Continued from yesterday's post. More of my conversation with Don at Buffet Flats, December 2, 1988 from Bendnotes 4. NOTE BENE [Accuracy disclaimer]: Please note that all discussion here about contractual issues may have been deeply flawed by the weak understanding of the person doing the reporting back then.
------------------------
Don talked about how the president . . has come to identify himself very closely with the organization over the past couple of years. "It seems like the president and the school are the same thing," he said. He told me that a month ago he had been in the president's office where [the president] had been yelling at him and shaking a finger in his face. Don seemed amazed that he would be yelled at by the president. . . .
. . . I said that it sounded like paternalism, but that [the president's] paternalism had helped the school over the years. Don agreed, and in his agreement mentioned how wealthy the school was, indicating that the funding the school has achieved over the years is much due to [the president].
But he is afraid that no real changes will be possible until a new president comes in. I didn't ask, because I didn't have the presence of mind to do so, what that meant in terms of the negotiations.
Don is also disgruntled with the president and administration because of the standards being set up for promotion and for appropriate use of the professional improvement time. See, we have to agree )(through our professional improvement plans) to do 8 weeks of professional improvement work over a four year time period. All the college people do. Part of the current negotiations involve a fight over how those 8 weeks will be spent (professional improvement can mean going to summer school, going off on a dig, etc. Needs to be a formal program, of sorts.)
The administration wants to say that the 8 weeks have to be spent in blocks of 6 and 2 and 4. Don suggest that this decision supports and aids only those faculty members who are academically oriented. Don suggests that this decision supports and aids only those faculty members who are academically oriented. He says that the college has four different tasks: developmental education (beginning writing/reading, bonehead math); college preparation, vocational-technical education; and (I think the last was) community eduction. Vo-tech people, for their professional improvement, are more likely to go away for week long programs in industries like at general motors. If the administration decides that only 2 and 6 or 4 and 4 is appropriate, they will be constraining the work of vo-tech people, making it very difficult for them to get their professional improvement plans through the system. According to Don, the administration legitimates this choice by saying that it's just too difficult to let people decide for themselves what the best time period is. that it's too complicated to let some folks take a week at a time while others take 8 weeks at a time. Interesting that the choice will be made on the side of the academic types. Don thinks that the president wants the college to go more and more toward the purely academic. don believes that that would be a mistake and a denial of the many roles the school needs to play. He also told me that the president wants to get rid of the developmental courses because they don't look good (he indicated that the president wants the school to have a national reputation).
"Like our track program." Don was talking about his amazement about the track team. It's the first year we've had a competitive sports program. And, in our first year, COCC's track team came in second, nationally, in its division. Don was amazed, but he also seemed to be suggesting an analogy that I didn't quite follow between what's happened with the track team and what the president wants to do with the school.
In talking with Don, I positioned myself as a good guy, concerned about the region and its needs. I don't think this was just an act. But you be the judge. I find that I am just too many people these days. I wonder what will happen if they all get together in a room at the same time.
-------------------
Tomorrow's post from Bendnotes 4: "Kake Positions Herself as a Friend of the Administration"
No comments:
Post a Comment