Drawing lines between faculty and administration

The Academic Senate's course correction ~

As you know, the Academic Senate represents faculty with regard to academic issues. (Contractual issues are the purview of the Faculty Association, aka the union.)

The Academic Senate, like the faculty union, is a “shared governance” group. It is not to be confused with college administration, yet another “shared governance” group.

• • • • •

You’ll recall that the agenda for the Sept. 24 meeting of the IVC Academic Senate included an item announcing VPI Craig Justice’s solicitation for volunteers for a “workgroup” concerning the college’s “Early College” (EC) program.

This struck some senators as odd. Why was Craig, an administrator, organizing this committee? Last spring, Bio faculty had sought to bring problems with the EC program to the attention of the Senate, but, for some reason, the matter was never agendized for any Senate meeting. Now, months later, during the semester’s first Senate meeting, the formation of this workgroup was being announced, and the workgroup appeared not to be an Academic Senate entity. (Blur!)

Nevertheless, on the 24th, four faculty volunteered to serve on the workgroup. Among them was Chris R, who had recently requested that the EC matter be agendized and discussed on the Senate floor.

A week later (Oct. 1 or 2), Chris received an email from the chair of the Senate’s Academic Affairs (AA) committee (one of the Senate’s two standing committees), informing him that he (Chris) would be the chair of a group concerning the EC program. Evidently, the group would operate under the aegis of AA—and thus under the aegis of the Academic Senate.

Chris was puzzled. How did this group relate to the “workgroup” formed on the 24th? Chris and other Senators were under the impression that that workgroup was not an Academic Senate entity, what with an administrator calling for volunteers. (Blur, blur, blur.)

At today’s meeting, the Senate Council explained that, at its Oct. 1 meeting, citing past practice, it had decided to pursue the EC matter by assigning it to the AA committee, which would direct a group of faculty to investigate any problems or issues there.

Hence the email to Chris.

Today, several faculty sought clarification. The agenda for the meeting of the 24th seemed to suggest that the EC workgroup was somehow associated with VPI Craig Justice. Was the Senate Cabinet assuming that this AA group was the same as the group formed back on the 24th?

In the end, Senate leadership made clear that the EC group associated with AA was most definitely a Senate workgroup. Senate leadership, evidently oblivious to any confusion that it had inspired, had assumed that those who volunteered on the 24th (for what appeared to be a Craig Justice-affiliated workgroup) would be the membership of the Senate workgroup.

One wonders why this assumption would be natural for them.

The Senate cabinet appears to be having difficulty comprehending a concern among some, perhaps many, senators and faculty: that the lines between faculty and administration seem to have become uncomfortably blurred.

Here’s how things now stand: the EC workgroup, chaired by Chris and now under the aegis of AA, is a Senate entity not affiliated with the VPI or his office. It will investigate any EC issues and bring back a report and recommendations to the Senate. That will be the basis of a Senate discussion.

The Senate is not the Administration. Administration is not the Senate. Everything is what it is and not another thing.

Whew.

Wendy G, Craig’s new "Instructional Coordinator of Academic Programs," did not attend today’s Senate meeting. Craig did attend the meeting, though his participation in discussion was minimal.

P.S.: This morning, I wish to add that we at DtB value cooperation and collaboration between the Academic Senate (i.e., the faculty) and college administration (Craig Justice, et al.). We have long supported the Senate/VPI partnership. As I said a few days ago, that alliance has been a “positive” in the shadow of the great Mathurian/Board negative.

But DtB also values openness, the observance of regular processes, and shared governance—as opposed to private, informal, and unilateral decision-making.

In view of the inevitable difficulties of group decision-making and consensus building, it is understandable, I suppose, that bright and energetic people sometimes seek to be the de facto “deciders.” But our college and district have a dark past of micromanagement, autocracy, and folly. So it is especially important for us to maintain rules and traditions that have been devised to maintain and allow shared governance/collegial consultation.

Jerk Some Chains

This made Rebel Girl laugh. A lot. Maybe you will too.

—From this morning'sNew York Times, written by Kate Phillips:

Maybe William Ayers, the 1960s radical, has decided to have a little fun with all the conspiracies spooling out about him on the Internet.

This week, Anne Leary, a blogger who writes under the moniker BackyardConservative, posted a breathless account of the admission she said she wrested from William Ayers at Reagan National Airport recently, after he had attended an education conference in Arlington, Va.

She said Mr. Ayers revealed for the first time - to a relative stranger who had stopped him - that he had written "Dreams From My Father," the best-selling memoir of Barack Obama's life.

Ms. Leary's scoop climbed up memeorandum.com, the aggregation site that charts links and buzz on posts and articles, and she updated her own posts as she hit No. 2! Lots of links!

But by the time the news landed at No. 1, part of its popularity rested on the fact that Ms. Leary's reporting was being debunked. Jonah Goldberg, a conservative writer blogging at the National Review Online, pointed to a brief article in the National Journal magazine from last Friday, saying, "It sounds like Ayers is jerking some chains."

Two Sundays ago, Will Englund, a writer for the National Journal, confronted Mr. Ayers, a Chicago professor, at the Baltimore Book Festival, where the latter was promoting his book "Race Course." Mr. Englund wrote that after the book talk "we put the authorship question right to him."

Mr Englund added: "For a spilt second, Ayers was nonplussed. Then an Abbie Hoffmanish, steal-this-book-sort-of-smile lit up his face. He gently took National Journal by the arm. 'Here's what I'm going to say. This is my quote. Be sure to write it down: Yes I wrote 'dreams from My Father." I ghostwrote the whole thing. I met with the president three or four times, and then I wrote the entire book.' He released National Journal's arm, and beamed in Marxist triumph. "And now I would like the royalties."

Mr. Obama's book had garnered nearly $9 million in sales by last March, when he filed disclosure forms. Mr. Ayers's own book will probably not achieve such heights, but his recent tongue-in-cheek revelations have certainly pushed him higher up on any search engine.

A writer at The Daily Beast, the Web site run by Tina Brown, said he received this email reply from Mr. Ayers about the rumors that he had ghostwritten Mr. Obama's book: "You've all lost your minds. Best of luck in the twilight zone."

This reminds Rebel Girl of a favorite saying of Utah Phillips: "You've got to mess with people."

To read Anne Leary's account of Bill Ayers' "confession" on BackyardConservative, click here.

Answers to your deep questions

Fuentes' pal Ahmanson and Saddleback Church's Rick Warren dance!

WE IN THE SOCCCD are exposed to some extraordinary people. I doubt that there are many Raghu Mathurs in this world. Probably only one. And surely there is no one anywhere quite like our own Tom Fuentes. He's sui generis fer sher.

Another extraordinary Orange Countian—though one not directly connected to our district—is Fuentes’ good pal Howard Ahmanson, Jr., the eccentric heir to the Ahmanson fortune who underwrites such benighted organizations as the Discovery Institute (you know: intelligent design, cave men & dinosaurs).

You’ll recall that he once told the OC Register, "My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives."

I noticed that Ahmanson now has a website called The Fieldstead & Company. There, we learn that

Fieldstead is a private company that manages the assets of the Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. family. Among other things, one of the functions of Fieldstead & Company is to help manage the family's various philanthropic programs as part of a Christian worldview.

One enjoyable pastime, I find, is the “Tom Fuentes” game, which entails searching for connections between Ahmanson’s philanthropic beneficiaries and our own trustee Tom Fuentes. (Hint: food banks, Claremont.) It gets pretty involved.

By many accounts, Ahmanson is a very pleasant fellow, which is almost surprising, given his stated tolerance of executions of gays by stoning. (Sure, kill ‘em. But with stones?) It reminds me of Hitler’s obvious affection for his German Shepherd. Sweet.

Ahmanson has given money to lots of organizations, including Tustin’s Education Alliance, that goofy Christian right, pro-voucher, anti-union, “back to basics” group, on whose board sits SOCCCD board president Don Wagner (or so it was announced at a board meeting a while back). Other beneficiaries include the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the Claremont Institute, and the North American Man/Boy Love Association. --Well, not that last one. Nope.

As you know, Rick Warren is another amazing Orange Countian. He’s a conservative evangelical and the pastor of the enormous and unsightly Saddleback Church. He authored the wildly popular The Purpose Driven Life. He hangs out with Larry King.

Well, I'll cut to the chase. Earlier today, I came across a Saddleback Church publication called Pastor Rick’s News and Views. In the 9/5/09 issue, Warren explains that he considers Ahmanson and his wife his “dear friends.”

And guess what? Ahmanson has thrown some of his money Rick’s way:

ANSWERS TO YOUR DEEP QUESTIONS THIS WEEKEND: For years I've wanted to create an annual lecture series that answers the most common questions about our faith (apologetics). Now, thanks to the generosity of my dear friends Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, this weekend we are inaugurating the Ahmanson Lectures on Faith & Science! SIX of the brightest minds and most respected authorities are speaking at Saddleback this weekend. In each service you'll get to hear a world-class authority speak to issues you've always wondered about.

These lectures occurred a month ago, although videos are available at the Saddleback Church website. Here’s the program:

What Do the Gospels Really Say about Jesus? Dr. Darrell Bock
Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete? Dr. J.P. Moreland
If God exists, Why is there evil? Dr. Norman Geisler
How Did the Universe Begin? Dr. William Lane Craig
How Do I Know God Exist? Dr. Dinesh D'Souza
How Can I Defend My Faith without Sounding Defensive? Dr. Greg Koukl

For no particular reason--although I do like it, somehow


Real good, we dance in the studio,
Snap, snap to that shit on the radio
Don't stop, for anyone,
We're plastic but we still have fun

Is the ball in Don's court?

Yesterday, an OC Register editorial opined that, for the 2010 OC political races, the “70th Assembly District is one to watch closely.” (Race under way to replace DeVore.)

That would be the race trustee Don Wagner hopes to win—with the help of his pal and colleague Tom Fuentes.

If you can believe the Reg, it looks like our boy Don is the one to beat. And if Peeve Boy actually wins--well, you know. We'd better get our ducks in a row.

Excerpts:

As Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore prepares to be termed out of office next year…, potential replacements for his 70th Assembly District seat are lining up. As of this writing, five Republicans ... had officially filed "Statements of Intention" to run with the Secretary of State's Office.

Republicans include Irvine Councilman Steven Choi, Tustin Councilman Jerry Amante, retired veteran Shawn Black and Saddleback Community College Trustee Don Wagner….

…Six months ago if you asked us who the heir apparent to the 70th Assembly District might be, we would have begrudgingly said Mr. Amante. He keeps a high profile, deeply involving himself in organizations like the ill-advised League of Cities and the Orange County Business Council. But Mr. Wagner's candidacy may thwart Mr. Amante's front-runner status.

Mr. Wagner is no stranger to the district – he lost the Republican primary to Mr. DeVore in 2004. He knows the landscape, and his campaign seems to be building momentum. Wednesday he had a well-attended campaign kick-off in Newport Beach. Most notably, the reinvigorated Orange County political godfather Tom Fuentes, a former 20-year chairman of the county Republican Party, is backing the Wagner campaign. The ball seems to be in Mr. Wagner's court.
…
Mr. Choi might soon be relegated to "also ran" status. … Mr. Choi does have more campaign cash on hand than the others, but we anticipate that changing very soon. … We predict he will graciously exit the race and back Mr. Wagner….

1922: the cast of "To Have and to Hold," standing by cliffs in beauteous Orange County

$800k a year and he's "speaking to the dead"

Our good friend “Mad as Hell,” who teaches at a university deep in that sprawling, crispy world known, absurdly, as the “Inland Empire,” alerted us to an article about the UC in yesterday’s Guardian: University of California's students and faculty demand answers. We think you'll find it interesting.

The author, Judith Butler, is the “Maxine Elliot professor in the departments of rhetoric and comparative literature at the University of California Berkeley.”

Some excerpts:

...The University of California finds itself with a shortfall of $1.15 bn for the next two years…. Everyone knows that the state government is dysfunctional, that public funding decreased by 40% between 1990 and 2005 and that this year alone brought another 20% reduction, accelerating the abandonment of the premiere public university by a California legislature fully paralysed by minority rule … and Proposition 13….
…
Mid-summer, when no one was around, UC president Mark Yudof invoked "emergency powers" to implement furloughs on staff and faculty, and sent word to campuses that drastic cuts had to be made in operating expenses. Claiming that the UC system has no funds from which to draw in such dire moments, Yudof devised a plan, which includes a graduated salary reduction programme for all staff and faculty who make more than $40,000 a year.

…[I]t became clear that certain cuts actually devastated some programmes, while others absorbed the setback with ready reserves. The administration did not wait to reach a settlement with the unions. The faculty briefly canvassed were certainly not party to the decision.

As a result, the bad news that deans handed down at the beginning of the semester eliminated 2,000 positions, gutted programmes…. In addition, the administration demanded of students tuition and fee increases of nearly 40%, imperilling the very notion of an affordable public university and forcing many students to leave the university or scramble for full-time jobs.
...
Those of us who were trying to develop a balanced critique … were incredulous when Yudof gave an interview to the New York Times Magazine in which he bragged about his own $800,000 salary, shamelessly displayed his anti-intellectualism, described his entry into the field of education as "an accident" and complained that he tries to speak to faculty and staff about the budget, but it is "speaking to the dead".
…
Faculty, staff and students are collectively outraged that the university has failed to make public and transparent what the cuts have been and will be, and by what criteria and set of priorities such cuts are made. Rage also centres on the devastation of "shared governance" – the policy that faculty must be part of any decision-making that affects the academic programmes and direction of the university. … 

No answers are forthcoming to a set of burning questions: Why in this age of slash and burn has the UC administration bloated by 283%, as their own public financial reports make plain? And why does the university spend $10m a year on inter-collegiate athletics and over $123m on a new athletic centre?

During a time of corrosive neo-liberalism and rising doubts about education and the arts as public goods worthy of state support, the administration ducks and hides – when it is not boasting about its own stupidity, failing to take up the task of making its decision-making process transparent, refusing to honour the mandate to bring in the faculty to share in establishing priorities and weakening the safeguards against a rampant privatisation of this public good that will undercut the university's core commitment to offer an education both excellent and affordable.
…
My wager is that the walls of the university will shake again – and again – until the message is received: This fiscal crisis is also a crisis in governance. The administration needs to make their books transparent, re-engage shared governance and set their priorities right so that the US can continue to claim a public institution of higher learning where a student does not require loads of money to receive a superlative education.

This is the promise that we see dying at this moment, and the very thought sends us into the streets en masse.

Upside-down flag boy

Nobody's more patriotic, says upside-down Flag Boy

In his column in the Times yesterday, David Brooks compared the “talk jocks”—Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, et al.—to the Wizard of Oz, an apparent behemoth who turns out to be a funny little man behind a curtain.

The talk jocks, Brooks says, “ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions,” when in truth they speak for a “mere niche.” They’re just funny little men, speaking for a small group of Stupid People.

Seems like the Stupid People are more than a niche, though.

Yesterday, the Register (Former Marine's upside-down flag is 'distress' call) described one of these Stupid People, a guy named Cason who lives in San Clemente. He’s flying the American flag upside down. “It’s a sign of distress,” he says.

"I think the United States is in distress right now, with all that's going on," he says. "I'm not a socialist ... I like our freedom. ... I don't like higher taxes. I've never known anybody that's been able to ... borrow your way out of being in debt or to borrow your way into wealth. I actually feel that we're being held hostage by the Congress ... and our president."

I guess Cason forgot about Reagan’s spectacular deficit spending. He’s stupid and has a lousy memory to boot.

A while back, a young Marine came around and complained about Cason's upside down flag. It was disrespectful, he said. He took it.

Cason, being stupid, is perplexed by the incident. He cites the “flag code,” according to which an upside-down flag is a distress signal to be used “in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”

Obviously, Cason is misreading the code. The young Marine got it right.

But Cason is stupid, and so he persists in his misreading. He bought a replacement flag, which, naturally, is hanging upside down outside his home.

As if to leave no doubt that he is one of the stupidest people in the country, he next appealed to the Constitution:

"You know," he says, "I heard under the First Amendment that we have the right of expression."

Gosh, by that reasoning, flag burning would be—well, you know.

Wizard Beck talking to his Mental Munchkins

A new era of trust? Tensions at Irvine Valley College

Is senate leadership getting the "cart before the horse"?
Is the "new era of trust" an era of paternalism?

[See correction in body below.] It goes without saying, I hope, that long-time Academic Senate President Wendy Gabriella is the most important faculty leader in Irvine Valley College’s thirty-year history, or at least during the last dozen or so years.

Dissent readers will know why I say this. Her leadership (and lawyering) in the lengthy "faculty hiring policy" controversy alone puts her in the pantheon. It was a stunning victory of faculty over arrogant autocrats.

But her days as a faculty leader seem to be coming to a close.

The nature of the faculty’s role in college governance, too, seems to be changing. Not necessarily for the better.

CRAIG’S ASSISTANT

Wendy recently resigned the office she’s held for many years and has taken on, instead, a curious role as Vice President of Instruction Craig Justice’s assistant. Her official title is "Instructional Coordinator of Academic Programs" (attached to the Office of Instruction). It's no secret that Craig has long been overburdened with a stunning array of duties and has sought to lighten his load. DtB has always supported him in this regard.

Wendy's new role comes only months after Craig’s failed effort to create a new administrative position—to relieve the aforementioned burden—that, reportedly, Wendy sought to fill. The proposal was rejected by the board owing to its cost and, I think, "appearances" during this time of economic downturn.

Evidently, Wendy’s "coordinator" role has not changed the status quo at IVC, namely, that Wendy and Craig pretty much run the college (while frontman Glenn Roquemore performs the usual Presidential tasks).

The VPI/Senate-Prez leadership partnership has existed for several years now, and it has been an important despair-combating Positive in the shadow of the great, dismal Negative that is the Mathur/Trustees Axis.

THE ALLIANCE

Yes, this Alliance has been seen by many as a good thing, shared-governance-wise. It slowly grew after the arrival (January 2003) of a certain endearingly deluded dandy and dunderhead who served as Vice President of Instruction. Dennis White was a pleasant, well-meaning doofus (he was the administrator who forbade faculty talking about the Iraq war in class) with an ego inversely proportioned to his stature. But, in his odd way, he was a people person who sought to do good.

Eventually (9/06), thanks to Chancellor Raghu Mathur, Dennis was handed his walking papers (and a fabulous retirement). No doubt, Dennis’ successful working relationship with faculty leader Wendy had something to do with that. Mathur hates shared governance. And he hates Wendy.

After a year-long interim, Craig Justice was hired as Dennis’ replacement (June 2007). Craig is no Dennis White. He’s smart, and he knows how to get things done. At first, he seemed not only smart and knowledgeable but collegial and genuinely cooperative; he wasted no time cozying up to the Senate, or at least to its leadership. He showed up to most senate meetings and fostered a sense of openness though, to me, he always seemed to keep his cards close to his vest. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Unlike Dennis, Craig is no people person. He's not the sort to reveal himself. At public events, he's always pleasant and friendly, but, in other settings, he sometimes plays hard ball, simply wielding his power. Over the last two years, many have come to view him thus: he gets what he wants (generally good things) because he plays a long chess game. And the chess pieces—maybe even his so-called partners—are not necessarily fully clued in to his goals or strategies.

Like I said, he’s no Dennis White.

But even before Craig’s arrival, some were uncomfortable with the cozy VPI-Senate Prez partnership, which blurred the lines between faculty and administration. Administration’s interests and faculty interests, some argued, do not entirely overlap, and administrators are management; they are a sort who will play faculty, if they can, to get what they think the college needs.

Even Wendy, for all her smarts and ferocity, can be played, some worried.

Many faculty view Wendy’s new role as quasi-administrative. In any case, it seems to be transitional between her old faculty leadership role and some future administrative role that she plainly covets (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Thus, to many faculty, team Justice-Gabriella no longer clearly represents faculty/administrative cooperation. Further, it seems to represent a new paternalism in which decisions are made or engineered by long-suffering parents who have grown tired of consulting their rowdy and inattentive wards.

Hey, I sympathize. Still....

THE “EARLY COLLEGE” PROGRAM:

Meanwhile, IVC’s Academic Senate meets as always, and, as always, Craig and Wendy are present, participating in discussion, or at least answering questions.

On the 24th of September (ten days ago), new Senate Prez Lisa Davis Allen held her first meeting. It proved to be a difficult one, owing to one issue.

IVC’s “Early College” (EC) program was hatched during the Dennis White years, at a time when the college was desperate to increase enrollments. Essentially, the idea was to hold college courses at local High Schools for specially-chosen students who seek college credits (about 45 are chosen per year at a given High School).

Naturally, when administration first came to faculty about the program, the obvious issues were raised:  are these kids mature enough? will standards be lowered? who will be in charge?—but these were perhaps pursued less vigorously than they otherwise might owing to our enrollments crisis. It did seem to some senators that administration was going to push this thing through whether faculty liked it or not. But, at the time, we had bigger fish to fry.

In recent years, low enrollments have ceased to be an issue, but the EC program remains. Doubtless, problems have cropped up, but they haven’t appeared on the senate’s radar.

HIGH SCHOOL: RAMONES, YES—COLLEGE, NO

Last Spring, however, problems with EC came to the attention of Biological Sciences faculty, and so they tried to bring these to the attention of the Academic Senate.

One problem concerned lab time, which somehow was cut down significantly at the high schools without faculty approval.

Also, according to one of the senior bio instructors with whom I recently spoke, a relatively high proportion of students weren’t cutting the mustard in EC bio courses, which were taught by one full-timer. I’m told that that instructor was called in by high school administration and was pressured to make, um, adjustments (provide extra credit, etc.). (Correction: earlier, I implied that IVC administration did this; the instructor informs me that, on the contrary, Craig has always insisted that instructors maintain college standards.)

When the instructor’s colleagues heard about this, they were horrified.

Consequently, last Spring, one of the senior bio faculty spoke with Wendy about bringing these issues before the Academic Senate. That instructor, Chris R, insists that Wendy would not place the matter on the senate agenda. (I should mention that, evidently, efforts and plans have been made to address some of bio’s concerns, and these were listed in a brief handout that was provided during the Sept. 24 senate meeting. These efforts seem not to have involved the bio faculty--at any rate, Chris's paper betrays no awareness of these efforts.)

At some point, Chris wrote a document (Craig calls it a “white paper”) that raises some apparently serious issues about the EC program. It focuses on issues regarding authority and responsibility among faculty and administration.

Recently, Chris sent the document to senate leadership. It asks “that the Early College Program be placed on the Academic Senate agenda as an action item.” Further, it asks that the senate (1) consider the creation of a senate committee to identify and discuss concerns about the EC program and (2) that it survey all EC faculty about the program.

On the 24th of September, Chris attended the IVC Academic Senate meeting (i.e., the meeting of the Rep Council), the first with new President Lisa Davis Allen. He read the agenda and was surprised to find that the only item listed concerning the EC program was Item 9:

Early College Update: Workgroup
Background: VPI Craig Justice has requested faculty volunteers to serve on the Early College Work Group.

The item included no recommended action.

When the time came to discuss item 9, Chris asked why his document had not been distributed and why the agenda item failed to reflect his requests. In the subsequent discussion, members of the cabinet said that they had discussed Chris’s request and believed that item 9 adequately responded to it.

One cabinet member explained that we (at the college) are now in a “new era” of trust between the faculty senate and the administration and that Chris should just allow the workgroup to proceed.

One visiting instructor was concerned that issues “on the ground” were not getting to the Senate and not being heard. She implied that adjunct faculty in the EC program wanted to complain but were understandably fearful.

Another instructor reminded the group that senate meetings are the place for the faculty to bring issues. Chris’s paper, she said, should have been distributed and the problems raised there should have been discussed at this meeting.

Wendy spoke. She explained that the cabinet does not automatically put “everything” on Senate meeting agendas. She referred to the “distrust” that Chris’s remarks seemed to convey. She explained that, in recent years, the senate has been working “collaboratively” with administration, and so we can trust these workshops to do what needs to be done. And if that doesn’t work, we can still do something else.

Chris explained that he did not object to the workgroup per se. However, in his opinion, he said, this matter should start with a faculty discussion. We’re getting “the cart before the horse,” he declared.

Chris and Wendy had a brief round of “he said/she said” concerning a conversation they had last summer. It was unpleasant.

In the end, the senate, constrained by the agenda, sought faculty volunteers for the workgroup. Four or so faculty volunteers were soon identified, including Chris. (Others can still join.)

It remains to be seen whether the elements of this “new era” of collaboration, as conceived by Wendy and the IVC Academic Senate council, are acceptable to faculty at large.

As always, those who wish to offer another perspective or rebuttal should contact me. DtB welcomes the chance to offer a platform for serious and responsible people who view matters differently than we do or who wish to correct errors or misapprehensions.

(Chris’s document is available here.)