Southwestern: Chopra chopped

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy

• Southwestern College's Controversial President Quits (Inside Higher Ed)

     San Diego's Southwestern College announced Tuesday that its embattled superintendent/president, Raj K. Chopra, would leave the community college with two years remaining on his contract. Faculty groups have been angry at Chopra's administration over issues such as the 2009 suspension of several faculty members in conjunction with their roles in protests over budget cuts, and last month's elections transformed the college's board, undermining Chopra's support there, according to local news reports.

• Conditions Imposed on Part-Time Adjuncts Threaten Quality of Teaching, Researchers Say (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Well, DUH

Some day, we'll speak of SOCCCD's lurid Fuentes era

The wonderful/notorious "Stand By Our Tan" performance

     Back in 2006, Republican Tan Nguyen ran against Rep. Loretta Sanchez. Nguyen’s advisor was our own (trustee) Tom Fuentes, a fellow whose notoriety rests on many misdeeds, but especially on his role in the “poll guard” incident: in 1988, as County GOP chair, he approved use of poll guards to stand near polling places in Latino neighborhoods. Nice. There was quite an uproar. The scandal cost Fuentes his gig as PR flak for the Catholic Diocese of Orange and a lawsuit tab of nearly half a million dollars.
     In 2006, the Fuentes-advised Nguyen campaign got caught engaging in a similar stunt: a letter was sent to Latino voters, evidently designed to discourage their voting. As Martin Wisckol explains,

     The Spanish-language letter, sent on a letterhead that mimicked the name of a prominent immigration reform group, was mailed to 14,000 voters with Latino last names who’d been born abroad. The letter prompted an immediate investigation by the state attorney general. Worried that the letter would suppress Latino voter turnout, state officials wrote those 14,000 voters encouraging them to vote and telling them to disregard the previous disguised and misleading campaign mailing.
     That mailing had warned that “emigrados” could go to prison if they voted. “Emigrado” is ambiguous in Spanish. It can generally mean an emigrant – who may or may not be a U.S. citizen eligible to vote – or specifically a non-citizen in the country with a green card.
     The letter also warned that “a new computerized system” would track new voters and could be accessed by “organizations that oppose immigration.”

At Chapman College, Tom was the President of the "God's Hecksters" motorcycle club

     It seemed to many observers that Nguyen had illegally attempted to suppress Latino voter turnout, but that charge was never filed. “Obstruction of justice” charges, however, were filed.
     As I recall, amid the initial hoopla, Nguyen’s treasurer resigned. She turned out to be IVC Foundation Director Al Tello’s wife!
     Well, the wheels of justice grind slowly. Nguyen was eventually tried earlier this year, but that led to a hung jury. Today, we learned that a new trial has begun:

Ex-candidate Tan Nguyen back on trial for lying (OC Register)

     A new trial was launched today for former congressional candidate Tan Nguyen, who faces obstruction of justice charges related to a controversial letter sent to Latino voters in his 2006 challenge of Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana.
     In August, there was a hung jury in the same case, with jurors voting 11-1 for conviction on one charge and 9-3 on the other.
. . .
     With Nguyen, federal prosecutors are pursuing a tack similar to that used in the previous trial. They allege that Nguyen was behind the controversial letter from beginning to end, that when an investigation started he asked a 23-year-old office worker to take responsibility, and that he lied to investigators when he said he had nothing to do with the final drafting and mailing of the letter.
. . .
     Prosecutors say they will present emails showing Nguyen participated all along – emails that were also used as evidence in the earlier trial. They may also call to the witness stand those who Nguyen claims were responsible for the mailings, as they did previously.

Folks at Saddleback Church give the worst President in U.S. history a hero's welcome:
Rick Warren Saddlebacks George W. Bush (OC Weekly)

Anthropology: science or mirth?

Anthropology Without Science (Inside Higher Ed)
     A new long-range plan for the American Anthropological Association that omits the word “science” from the organization's vision for its future has exposed fissures in the discipline. ¶ The plan, adopted by the executive board of the association at its annual meeting two weeks ago, includes "significant changes to the American Anthropological Association mission statement – it removes all mention of science," Peter N. Peregrine, president of the Society for Anthropological Sciences and professor at Lawrence University, wrote in a widely circulated e-mail to members. The changes to the plan, he continued, "undermine American anthropology."
     The Society for Anthropological Sciences, which is a smaller and more recently formed group than the larger, older and broader association, embraces and promotes empirical research. It condemned the move by the century-old, 10,000-member American Anthropological Association, Peregrine wrote.
     The move has sparked debate on blogs and among the various sub-specialties of the discipline about the proper place of science in anthropology. Some also say privately that this conflict marks the latest in a running cycle of perceived exclusions among the heterodox discipline. In the past, archaeologists and practicing and professional anthropologists have argued that the discipline as a whole has become dominated by cultural anthropologists, and has grown indifferent to their interests….

Amazing Neanderthalic Episodes: January 2000

     John "Orlando Boy" Williams exudes dubiety re WASC's meeting in, ahem, sunny Hawaii. Naturally, the former bailiff has since specialized in arranging numerous utterly unnecessary and costly taxpayer-funded junkets to Orlando, FL.
     But that's different. I guess.
     Steve Frogue notes Jane Fonda's conversion to abject Christianity and pauses to bathe in his own imagined manifest cleverness. (He is, in truth, an obvious idiot.)
     Dot Fortune defends the American Association of University Women against Don Wagner's McCarthyesque skepticism based on the organization's admiration of Jane Fonda, especially in her role as Barbarella.

Funny cat men

And Baptists, no less!

Profs v. rude texting students; Brit "happy meal" degree; nixed gay prom funding at Cabrillo

Should Profs Leave Unruly Classes? (Inside Higher Ed)
     Professors routinely complain about students who spend class time on Facebook or texting their friends or otherwise making it clear that their attention is elsewhere. But is it acceptable for a faculty member to deal with these disruptions by walking out of class?
     Two years ago, a Syracuse University professor set off a debate with his simple policy: If he spots a student texting, he will walk out of class for the day.
     Now two faculty members at Ryerson University, in Toronto, sparked discussion at their institution with a similar … policy – and their university's administrators and faculty union have both urged them to back down, which they apparently have.
     …Two professors who teach an introductory engineering course in chemistry jointly adopted a policy by posting it on the courses' Blackboard sites. The professors vowed to make tests more difficult, to encourage students to pay attention. And the professors said that after three warnings about disruptions such as cell phone discussions and movies playing on laptops, the professors would walk out of class – and students would have to learn the rest of that day's material themselves….
     The student newspaper described a chaotic environment in the class where the faculty members made the threat to walk out, with loud chatting among students and even paper airplanes being shot around the room. … One student wrote about "a whole row of kids" chatting and reading Facebook throughout a recent lecture.
     But this student added these questions: "Was it really fair to leave the class based on the actions of these few students? Why were we all reprimanded for their bad mistakes?"....

Controversy Over a Gay Prom at a Community College (Inside Higher Ed)
     A new gay student organization at Cabrillo College wants to know why the student government president vetoed the use of funds for the group's first big event – a prom for students who weren't able to take same-sex partners to their high school proms, The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported. The student government president says that he's not anti-gay, but that the group was "double dipping" because it was already receiving funds from another college source. But the gay student group notes that similar funding hasn't been a problem for other groups.

British University Accredits McDonald's Degree (Inside Higher Ed)
     Manchester Metropolitan University, in Britain, has announced that it will accredit and issue degrees for the McDonald's two-year training program for senior managers. The program includes instruction in managing a business, human resources, finance and marketing.

Court Filing Draws Attention to For-Profit's Recruiting Tactics (Inside Higher Ed)
     Legal filings in a lawsuit by students against a Utah campus of the for-profit Everest College, a part of Corinthian Colleges, focus on recruiting tactics there. The Deseret News reported that a former admissions officer described being told to make prospective students feel uncertain about their futures. "The tactics also included questions designed at putting down the prospective student, making them feel hopeless, bad about their current situation and stuck at a dead end, in order to make enrolling in school look like the best solution to the problem," the former admissions officer wrote. The students' lawsuit says that Everest gave them bad information about the cost of programs and the ability to transfer credits. A spokesman for Everest said that many of the former admissions officer's statements were "factually wrong or false" and that representatives "avoid negative appeals."

Pedroza: sorry and goodbye

Art Pedroza says “sorry”—and “goodbye” to politics:
Why I am leaving the Orange Juice blog

Background: Judge rules in battle of O.C. politics blogs