Remembering Glenn Roquemore, part 1

Glenn got his start on Team Mathur, 1997

OVERHEARD:

     “We’ve got to have a party!” said the Humanities instructor. “A celebration!”

     “Well, let’s wait a bit. We don’t want to be too obvious about it,” said a faculty friend. “I don’t wanna get fired!”

. . .

     “I bet Diane is feeling a bit queasy this morning.”

     “Yeah, her protector is gone.”

     “I wonder what Linda is thinkin’? She’s gotta be next.”

Clueless Roquemore makes agreement with the enemy, U of Phoenix

. . .

     “It came as a complete surprise,” said the administrator, alone in her office. “We had no idea.”

     I said: “Well, we expected that his contract would not get renewed—and we expected that to come out Monday, at the board meeting. But it was kinda weird how this came down yesterday, what with that ‘conversation with Glenn’ guff. They agreed that he’d leave? What was all that about?”

. . .

     Yesterday, I went in search of Chris M, but he was not in his office. “He’s away today,” said his administrative assistant. “Should I give ‘im a message?”

     “Nope,” I said. I just smiled. She must’ve known what I was smilin’ about.

. . .

     “I feel sorry for his family,” said the former administrator.

     “Really?” I said. “I think they’re sittin’ pretty.”

     “Normally, the President would be expected to serve through June, giving everyone a chance to transition. Maybe, yesterday, he got pissed about getting a bad evaluation and he quit on the spot!”

. . .

                 

     “Do you suppose this thing has something to do with Bruce’s firing a few days ago?” [Bruce Hagan, Irvine Valley College Director of Technology Services; resignation, 10/21]

     “Didn’t Glenn just give him some award recently?”

. . .

For a while, Glenn enjoyed the protection of Trustee Wagner,
now on the OC Board of Supes

Cessa's gone – DtB post, 10/9/19

…A student cried out that at a meeting she and other students were told that due to personal problems, Cessa had decided to leave. That's a lie, the student said, you didn't decide to leave.

Another person pointed out that this is the so-called Year of Equity at IVC and the administration has just fired the single person responsible for bringing measurably increased equity on campus.

Students wept….

. . .

Dissent 2

March 9, 1998

On March 6, 2010, someone left this comment on the blog:

Nepotism reigns with the [IVC] President. Do we have to hire all of your wife's relatives?

     So let's turn to THE WIFE.

     ● Here's an interesting item from October of 2010 (An administrator is fired. Over cake):

Livin' big

     Kiana is held in low esteem by some faculty at the college, in part owing to her reputation for unapologetically exploiting her, um, influence. Evidently, in other ways, too, she does not leave the best of impressions as a colleague and educator.
     Kiana Tabibzadeh, of course, is President Glenn Roquemore's wife.
     On Friday, someone said: "Don't wanna eat a Kiana cake." That sort of thing. Har har. There were maybe eight people in the room.
     Dean Schrader did not encourage the impromptu jocularity. Possibly, she joined in the laughter. She eventually said something to discourage it.
     In any case, it was a fleeting episode about cake--one that briefly tapped into a widely-shared scorn of an arrogant and, well, notorious colleague.

. . .
     The most commonly repeated story concerns Kiana's hiring a dozen or so years ago. Glenn was on the hiring committee. Some on the hiring committee were unimpressed by Kiana. Notoriously, Glenn championed her cause. She was hired.
     He was also dating her at the time. Or so I've been assured numerous times by persons claiming to be in the know.
     Today, I briefly spoke with a former IVC Affirmative Action officer. He told me that he had brought this episode up with then-Chancellor Lombardi, who said he'd deal with it. But, of course, nothing was done.
     I recall an incident seven or eight years ago in which it was learned that Kiana was engineering her selection as "Teacher of the Year." (I was an officer in the Senate at the time.) She had instructed her students to submit the required glowing letters. We couldn't believe it. That time, the scheme was undone, owing to forceful objections from the Academic Senate.
. . .

17 years of this shite

     An administrator told me this story: sometimes, evidently, Kiana will hole up in her office during her office hours and refuse to see students who are waiting to speak with her.
     One such time, her dean knocked on Kiana's door herself. There was no answer.
     Later in the day, the VPI (pre-Justice) visited that dean, explaining to her that, according to Kiana's husband (i.e., Roquemore), the dean's door-knocking had caused Kiana a "near nervous breakdown"!
     Evidently, efforts to have Kiana actually hold office hours were verboten, owing to Kiana's delicate nerves.
. . .
     More recently, Susan Cooper became the dean of this benighted zone of IVC instructors. She soon discovered the then-traditional abuses, including a series of manifestly hinky scheduling practices enforced by their beneficiary, Kiana Tabibzadeh. Cooper was determined to put a stop to that nonsense, but, to the degree that she pressed the matter, to that degree she experienced ferocious push-back from Glenn, who made her life miserable. In the end, she found it necessary to leave the college.
     Not long ago, I had lunch with a former IVC administrator. He or she or it informed me that Kiana's father has been working at IVC for years (admittedly, in some minor role as a test proctor or something similar)--this despite Mr. Fuentes' occasional noisy (albeit hypocritical) accusations of nepotism at the colleges.
     Some of us have complained about these abuses for many years. I recall arranging to meet with newly-elected trustee Don Wagner in late 1998. I had lunch with him at a restaurant across the street from the college. Among other things, I described some of the abuses mentioned above.
     Well, I guess he didn't believe me. Absolutely nothing was done about them. 

. . .

DtB, 2/15/18

   Tabibzadeh has a surprisingly high salary. How come?

     Part of the answer is her doctorate, earned in 2015. I did a little checking and found her dissertation (here). It is entitled "Student Academic Achievement in College Chemistry" (it's a degree in "education leadership," not chemistry), and it was conferred by Trident University International, a tiny, new (2007) for-profit located in beauteous Cypress, CA.

     Trident has no campus, since all of its instruction is online. 

     Tabibzadeh's dissertation committee is curious. Included among its three members are Sanjay Gupta and Brent Monte, both Math instructors at IVC. The committee chair is Dr. Wenling Li, "Doctoral Studies Director" of Trident's College of Education.

. . .

   ● A blast from the past: The Irvine Valley Chronicles, Feb. 6, 2013:

c. 2012 -Vacationing in Hawaii (?) with probie Scott

Kiana wears the bollocks

     Did you know that one of the current probies [Dan Scott] is a close personal friend of the college President? Gosh, I do hope everyone is on their best behavior. It will be interesting to learn who'll get tenure and who won't.

     —Well, maybe not "interesting."

Note: Scott did receive tenure

     ● In her dissertation, Tabibzadeh thanks "Dr. Mary Scott." This would seem to be the wife of IVC business instructor Dan Scott, who, along with Mary (Provost at Concordia U), vacationed with the Roquemores despite Dan's probationary status. (See photo above.)

     Golly.

     ● Dan Scott is a Doctor of Business Administration (DBS), evidently. And where'd he get that degree? U of Phoenix, natch. (The institution is "unranked," of course, by U.S. News & WR. Why? "School refused to fill out U.S. News statistical survey.") As you know, Roquemore, inexplicably, has a high regard of UoP. Selectivity? "Least selective."

Special relationship w/ Prez

     ● According to his LinkedIn page, Scott worked as an adjunct at Concordia U from 2004-2009. If he was married to Mary, Provost of Concordia (2006), at the time—BINGO! It's nepotism time once again.

     Evidently, Scott also worked for the ethically challenged ARAMARK corporation for 19 years.\

Glenn in the "good old days" with various corrupt bastards . . .

Posted by Roy Bauer  May 05, 2015

ONCE AGAIN, ROQUEMORE BLOWS OFF PROCESS

¡I am the process!

     DtB readers know that Irvine Valley College has a very mixed record with regard to its invited commencement speakers. Some have been good. Some have been embarrassing in one way or another. (Plagiarism anyone?)

     The chief difficulty here is familiar: the piss-poor leadership of IVC Prez-for-life Glenn Roquemore, that remarkably non- (or anti-) academic fellow (he hangs out a lot at the Chamber of Commerce and gives speeches over at the knuckle-dragging Pacifica Institute), who generally finds ways to get who he wants at commencement, despite student or faculty preferences—and the demands of process!—to the contrary.

     This year is no exception. The college has a process according to which a committee, with wide representation, arrives at a list of carefully winnowed committee-approved candidates. The committee’s suggestions are sent up to the Prez, who makes the final selection. 

     For years, the Reb, among others, has suggested inviting the inimitable Gustavo Arellano(aka "The Mexican" of "Ask a Mexican!"), editor of the OC Weekly, to speechify. No matter the strength or weakness of the alternatives, Roquemore has always nixed the Mexican. Upon repeated Roquemorian rejections at IVC, Gustavo has given commencement addresses at UCLA, among other fine institutions of higher learning.

Glenn always hated the Mexican

     This year, Gustavo made it to the IVC committee’s winnowed list of faves. 

     But no. At a recent meeting, the President’s rep on the committee—chair Diane Oaks—essentially declared that the committee may not suggest Mr. Arellano. And so his name was taken off the list. The list was forwarded, sans Mexican.

     So tell me. What’s the point of having a process in which a committee, with wide representation, chooses the candidates and the Prez makes the final selection, if the Prez also determines who can be on the committee’s list?

When in doubt, jump out of an airplane and smile

Glenn loved to invite his pal, OC Sheriff and felon Mike Carona

Roquemore's GONE

 "Our long institutional nightmare is over."

1:39 p.m.

Irvine Valley College Community:

I am writing to inform you about a conversation I had with Dr. Glenn Roquemore in the last hour. We agreed that he would be going on leave from his position as the President of Irvine Valley College effective immediately. While his employment status with the District is currently in transition, he will likely not be returning to his position as the College President. Dr. Roquemore has made many contributions to the Irvine Valley College community, and for his service and commitment to community college education, we are thankful.

In addition and effective immediately, Dr. Cindy Vyskocil will be serving as the Interim College President. Dr. Vyskocil is currently attending the annual Association of Chief Human Resources Officers (ACHRO) conference through Friday, October 25. She will report to Irvine Valley College on Monday, October 28 to assume her interim assignment.

On Friday, October 25, I will be making myself available on campus at IVC in the Administration Building. If you should have any questions or comments about the information in this email, or if there is anything else that you would like to discuss with me, please feel free to drop by and see me. Sandy Jeffries and Pamela Guillaume in the President's Office will know where to find me should you wish to stop by.

Cindy Vyskocil
(Vice Chancellor of Human Resources)

Kathleen


Kathleen F. Burke Ed.D., Chancellor
South Orange County Community College District
28000 Marguerite Parkway
Mission Viejo, CA 92692-3635

SEE
Agenda item for Monday’s board meeting (closed session): 1.3 Public Employee Employment, Evaluation of Performance, Discipline, Dismissal, Release

Maybe the next head to roll:

"Rotarian" Linda Fontanilla. Next?
We can hope.

Irvine Valley College president abruptly steps down after 17 years
(OC Reg)

…The district – which includes Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges – has not publicly said why Roquemore stepped down, and Roquemore could not be reached for comment….

Something in the air?

1993


1969

Call out the instigators
Because there's something in the air
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right
And you know that it's right

We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Lock up the streets and houses
Because there's something in the air
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right
And you know that it's right

We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Hand out the arms and ammo
We're going to blast our way through here
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right
And you know that it's right

We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

IVC and DtB on Breitbart News!

     A MONTH or so ago my dean visited me to ask whether I had had an encounter with members of a conservative student club on campus.
     “Nope,” I said. I did recall having a brief and not unpleasant exchange with a guy manning a table for a Christian group. But that was perfectly amicable, I said.
     Soon thereafter, I was visited by a worried VP who informed me that IVC and this blog were now being discussed (targeted!) by Breitbart News.
     It was news to me.
     The upshot is this: some students were contemplating starting a “Turning Point USA” chapter here at IVC, and, during an effort at recruitment, they had some sort of unpleasant encounter with a professor—to wit, the professor told ‘em they “weren't gonna get laid.”
     "Oh, the humanity!"
     Well, if any such encounter occurred, it had nothing to do with me.

* * *

     I vaguely recall our reporting about Turning Point USA several years ago. Back in 2016, Rebel Girl posted an article from Inside Higher Ed (here) that explained that

     A new website is asking students … to “expose and document” professors who “discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
     The site, called Professor Watchlist, is not without precedent … There's also David Horowitz's 2006 book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America….
. . .
     Professor Watchlist, launched Monday, is a project of Turning Point USA. … In a write-up of the project, [PW’s founder, Charlie] Kirk said, “It’s no secret that some of America’s college professors are totally out of line” and that he often hears stories about “professors who attack and target conservatives, promote liberal propaganda and use their position of power to advance liberal agendas in their classroom. Turning Point USA is saying enough is enough. It’s time we expose these professors.”

     I don’t recall our saying anything particularly nasty about this group. We just reported their existence, their practices.
     Turning Point USA, like other so-called "conservative" groups, seems to participate in a kind of scam. It was perpetrated on Saddleback College instructor Margot Lovett several years ago (see The YAF brouhaha). The idea is to bait a college professor (or even college students) into assailing a poor, defenseless conservative. Get that on film or video, and then broadcast it, thereby disseminating proof of the dastardly oppression of conservatives on campuses—the conservative Paranoid Dream. Margot was videoed tearing down an improperly posted poster for some right-wing event on campus. (In truth, she was upholding a policy passed by our conservative board during the heyday of the ultra-right-wing SOCCCD trustee Tom Fuentes.) The video ended up on Breitbart, and Margot was soon the target of horrible (and violent) remarks and harassment by the usual suspects. This went on for some time, made her life a living hell. (Then there was the notorious viral video of OCC instructor Olga Perez Stable Cox in 2017; see OCC student suspended.)

* * *

     But let’s get back to now. The worried VP (when he first visited me about this matter) urged me not to write about this Brietbart business on the blog, and I agreed. I get it: we don't want IVC to be the whipping boy du jour of the right-wing lunatic crowd. Nobody wants that.
     But I think enough time has passed. I believe we can explain essentially what happened, what with the right-wingers preoccupied these days with Trump’s recent Ukraine/Syria meltdown.

     Here’s the article that appeared in Breitbart News on September 19th —plus some commentary in red:

Irvine Valley College Students Say Harassment of Conservatives Started in First Weeks of Semester

     Irvine Valley College students Lloyd Vincent Labriaga and Kyro Beshay told Breitbart News that they recently started a brand new Turning Point USA group on their campus, and have already been subjected to harassment by people on campus — one of whom is believed to be a professor — just a few weeks into the fall 2019 semester. Labriaga and Beshay spoke to host Alex Marlow in a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily for the show’s weekly TPUSA campus report segment.
     “We weren’t sure initially when that man approached us, [if he] was actually a professor, but we know for a fact that we were actually being recorded by [a professor],” said Beshay, who is the vice president of the new TPUSA group on campus. [So that’s professor A, the "harasser," and professor B, the recorder.]
     According to both Labriaga and Beshay, a man believed to be a professor [professor A] approached the conservative students — while they were recruiting members for their TPUSA group — and told the students that they would never “get laid.” Meanwhile, a professor [professor B] recorded the incident.
     [I would never say anything like that. Neither would the Reb.]
     “We assumed this person was a professor based on an anonymous source [“Anonymous”] that works at IVC,” added Labriaga, who is the TPUSA chapter president. “They basically gave us a list of professors to be mindful of — because of their very radical beliefs, and that they might actually penalize us academically.”
     [Golly, who’s this “Anonymous” source? And who are these “very radical” professors that Anon fingered? Not us, that’s for sure. —Unless feeling the Bern is “very radical.”]
     Labriaga and Beshay said they initially reacted to the incident by attempting to engage the man [A or B?] in a discussion, but that he was not interested. The students later reported the harassment [“You ain’t gonna get laid”] to the school’s dean, in hopes that his behavior “will be corrected.”
     [Hence the visit from my dean and then the VP, I guess.]
     “The reason why we had approached the dean,” said Beshay, “is because that sort of behavior is really unacceptable, but it’s something we saw a lot of at that [recruiting] session [at IVC] — we’ve had a lot of people come up to us with conflicting opinions — voicing them in a way that you would not [use] in an actual debate.”
     [I’m not sure I follow. Is Beshay referring to dire prophecies about not "getting laid" by “very radical” folks? That it?]
     The students added that the individual in question [which individual?] — along with two other professors — maintain a blog [that’s gotta be DtB], which they use to lambaste conservatives and Christians.
     [Well, no, neither the Reb nor I had any contact with these kids. And since when does the blog lambaste conservatives and Christians? –We “lambaste” some conservatives, I guess. Real knuckledraggers. Trump.]
     “We’re a really, really new chapter, we haven’t even gotten the opportunity to present a lot of activities to our club members [yet] — so, nothing we’ve done really [warrants] that sort of behavior” [“won’t get laid”], said Beshay, who added that just their presence on campus — promoting conservative ideas — has been enough to elicit these types of responses from people.
     “I feel like most conservative students who want to voice their opinion are afraid to do [sic] because they’re afraid that they will get penalized from the professor or ridiculed by them,” added Labriaga.
     [Not in a million years would the Reb our I “penalize” a student for being conservative. I might hand such a student a copy of Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. But that ain't harassment.]
     Labriaga also shared why he decided to get involved with conservative activism.

Given that I’ve lived in Orange County for most of my life, I know that there’s a lot of silent conservatives, especially in high school, because we’ve been [subjected] to this liberal education system, where even myself — during my health class — one time in high school, we were taught by one of the people that worked at Planned Parenthood, and — everyone in that class — we didn’t really believe her — I just had this feeling that we’re against what she believes, and this pro-Planned Parenthood agenda. And that’s why I feel like most young people nowadays are very silent about their beliefs, but I know they’re pretty much leaning to the right.

     “The reason I joined TPUSA,” said Beshay, “is that we weren’t able to have that civil debate — I was being told so often and so much that there wasn’t any debate because we couldn’t have that conflict with one side [?] — I wouldn’t be able to mention my point of views to anyone at school who had a conflicting point because I’m not sure of how they would react.”
     “And so,” added Beshay, “by joining TPUSA, I hoped to help facilitate that sort of civil debate in an environment where we’re not going to be worried about being attacked.” [END OF ARTICLE]

     —So that’s the article. A few days after it appeared, it was “retweeted” by Sarah Palin, or so the VP told me. Consequently, the article got a bump for a few days.
     But a month has passed and no disaster has befallen us.  -r

At IVC, one head rolls

10/21/19

Colleagues:


We would like to inform you of the resignation of Bruce Hagan, Irvine Valley College Director of Technology Services. His resignation is effective immediately. With this notice, we will begin a nationwide search for his replacement. In the interim, Davit Khachatryan, Vice President for College Administrative Services, will serve as the point of contact until the position is filled.

Very Respectfully,

Glenn R. Roquemore, PhD
President
Irvine Valley College

Glenn loved to give Bruce prizes. Even recently.

Rachel Price sings (are you listening?)

Red Emma in the News (Part 3, the Happy Ending): Direct Action Gets the Goods

Today over at UCI, victory! Thanks for your support.

Total Resolution: Andrew's Paid Leave Approved!


Collective action works. Thanks to your support, Andrew has been granted paid leave for one quarter, consistent with his doctor's recommendation and with our union contract. UCI has dropped its demand that he pay back salary and insurance premiums. Andrew is on track for recovery and hopes to return to teaching in January.

This victory belongs to every single one of you (7,600 people!) who called on UC administrators to treat teaching faculty with the same respect they pay to research faculty. We're fueled by the conviction that #FacultyEquity leads to #StudentSuccess. Our students need us, and we need humane, dignified working conditions.

In a July collective bargaining session, we had already proposed that all UC-AFT faculty would be eligible for paid medical leave in the case of catastrophic illness or injury, just like tenure-track faculty. We're also demanding strong rehiring rights for excellent teachers, a path to full-time teaching for all who want it, recognition of the unpaid service and professional development work we regularly take on, and salaries that reflect our vital contributions to the UC. Stable academic careers should be the norm for highly qualified scholar-teachers who give their all for their students.

Our contract campaign is about making sure that UC teaching faculty have the resources they need to provide UC students with the education they deserve. You can follow the negotiations through our bargaining blog and on Facebook, Twitter (@ucaft), and Instagram (@uc_aft). To keep the momentum going right now, please sign and share our petition protesting the UC's ongoing wage theft.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you again for standing up for Andrew. Together we can achieve many more victories for our students and each other. #Solidarity #WeTeachUC #WhoseUniversity #OurUniversity


Update from Inside Higher Ed

Update: UC Irvine Grants Lecturer Paid Leave

By Colleen Flaherty October 10, 2019

The University of California, Irvine, this week agreed to a one-term paid medical leave for Andrew Tonkovich, a longtime lecturer of English who is recovering from brain surgery. Previously, the university twice denied Tonkovich’s request for paid leave, citing the fact that he is on a 75 percent appointment, teaching six courses per year instead of eight. Irvine said Tonkovich’s union contract stipulated that paid medical leaves are only for lecturers on 100 percent appointments. But he and the union argued that the university retained the ability to make exceptions. Tonkovich’s supporters said that the situation exemplified the precarity of even those part-time instructors who have relatively good working conditions.

In a note to Tonkovich this week, Diane K. O’Dowd, vice provost for academic personnel at Irvine, said that “based on clear policies and consistent practice governed by the union contract, your leave request would normally be without pay.” However, she said, “We also understand the difficulty of this situation and our administration is eager to help in the best way we can.” Tonkovich and his union said the university also dropped the demand that he pay back his salary from the summer if he would not be teaching this term. He expects to return to work in January.