Irvine Valley College Commencement

     For a slideshow presentation of these and more photos (of IVC's commencement), go here.

Click on the pics to enlarge them.
(Photos on IVC's Facebook page.)
(Photos on Saddleback College's Facebook page.) 

The invited commencement speaker was the head of Big Bros of America, OC, I think. 

(Keith Rhodes.) He hails from Alaska.

I think he said that there are no Black Eskimos.

That, at any rate, is what I got out of it.

The new venue—called "Live Oak Terraces," despite the absence of oaks—is nice, I guess, though, late in the afternoon, the audience was lookin' right into the sun.

A little girl, playing by herself a hundred yards away.

President Roquemore and the usual suspects

Happy students (Dean Feldhus at left)

This cute little girl insisted on walking along the concrete. 

I had to get off it so she could pass by. (My fave.)

Lots of families, lots of kids.

Some of the graduates.

The strawberry field background was quite nice.

The usual suspects: trustees, et al.

Gwen seemed happy

I like this kid with the bottle. I've been there, brother

Security was, um, pervasive. They seemed determined to keep me from taking pics of the students
Nobody was allowed to get in front of all those cannons they had for those streamers at the end

These streamer things came out of three or four cannons.
Something hit Lisa in the head!

I'm sure the kids liked the new venue, despite the absence of oaks

This old guy got quite a reception

The chief of police, nice guy

Lookin' into the sun

 Brooke and Dan posed, sort of

 Jamie and Karima

 Lisa

 Karima and Glenn

 Steve and Jamie

 Rebel Girl's sense of humor emerges

The "Women of Humanities" are always good for a laugh

 Humanities and Languages pals

 Brooke and Dan, annoyed by the photographer

 Summer and Melanie, posing

 Lisa and Marcia

Melanie, Brooke, Brittany, clownin' around

Basic aid recommendations (for May’s BOT meeting)

     There’s one “discussion item” for the May meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees (BOT): SOCCCD: Basic Aid Allocation Recommendation for FY 2012-2013
     To see the agenda, go to the District website (see "current agenda," bottom right of opening page).

     The item is explained in the agenda thus:

How Basic Aid Works

"Organizational restructuring"—asking for "input" Thursday of finals week? WTF!

     Today, at 2:52 p.m., denizens of Irvine Valley College received the following email from VPI Craig Justice. It proposes substantial organizational and leadership changes to the college--the day before commencement and the summer faculty diaspora.

TO ALL FACULTY IN THE SCHOOLS OF FINE ARTS, LIBRARY AND LEARNING SERVICES, AND BUSINESS SCIENCES

CC: Members of VPI’s Council, President Roquemore 

Hello everyone, 

Rocky Cellophane

     As you may know, numerous initiatives and new mandates face California’s community colleges at this time, and yet budgets are shrinking while student demand is growing. As IVC itself has grown significantly, some areas of administrative responsibility have grown larger relative to other areas, creating an imbalance of workload for our deans.  Here are four specific challenges that we currently face: 

   1) The student success task force recommendations will require an identified administrative liaison to coordinate instruction with student services and our sister college.
   2) Online education coordination with district IT and Saddleback needs to be enhanced and efforts to improve student readiness for online learning need to be more effective.
   3) The workload of the deans—especially the dean of humanities & languages, social sciences, and library services—needs to be realigned so that the deans’ jobs are roughly comparable.
   4) ATEP class scheduling and ATEP site management needs to be aligned.
   Since we cannot add additional new personnel to address these challenges, the next-best (and only sustainable) solution is to think about some realignments of our existing deans’ assignments that will optimize performance. In plain language, I have been doing a lot of research and thinking about some organizational restructuring that will address the challenges cited above. The reason I am asking for your input is that this proposed restructuring will affect each of you in one way or another. My hope is that the changes will be positive.

     Please meet with me before Commencement tomorrow at 3 p.m. in Conference Room BSTIC 203D to discuss the following proposed reassignments: 

   1. Roger Owens to continue as dean of online education and also dean of library and learning resources and student success initiatives. His new title will be dean of online education, library and learning resources.
   2. David Gatewood to continue as dean of career technical education and also dean of fine arts and business science and technology. David has an M.B.A. and a degree in music.
   3. Kathy Werle to continue as dean of academic programs but become site manager at ATEP and coordinate grants. She currently coordinates class scheduling at ATEP and this new assignment would also enable her to be the site manager as well. 

     In addition to the open meeting tomorrow afternoon, I will also be available next week to meet with interested parties to discuss issues, concerns, and hear your thoughts. Drop in, call, or send me an email with your input. 

     I will post the proposed final plan (following everyone’s input) on the OOI Sharepoint site on Friday, May 25. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration. 

     Craig
     S. Craig Justice, Ph.D.
     Vice President for Instruction
     Irvine Valley College

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "the dust of some educational bone"

A poem for the end of the semester, written by a poet who once visited the Irvine Valley College campus, Gary Soto — he is a Fresno native, a former community college student who went on to earn his MFA from UC Irvine and teach at Cal and who, one evening in the mid-90s, held court in our old Humanities Center, a standing room only crowd. One of the children who sat cross-legged at his feet that night appeared this semester in my Writing 1 class, all grown up.

Teaching English from an Old Composition Book

~Gary Soto

My chalk is no longer than a chip of fingernail,

Chip by which I must explain this Monday

Night the verbs “to get;” “to wear,” “to cut.”

I’m not given much, these tired students,

Knuckle-wrapped from work as roofers,

Sour from scrubbing toilets and pedestal sinks.

I’m given this room with five windows,

A coffee machine, a piano with busted strings,

The music of how we feel as the sun falls,

Exhausted from keeping up.

                                       I stand at

The blackboard. The chalk is worn to a hangnail,

Nearly gone, the dust of some educational bone.

By and by I’m Cantiflas, the comic

Busybody in front. I say, “I get the coffee.”

I pick up a coffee cup and sip.

I click my heels and say, “I wear my shoes.”

I bring an invisible fork to my mouth

And say, “I eat the chicken.”

Suddenly the class is alive—

Each one putting on hats and shoes,

Drinking sodas and beers, cutting flowers

And steaks—a pantomime of sumptuous living.

At break I pass out cookies.

Augustine, the Guatemalan, asks in Spanish,

“Teacher, what is ‘tally-ho’?”

I look at the word in the composition book.

I raise my face to the bare bulb for a blind answer.

I stutter, then say, “Es como adelante.”

Augustine smiles, then nudges a friend

In the next desk, now smarter by one word.

After the cookies are eaten,

We move ahead to prepositions—

“Under,” “over,” and “between,”

Useful words when la migra opens the doors

Of their idling vans.

At ten to nine, I’m tired of acting,

And they’re tired of their roles.

When class ends, I clap my hands of chalk dust,

And two students applaud, thinking it’s a new verb.

I tell them adelante,

And they pick up their old books.

They smile and, in return, cry, “Tally-ho.”

As they head for the door.

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George Wallace Comes to Orange County (Rebel Girl)

Actually he's been here all along in the form of Bob Walters, a resident of Orange who claims to be the chairman of Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign.

Some of us remember Wallace: "I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." How could you forget him? but not Deborah Pauly, Villa Park Councilwoman and candidate of OC Supervisor.

Why should she?

Well, the LA Times reports today that a mailer supporting Pauly "arrived recently in Orange County mailboxes seemed from a different era, embossed with a tiny portrait of former Alabama Gov. George Wallace's face and the campaign slogan 'Wallace for President, Stand up for America.' "

excerpt:

…it was a plea to American Independent Party members to elect Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly to a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

The letter was written by Bob Walters, a businessman from Orange who identified himself as the chairman of Wallace's bid for president in 1967....

In the letter, Walters refers to an incident last year when Pauly came under fire for comments she made outside an Islamic charity event in Yorba Linda.

Protesters carried American flags as they booed and chanted at families entering the community center where the event was held to "Go back home."

That "incident" at the charity event received national media attention.

This one will probably cause some ripples too, confirming the reputation of Orange County as a kind of backwater behind the backwater.

Red Emma's favorite line from the article was: "Pauly said that she has not seen the mailer and doesn't know much about Wallace."

Rebel Girl imagines that it's probably safe to guess that Wallace campaign chairman Bob Walters is a buddy of former SOCCCD Trustee Steven Frogue who spends some of his time these days with the OC chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. They hang out on Sundays "after church" at Johnny Reb's on Chapman.

You can't make this stuff up.

Rebel Girl wishes you could.

It's worth noting that toward the end of his life, George Wallace renounced his racist, reactionary beliefs.  Too bad some of his followers have not.

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To read today's article in its entirety, click here.
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