college, according to a new study of last year’s high school graduates released today by ACT, the Iowa testing organization.

The report analyzed approximately 1.2 million students who took the ACT college admissions test and graduated from high school last June. The study predicted whether the students had a good chance of scoring C or better in introductory college courses, based on their test scores and the success rates of past test takers.

The study concluded that only 26 percent were ready for college-level work in all four core areas, while 19 percent were not adequately prepared in any of them.

…Cynthia B. Schmeiser, president and chief operating officer of ACT’s education division, said she was stunned by the low level of accomplishment for students who had taken the core curriculum, which was recommended 24 years ago in “A Nation at Risk,” a United States Department of Education commission report that prompted widespread efforts to improve American education.

...In 1999, Clifford Adelman, then a researcher at the federal Department of Education, found that the strength of high school work was the most important factor in determining college success, even more than the socioeconomic status of a student’s family. The new report, which cites Mr. Adelman’s research, makes the case that many high school courses are not providing the necessary quality that he described.

…Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, another Washington-based group that advocates standard-setting, said that as she traveled around the country, she found many schools not offering challenging work. “When you look at the assignments these kids get, it is just appalling,” she said. “A course may be labeled college-preparatory English. But if the kids get more than three-paragraph-long assignments, it is unusual. Or they’ll be asked to color a poster. We say ‘How about doing analysis?’ and they look at us like we are demented.”….

*Please note the presence of this weasel word: "generally." I do believe that there exist some pretty impressive high schools out there. I personally know some truly EXCELLENT high school teachers. Saying that "Xs generally (or mostly) suck" is not the same as saying that "all Xs suck." OK? And even if I were to say that all high schools suck, that would still be consistent with saying, "there exist some truly excellent teachers in high schools."

CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY GOES FRIGGIN' NUTS:

University Diaries alerts us to this intriguing article:

Colleges offer on-campus resting places

ORANGE, Calif., May. 14 (UPI) -- College campuses, including Notre Dame and Chapman University in Orange, Calif., are offering burial plots for alumni and faculty.

Chapman opened a honeycomb structure designed to hold the cremated remains of alumni and faculty and Notre Dame announced plans to unveil a pair of limestone and brick mausoleums designed to hold full-body crypts, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

The Notre Dame crypts are expected to sell for as much as $11,000 apiece.
"People look back on their college years and say, 'Those were the best days of my life,'" cemetery consultant Mel Malkoff, who oversees Chapman's columbarium, told the Times. "Why not spend eternity there?"….

Music to Grade By: I'll Take You There

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FOR THE MORNINGS, Rebel Girl suggests the latest from Mavis Staples: We'll Never Turn Back, a rousing revue from the Civil Rights era that bridges then and now. It's not over, folks. Keep your eyes on the prize. Just listen to Staples' own composition, With My Own Eyes. Produced by Ry Cooder with liner notes from John Lewis (!).

Lewis says it best: "The music you are listening to right now was the soul of that revolution. It was this music that gave us hope when it seemed like all hope was gone. It was the heartbeat of this music and its steady, reassuring message that bound us together as one solid force. So when we were beaten, arrested and jailed; when we stood together on picket lines or marched through the streets of the Deep South; when we faced the guns drawn, the billy clubs and the bullwhips raised; when we were teargassed, trampled by horses, or scattered by fire hoses, it was these songs that lifted us and pushed us to a higher place."

Later on in the day, turn to Ry Cooder's My Name is Buddy. Imagine The Grapes of Wrath as told from the point of view of a banjo-playing itinerant cat. Hit the road three fellow travelers: Buddy Red Cat, Lefty Mouse, and the Reverend Tom Toad. Flanked by his usual suspects plus the Seeger brothers (Pete and Mike), Cooder continues his musical chronicle of the California experience.

Toward the evening, Rebel Girl recommends Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's final recording, Neruda Songs. With music composed by her husband, Peter Lieberson and text from Pablo Neruda, Lieberson's mezzo-soprano soars full of passion and tender desperate peace.

from Neruda:
XCII

My love, if I die and you don't —
My love, if you die and I don't —
Let's not give grief an even greater field.
No expanse greater than where we live.

Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts,
Time, wandering water, the vague wind
Swept us on like sailing seeds.
We might not have found one another in time.

The meadow where we find ourselves,
O little infinity! We give it back.
But Love, this love has not ended:

Just as it never had a birth, it has
No death: it is like a long river,
Only changing hands, and changing lips.

A final note:

Rebel Girl still dreams of the day when she gives a party and, the stereo blasting, the Staple Singers begin to sing, "I'll Take You There"—and all her friends who still can, join her and they begin to dance.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Happy grading! —RG