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) V.P. FOR ACADEMIC ANNIHILATION The list continues... 43. (3/6/04) CUNY GETS HAMADA BACK George Hamada left his post as VP for Academic Affairs at LaGuardia several years ago to become President of Rockland County Community College, SUNY. He was not sorely missed. He was subsequently "let go" by the RCCC board of trustees after three years on the job. The actual reasons for his booting have been shrouded in controversy and suspicion (see e-mail below). In case you haven't noticed, George is the new VP for Academic Affairs at Queensborough Community College, CUNY. Which CUNY pundit is responsible for getting this guy hired back!? Here is an e-mail we got from a Westchester journalist in reply to our inquiry into Hamada's exploits: Well, the Hamada story is a long one, but I'll give you the short version. The board never publicly stated why they let Hamada go, but weeks later, trustees voted to audit his college-related expenses at a cost of nearly $80,000. It took an entire year, and in the end it was determined that Hamada never misused public funds. But the board still felt he disregarded school policies and procedures and transferred money to various accounts without their knowledge. Basically the audit showed signs of poor bookkeeping, but no criminal intent on Hamada's part. If anything, he "exceeded his authority." I hope this helps you out. Good luck! [We withhold author's name] *************** 44. (3/7/04) MATH DEPT CHAIR QUITS UNDER INSANE CIRCUMSTANCES Assad Thomson, the formerly-fired-for-incompetence Math Prof. who, through LaGuardia sleight-of-hand, returned to become Dept Chair, has quit two and a half years into his term. Big Sister didn't find him sufficiently docile in his relations with the Administration and pressured him to step down. The threat of no promotion for any Math faculty as long as he remains in office was sufficient to cow him. While we heartily agree with the Admin's goal, we believe their method of execution represents a new low in depraved politics, even for LaGuardia. The same method also seems to be currently employed, without results, against the CIS Dept. Chair. Kamal Hajallie was elected interim Chair in an emergency election in Feb. in which there was no opposing candidate. He will serve till May, when elections for a full 3-year term will take place. Hajallie is the first pure-Math Ph.D. ever to become Chair of the Math Dept. He is a sensible guy and a competent mathematician. He is currently the dept's only hope of ever emerging from its comatose, dysfunctional state. Unfortunately, he is a chick in a pit of vipers. In May, Hajallie will likely yield to the dept's resident Pinochet-clone, signaling the permanent end of all rational activity. Stay tuned. *************** 45. (3/18/04) THREE YEARS ONLINE Laguardiacorruption.com completed its third year online today. During this period we have averaged over 1000 visits per month. Though the quality of education at LaGuardia remains third-rate, we nevertheless have made significant progress toward accomplishing one of our goals: We have exposed, to literally thousands of visitors, the corrupt mechanisms that ultimately result in poor education. Please continue to support our efforts by telling your friends about us. *************** 46. (3/24/04) E-MAIL FROM A SYMPATHETIC VISITOR As a professor of organizational theory and design, I have great sympathy and some empathy for your situation. Even with allowance for some bias (we all have it to some extent), your situation is at best, highly frustrating, and certainly deplorable. A former doctoral professor of mine who taught the theory of higher education often remarked that colleges and universities exist for faculty, not for students. It is unfortunate that your situation so aptly reinforces his theory. We only need to replace the word "faculty" with the phrase "select faculty and staff." Your misfortune has supplied me with new material for my organizational ethics lectures, for my organizational politics lectures, and for my decision-making seminars. You have also made me very happy to be employed by The College of New Jersey, so I guess I should thank you. *************** 47. (4/22/04) CUNY'S CULTURE OF MANDATED MEDIOCRITY One reason, among many, for widespread faculty mediocrity at CUNY may be found at: http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_2_sndgs05.html *************** 48. (4/25/04) 50% 2-YEAR DROPOUT RATE AT LAGUARDIA According to the 2002 CUNY Institutional Profile, 34% of the full-time freshmen admitted to LaGuardia in 2000 dropped out of the college by the end of their first year of attendance. The dropout rate rose to 50% by the end of their second year. ONLY 2% RECEIVED THEIR 2-YEAR ASSOCIATE DEGREE AFTER 2 YEARS OF ATTENDANCE. Furthermore, only 23% of the full-time freshmen admitted in 1995 had received their two-year Associate degree EIGHT years later. Among other factors, these depressing statistics are doubtless related to students' demeaning treatment at the hands of LaGuardia's inept Administration, LaGuardia's lack of academic standards, and its infamously sub-standard faculty. *************** 49. (9/16/04) HAJALLIE "WINS" MATH DEPT ELECTION; PINOCHET A NO-SHOW (CONT'D FROM ITEM 44 ABOVE) Hajallie ran unopposed. It would appear that our resident Pinochet-clone has no more stomach for politicking. Maybe he finally realizes he will never even rise to obscurity at LaGuardia, let alone to his dream of Dean. He just doesn't have what it takes to be a real crook. It's wait-and-see now, but the latest omen is bad. Back in item 36, we predicted the adoption of a remedial arithmetic text written by two of the department's arch-numbskulls, along with a SUNY committee of non-mathematicians and weekend-Ph.D "educators". Hajallie is aware the book is pitifully worthless nonsense and has said so, yet he has been forced to adopt it for mandatory use. Woe to the students, as usual. We expect an overwhelming disaster on the new CUNY remedial math exam in December. At that time our airhead President will find herself in deep excrement. She may even contemplate the hiring of a few competent mathematicians. *************** 50. (12/25/04) CORRUPTION AT BROOKLYN COLLEGE (UPDATE) The complete story of the corrupt machinations of the Brooklyn College history department, in complicity with Provost (and ex-LaGuardia floozie) Roberta Matthews, against celebrated scholar K.C. Johnson may be found at: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/sternsteindc.htm *************** 51. (1/21/05) RECENT E-MAILS Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly. This kind of thing is happening all over the country. Thank God that David Horowitz is leading a national charge to get these Stalinist pigs out of State-supported institutions. [See http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/] *************** 52. (3/30/05) BOGUS REMEDIAL ENGLISH AT LAGUARDIA E-mail from an instructor in the LaGuardia English Dept: Here's something you might appreciate: From the time the ACT [Remedial Test students must pass to graduate] was instituted at CUNY until the Spring of 2004, the pass rate on the writing section for students who retested at the end of their remedial courses hovered at about ONE THIRD. This Fall President Mellow decided to make instructors' pass rates one of the major criteria for rehiring or promotion. At the end of this past Fall, I had to chuckle when Dr. Hanson [Dept Chair] congratulated us because our pass rate increased to 50%. Did the year's incoming class have markedly better skills than previous classes? Did we all stumble onto some extraordinary teaching methods? If you answered "yes" to either question, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you. Seriously, amongst ourselves, some of us admitted that we were spending more time teaching people how to take the ACT test at the expense of inculcating students with the writing skills they so badly need. I've seen plenty of students in my 101 classes who passed the test but couldn't compose a cogent sentence, much less a paragraph or an essay. Well...I guess the increased pass rate got us and Dr. Hanson off Mellow's hot seat. But I have very little confidence in the ability of many of the students to complete any subsequent college courses. Many of the students try very hard. But sometimes I feel we're lying to them when we tell them they're prepared for college-level work because they can pass ENG 099 and the ACT test. Sometimes I think we've lied to some of them by letting them into a college in the first place. Some may never be able to do college-level work. But there are many more, I think, who may have the ability but have educational deficiencies that can't be corrected in two years, much less in twelve or six weeks. *************** 53. (3/30/05) BOGUS REMEDIAL MATH AT LAGUARDIA On its first trial of the new Compass remedial exam, the Math Dept raised its pass rate from 50% to 70%. At this rate of improvement, LaGuardia will produce its first Nobel laureate by the end of this decade. Did the students get overnight brain transplants? Alas, no. Math profs report that students who are as hopelessly innumerate as they are illiterate have nevertheless passed the new exam. The exam results give students the tragically false impression that they have been prepared for a college-level math curriculum. This is a fraud perpetrated by the parasites who run CUNY to support the illusion that the chaos that passes for education here is valid. They are not concerned one whit with integrity in education or with preparing students for college work. They ignore the simple truth that the illiteracy and innumeracy that took 12 years to wreak cannot possibly be undone in 12 weeks, particularly in an institution crippled by incompetence. Like all successful parasites, their sole concern is the preservation of their own miserable existence. *************** 54. (5/22/05) MASSIVE GRADE INFLATION IN PRECALCULUS Below is a copy of the Pre-Test Prof. M. Millman gave to his Calculus I class at its first meeting of this Spring I semester. Anyone with some expertise in Precalculus will agree it is just about the simplest Precalculus test one can devise. The class average was 43. There were only two grades above 60. CALCULUS I PRE-TEST 1. Combine into a single logarithm: lnx - lny + lnz 2. Evaluate: 4^(3/2) 3. Add: 1/x + 2/y 4. Solve for x: x^2 + 3x + 2 = 0 5. Find cos 0 6. Solve for x: 3(1 + 2x) = 9 7. One side of a right triangle is 2 and the hypotenuse is 5. Find the other side. 8. f(x) = 3x / (x - 1). Find f(2). 9. Find the slope of the line y = 3x + 2 10. Solve for x, y: 2x + y = 5, x – y = 1 13 of the 18 students in Millman's Calculus I class reported the following nauseating data in a voluntary questionaire. To characterize most of these students as miserably ill-prepared for Calculus would be a charitable understatement, as demonstrated by their scores on this pathetically simple Pre-Test. Worse still, their Precalculus grades seem to be inflated to the point of outright fraud: Precalculus Grade, Precalculus Instructor, Calculus I Pre-Test Score A, Hossein, 50 A, Niezgoda, 60 A, Perez, 60 A, Millman, 90 :) B+, Ibrahim, 10 B+, Stolze, 20 B, Thompson, 30 B, Stolze, 40 C+, Muir, 50 C, Chan, 40 C, Rizza, 30 C, student forgot, 30 student forgot, student forgot, 0 (yes, zero) It would be a simple matter to check the accuracy of these reported Precalculus grades in departmental records. It might also have been edifying to have given the pretest to the other sections of Calculus I. However, the Math Dept has not seen fit to do so. Prof. Millman relates that,"Teaching this class has for me the agonizing quality of talking to a wall. I imagine the experience of comprehending little or no Calculus is equally painful for the students. It is clear by now that about 2/3 of them will fail the course. They will need to retake Precalculus if they are ever going to pass a Calculus I course taught by any instructor with a modicum of competence and integrity". The cause of grade inflation at LaGuardia is related to the unfortunate system we labor under: 1. Adjuncts’ fear of non-rehiring. 2. Untenured faculty’s fear of non-tenure. 3. Tenured faculty’s fear of non-promotion. 4. Incompetent faculty’s fear of exposure of their incompetence thru student complaints. *************** 55. (5/25/05) HOSTOS II ? Blowhard administrators at LaGuardia constantly remind us that our students read and write about 150 different languages. Unfortunately, English is not one of them - although it might be if the English Dept maintained any meaningful educational standards. Here is an e-mail from a member of the LaGuardia English Dept that is reminiscent of the scandal in the Hostos Community College English Dept a few years ago: While the pass rate on the Writing section of the CUNY Remedial Exam (Compass) for students who completed the remedial English courses improved from 1/3 to 1/2 [see BOGUS REMEDIAL ENGLISH, #52 above], the pass rate on the exit exams for the remedial class has consistently been 70 to 80 percent [!]. The instructors make up the exit exams, which are approved or rejected by the English Chair's Deputy. The exit exam is supposed to be an essay the student writes in response to a "text" (which may be a newspaper article, a popular song or a photo). The exams are graded on a pass-fail basis by two other English Profs. If both are not in agreement that the essay passes or fails, it is passed on to the Deputy to decide. Well, I've been in on a few of these grading sessions. Some of the questions are absurdly easy. For example, one Prof asked students to relate an incident in a story to an incident in their own lives. Others asked students to do little more than summarize a text. The most scandalous aspect of this, however, is that the "creampuff" questions are usually administered by senior, tenured faculty members. No junior faculty member - and certainly no adjunct instructor - would get away with giving such easy assignments. If students pass the exit exam, they pass English 099. If they then pass the Compass Exam, which is not exactly rocket science [see items 53, 54 above], they move on to English 101, the course everyone has to take. Now you know at least part of the reason why we see students who can't write a single simple, coherent sentence in a class for College credit. Naturally, these students fail the class and those of us who teach it are accused of racism and other evils. *************** 56. (9/5/05) PRESIDENT MELLOW IS CAUGHT IN A REPREHENSIBLE LIE Back on 3/7/04 (see item #44 above), we exposed President Mellow's reprehensible policy of no promotions in the Computer Science Dept unless the chairman quits. Prof Gene Yao of that Dept suffered several consecutive denials of a well-deserved promotion under this policy. Fortunately, he had irrefutable evidence of the existence of Mellow's treachery and was able to convince the normally gun-shy union to defend him. The matter went to arbitration this year. Mellow, in a bare-faced lie, denied her no-promotion policy. The arbitrator did not swallow the lie and Yao won his appeal (but not his promotion). If ethics were an option at LaGuardia, the Faculty would demand Mellow's resignation. Regrettably, this will not happen due to the Faculty's unlimited capacity to absorb B.S. and their appalling lack of conscience and cojones in allowing the College to degenerate to this level. Here is the article that appeared in the 9/05 Clarion [PSC union newspaper]: LA GUARDIA DECISION IMPROPER, ARBITRATOR FINDS By Dania Rajendra In July the administration of LaGuardia Community College lost another dispute with the PSC. It was the third case in six months in which an arbitrator or judge ruled that LaGuardia had violated the union contract. In the latest ruling, an arbitrator found that LaGuardia President Gail Mellow had improperly denied a promotion to Gene Yao, who sought an associate professorship. Professors at the campus say Mellow's high handed management style has alienated faculty and lowered morale. "What she did to me is very wrong, said Yao, who is in the Computer Information Systems Department. "I was really held hostage." ADVISED TO WITHDRAW Yao had applied for promotion to associate professor in 2001. The departmental and college wide P&B committees approved his promotion, but Mellow rejected it. She told Yao he should find a senior faculty mentor other than department chair Gerald Meyer and complete an externship, outside the college, to learn new skills for the promotion. Yao told Clarion that when he did both and reapplied, administration officials told him, "You don't stand a chance," and advised him to withdraw his application. "I was very upset," Yao remembered. "It's only fair that anyone who applies should not be prejudged and should have a chance to be reviewed." In response, he set up a meeting with Vice President for Academic Affairs John Bihn, his new mentor, and Meyer. "The purpose of the meeting was for me to find out what was really going on”, he said. "I wanted to know why I didn't stand a chance to be promoted." But at the meeting, Yao said, Bihn only criticized Meyer, and said nothing about why he was not looked upon favorably for promotion. When the college Personnel & Budget Committee met it again voted to approve Yao's promotion. Mellow looked "angry and upset after the vote," Meyer testified at the arbitration hearing. Soon after the vote, Meyer testified, Mellow summoned him to her office and said, "I want to you to know that Gene Yao will never thrive in this college as long as you are the chair." CREDIBILITY DOUBTED Mellow testified that she had never said this, but the arbitrator did not believe her. Reviewing the evidence, arbitrator Bonnie Siber Weinstock wrote that she was "persuaded" that, contrary to the president's testimony, Mellow had in fact made this statement. Meyer "had offered to step down [as chair] so Mr. Yao could be promoted, but Mr. Yao rejected that suggestion," the ruling stated. Meyer was re elected as department chair on May 22, and Mellow denied Yao's promotion on June 12. DECISION 'INFECTED' Beyond questioning Mellow's credibility, Weinstock concluded that the president's decision was in violation of the contract. "The Arbitrator simply finds that the process was infected by improper considerations," she wrote. "President Mellow's judgment was tainted by her disagreement with the Chair of the CIS Department" The arbitrator also listed "a series of factual errors" [i.e., lies] in the president's statement of reasons for denying Yao's promotion. *************** 57. (10/24/05) LAGUARDIACORRUPTION.COM CITED BY BOSTON COLLEGE See http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/hecm/cmlinks.htm *************** |
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