senate capers: January 28, 2010: SENATE UNPLEASANTNESS

Thursday, January 28, 2010

January 28, 2010: SENATE UNPLEASANTNESS—T HE START OF SOMETHING BIG?

Here’s my report on the Jan. 28 meeting of the Rep Council. It ain’t much.

Lemme get this out of the way:

SENATE UNPLEASANTNESS: THE START OF SOMETHING BIG?

Back on the 20^thof January, I sent the Senate President (and cabinet members) an email with the heading “Some ‘Academic Senate’ concerns, informally voiced.”

I’ve attached the email to the end of these notes.

My email began with:

Lisa [Davis Allen],

I just wanted to share a concern some of us have regarding an apparent decline in the governance role of the IVC Academic Senate.

I then cited three situations:

(1) Serious problems with the Early College program were brought to senate leadership (Wendy) last spring but were not agendized; when finally agendized (Fall ’09), the item did not reflect the severity of faculty concerns; further, senators were told that we had entered a new era of trust and that concerned faculty could join the VPI’scommittee regarding Early College. (Upon expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo by some senators, a Senate committee was formed to look into EC issues. It is headed by Chris R.)

(2) Late in Fall ’09, it came to light that severe irregularities were occurring with IVC instruction at Crean Lutheran High School. Upshot: when adjuncts hired on our end were sent to Crean, Crean officials had them fill out inappropriate forms (re levels of expression of deviation with Lutheran orthodoxy, I believe); Crean officials asked some of these instructors to teach courses for which the instructors did not have the requisite degrees; in at least one case, an instructor taught a course sans degree. My question: Why hadn’t this program been run by at least the relevant faculty, who normally oversee instruction in their discipline?

(3) Apparently serious cheating incidents have occurred in at least one IVC course at Beckman High (I acknowledged that I knew little about this). I wrote: “One might suppose that this fact would at least be brought to the attention of the senate. As far as I know, that has not occurred.”

I ended my note with this:

And so I feel, perhaps mistakenly (no doubt you’ll disabuse me of any misapprehensions), that, increasingly, the college is running things without appropriate faculty oversight.

Am I wrong?

I hope to hear from you soon.

Roy Bauer,

Senator, School of Humanities and Languages

I soon received a response from Senate President Lisa Davis Allen that noted only that the matter had been agendized. Now, I had not asked for that. I thought of my email as an informal heads up that there exists this concern. Members of the cabinet are my friends, and I assumed that there would be some sort of informal back-and-forth.

Nevertheless, I wrote back a terse expression of satisfaction with the situation, and so I waited for the next senate meeting (Jan. 28).

I did not actually read the agenda until the day of the meeting. I was a little surprised to find the following:

Item 16: Crean Lutheran High School: contract education

Two problems have arisen regarding contract ed. At Crean Lutheran HS: faculty assignments and academic freedom.

Shall the Rep Council request contract ed templates and related policy documents for cabinet review and senate response?

Evidently, this was “my” agenda item.

At the start of Jan. 28 Senate meeting, I raised my hand. I intended to point out that agenda item 16 did not quite reflect my concerns—which were not about Crean in particular, but “an apparent decline in the governance role of the IVC Academic Senate.” I read aloud the first line of my Jan 20 email.

I believe that I said that I didn’t want to make a big deal out of that, but, in truth, I had in mind a discussion of the broader issue. The problems at Crean, I said, was only one of three examples or illustrations, I said.

Well, next, there commenced about a half hour of often unpleasant “discussion” in which I was forcefully and angrily told by at least one member that I had written an “accusatory” email. That cabinet member was particularly forceful and seemed to be scolding me, saying something along the lines, “What’s gotten into you! What are we supposed to do, Roy Bauer!” Another member of the cabinet noted that the cabinet comprised “reasonable” people and that they all read my email as an expression of issues about Crean, not as an expression of this broader issue about the declining role of the senate.

I tried very hard not to get angry, to engage with people reasonably. I will admit that, in truth, I was taken aback by this failure to communicate my intention to the cabinet (I thought my email was clear), by the notion that I had been “accusatory” (in my mind, if there was a target for accusation, it would have been Craig and Co.), and the (as it seemed to me) utterly disproportionate anger and criticism directed at me.

How reasonable I was is a matter I’ll leave to others to judge.

At least one biologist was in the room who no doubt will be happy to provide a blow-by-blow. (Of course, Melanie was there, but she’s untenured. Let’s leave her out of this.)

I gather that the cabinet saw no merit in my concerns about the senate’s being left “out of the loop” too often. (This is the expression I tended to use at the meeting.)

Later, when we got to item 16, Craig essentially offered a mea culpa about Crean. “Frankly, I was shocked,” he said. Wow, we really F’d that up, he said. Won’t do that again.

Probably so. But, for me, the larger issue remains.

In my judgment, there are other arguably important issues that we should be focusing on as a faculty (senate). And so, on the 29^th, I sent another email to the cabinet (attached below). Given my difficult relationship with cabinet members, I decided to keep things simple: this time, I suggested possible agenda items. (My email was entitled “More concerns; possible agenda items.”) I raised two concerns:

In view of the dismal history of Presidential and Chancellor hires in the district, I suggested that the cabinate “contemplate agendizing a discussion of how the Academic Senate might act to encourage or promote a fair, honest, and careful Chancellor search.”
Trustee Padberg’s recent inquiries into Saddleback College’s Communications Program have yielded a situation in which, now, Channel 38 (and IVC’s Channel 33) will be expected to broadcast student productions and films only if they are within a PG rating (the old standard was PG-13). I suggested that this result constitutes objectionable “censorship,” a view essentially expressed by one trustee at the last board meeting (Lang). I wrote: “I ask the cabinet: should the Academic Senate agendize a discussion of this matter? If it would help, I’d be happy to present to you (the cabinet) or to the senators the bare facts of the inquiry and action as a preliminary to contemplating any discussion or action.”

To date, I have received no response from the cabinet or from President Lisa Davis Allen.

I’ve seen the agenda for Thursday’s meeting. Nothing on it quite reflects the concerns expressed above. Item 17 might permit the kind of discussion I have in mind:

New Chancellor Hire: BP 4011.6

An update will be provided on the new chancellor hiring process.

Attached was Board Policy 4011.6: Employment Procedures for Chancellor

As far as I know, I am leaving nothing out of my account here. I’m not suppressing or ignoring other actions or events that might be relevant. (I did write a brief and friendly personalnote to LDA after the meeting of the 28^th.)

I’m starting to think that I cannot effectively represent you as a Senator and that I should therefore resign from the Senate.

Frankly, I think that our senate ain’t what it used to be. I think that our VPI is a crafty man who, despite appearances, would just as soon forego “collegial consultation” and all of its messiness and who is now assisted by someone who has absorbed much of his perspective and the perspective, too, of other important figures in the district. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that we have entered a new era all right. But it is not a new era of trust.

Getting back to the Jan. 28 Senate meeting:

I’m afraid that I took few notes . It didn’t seem to me that much of importance was decided or announced.

Steve R of Academic Affairs noted that we are running out of professional development money, but that it is in our interests to ask for it anyway (to communicate that there is a great and unsatisfied need).

Jodi T of Curriculum mentioned deadlines. She said that she was more than willing to hold Curricunet workshops—on Fridays—but only if there’s interest. Any interest?

There was the usual yammering about the “Strategic Planning and budget development” timeline.

We received an update on hiring committees. We approved what we had.

Guidance and Counseling has replaced Senator Tiffany Tran with Robert Melendez. We approved that.

We contemplated district goals. We are starting “the annual cycle for submission of new and revised” goals.

The Office of Instruction is proposing the reestablishment of an Instructional Council. I think we approved that.

The senate is looking for volunteers to serve on the Commencement Task Force. Any interest?

That was about it. I think.

Senator Roy

No comments:

College and district acronyms

DRAC – District Resources Allocation

BAARC – Basic Aid Allocation Committee

CET – Chancellor’s Executive Team

BPARC – District Board Policy and Administrative Regulations

SPOBDC -- Strategic Planning Oversight & Budget Development Committee

SPAC -- Strategic Planning and Accreditation Council

APTC – IVC Academic Planning and Technology Committee

SSAMMO – IVC Student Success/Access/Matriculation/Marketing & Outreach
BDRPC – IVC Budget Development and Resources Planning Committee See
See What's "Bark"? And what on Earth is the DRAC?

The Faculty's Role in Community College Decision Making*

The Concept of Shared Governance

Shared governance is a process created by the California state legislature that guarantees faculty input in the decision-making process of community colleges. The purpose of the law, AB 1725, was to provide a mechanism to insure that the expertise of the faculty would be used in developing college policies. Although the phrase "shared governance" is not found in the legislation, it has become the commonly used description of the process that provides for faculty input. AB 1725 mandates that colleges "consult collegially" with local Academic Senates (the law also encourages colleges to seek active participation of other constituencies such as classified staff or students in appropriate areas). Consult collegially means that the district governing board shall develop policies on academic and professional matters through either or both of the following:

1. Rely primarily upon the advice and judgment of the Academic Senate

2. The governing board, or its designees, and the Academic Senate shall reach mutual agreement.

The state identified "academic and professional" matters as eleven specific areas:

1. Curriculum, including establishing prerequisites
2. Degree and certificate requirements
3. Grading policy
4. Educational program development
5. Standards or policies regarding student preparation and success
6. College governance structures, as related to faculty roles
7. Faculty roles and involvement in accreditation processes
8. Policies for professional development activities
9. Processes for program review
10. Processes for institutional planning and budget development
11. Other academic and professional matters as mutually agreed upon.

Since each college determines exactly how shared governance will be implemented on its campus, the process varies widely in its scope and details. With relatively few exceptions, shared governance has provided California community college instructors with a vehicle for input into the decision making process unmatched in any other state.

*Provided by 4Faculty

The SOCCCD Academic Senates sue their district (and win)

[UPSHOT: the Chancellor/Board essentially unilaterally changed the district's full-time faculty hiring policy despite a statute according to which the Academic Senate (i.e., the faculty) has important rights in the development of such policies. In the end (2005), faculty entirely PREVAILED.]

Part 1: From Dissent 66, Oct. 7, 2002

LEGAL STORMS BREWING

I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks. —Coleridge

Intervention sought: During an August meeting of the IVC Academic Senate, it was suggested that, given the Chancellor & Board’s exclusion of the Academic Senate from governance, there really is no point in continuing. It was suggested, too, that the Senate might better devote its energies to seeking redress in the courts.

* * *

On September 12, the exec. cabinet of the IVC Academic Senate sent a letter to State Chancellor Nussbaum, seeking his “intervention” “to secure rights granted to local senates under Title 5” of the Ed Code. The letter cited four examples of the Board’s many actions in violation of “law, policy and process.” The first concerned the Board’s action (Fall 2000) to revise BP6120 (academic freedom), despite objections from the senates. Example 2 was the Board’s adoption (12/01) of a revision of BP5604 (eligibility for admission) despite “vehement” senate objections. Example 3 was the Board’s decision (2/02) to unilaterally revise BP 2100.1 (delegation of authority to academic senates), despite the policy’s explicitly prohibiting such action.

The fourth and most recent example concerned “revisions to District hiring policies,” including revisions to the Full-Time Academic Employees Hiring Policy, developed over the summer by Chancellor Mathur. These revisions, said the letter, “are rife with numerous individual violations of law, policy and good practice.” Despite Title 5, “At no time were any of the governance groups on either campus invited to participate, or even alerted to the existence of the committee.” Further, governance groups were given only 8 days to provide “input.”

* * *

The Senate’s letter yielded a response—a letter discovered belatedly, and already opened, in the senate president’s mail box! Dated Sept. 16, the letter, from Ralph Black, attorney for the State Chancellor’s Office, requested further info to determine whether his involvement “would be warranted.” Black offers a jurisdictional point: “Unless faculty hiring is listed as an ‘academic and professional matter’ under the SOCCCD shared governance policy..., faculty hiring does not fall under the jurisdiction of [the Board of Governors’] regulations.” (More on this later.)

On Sept. 25th, Mathur emailed the Saddleback Academic Senate, suggesting that he is under no obligation to consult the Academic Senates regarding modifications of the hiring policy. To support this odd view, he cited Black’s letter and its point about jurisdiction, but he ignored Black’s remark, in the same letter, that Faculty hiring procedures are covered by [the] Education Code..., which requires that “hiring criteria, policies, and procedures for new faculty members shall be developed and agreed upon jointly by representatives of the governing board, and the academic senate….” (Ralph Black)

Late in 1993, the Board approved a “Full Time Academic Employees Hiring Policy” that makes clear that the hiring policy can be changed only upon mutual agreement between the district and the faculty senates. This, of course, is the crucial “further information” that Ralph Black needs and will soon receive.

* * *

Budget development, of course, is plainly listed among the academic and professional matters of the district’s “shared governance” policy (2100.1). Hence, a failure to consult with the academic senate regarding budget development would be a violation of “shared governance”—one that clearly does fall under Black’s jurisdiction. Mr. Black will be interested to learn that, at IVC, the senate has been excluded from the budget development process for years.

Part 2: From Dissent 67, April 14, 2003

[“Kurt Bozny” is one of Chunk’s alter-egos.]

According to a statute, faculty hiring policies are to be “mutually” agreed upon by the district (i.e., the board) and the faculty (i.e., the academic senates).

During the Summer of 2002, Chancellor Mathur established a committee, including no faculty, that developed a new hiring policy. The faculty were not even informed of this committee’s work. The product of the committee—a truly appalling and incompetent policy—was then adopted by the board.

Thus, at long last, the faculty senate sued the district. (It was about time!) Below describes the serving of papers and its immediate aftermath.

April 14, 2003

Saddleback and Irvine Valley Colleges' Academic Senates Sue the District

By Kurt Bozny

April 8:

Santa Ana, 1:15 p.m.: Wendy files the much anticipated “faculty hiring policy” lawsuit against the SOCCCD Board of Trustees and Chancellor RAGHU P. MATHUR. She’s well-prepared, and so she breezes through the paperwork. Soon, she’s out the door, headin’ south!

2:10: Wendy’s back at IVC. She and I decide to head down south together to serve Mathur with the writ and the attached documents—a big stack. It’s good to bring an observer, cuz some people get way squirrelly when you try to serve ‘em with a lawsuit, and Mathur’s definitely the type.

I briefly search for one of those neon green “legal observer” caps like they wear at the big protests in L.A., but I can’t find one. Dang!

Mission Viejo, 2:40: we’re up on the 3rd floor of the Library, closin’ in on Chancellor Mathur’s office. I catch a glimpse of Mathur exiting his office, movin’ towards Robina Husting’s desk. He hasn’t spotted us yet.

Wendy closes in, holdin’ the thick stack of legal papers in front of her. As it turns out, Mathur is holding a similar stack of papers in front of him. The two meet in the small space in front of Robina’s desk. Mathur just stands there. So Wendy places her stack on top of Mathur’s stack, sayin’, “You’re served.”

Mathur’s horrified. The indecorous fellow now jostles and squirms to avoid holding the papers, but it’s too late—he’s got ‘em.

I’m thinkin’: “Does he actually suppose that the lawsuit won’t happen if he avoids holdin’ this stuff?”

Finally, in a desperate attempt to avoid being served, Raghu shoves the legal papers forward and they fall to the floor. Fwap!

Legally speaking, such fwappage is irrelevant; he’d been served and, once again, he’d attained the title “Respondent Mathur.” Besides, leaving the lawsuit on his secretary’s desk counts, too, so Wendy now picks up the papers and places ‘em there.

Meanwhile, I size up the Chancellor’s unseemly conduct. “How rude,” I proclaim. We exit.

Respondent Mathur struggles to think of a comeback, but Attorney Wendy (and her cap-less Boswell) are already out the door.

Finally, he’s got one. He shouts:

“How rude are YOU!”

* * *

Wendy Gabriella

April [9]: The next day, the district issues a peevish press release. It says:

SOCCCD Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur…commented on a lawsuit filed by the IVC and Saddleback College Academic Senates that disputes a new SOCCCD faculty hiring policy, stating, “The district is following the guidelines established under Title 5 that defines the ‘Delegation of Authority to the Academic Senates.’ There are 11 areas within the scope of academic and professional matters for which the academic senates have primary responsibility.

“The State Chancellor’s office has confirmed our view,” Mathur said, “that our hiring policies do not fall within the primary responsibility of the faculty….”

This is classic Mathur. The State Chancellor’s office does indeed hold that hiring policies are not among the 10 + 1 areas in which faculty are assigned primary responsibility by Title 5, a state regulation.

The problem is that the lawsuit does not mention Title 5 and it does not allege that Title 5 has been violated. Rather, it alleges that the new policies, and the manner in which they were developed and approved, violate an Ed Code statute (EC87360) and utterly defeat the intentions of legislators.

Ed Code statutes, of course, are more than regulations; they’re laws. They count bigtime.

In other words, with regard to the issue of faculty “hiring” policies, we don’t need no stinkin’ Title 5.

Respondent Mathur is ignoring—or failing to understand—that, in reality, the State Chancellor’s office takes the following view:

Education Code section 87360 requires governing board and academic senate representatives to agree on hiring criteria, policies and procedures to be adopted by the board. (Letter from California Community College Chancellor’s Office, Ralph Black, General Counsel, January 29, 2002).

In the District’s press release, Board President Don “So sue me” Wagner offers his own spin, expressing “disappointment” that the senates have decided to force the district to “spend money on attorneys, rather than students.”

* * *

On the 10th, the Register reports that

In an unprecedented move, the faculty senates of both Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges have voted to sue their district chancellor and trustees over a new hiring policy that gives more power to college administrators at the expense of traditional academic hiring committees.

The lawsuit … asks a judge to set aside the new hiring policy because it was not approved by each college’s Academic Senate.

When the new rules were approved by a 4-3 vote by the …trustees in January, faculty representatives unsuccessfully pleaded with the board for more time to discuss them.

The state’s Education Code requires that hiring criteria and policies for new faculty members must be developed “and agreed upon jointly” by board members and the Academic Senate….

…Typically, new college instructors are selected by hiring committees made up of faculty members who are experts in the field and the head of the department. Their selection is usually ratified by the college president, the district’s board of trustees or both.

According to Wendy Gabriella, an IVC instructor and attorney who filed the lawsuit, faculty members were particularly unhappy with new rules that allow the district’s human resources director to change the scores awarded by committee members if she deems them too far off the norm and to unilaterally change interview questions.

Professors were also displeased with a new ethics and confidentiality section of the hiring policy that allows the human resources director to investigate and punish any member of a hiring committee who is accused of violating confidentiality.

“The policy allows the human resources department to accuse hiring committee members of bias, change their scores and discipline them without any due process or opportunity for appeal,” [said the] Irvine Valley Academic Senate President….

* * *

Also on the 10th, the President of the IVC Academic Senate, Greg Bishopp, sends a memo to IVC faculty. (The Saddleback Senate Prez later spams it to Saddleback faculty.) It says:

The Academic Senates of IVC and Saddleback College have filed suit in California Superior Court to block the implementation of a faculty hiring policy, which they believe to violate … the California Education Code. While the trustees and the administration of the SOCCCD maintain that their new policy, and the process used to develop this policy, does not violate the law, the Academic Senates claim that they do. In violation of the law, the Senates maintain, district administration has failed to allow faculty involvement in developing the procedures for hiring new faculty members. As a result, the adopted policy is fraught with violations of law, policy, and accepted practice.

Prez Bishopp also notes that the senates have “exhausted all internal means of appeal” and that, in January, Wagner “invited the Senates to sue the district to resolve the legality of the Board of Trustees’ alteration of board policy.”

That Wagner is quite a guy!

Bishopp closes by noting that the record

shows who has been responsible for wasting the district’s money in the past. Board President Don Wagner has stated that, “our district will again prevail on this misguided litigation.” However, in the seven legal actions brought by members of the faculty against the Board of Trustees, the courts have sided with the faculty and against the Board every single time, demonstrating that the Board, by violating the law, has been responsible for the suits, not the litigiousness of the plaintiffs. If the Board of Trustees does not wish to spend money on litigation, it should avoid breaking the law.

* * *

The district’s new faculty hiring policies (BP4011, 4011.1, 4011.2) are available online at the Saddleback College Academic Senate website.

Those who wish to read the statute should go to

Statute

To read a review of the statute and its relation to the historic AB1725 legislation, one might start by reading the local senates “handbook” on the State Academic Senate’s website:

Handbook

See you in court! —KB

Part 3

Judge Clay Smith
[10/10/09:]

Here’s what happened next:

Judge Clay Smith ruled that the district had indeed failed to include the faculty in the development of the faculty hiring policy, contrary to law. He thus ordered the district and senates to get together to develop a faculty hiring policy. But, in the end, the district’s representatives and the senates’ representatives did not see eye to eye on major issues, and so the district unilaterally pushed through the version of the policy that it liked, and it pronounced that policy the product of the committee. That policy was almost as appalling as the one that was neutralized by Smith.

Surprisingly, despite the vociferous objections of the Academic Senates to the new policy, Judge Smith ruled that the policy was indeed the product of “mutual agreement.”

It was an absurd judgment.

The Academic Senates appealed.

By summer 2005, the appellate justices unanimously acted to overturn and vacate Smith’s absurd judgment. The board tried one or two last ditch efforts to have the court reconsider, but to no avail. The academic senates had won, and that was that.

The senates had prevailed, period. That meant that the only valid policy was the one developed at the end of 1993 (that one was mutually agreed to). It was good from the faculty’s perspective.

The appellate justices urged the parties to work out their differences, and so, in the Fall of 2005, district representatives (namely, Mathur, the instigator of the original unilaterally imposed policy, and Lang, now the board president) and Academic Senate reps (namely, the two senate Presidents and the union president) mutually developed a policy that both sides could agree on.

That work was completed by late October, 2005. This mutually ageed to policy is a vast improvement.

At the time of writing, it only remains for the board to approve the new policy, and there is every indication that they will do just that. If they fail to do so, then the decidedly faculty-friendly 1993/4 policy will apply.

[The policy was approved.]

Thursday, January 28, 2010

January 28, 2010: SENATE UNPLEASANTNESS—T HE START OF SOMETHING BIG?

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