Spewing spores

It's finals week here at Irvine Valley College, which is fine by me, except I've got the flu, and I can barely function, but here I am, every day this week, giving this flu back to these darned kids that gave it to me in the first place, no doubt. I sneeze at 'em, spewing spores all over the place. So there.

Rebel Girl's been showing up, too—giving finals, collecting essays—only she's got a cold or something plus pink eye, which she got from Limber Lou, who got it from some of those Republican brats he hangs out with in the canyon.

He's a great kid, that Limber Lou. Check out the picture I took of 'im a couple of days ago. The kid never stops moving—he spews little-kid sauce out in all directions, and there's no use protecting yourself—so this is the best I could do. I like his hair.

The Reb made me take a picture of the "delightful flowers" somebody had layed out there in the so-called "faculty lounge" of A200, which is where they keep us. This is what you get when you share space with biologists. They get excited about tubers and mold and this weird-ass thing here, whatever it is. Me, I go for ordinary posies and ferns. In vases.

Speaking of bio, the Reb dragged me out to the greenhouse/park—over by the tennis courts—where, a few days ago, the biologists put up a nice plaque in honor of their colleague, Alan Cohen. It's all fenced off and locked, so I had to poke a hole in the fence to take a peek.

Why were we out there? Reb's into dark, foul conspiracies by corporations and administrators. With a hushed voice, she suddenly said, "Check out this weird machine over here!" OK. I stared at it. It looked like one of those Dyson vacuum cleaners, only big and green. It was made of fiberglass and it sat behind a chain-link fence. It's mighty weird. I guess.


Then she dragged me just around the corner to some weird emergency shower—you know, for when chemicals splash in your eyes. It was on a nondescript building, sans windows, next to the biologists' greenhouse/park.

What's that all about? Dunno. Maybe that big vaccuum cleaner and this shower are, like, the greenhouse/park for the Chemists. Could be. Raghu's a chemist, isn't he?

Yeah. This must be the "Raghu P. Mathur Chemical Depository and Park." Ugly and creepy. Perfect.

Nobody ever comes out here. Nobody ever will.

“God instructed me to hit him with a pie”: Monday’s board meeting

.....AN OLD GUY named Carl Christensen addressed the board, fretting about the “imbalance” in Saddleback College’s history offerings, which deemphasize, he said, history after World War II. He may as well have addressed potted plants for all the reaction he got from this board.
.....Next, the board broke into their annual “organizational” meeting, whereupon Trustee John Williams nominated Don Wagner for President of the board (Tom Fuentes seconded). That passed unanimously. Don beamed.
.....At that point, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur popped up to give exiting board president Dave Lang a big stack of plaques and prizes, one by one, including one from the Governor. It was a delicious display of Mathurian brownnosery, and everyone was highly amused.
.....Tom Fuentes, natch, then nominated Williams as board VP. Nancy Padberg voted against that idea. Fuentes was made Clerk again. He seemed to respond by blowing tiny bubbles with the spittle on his lower lip.
.....Dave Lang, who ended a three-year stint as president and who plainly sees himself as terribly important, offered his long goodbyes. He thanked his “particularly dedicated” board colleagues (especially Wagner and Fuentes), our “hard-working” Chancellor, and various administrators.
.....If he mentioned faculty and faculty leadership, it was under the umbrella term “and others.” This plainly annoyed faculty in attendance.
.....Fuentes then left because he was feeling ill.
.....During board reports and at other times during the meeting, trustees sang the praises of Saddleback College President Rich McCullough, who recently announced his retirement, effective in June. They really seemed to praise him.
.....During his report, Chancellor Mathur made a point of thanking “all workers,” somehow implying that some workers (faculty) are thanked far too often and too strongly as far as he was concerned.
.....Trustee John Williams, junketeer extraordinaire, requested a detailed report on nepotism in the district. Don’t know what that’s about.
.....Don Wagner ran the meeting as though he were in a hurry to go home to watch House. Wham, bam.

THE FLAT WORLD

.....Eventually, trustees got to their sole “discussion” item, though they didn’t seem to want to discuss it. As you know, Mathur reads one book per decade, and the last one was Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, which describes “globalization” and its challenges. Mathur has enthusiastically “shared” this book with trustees and with various administrators. He has memorized its ISBN number and he owns an edible edition—or, rather, he once did. (Evidently, Mathur is unaware that good books are published all the time. Not just this one.)
.....Mathur’s obsession with Friedman’s trendy tome somehow yielded this odd little presentation, called “language in a flat world,” by the two colleges’ VPIs—namely, Rajen Vurdien and Craig Justice. (Tracy provides a link to the presentation.) Globalization, we were told, is threatening language diversity, for some tongues, such as English, have become “killer languages.”
.....I kept waiting for Rajen and Craig to explain whether English’s homicidal ways are to be welcomed or repelled, but I couldn’t tell which way they went on that question. Both ways maybe.
.....They presented facts and trends regarding language instruction at the two colleges. Spanish and some other languages are in decline (at least at Saddleback) while Chinese and Korean are on the rise. I was surprised to find that the two colleges differ so much with regard to language instruction.
.....The VPI Twins seemed to suggest that, perhaps, we should prepare for English’s unstoppable killing spree. Maybe, they said, we should partner with foreign universities to teach English. Will we be teaching less and less in the area of foreign languages?, they asked. Should we promote “regional languages,” such as Spanish and Korean?
.....Don’t ask me.
.....I must confess that the presentation confused me a bit. It seemed to confuse the trustees too, who had virtually nothing to say about it. On the other hand, they praised it.
.....Whatever.

THE 50% LAW: ORWELLIAN GOO

.....Among the meeting’s “information” items was a “report on compliance with [the] 50% Law during 2007-08.” As you know, Mathur and Co. have fucked up disastrously, allowing the district to trend strongly below the mandatory 50% line with regard to expenditures on instruction. (They saw it coming; they were heedless; they threw huge chunks of cash at ATEP.) As a consequence, the district has been scrambling to cut non-instructional costs, hire faculty, etc.
.....Mathur persists in offering public remarks about our predicament with ZERO recognition of his responsibility for it. He did that again last night, even adopting, as is his custom, the attitude of a stern parent lecturing recalcitrant children.
.....He makes about $300,000 a year.
.....IVC Academic Senate President Wendy G reminded the board of the 50% Advisory Committee recommendations. Among them: that measures to address our fiscal difficulty should proceed in relation to our larger plans, including each college’s strategic plan. Sometimes, she suggested, that is “not happening.” She cited the apparent decision to cut an “executive assistant” from IVC’s Office of the President. That office, she reminded the board, is particularly important. Cutting staff there can really hurt; it can have ripple effects.
.....Nancy Padberg picked up on that point. She asked if the Chancellor intended to cut executive assistants also at Saddleback College—and at the district. She wondered if, by this action, he were not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
.....Mathur responded by playing the old “shared pain” card. Leadership has to set an example by cutting in their areas too. (I wonder if he intends to give back some of his salary.)
.....Marcia Milchiker joined in. The two colleges, she said, are spending well over 50% on instruction. The 50% difficulty concerns the district and ATEP, not the colleges. Plus, by making these cuts, isn’t the Chancellor micromanaging the colleges?
.....Lang seemed to agree with Milchiker, Padberg, and Jay. He emphasized the importance of the process by which “savings items” are chosen. He seemed to say that, in future, the Chancellor should provide specific cost-saving figures and such per potential cut.
.....Bill Jay found some of the district’s numbers confusing (as did I and others). What’s all this talk about 13 and 14 million dollars?
.....The faculty union’s Ken W noted that, last week, the Chancellor issued an edict—near as I can tell, one that was unfamiliar to administrators—according to which instructors could not teach more than 60% of their load in distance ed. This sort of rule, he said, diminishes the colleges’ ability to maximize enrollment, for deans must now scramble to find replacement instructors. (Note: increasingly, DE is our cash cow.) This, he said, is a case of micromanagement.

.....Trustee Wagner intoned nastily that he hoped that “someday [you] will move past calling anything you don’t like ‘micromanagement.’”
.....To his credit, Ken did not permit his head to pop.
.....Mathur suddenly affected the manner of a wounded and dying hero. Gosh, he said, the term “micromanagement” sure is being used loosely (brownnose, brownnose, roly-poly brownnose). This complaint, he said, is an attempt to “politicize” something that is not political. He commenced railing against instructors who teach 100% of their courses online. How, he asked, can faculty satisfy their other duties (office hours, committee work) if they teach online? He “cautioned” the board against discussing this matter in an inappropriate setting.
.....(Mathur was throwing up a cloud of dust. Nothing prevents deans from requiring of faculty, even those who do all of their teaching online, to hold office hours and do committee work.)
.....In truth, Mathur’s 60% edict was likely just one of his typical efforts to hurt his “enemies,” i.e., his critics, some of whom happen to embrace distance ed.
.....Padberg said that she agreed with Marcia, except for one thing: she has no complaint with the 50% Law, which, she said, is “good.” She suggested that the district needs to take a hard look at expenses at the district and at ATEP. We have, she said, a bureaucracy that has “ballooned” at the district level.
.....Marcia then expressed surprise regarding the 60% edict. Aren’t we trying to grow DE instruction?, she asked. How does this edict help with the 50% problem?
.....Mathur roared that it is “false” to say that district bureaucracy has grown. (He’s a lying sack of shit.) He commenced lecturing Nancy and Marcia. The issue of instructor limits on distance ed courses is “bargainable,” he said.
.....Huh? If it’s bargainable, then it should be bargained; it should not be a matter of Chancellor edicts. —So declared Bill Jay. Good point!
.....You should definitely watch this discussion (go to #7.1) yourself when it becomes available at the district website. It was pretty obvious that Mathur was hopping mad. He started to make that rat-face. You know the one.
.....It was wonderful.

See also

• Tracy's Board Highlights &
• Night of Narcissus

Night of Narcissus

.....I'll have a full report (on the SOCCCD board meeting) some time tomorrow. Right now, I'm beat, and I've gotta get to bed.
.....BRIEFLY: Wagner is the new board president, and boy was he efficient. It was the first meeting to end early in years, I think. I don't think it was early enough for Don, though.
.....Dave Lang seemed to think that his stepping down (from the board presidency) was momentous—epoch-shattering even. He hoped, he said, that "history" would treat him well.
.....Well, actually, history doesn't give a shit about little Davey Doo. But if it did give a shit, it would judge him to be a mere quisling and jackass. ATEP is falling apart; the colleges' accreditation is fouled up; the district is seriously behind the 8-ball because of Davey's boy Mathur's 50% screw-up; and morale still sucks.
.....Wow, what a legacy. Wagner got a laugh when he said that Lang left some big shoes--and a hot seat.


.....After accepting about seventeen prizes, Lang commenced throwing darts at Chriss Street, the OC Treasurer. Those are some seriously sour grapes. (Lang wanted the job that Street got. That's what Lang is all about. That's what he's still about.)
.....The two VPIs gave an oddly incoherent report about "language and the flat world." Still don't know what that was all about. English, it turns out, is the "killer language." But is that a good thing or a bad thing? The report seemed pretty unclear about that. Should we stop offering foreign languages? Maybe. Maybe not.
.....Jay, Milchiker, and Padberg were all over Mathur, making him look like an asshole. So I'd have to say that, all in all, it was a damned good night.
.....More tomorrow.

Anti-evolutionists ecstatic—and inconsistent

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Academic Freedom and Evolution:

.....Opponents of evolution have of late been trying to frame their arguments as being about academic freedom and free expression. As a result, the anti-evolution Discovery Institute is ecstatic over the recent discovery of e-mail messages among professors at Iowa State University criticizing the views of a pro-intelligent design professor whose tenure bid was denied. “Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez and Academic Persecution” is the title of the institute’s Web page about the case. (Iowa State says that the professor’s views on evolution were not a decisive factor in his dismissal.)
.....The Christian Law Association, meanwhile, frames a lawsuit against the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution by a fired postdoc who does not believe in evolution or want to do work related to evolution as a matter of his being punished for his beliefs.
.....But the groups arguing for freedom of expression of evolution deniers have not been heard agitating for the rights of Richard Colling. He’s a professor at Olivet Nazarene University, in Illinois, who has been barred from teaching general biology or having his book taught at the university that is his alma mater and the place where he has taught for 27 years. A biologist who is very much a person of faith, these punishments followed anger by some religious supporters of the college over the publication of his book in which he argues that it is possible to believe in God and still accept evolution.
.....“I thought I was doing the church a service,” Colling said in an interview. He believes that religious colleges that frame science and faith as incompatible will lose some of their best minds, and that his work has been devoted to helping faithful students maintain their religious devotion while learning science as science should be taught.
.....“You can’t check your intellect at the door of the church,” he said. Colling has tenure and he hasn’t been fired or had his pay cut — which university officials have told the American Association of University Professors means that Olivet Nazarene can’t be accused of violating his academic freedom.
.....Actually, the AAUP tends to believe that having courses taken away (without due process) and having your books banned generally is a violation of academic freedom, and the association is currently investigating the case while pushing (without success) for the sanctions against Colling to be lifted. The case is in many ways notable because the AAUP gives religious colleges considerable leeway in enforcing religious beliefs and is getting involved here only because of evidence that the university is violating its own stated principles. At the same time, the AAUP says that proponents of intelligent design are not necessarily correctly citing the principles of academic freedom in some other prominent cases attracting attention….

• Did you know that Trustee Tom Fuentes is involved in the publishing of books that attack evolution? Imagine that! See Fuenteian titles.

"She wasn't just our little girl..." (sniff, tremble)

The OC Register’s piece on IVC's "hometown hero" Mike Carona (Mike Carona's risky business) is definitely worth a read. Some excerpts:

…George H. Jaramillo had emigrated from Ecuador with his widowed mother and twin brother at age 5. As a Garden Grove police officer, he dreamed of being a lawyer. As a lawyer, he dreamed of being the county's youngest judge, or even its sheriff. He had considered running against Carona until the two men met; their philosophies, goals and personalities dovetailed, and Jaramillo decided the best way to the sheriff's seat might be by supporting Carona and eventually succeeding him. ¶ Donald Haidl was a hardscrabble high school dropout who built a multimillion-dollar empire auctioning used government vehicles. He had law enforcement dreams of his own, and a desire to run with the big dogs. He had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the sheriff in San Bernardino, and was proud of his reserve officer's badge. ¶ Jaramillo brought Carona street cred. Haidl brought Carona cash. In the trench warfare, the three men dubbed themselves "Team Forever."

This, federal prosecutors allege, is when the conspiracy to elect Carona and use his office for financial gain, and to reward friends and political supporters, began.

…Carona charmed the board of supervisors as well. For more than 50 years, only captains with at least two years of service could become assistant sheriffs. Jaramillo had been a lieutenant in Garden Grove for less than a day. Haidl was an honorary captain in the San Bernardino County sheriff's reserves. Carona convinced the supervisors to lower the bar, and Jaramillo and Haidl became assistant sheriffs.

…When 5-year-old Samantha Runnion was dragged off screaming on July 15, 2002, Carona was thrust onto the national stage. He held vigil beside Samantha's mother as she pleaded for the kidnapper to return Samantha safely. After Samantha's body was found, Carona leveled an accusatory finger at a bank of TV cameras and spoke directly to the killer: "Don't sleep. Don't eat. We're coming after you." ¶ The arrest of suspect Alejandro Avila quickly followed, and Carona became a superstar. He was invited to the White House. Praised by the president. Dubbed "America's Sheriff" by CNN's Larry King. Thousands packed the Crystal Cathedral for Samantha's televised memorial.

When Carona rose to deliver the eulogy for the little girl he'd never met, thousands rose with him in a thunderous standing ovation. Carona turned his back on the crowd, shaking his head no, waiting for the applause to stop. The Rev. Robert A. Schuller hugged him, and Carona turned back to face the crowd, wiping away tears. "She wasn't just our little girl," he said, his voice breaking. "She became America's little girl."….

The further adventures of a world-class f*ck-up: board meeting on Monday

......The December meeting of the South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees is coming up (Monday night, 6:30).
......The meeting’s “agenda outline” is available at Board Outlines.
......Monday's meeting is liable to be wild and wacky, what with ATEP development deadlines looming and the continued FUBAR concerning the Chancellor’s

WORLD-CLASS F*CK-UP

re the 50% law (which requires that at least half of expenditures be on instruction). PLUS…

THE ANNUAL ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING:

......As you know, it is in December that the board holds it’s annual “organizational meeting”—a meeting-within-a-meeting. The word is that Dave "the Quisling" Lang is sick and tired of presiding over Chancellor MATHUR and this dysfunctional board.
......But who’s willing to take on the board presidency?
…...Wagner? Could be.

MORE EVALS:

......Prior to the open session, of course, is the super-secret closed session (starting at 3:00). It looks like the board might continue its evaluation and reappointment of administrators. Saddleback College President Rich McCullough isn’t listed, of course, since he recently announced his “retirement,” to take effect in June. In truth, he insisted on really being the president of his college, and Mathur just couldn't abide that, so he drew a target on McCullough's forehead.
…...That's the persistent story, anyway, and nobody who knows Raghu Mathur would doubt it.
…...Among “consent calendar” items is Saddleback College’s popular “study abroad” trip to Santander, Spain. When that one comes up, there’s always a chance that Trustee Fuentes will say something incredibly stupid. Let’s hope so, cuz these board meetings can be way snoozular.
......The discussion of the 50% Law fiasco is scheduled for the end of the meeting. That could be interesting. It is no secret that Mathur’s failure to understand that law whilst spending BIG on ATEP has put us between a rock and a hard place. Meanwhile, there are indications that negotiations between SOCCCD, Camelot, and the City of Tustin or going badly. It is conceivable that the plug will be pulled on the Deluxe Edition of ATEP. (If that happens, it will be because Mathur is incompetent, not because ATEP was a bad idea.) But who knows.
....One “discussion item” is listed, and it’s pretty funny:

6.1 Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College: Languages in a Flat World

Luckily, on the agenda, Mathur explains item 6.1:

Information presented by Dr. Craig Justice, Vice President of Instruction, Irvine Valley College and Dr. Rajen Vurdien, Vice President for Instruction, Saddleback College, on the importance of languages in a flat world.

Oh.

A perfect storm of foolishness?

'FRAID SO. From this morning’s LA Times: Staying put in Orange County:

…Worried county officials had called the mandatory evacuation when forecasts called for 1 to 3 inches of rain. ¶ The concern was heightened by fears from federal hydrologists that there was a serious risk of mudslides in severely burned watersheds above Modjeska Canyon and two neighboring canyons. ¶ Maps released by the U.S. Geological Survey on Friday backed up earlier findings: Because the Santiago wildfire burned so hot above the canyons at the end of October, there are not even charred roots left on many slopes. There is just a sheer, waxlike surface that could propel rainwater, boulders and debris downhill into creek beds that can roar through the inhabited canyons. ¶ "Imagine a wall of mud coming down that creek in just seconds . . . a moving body of mud, water, whole trees, pieces of houses, cars, all mixed up like a chocolate milk shake," said Bob Scheibel, a structural engineer who lives in Modjeska Canyon. ¶ …[R]epeated evacuation orders coupled with milder conditions than predicted are already reducing the effectiveness of the orders [to evacuate]…Officials have warned residents to expect more evacuation orders in the future and are concerned that evacuation fatigue could set in, resulting in residents' opting to ride out a storm only to put themselves in harm's way if disaster strikes….