Big money at Chapman U

This morning, the OC Register’s OC Watchdog zeroes in on some stunningly generous salaries at Chapman University in Orange. According to W-dog, the university’s “chief money guy earned total compensation of $509,294 in 2007….”

Meanwhile, Chapman’s Prez Jim Doti earns $497,718.

Here are some other Chapmanesque salaries:

Parham Williams, dean of the law school: $467,229
Art Kraft, dean of the business school: $425,581
Henry Butler, business professor: $275,599
Michael Lang, law professor: $218,902
Francis Tuggle, business professor, $220,656

As you know, the SOCCCD's Chancellor, Raghu P. Mathur, gets about $300,000 a year, thanks to the "fiscally conservative" Mr. Tom Fuentes, his GOP pal.

The Reg also reports that “[Los Alamitos] Mayor Dean Grose on Tuesday apologized for an e-mail he sent to [a local businesswoman, Keyanus Price, who is African American] that showed a photograph of the White House with a watermelon patch imposed as the White House garden. (Disgust over mayor's White House watermelon e-mail.) See graphic above. 

I dunno. I don't know a thing about Mr. Grose. But isn't it possible that Grose was inviting Ms. Price to laugh at an outrageous image based on an old stereotype of blacks? 

I'm German, and if a friend were to send me a graphic of the "Bauer Compound" as, say, the Kehlsteinhaus (Adolf's Eagle's Next), I'd get a pretty good laugh. I think I'd appreciate the humor. 

And that doesn't mean that I'm not appalled by Hitler and the Nazis.

Or maybe a Photoshopped image of Herr Bauer driving a WWII Kübelwagen in an Anaheim parade? That's funny stuff, man.

UPDATE:

Mayor who sent White House watermelon e-mail to resign

“The attention brought to this matter has sadly created an image of me which is most unfortunate,” he wrote. “I recognize that I've made a mistake and have taken steps to make sure this is never repeated.”

Laptop Lap Dance?

via The Orion, Chico's online newpaper:

As Mary Lee Barton, professor of management, spoke to her students, she couldn't help but notice a couple of her students laughing and pointing at another student's open laptop in front of them. The laughing and pointing continued, so she told the student to put it away and went on with the lecture.

Curious as to what was so funny, she pulled the giggling students aside once class ended, she said.

"I asked some of these fellas afterward, 'What was so funny on his laptop?'" Barton said. "And they said he was looking at pornography."

Since that day, no laptops have been allowed in her class unless there was a great need for them, she said. It's even stated in big bold letters in her syllabus.

"I was horrified," Barton said. "I just want to say one kid can ruin it for everybody."

For more details, click here.

This is one reason why Rebel Girl regulates technology use in her classroom.

(Tip of the hat to University Diaries.)

Tuesday's board meeting: an interesting but ghastly complexity

Here’s a fuller account (than yesterday's) of last night’s SOCCCD board meeting.

Trustee Tom Fuentes reported the one action taken during the 5:00 p.m. closed session. He didn't mention the contract. Insiders tell me that things have definitely taken a turn for the worse in negotiations.

Trustee Nancy Padberg led the invocation, which began with a brief moment of silence followed by a prayer that started with “Dear Lord, we ask for Your guidance” and ended with “Amen.” In the middle was the usual stuff.

The board is big on bestowing “resolutions” on people, and, this night, the “My Academic Plan” design team got one, and so did IVC’s coach Martin McGrogan. Read all about it in Tracy’s Board Meeting Highlights, which are always recommended. (Tracy knows how to put lipstick on a pig. Me, not so much.)

As I explained last night, only one person—a student, I think—addressed the board during “public comments.” He was worried about second hand smoke and such. The board could not care less.

During board reports, Trustee Fuentes described his adventures at the OC Legislative Task Force, which is chaired these days by Chancellor Raghu Mathur. The latter invited OC Treasurer Chriss Street to the last OCLTF meeting. Yeah, we know what that’s about. Raghu thinks he'll be the governor some day.

Trustee John Williams renewed his threat to pursue “alert systems” and “security cameras.” Everybody groaned. Plus he reported that he, Mathur, and Jim Gaston gave a presentation at the Future’s Assembly. I bet John held up some cardboard.

Trustee Marcia Milchiker went on and on with her report, and so Board President Don Wagner suddenly bleated forth an unpleasant “Time.”

Student Trustee Lee revealed herself to be a Valley Girl or something. She had attended “Homecoming” at IVC, she chirped. There, said she, she got “a lot of free stuff…I got a tattoo on my arm!”

Golly!

Chancellor Mathur continued with his new practice of using his report time to run for higher office. Off he went again opining gratuitously on the state budget situation, which will have a tremendous impact on local schools, he said.

Duh.

“The news is not good,” he added, pointlessly. He looked stern and staunch and disapproving.

Eight or so newly tenured faculty lined up to be photographed by the lovely Tracy. After that, they went out to the hallway to eat cake and drink punch. Wagner, who, until then, had seemed to be either disgruntled or zombified, suddenly became animated and chirpy, blathering about the availability of cake (for board members, but not for the hoi polloi). You shoulda seen these people chowing down right there in front of the great unwashed and unfed.


Rajen and Craig gave remarkably brief presentations on “basic skills.” Wagner virtually told ‘em to mail it in fast and get it over with. Move along, move along!

After the reports, Wagner’s only comment was, “the cake is really good!”

Fuentes asked an unpleasant question about ESL students. Foreigners, eh? Yeah, but they pay big bucks, so shut up, said Trustee Marcia Milchiker.

Then came the curriculum report, which was way snoozy but quick. After Bob Cosgrove’s jocular brevity, Wagner boomed: “You’ve never been that pithy before in your life!”

Biologist Kathy Schmeidler’s report was slightly less brief. Milchiker responded to it by declaring, “I’ve seen you dissect a cow’s heart!” We all laughed. Not with. At.

Fuentes got all right-wing Republican and asked regarding whether students can compare the programs of different colleges. “How does the buyer [i.e., the student] know it’s the same product?” he asked. Then he yammered about “marketing” efforts.

Kathy took it all in stride.

When they got to the Santander, Spain “study abroad” trip, Fuentes pontificated about the board’s commitment to providing students “the best value.” He was referring, I guess, to the various vendors who provide travel and accommodations for this kind of trip.

“The marketplace is the best judge,” he said. Then he voted for the program along with everyone else.

One item concerned bennies and perks for student in the armed services. Predictably, trustees took turns saying solemn and patriotic things about them. Fuentes speechified ponderously about “these young people who wear the uniform of our land.”

—Of our land. Who talks that way? Who does this guy think he is?

Get this. Fuentes nominated Williams for the OCSBA Marian Bergeson Award. As you know, not long ago, Fuentes punished Williams for supporting the faculty union by pretty much destroying Williams’ political career (at least as a Republican).

Williams accepted the nomination. His demeanor exhibited an interesting but ghastly complexity, as though he were offered a glass of fine wine mixed with cat turds.

Wagner blew through the next ten or so items in about a minute flat. It was amazing. You’ve gotta give the boy credit.

They hit a speed bump, though, when they got to the “Retiree (OPEB) Trust Fund.” Naturally, this fund has taken a big hit in recent months (a 17% loss, I think). Trustee Bill Jay suddenly came on like a stockbroker, opining forcefully that the district should get out of “common stocks” in favor of “fixed return.” (I have no idea what that means. I don't wanna know.)

Trustee Dave Lang respectfully disagreed. He got out some beans and counted ‘em. He ate one and then said that we oughta “stay the course.” It was like a TV show.

It was only an info item, so they moved on.

Well, that was about it.

Let Them Eat Cake

Many have pointed out that the PAC building at IVC looks bigger on the outside than it appears on the inside.

There's a discrepancy, some have said, similar to the ones Sherlock Holmes discovered in several of his acclaimed mysteries. A secret room – or in the PAC's case, a hidden floor.

Here's what we know so far: on the hidden upper floor of the PAC building there is a large refrigerated room. You can hear it hum as you enter the building. Listen for it.


In that room is stored an industrial size sheet cake approximately 20 feet by 30 feet in size, bought wholesale from CostCo and charged to the district's credit card.

Whenever there is some kind of celebratory event, say a birthday of note, or a retirement or, in last night's case, the attainment of tenure, a chunk is sawed off the cake, the appropriate slogan is painted on using the array of frosting tubes provided by CostCo, and the cake is then presented to the hungry hordes desperate for something sweet. Yum.


We hear that they got the cake for a good price.

It was, they say, quite a sweet deal.

Stayed tune for more updates about the other hidden rooms on the IVC campus.

May I be your serving wench?

It's late, I'm tired, and I don't much feel like staying up to report on tonight's hurried and largely uneventful meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees. I'll just make a few notes and put up some pics. I'll do more tomorrow. Or not.

The trustees had a special meeting at 3:00, then a closed session at 5:00, and then this open session that finally started around 7:45. So you can well imagine they were in a big hurry to get done and get home. Can't blame 'em, I guess.

For some reason, this year, they made a big freakin' deal out of the faculty who attained tenure. These instructors stood up, we stared at 'em, and then they were sent off for cake and punch, just outside the entrance of the Ronald Reagan Room.

I was told that, written upon the cake was one word: "CONGRATULATION." Raghu must've been in charge of that detail. 

Gooey cake brings out the worst in people, I guess. Upon hearing about this celebratory confection, several trustee eyes lit up. Their lips moved. "Yum," they said. 

Raghu's no dummy. He immediately told Tracy to get seven fat slices, tout de suite. She scurried out the door.

Tracy hurried back with the slices. But then, get this. Raghu insisted on serving each trustee personally. I listened very carefully, and I do believe he told each trustee, "May I be your serving wench this evening?" 

"Yep."

There was only one public comment. Some kid came up to carp about all the smoking going on at Saddleback college. To hear this kid tell it, this smoke is like nuclear fallout or worse. We all stared at 'em. His pitch kinda petered out. At the end, even the kid didn't seem interested in his proposal, which is to move the college closer to a "no smoke" zone.

Me, I'm thinking we should move to a "no Raghu" zone. With smoke, lots of it. I don't care.

"May I be your serving wench this evening?"
"Yum."

All tomorrow's board meetings

The South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees will meet twice tomorrow.

• At 3:00 p.m., they’ll convene for a Special Board Meeting (pdf) (in the Ronald Reagan Room, near Health Sciences).

According to the “notice,” the board will convene “for the purpose of discussing the Concept Plan at the Advanced Technology and Education Park in Tustin.”

Members of the community will be given an opportunity to make comments at the start of the meeting.

The city of Tustin needs to sign off on the district’s plan for ATEP. But it has been clear for quite some time that the plan is unacceptable to city officials. Unless things have changed recently, the district is likely headed for litigation.

For the last six months or so, Chancellor Raghu Mathur has made a great point of noting the rapidity of growth (courses, headcount) at ATEP. Some insiders have suggested that Mathur has pushed and highlighted development there in order to put the district in the most favorable position in the event of a legal tangle with Tustin. 

• The regular board meeting will start with a CLOSED SESSION at 5:00 p.m. and an open session at 7:00 p.m.

You can download the agenda for the regular board meeting here (“current agenda”).

Item 3.1 includes a board request for a report “on Reduction of District Property Tax Rate.”

Now wait a minute. As a “basic aid” district, we want property valuations in OC to stay high ‘cause that means we get more money. What we don’t want, then, is for property owners to request a downward valuation of their property.

So this ironic, right?

Tuesday’s discussion items are the “basic skills initiative” and “curriculum.” So we can expect the usual dog and pony shows. You know, embarrassed administrators, doing Mr. Goo's bidding.

Item 5.12 concerns ATEP in Tustin: approval of an agreement with “Austin-Foust Associates, Inc. on a time and material basis.” AFA is a consulting firm that does “traffic engineering and transportation planning.”

Item 5.19 seems odd (to these fiscally challenged eyes). It’s an amendment to the district budget. The update involves a change in expenditures, I guess. One item—07/08 Allocation to Saddleback, basic skills—shows the odd allocation figure of $5. What’s that about? Maybe nothing.  

Item 5.22 is ratification of contractor agreements. This lists such agreements as a $60K ATEP landscaping deal.

Oddly (again, to these fiscally challenged eyes), among the contractors are four that (as per recommendation) are slated to get $0, including “The City of Tustin.”

Apparently, the Tustin item involves a “Landscape Maintenance Agreement to require SOCCCD to install certain parkway improvements for the ATEP project.”

Item 6.5 is approval of the Santander, Spain “study abroad” trip. It’ll be interesting to see what Wagner and Fuentes do with this. Usually, they vote against it, I think, 'cause they're very staunch, as you know.

Item 6.9 concerns academic personnel actions—the hiring of instructors. Part-timers, mostly.

I noticed that, included among the “temporary part-time/substitute staff” is a Doctor of Chiropractic. (He started work in January.)

What on earth does this fellow teach for us? And do we teach homeopathy and acupuncture, too?

VELVET UNDERGROUND: All Tomorrow's Parties


Nico does same, in the eighties: All Tomorrow's Parties

Gracias a la Vida (Rebel Girl)

     Sometimes it is a charmed life, Rebel Girl remarked to Red Emma late Thursday night as they hurtled south on the 405 in their rattling tin can of a Corolla. The observation sounded like a bad line out of a mid-century novel but she didn't care. She said it anyway and squeezed his hand. He knew what she meant.

     They had spent the evening at UCLA's Royce Hall, named after Josiah Royce, that California philosopher idealist. Rebel Girl invariably teaches him every semester. She wondered if she could remember Royce's words chiseled in pale rosy stone which spanned the stage. She could: 

Education is using the tools the race has found indispensable.

     Then, Joan Baez came on that stage and for the next two hours sang selections from her nearly fifty year career, opening up with "The Lily of the West" and closing with "Gracias a la Vida," and in between was just about everything else, new and old, or so it seemed. 

     Rebel Girl has noticed that she weeps more easily these days. It started, she believes, when the little guy was born.

     So she sat last night in that grand hall and wept from time to time as the music did its conjuring act, summoning people and the past so it seemed that the great hall wasn't filled with strangers but was instead filled with everyone she'd ever known. Then, as the audience filed up and out, Rebel Girl and Red followed a friend backstage. 

     The friend they followed had worked closely with Baez back in the day and could tell stories about Bob Dylan's appetites.

     Rebel Girl and Red met this friend when they were political organizers and now had known each other, they reckoned, for about 21 years. The friend seemed concerned and a bit confused that she had not, during all those years, introduced them to Baez before. They reassured her that it was okay. They wore blue wristbands which they showed from time to time to the people who cared about them and shuffled through a series of rooms and hallways, pausing, moving, waiting. 

     Then, there was Joan Baez. A barefoot, elegant beauty who looked a bit weary but was gracious all the same. 

     Rebel Girl shook her hand and managed to stammer out a "thank you" and that was about it. It was enough. She watched Baez greet the small group, laugh, share a few stories. It was more than enough.

     

     Then they were in their rattling Corolla, the heat turned up, heading south. And Rebel Girl thought about her charmed life, where she came from and where she is now, as they drove past the exits of nearly all the places she lived as a girl who began to listen to Joan Baez because Baez was a brown girl like her with long dark hair: Los Angeles, Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Torrance, San Pedro. 

      Gracias a la vida indeed.