Query (re accreditation)

.....As you know, each of our colleges has established a "focus group" (task force? committee? coffee klatch?) to tackle accreditation. .....I know that IVC's group had its second meeting this morning. Don't know about Saddleback College's group. .....Does anyone know how things are going on these committees? Any progress? Inquiring minds wanna know. .....Faculty who serve on IVC's committee have offered brief reports (of the first meeting) at a recent senate meeting. (These meetings are open to the public.) According to those folks, the right note of openness and frankness was struck right from the start. They praised the effort and the participants. .....On the other hand, it was reported that trustee Wagner discouraged the notion that "personnel changes" might occur to deal with our accreditation difficulties (fear, despair, hostility, etc.). .....The group considered models of "collegial consultation" that are used at such colleges as Chabot and College of the Canyons. .....Evidently, our district operates sans model. P.S.: .....Someone commented, writing that "Inquiring minds should contact their shared gov representatives on the committee." The writer in effect cautioned us to be "careful." .....Excellent advice. If information won't be brought to us, then we need to seek out the information ourselves. Luckily, we have knowledgeable people to contact. (Note that the Accred focus groups have lots of representation, including classified.) .....We at Dissent always try to be careful, which isn't always easy. We make mistakes, but we always try to acknowledge them asap. .....IT SEEMS TO ME THAT, in general, as far as district administration is concerned, the college and district communities should be left in the dark, even about events and processes of crucial importance to the colleges' futures, such as our accreditation project (or the development of ATEP, or the sudden removal of the students' flags in the Student Services Bldg. as a response to de facto threats of protests). Given these near "blackout" conditions, Dissent, which is after all a kind of newsletter, cannot simply remain mute about known factoids, especially when they are provided at venues that are open to the public. .....I should add that our Academic Senate leadership has consistently informed senators of events and processes, to the degree possible or permitted. Clearly, our senate values openness and "transparency." Senate leaders deserve praise. ..... And openness seems to characterize their dealings with college administration as well. That's great. .....Again, the information void to which I am referring largely concerns district—and to some extent, college—leadership. When decisions are made, we should be informed. When important processes are under way, we should be kept apprised of progress. .....I should mention that a meeting for the purpose of informing the IVC community of the Accred focus group's progress is scheduled for a week and a half from now. ..... But, by then, the process will be over a month old. Shouldn't we be apprised about so important a matter sooner and more regularly? .....And what on earth is happening with ATEP? And will we make it over the 50% line (for instructional expenditures) given the current "pause" in new faculty hiring? .....And what's with this exodus of college presidents, provosts, and Vice Chancellors? .....Inquiring minds wanna know! —CW, 4/19

Grossmont's work-to-contract action

.....Yesterday, after the senate meeting at Irvine Valley College, I overheard a reference to a “work-to-contract” (WTC) action at Grossmont College. That's in El Cajon (San Diego area).
.....Naturally, I was interested, for, here in the SOCCCD, the faculty union has called for a “work-to-contract” action, which entails faculty refraining from the large amount of extra-contractual work that is traditional for college faculty, but which is so often underappreciated or even unrecognized by college boards.
.....So, this morning, I did some Googling. I came up with this article from the March 29 issue of the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Dispute over pay roils two campuses

.....Labor unrest has escalated at Grossmont and Cuyamaca community colleges, where faculty members are protesting stalled salary negotiations by refusing to volunteer for activities at their campuses.
.....Since the United Faculty union called for the job action March 4, faculty members have stopped advising student clubs and serving on committees, including those dealing with accreditation. Some events have been postponed as a result, including Women's History Month presentations, which had been scheduled to begin Monday at Grossmont College.
.....“We hate to do anything like that,” United Faculty President Zoe Close said. “(But) it's a tool that is available to us to make a statement.”
.....The district's 1,300 full-and part-time faculty members haven't received a raise in two years, Close said.
.....The district filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint against United Faculty with the state March 14, claiming the job action is illegal and not in good faith because the two sides are trying to work out an agreement through the state's labor process.
.....“They're hurting their institutions and students by jeopardizing their accreditation,” said Omero Suarez, chancellor of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District.
.....The labor dispute is heating up at a time when the district is dealing with other crucial issues.
.....The district is getting an unexpected, midyear budget cut of $1.3 million, part of an $84.4 million statewide loss for colleges because of a drop in property-tax revenue. Also, Suarez announced he will retire next summer with one year left on his contract, and the governing board wants to start looking for a new chancellor soon.
.....The district also is locked in a different contract dispute with administrators who formed a union two years ago. The 64-member Administrators Association consists of vice presidents, deans and supervisors, but the pay dispute concerns only supervisors.
.....“We wish we could wrap this up and move on to other issues,” said Jim Fenningham, president of the Administrators Association and a dean at Grossmont College. The association's members aren't participating in the faculty's work-to-the-contract job action, he said.
.....This isn't the first time faculty members have dropped out of their committees and advisory posts. In 2005, faculty members also refused to volunteer for assignments to protest a labor impasse. The issue was settled four months later.
.....The district and faculty union reached another stalemate last year while negotiating a salary agreement for 2006-07 and had been meeting with a state-appointed mediator.
.....On Feb. 29, the mediator declared that the two sides couldn't come to an agreement. They're now in the fact-finding phase of the state's labor dispute process.
.....In fact-finding, a three-member panel, including a state-appointed arbitrator, investigates each side's proposals and makes a nonbinding recommendation. The district can reject the panel's recommendation and impose its last offer. If the union doesn't agree with the district's offer, it can call for a strike.
.....The fact-finding process could take up to eight weeks to complete, said Roger Smith, spokesman for the state's Public Employment Relations Board. The administrators association is also in the fact-finding stage.
.....Close declined to discuss the faculty union's salary demands until the fact-finding process is completed. The district posted the last salary proposals on its Web site.
.....The United Faculty union is seeking a 5 percent salary increase for the district's 400 full-time faculty members and a 6 percent bump for 900 part-time faculty members for 2006-07. It's seeking a 3.5 percent increase for full-timers and a 4 percent increase for part-timers for 2007-08.
.....The district is proposing an increase of 4 percent for full-timers and 5.5 percent for part-timers for 2006-07, and 3 percent for full-timers and 3.5 percent for part-timers for 2007-08.

As the above article indicates, Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District Chancellor Omero Suarez plans to step down before his contract expires. According to another recent Union-Tribune article (Chancellor stepping down),

.....…[I]n 2006, [Suarez’s] reputation suffered when he admitted deleting the buyout clause in his contract without board approval. Suarez was not disciplined but his relationship with board members has not been the same since, board president Bill Garrett said.
…..
.....Suarez had a well-documented falling out with faculty leaders at Grossmont College in recent years. He said they were unhappy that their campus did not get more construction dollars and took their frustrations out on him.
.....In 2005, Suarez was the target of a no-confidence vote by the Grossmont College Academic Senate over funding and other issues. The senate questioned the data that was used to allocate funding for the two campuses….

Dissent has noticed Suarez before. See What's with these community college trustees?.

ALSO:

• I came across a seemingly helpful bulletin (See) put out by the Santa Monica College Faculty Association in 2006. It attempts to explain work-to-contract. It mentions Foothill DeAnza's then-recent and successful WTC.

• For an example of a recent (year-old) ACCJC (Accreditation) report that takes note of the effects of a work-to-contract action see Hartnell College Evaluation Report.

• Check out the Mission College Academic Senate website. Under "documents," read in particular the senate's "behavioral objectives." Ours is not the only faculty treated and thought of badly by trustees.

A new feature! Rebel Girl's book club!

.....Below is an excerpt from the first chapter of Richard Russo's "Straight Man," a novel in the tradition of academic satires. In this scene, the narrator, the chair of the department of English, is speaking with one of his colleagues, Teddy.
.....It's a hilarious, anarchic book that Rebel Girl invariably re-reads at least once a year just to recalibrate herself.
.....Perfect for this season of WTC.

.....I know what's coming. For the last few months rumors have been running rampant about an impending purge at the university, one that would reach into the tenured ranks. If such a thing were to happen, virtually everyone in the English department would be vulnerable to dismissal. The news is reportedly being broken to department chairs individually in their year-end conferences with the campus executive officer. According to which rumors you listen to, the chairs are being either asked or required to draw up lists of faculty in their departments who might be considered expendable. Seniority is reportedly not a criterion.
....."All right," I tell Teddy. "Give it to me. Who have you been talking to now?"
....."Arnie Drenker over in Psychology."
....."And you believe Arnie Drenker?" I ask. "He's certifiable."
....."He swears he was ordered to make a list."
.....When I don't immediately respond to this, he takes his eyes off the road for a microsecond to look over at me. My right nostril, which has now swollen to the point where I can see it clearly in my peripheral vision, throbs under his scrutiny. "Why do you refuse to take the situation seriously?"
....."Because it's April, Teddy," I explain. This is an old discussion. April is the month of heightened paranoia for academics, not that their normal paranoia is insufficient to ruin a perfectly fine day in any season. But April is always the worst. Whatever dirt will be done to us is always planned in April, then executed over the summer, when we are dispersed. September is always too late to remedy the reduced merit raises, the slashed travel fund, the doubled price of the parking sticker that allows us to park in the Modern Languages lot. Rumors about severe budget cuts that will affect faculty have been rampant every April for the past five years, although this year's have been particularly persistent and virulent. Still, the fact is that every year the legislature has threatened deep cuts in higher education. And every year a high-powered education task force is sent to the capitol to lobby the legislature for increased spending. Every year accusations are leveled, editorials written. Every year the threatened budget cuts are implemented, then at the last fiscal moment money is found and the budget-most of it-restored. And every year I conclude what William of Occam (that first, great modern William, a William for his time and ours, all the William we will ever need, who gave to us his magnificent razor by which to gauge simple truth, who was exiled and relinquished his life that our academic sins might be forgiven) would have concluded-that there will be no faculty purge this year, just as there was none last year, just as there will be none next year. What there will probably be next year is more belt tightening, more denied sabbaticals, an extension of the hiring freeze, a reduced photocopy budget. What there will certainly be next year is another April, and another round of rumors.
.....Teddy steals another quick glance at me. "Do you have any idea what your colleagues are saying?"
....."No," I say, then, "yes. I mean, I know my colleagues, so I can imagine what they're saying."
....."They're saying your dismissing the rumors is pretty suspicious. They're wondering if you've made up a list."

Sunny Girl tonight

El Camino College—Compton Center

.....I hate to say it, but the arrogance, recklessness, and incompetence of certain powerful people in our district could finally do us in. Throughout our long Dark Age—starting in late 1996—I never really thought that that could happen. But now I do believe it.
.....As you know, not long ago, our accrediting institution—WASC/ACCJC—got spanked hard by the Department of Ed for not laying down the law. (See The Two Year Rule.) The upshot: things are different now. The Accreds are much more likely than ever to pull a college's accreditation.
.....Don't think so? Well, then you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground. Get a friggin' clue. (See Shasta warning and February Rostrum [the two-year rule].)
.....The ACCJC is under pressure to show that they really do mean business for once. In the meantime, the perennial California poster children for dysfunctional cc districts—two colleges with an eleven-year history of trustee micromanagement, administrative instability, and plagues of despair—have got to solve these problems by October of 2008 (that's when the progress reports are due). No more warnings. This is it. (BTW: an IVC dean announced her retirement today. She was set to replace Reb and my dean, who left the college in December.)
.....There's no one in this district who doesn't know what would turn everything around. —Except, of course, the people with all the power. —The people running our Accred effort. The people who won't fire you-know-who.

* * * * *

.....I recently came upon an article about Compton Community College—the college that got its Accreditation ticket pulled a few years ago (it has been a satellite of El Camino College in Torrance since late 2006). The piece is entitled A short take on the death of an institution, by August Hoffman and Julie Wallach. It appeared a year ago in something called the Community College Enterprise. It's well worth reading.
.....Here are some excerpts:

.....Compton Community College was one of the oldest and most ethnically diverse community colleges in California. … First opening its doors in 1927, the college has served literally tens of thousands of students and has become a vital asset to the community. Within the last three to four years, however, the college has experienced several administrative and fiscal irregularities that gradually led to an independent investigation by outside auditing agencies..., warnings of accreditation problems, probation, and ultimately loss of accreditation all within two years time….
.....The old campus yearbooks during the 1940s and 1950s boast of first place championships in sports such as football and basketball. The campus was ranked among the top five community colleges in the state of California for academic excellence, teaching standards, and student enrollment. Compton Community College was perhaps the "crown jewel" of the state during its heyday of the 1940-1950s era….
.....…Compton Community College now holds the dubious distinction of being the only institution of higher education to have actually lost (de facto) its accreditation. … Certainly other schools have been placed on various lists such as "warning," "probation," or even "show cause"—but heretofore none had actually lost its accreditation. Until now.
…..
.....So it is with a heavy heart that I bear witness to the first closure of a community college in the United States due to "administrative" problems. I feel a tremendous amount of loyalty to an institution that I am still proud of. The faculty has always worked together. When things got bad, really bad, at this campus, it wasn't the administrators that corrected the problem but the faculty. The faculty still consider themselves de facto "family" and this sense of family transcends race, age, religion and gender. It is a powerful and attractive component that fuels my loyalty to the institution and helps faculty remain united in providing the best education possible ... united despite the friction, the frustration, and in spite of the negative publicity we have received in the last 18 months.
.....I am currently a professor at Compton Community College, soon to be referred to as El Camino College—Compton Center. …..
.....Nobody wants to believe that a school could actually close down—there are just too many potentially positive qualities about a school to allow anything like that to happen. That is what we wanted to believe. We were all in a state of numbness and profound denial. … Individuals associated with the school simply didn't want to believe that the school could (or would) eventually close. Concerned family members of mine would assure me and offer their support: "They can't close down a school. ... What are they going to do with it? Turn it into a prison?...." Comments regarding the accreditation problems were strikingly similar to what a patient suffering from a terminal illness might say: "They (i.e., the state accreditation committee) would never close us down" or "It's a scare tactic ... a bluff.”….
.....
.....… We mobilized ourselves to try to save the school. Committees were formed, surveys taken, and politicians consulted—to no avail. Ironically, the committees formed to save the college soon imploded and became divisive themselves. They were not able to gather enough support from the community. We were running out of time.
…..
.....… We negotiated with the ACCJC and WASC...—what, exactly, did they want? Student learning objectives? Done. Revised course curricula? Done. Improving course outlines? Done. Nothing worked. We tried making deals to at least return to "probationary" status—nothing doing. The clock was ticking as we frantically tried to resurrect our accreditation. … Some faculty began looking for other teaching positions. Some just continued to ignore the problem and hoped again that it would just go away.
…..
.....… I do believe that the faculty at Compton College has now accepted the fact that things as they once were can never exist again. That is probably a good thing. We have accepted our fate and are working to create a better institution. The faculty, I believe, will create a stronger institution for our community. We need to shape a new identity for ourselves with the assistance of a school with whom we will partner for the next several years. We are fortunate, I think, that El Camino College has extended its hand for the long run. We will work together as a united faculty in shaping a better educational institution so that some day in the future, we can re-establish Compton College with full accreditation.
……
.....As of Fall Semester 2006, the enrollment of full time equivalency students (FTEs) has plummeted from peaks of approximately 6,500 to 7,000 students just five years ago to less than 2,000 now. The significant drop cannot be surprising—the negative media, the newspaper write-ups about one scandal after another certainly has taken its toll. However, perhaps the biggest factor that has contributed to the loss of FTEs is the misperception that the campus has closed—it has not! We are a vibrant, accredited, and very much alive institution that is a critical element to the community of South Los Angeles. We will survive the challenge to meet the needs of our students and the community. The faculty at ECC-CC remains committed to serve the students. With every crisis brings an opportunity for growth, renewed spirit, and motivation. We have weathered a severe crisis and are regaining momentum to move ahead.

From the college website—“campus history”:

In June, 2005, … Dr. Barbara Beno informed the College of the Commission’s decision to terminate the College’s accreditation. … [Compton Community] College began its appeal to the Commission regarding the termination decision. ¶ … On June 30, 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 318 (D-Dymally) into law giving the College District $30 million loan for recovery and the opportunity to partner with a college of good standing to offer accredited courses…. ¶ On August 22, 2006, at the Board of Trustees meeting, the Special Trustee approved the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with El Camino College District to solidify the partnerships between the two districts. Under this MOU, the campus became a center of El Camino College. ... At midnight, Compton Community College lost its accreditation. ¶ On August 23, 2006, the Compton Community Educational Center officially became part of El Camino College with Dr. Doris P. Givens serving as the Provost/CEO.

See also Wikipedia on Compton Community College

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

.....Rebel Girl and Chunk know full well that the number of hits they're getting doesn't have to do with your interest in his bees or her journeys to the big city. They know that you're coming to the blog looking for information.
.....Indeed, the halls were abuzz with stories and rumors today and even though Rebel Girl, as an English Major, has a deep appreciation for the story as art form, she has much less appreciation for such tales under these circumstances. In this case, it's best to stick to verifiable nonfiction. Just the facts, ma'am.

Here's what they know:

As of today:

.....Reports are in about resignations from various committees (hiring committees, program review, etc). A couple committees, due to extenuating circumstances, have met but are seeking to pursue actions that would fall within the spirit or intent of the WTC (work-to-contract). Someone stopped Rebel Girl in the hall and claimed that "even accounting" had put a stop to their committee. Again, all faculty are recommended to forgo any voluntary work.

A bit of background via Lewis Long, Chief Negotiator and Past President, SOCCCD-FA:

.....The Faculty Association, with the support of the two Academic Senates, decided last Thursday after the District canceled one meeting and (in a fairly nasty e-mail from their chief negotiator) refused to schedule another the following week to discuss salary and benefits proposals, that the Association should recommend to the faculty that it demonstrate its unity and dedication to the contract negotiation efforts by adhering strictly to the terms of its contract. It recommended that all voluntary activities beyond those required by the contract or because of stipends or reassignment be halted, until the District responded to our last salary proposal with a suitable offer.
.....Because of the absence of important personnel recently, the District has not been able to come up with a salary proposal. However, this is symptomatic of the District's poor preparation for negotiations throughout the process. The District has always been at least one step behind the faculty in its negotiation process, suggesting that it has not taken the negotiations seriously. We have now been in negotiations for almost a year, and the District has not until now tried to calculate how much various salary proposals might cost? The Association team can state to the dollar exactly how much its various proposals could cost in any one year, and in all three years, and can re-calculate almost instantly the cost of any proposal. The Association has even come up with a model which would allow the colleges to afford its proposed increases in compensation without violating the Board's Basic Aid funding philosophy.
.....The faculty negotiating team has become tired of the District's failure to take negotiations seriously, and is hoping that the faculty's decision to work to contract will not only demonstrate to the District, the chancellor and the Board how heavily it relies on the good-will and uncompensated hard work of the faculty, but that it's time to take a more active role in bringing these negotiations to a successful resolution, and no longer simply take a simply obstructive and negative role.

—We're all in this together, folks. Let us know how (and what) you're doing.

Industrious bastards!

.....As you know, the SOCCCD is plainly going to hell in a handbasket.
.....Today, the matter took on a new dimension, as bees invaded and attacked a portion of the A300 building at Irvine Valley College. I learned this when, at about 11:00 a.m. this morning, Rebel Girl ran into the office, saying only, "bees."
.....I immediately grabbed my camera and followed her out the door.
.....She walked me to the site of the invasion. We stared up at the southwest corner of the building for a while. We shook our heads. I took two photos.
....."Industrious bastards!" I said.