Mathur crony Helen Locke running for Lang’s trustee seat

Mathur apologist Helen Locke in 2005

[See UPDATE below]

According to the Orange Juice Blog (2020 OC Vote #19: UPDATE 8/12, AEIOU Extension Races Filing is OVER!), some OC election contests have had the candidate filing (deadline) extended.

Included among these is “South Orange County Community College District, Trustee Area 1.” That's Dave Lang's area. He recently announced that he has decided not to run for reelection.

According to OJ,

FINAL* UPDATE 8/12: Incumbent David Lang did not run [i.e., did not file].  The ballot will include four candidates to replace him: Carolyn Inmon, Helen Locke, Matt Waid, and last-minute new entry Aarti Kaushal.  Now that four-way race should improve our ratings!

Inmon was a failed Faculty Association candidate when she ran against Lang in 2008. As I recall, she has been politically active and once served as President of CCA (of CTA). I suspect that she'll be the Faculty Association's candidate this time, too. (See Bliss and Inmon in San Juan Capistrano & The Faculty Association (union) luncheon.) 

(See here for the FA's most recent newsletter.)

 

Don’t know about Wait and Kaushal.

Helen Locke? She was Director of Student Development (or "Director of Student Life") at Irvine Valley College—and a long-time close associate of Raghu Mathur. 

IVC Prez Roquemore fired her back in 2013 (see). Not sure why. 

To provide a sense of Locke's perspective as Student Life Director, I'll mention one detail. I do believe it was under Locke's watch that the college showed the kids a movie in the name of diversity and multiculturalism. It was an odd choice. At the time, Rebel Girl opined:

[T]he college underwent its “changes” and so-called “multicultural programming” was taken over by people who imagined Yul Brynner’s “The King and I” offered relevant lessons in assimilation for college students. Say no more, though Rebel Girl could say plenty.

I’m told that Old Guard unionist Ray Chandos has been instrumental in Locke's candidacy.

Like Chandos, Locke is seriously bad news. Check out this old video:

Helen Locke and Ray Chandos, among others, defending Raghu Mathur, 2005

I enjoy her inarticulate and utterly humorless deportment  

P.S.: There's a Matt Waid who is or was on the staff of the Dean of Students at CSUF. He's described as "Coordinator, Student Conduct." His LinkedIn page can be found here.

There's a "Risk Finance Manager" named Aarti Kaushal, working in Irvine. See here. She has a bachelors in public administration and a masters in special education. See her bio on Building Connected Communities.

HERE ARE THEIR CANDIDATE STATEMENTS:

SEE ALSO

 Rebel Girl Has a Dream: The Girl Can't Help It, DtB, Monday, January 16, 2006

UPDATE (11-9-20):

She lost to the Democrat, Inmon:

8-15: uneasy with Kamala Harris’ ‘difficult history’

✅Newsom blasts Trump USPS stance as 'sabotage,' 'vandalism of our postal system' -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom assailed President Donald Trump on Friday for attempting to “sabotage” mail voting by underfunding the postal system. Jeremy B. White Politico -- 8/15/20

✅With data backlog cleared, California coronavirus cases officially decreasing, Newsom says -- With the backlog of nearly 300,000 lab reports finally cleared, state officials confirmed Friday that coronavirus cases have officially decreased over the past two weeks — a trend that was briefly in question after the records snafu. Fiona Kelliher in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 8/14/20

✅California’s coronavirus response has been hampered by high-level resignations -- The sudden departure this week of California’s public health officer is intensifying instability in the state’s vital health departments as they struggle with crushing workloads and navigating the worst health crisis in a century, according to interviews with current and former healthcare and government officials. Taryn Luna, Melody Gutierrez in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/14/20

✅Social justice icon Angela Davis uneasy with Kamala Harris’ ‘difficult history’ -- Longtime activist, author and prison abolitionist Angela Davis wasn’t excited to hear that Joe Biden picked Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate, citing the former prosecutor and state attorney general’s “difficult history.” Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/14/20

 

✅‘We’re Clearly Not Doing Enough’: Drop in Testing Hampers Coronavirus Response

For the first time during the pandemic, the United States saw a downward trend in the number of coronavirus tests conducted each day.

NYT

✅As Colleges Move Classes Online, Families Rebel Against the Cost

Schools face rising demands for tuition rebates, increased aid and leaves of absence as students ask if college is becoming “glorified Skype.”

NYT

 

✅Trump continually misreads the politics of the pandemic

Americans support stronger efforts to control the outbreak — and see Joe Biden as better able to handle it.

WashPo

 

✅Betsy DeVos’s controversial new rule on campus sexual assault goes into effect

The rule expands the rights of the accused, prompting critics to say women will be reluctant to report attacks.

WashPo

8-14: do you regret all the lying?

✅Trump Encourages Racist Conspiracy Theory on Kamala Harris’s Eligibility to Be Vice President

NYT

✅Orange County Sees Overall Coronavirus Trends Improving, Anaheim and Santa Ana Remain Hot Spots

Voice of OC

     Orange County continues to see a decline in coronavirus hospitalizations after numbers spiked last month because of the wave of cases in June, but virus hot spots remain in Anaheim and Santa Ana. 

     “Hospitalizations continue to trend downward with the most recent report being 438 COVID patients, down from 671 one month prior. Patients in the ICU (are) also trending down with 143 in ICU, down from 231 one month ago,” states Thursday’s daily situational report from the county Office of Emergency Services.

. . .

     The continuing decline indicates OC could come off of the state watchlist, which limits business and school classroom reopenings. Counties are put on the watchlist for high positivity rates and increasing hospitalizations. 

. . .

     “The numbers do include the backlog and based on the numbers that we see today and an analysis from our team, we do think we are below the 8% (virus positivity) threshold that has been an issue for us in the past,” [County Chief Executive Officer Frank] Kim said. 

     State health officials mandated counties can’t come off the watchlist if they are above that threshold — meaning no more than 8% of tests conducted in a seven-day period can be positive. 

     As of Thursday, the countywide positivity rate was 7.6%. 

     Meanwhile, [interim Health Officer Dr. Clayton] Chau is still reviewing waiver applications from OC elementary schools in their efforts to reopen classrooms in the upcoming school year. 

     It’s unclear if schools will be allowed to reopen. State guidelines call for an agreement between school districts, school administrators, community groups, parents, teachers, local health officers — like Chau — and state health officials before any school can bring students back in person. 

     “Because the state has put the monitoring list on pause, we won’t know. I’m hoping we will find out at the end of this week,” Chau said. “The Health Care Agency will post a list of waiver applications on our website … none have been approved or denied at this time.”

 

✅Orange County awaits remaining backlogged coronavirus test results from state -- The state is expected to fully restore backlogged COVID-19 test results to counties by the end of the week. The data from July 31 to Aug. 4 were lost after a technical issue affected the state’s electronic system that gathers the information. Colleen Shalby in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/13/20

✅Trump admits to blocking Postal Service funding to undercut voting by mail -- President Trump said Thursday that he would block a funding boost for the U.S. Postal Service to handle an expected flood of mail-in ballots in coming weeks, admitting it’s part of a White House effort to limit Americans voting by mail and raising the chances of chaos surrounding the election in November. Eli Stokols in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/14/20

 

✅Biden, Harris call for all states to mandate masks after first joint Covid-19 briefing -- Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris called on Thursday for every governor to mandate mask-wearing in public for at least the next three months, citing studies that say it would save more than 40,000 lives and speed the nation’s economic recovery. Alice Miranda Ollstein Politico -- 8/14/20

 

✅As California’s hospitalizations decline, COVID-19 deaths persist at a staggering rate -- Deaths from COVID-19 continued to come at a rate of well over 100 per day in California and more than 1,000 each day nationwide, while California appeared to be close to eliminating its recently discovered backlog of tests. Evan Webeck in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 8/13/20

✅More Tuition Cuts

Inside Higher Ed

     More colleges continue to cut tuition rates in response to pressure from students and families.

My boy, Teddy

✅Dems Seek Flexibility for New International Students

Inside Higher Ed

     Seventy-five Democratic lawmakers sent a letter Thursday to Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf calling on him to revise guidance that would bar international students who are taking online courses from entering the U.S. this fall. The Trump administration rescinded a policy that would have prohibited continuing international students from taking an online-only course load after facing multiple lawsuits, but the administration then said new students cannot come to the U.S. if their course loads this fall will be entirely online….

✅Excitement. Fear. Resignation. Welcome to the Fall Semester.

CHE

     Campus life in the Covid-19 era is underway at the University of Kentucky, bringing an eerie juxtaposition of the familiar and the menacing.

In many ways, still miss the good old days

Someday

Someday

Yeah, it hurts to say but I want you to stay

Sometimes

Sometimes

(continue)

8-13: nope, it's over 200,000 dead

✅The True Coronavirus Toll in the U.S. Has Already Surpassed 200,000

NYT

Across the United States, at least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March, according to a New York Times analysis of estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus.

. . .

But as the number of hot spots expanded, so has the number of excess deaths across other parts of the country. Many of the recent coronavirus cases and deaths in the South and the West may have been driven largely by reopenings and relaxed social distancing restrictions….

✅Newsom defends economic recovery efforts and task force amid criticism about transparency -- Facing criticism that his economic recovery plans have lacked transparency, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday outlined efforts to help businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic, and embraced legislative efforts to help workers, including protections against evictions. Patrick McGreevy in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/13/20

✅Governor: New data show California is ‘turning the corner’ -- California is showing improvement in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.... Daisy Nguyen Associated PressLuke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ Alexei Koseff in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/13/20

 

✅California coronavirus deaths double, with rural areas and suburbs hit hard -- California’s second surge of the coronavirus has resulted in a near doubling of weekly deaths since the spring — with almost 1,000 fatalities in the last week alone — and radically shifted the geography of the outbreak, a Times data analysis found. Rong-Gong Lin II, Iris Lee in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/13/20

 

✅Medical experts speak out against [Republican] Anaheim councilwoman’s claim that wearing masks causes dental issues -- ... Ben Brazil in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/13/20

✅Trump says Postal Service needs money for mail-in voting, but he’ll keep blocking funding -- President Trump says the U.S. Postal Service is incapable of facilitating mail-in voting because it cannot access the emergency funding he is blocking, and made clear that requests for additional aid were nonstarters in coronavirus relief negotiations. Jacob Bogage in the Washington Post$ -- 8/13/20

 

✅‘Awfully late’: In 11th hour reversal, San Jose teachers allowed to work from home -- Less than 24 hours before teachers were set to give their first lessons of the new school year from inside their empty classrooms, the San Jose Unified School District has decided to give them the choice to work from home. Maggie Angst in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 8/12/20

 

✅California paid a price for mask shortage in dollars and lives, coronavirus study finds -- At least 15,800 essential workers would not have contracted COVID-19 if California had stockpiled enough masks and other protective equipment, while the state would have saved $93 million weekly on unemployment claims for out of work healthcare workers and avoided overpaying for supplies, according to a UC Berkeley Labor Center study released Wednesday. Melody Gutierrez in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/12/20

✅California’s post-prison chaos: Thousands released early, including many with coronavirus -- .... Robert Lewis CalMatters -- 8/12/20

 

✅OC Board of Education and Department Ramp Up Taxpayer Spending On Internal Lawsuits

Voice of OC

The county’s elected education leaders have been stuck in litigation against each other for close to two years, costing taxpayers millions that are paid out of the same accounts.

 

✅Appeals Court Revives Lawsuit Alleging OC Sheriff, Prosecutors Illegally Use Informants

Voice of OC

The court’s focus will be whether the informant program is ongoing and whether it is illegal, the appeals justices wrote.

8-12: I guess it's Kamala Harris day!

✅California’s coronavirus cases jump as counties process data backlog -- As coronavirus hospitalizations continue to decline across California, counties reported more than 13,000 new cases Monday, a marked uptick as they began processing the thousands of lab reports that had been backlogged for more than a week within the state’s reporting system. Fiona Kelliher in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 8/11/20 

✅Vote nears on resuming eviction proceedings in California -- Eviction and foreclosure proceedings in California could resume Sept. 1, California’s chief justice announced Tuesday, putting pressure on the state Legislature to pass a law by the end of the month to prevent what many fear could be an “eviction tsunami” similar to the bursting of the housing bubble a decade ago. Adam Beam  Associated Press -- 8/12/20

 

✅August Wave of Campus Reopening Reversals

Hundreds of colleges announced early this summer they would be reopening for in-person instruction this fall. As start dates near, many backtrack, citing a worsening health crisis.

— Inside Higher Ed

 

✅Kamala Harris Has Battled For-Profit Colleges

Inside Higher Ed

While Senator Kamala Harris, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's choice for vice president, doesn't have an extensive record on higher education issues, she is known for having sued Corinthian Colleges while she was California's attorney general, accusing the for-profit chain of false and predatory advertising, intentionally making misrepresentations to students, securities fraud and unlawful use of military seals in advertisements.

✅Live Coronavirus Updates: Big Ten and Pac-12 Call Off Fall Sports, More Colleges Flip Online

CHE

✅College towns fear super-spreader semester as students descend

Local officials are bracing for a virus explosion triggered by young people living in tight quarters who disregard social distancing rules.

Politico

 

✅Ilhan Omar beats primary challenger in Minnesota

Omar is the third member of the liberal 'Squad' to defend her seat successfully this summer.

Politico

 

✅Britain plunges into deep recession

Amid huge job losses, the British economy shrank by more than 20 percent in the second quarter, its steepest drop on record and the worst of any Group of Seven nation.

Washington Post

✅Murphy: South County School Districts Doing Their Parts to Make the Pandemic Worse

Voice of OC

...In south Orange County, where confirmed cases have been ​on the rise​, both Saddleback Valley Unified and Capistrano Unified School Districts have chosen to conduct their fall registrations in person and on campus, however with social distancing measures in place, generally requiring masks and only allowing twenty-five students on campus at a time….

The latest numbers

8-11: Coronavirus infections in kids; over 1000 new covid cases

✅ OC Coronavirus Case Counts Increasingly Unreliable, Experts Say Local Hospitals Are Most Reliable Benchmark

Voice of OC

…Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the state Department of Public Health, resigned over the weekend. Her resignation came shortly after state officials announced the data glitch and Newsom wouldn’t specify why she resigned….

✅ Global coronavirus cases top 20 million as Russia approves vaccine 

OC Reg

 

✅ Why did California’s top health official resign over the weekend? -- The abrupt departure of California’s top public health officer Sunday came as a shock to many local leaders at the front lines of the state’s pandemic response, who described Dr. Sonia Angell as helpful and hands-on but still somewhat of an enigma after less than a year on the job. Erin Allday in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/11/20

✅ Newsom indicates California health officer's abrupt departure related to test data problem -- Gov. Gavin Newsom took responsibility Monday for California's coronavirus test data problems and hinted that the abrupt departure late Sunday of his state public health officer was related to the information blunder.  Kevin Yamamura and Victoria Colliver Politico -- 8/11/20

 

✅ Coronavirus infections in kids: California sees alarming surge in cases in late July -- While COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths among children remain mercifully rare, the reported new cases among children suggest that they may be more susceptible to infection and capable of spreading the virus than previously thought. John Woolfolkin the San Jose Mercury$ Laura J. Nelson in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/11/20

 

✅ Does your coronavirus mask work? New study separates the worthy from the worthless -- That bandanna might make you look like a cool outlaw from an old Western movie but it’s largely ineffective in protecting you from the coronavirus, according to a new study. Aidin Vaziri in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 8/11/20

✅ California has spent $43 million suing the Trump administration. It’s paying off, officials say -- California has spent $43 million suing President Donald Trump’s administration over the past four years in a legal campaign that the state’s Democratic attorney general says has saved billions of dollars in funding the state would have lost had the White House carried out its policies. Andrew Sheeler and Kate Irby in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 8/10/20

 

✅ Federal Appeals Court: Title IX Protects Transgender Students

…The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit concluded that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law prohibiting sex discrimination at federally funded institutions, also protects transgender students from discrimination based on their identity, said the court's Aug. 7 decision, written by Judge Beverly Martin….

Inside Higher Ed

 

✅ First They Came for Adjuncts, Now They’ll Come for Tenure

If college administrators take the current crisis as an opportunity to eliminate tenure once and for all, who’s going to stop them?

CHE

IVC President Hernandez's Opening Session: Redemption and Vision

YOU DON'T have to be an old-timer to remember when the opening session of the IVC Staff Development Week meant a pitch for signing up for Triple-A and a warning against texting while driving or a lawyer teaching us how to create community or perhaps a video reminding faculty and staff who the “real patriots” are (hint: not us!). 

But old-timers like Rebel Girl won’t let folks forget the time the Chancellor dressed up like Elvis and crooned and shook his hips. After all these years, she is still traumatized. This wasn’t how she imagined her career in higher education. She understood that academia, especially at the community college level, meant enduring a certain kind of spectacle, some pomp, some circumstance.

But she also expected more.

Today was different. Sure there were the technical glitches which will inspire the best of us to troubleshoot our debut in our virtual classrooms next week and the pro forma platitudes from the trustees, this time delivered via recordings that rendered them oddly cheerful and animatronic, reminiscent of Disneyland’s "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.” (SPOILER ALERT: Lang announced that this is his last term.)

But Chancellor Burke ended her presentation with an extended tribute to John Lewis, reading at length from “Together You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,” his essay published posthumously in the NY Times, including these lines: 

     Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it. 

     You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Pretty remarkable for the SOCCCD. Thomas Fuentes must be rolling in his grave.

And what about IVC’s new president Dr. John Hernandez? He took the time to introduce himself to the college community, with words and images, announcing that his family story, like so many, was an immigrant story and how his individual journey was, he realized later, distinguished by “the struggle to develop my identity and what it meant to be gay in a traditional heteronormative religious Latino family and not knowing how to reconcile my truth.” 

But then, he told us, smiling, he “experienced college.” He described his time as an EOPS student at Fullerton College where he worked as a student ambassador at local high schools and then explained how this period and his concurrent service in a youth ministry program inspired his values that shaped his career in education. As one faculty member observed, “[It’s] nice to hear his personal narrative reflects what the community college experience is all about: not just 'career training' but also personal growth.” 

Hernandez went on to describe an impressive equity-based vision for IVC that goes beyond banners, branding, and feel-good catch-phrases, pointing out our achievements and potential but also noting what’s missing. He noted that an “overall framework” is missing which should connect campus equity initiatives to an overall equity framework that would actually assess progress, document and validate benchmarks, and “measure the effectiveness of each and every effort,” otherwise we run the risk, he warned, of having dozens of activities that, as he pointed out, make us “feel good” of having pursued the laudable equity goal without knowing if we have succeeded.

Rebel Girl

Later in the day, Rebel Girl caught the new president attending the final session of a long day, the IVC EMCEES (Elevating Men of Color by Engaging and Embracing Solidarity) and WOCC (Women of Color Collective) planning session. Unlike his predecessor, who often showed up to events like this at the beginning to make some remarks, perhaps take a photo and then flee, Hernandez stayed the whole time, listening, taking notes – and then toward the end entered in the conversation only when asked and was thoughtful and observant.

“It’s like a real college,” someone (unmuted) remarked. 

Rebel Girl agrees. 

Finally. Leadership.

Well, if you've got the time, here it is: