Even though the newspaper’s office only is minutes from campus, anticipating a cluster of traffic, I left early yesterday for what was billed as a 4 o’clock Presidential Search community meeting at West Los Angeles College.
Presidential Search? Maybe they are considering giving a second chance to an unshaven alcoholic, and they can’t make up their busy little minds?
This assembly sounded like one of those bizarre concoctions that the academic left thinks up during bathroom breaks.
Rolling into the parking garage at West, I looked for familiar faces but was met by empty spaces, which turned out to be prophetic.
By the appointed hour, this bureaucratic contraption was groaning. Tempted by irresistibility, the offbeat attraction had lured an audience of one, Ms. Veda Veach, a delightful and astute lady retired from UCLA. She turned out to be the sharpest person in the room.
Not that the competition was stiff, which easily can or should be confused with stiffs.
A Time to be Prudent?
At the front of the room in one of the beautiful new buildings on this lushly handsome campus were two curious adults, which is probably where I should stop.
Unfazed by the smallest crowd in the history of the world, I swear the two had been robotically programmed to spit out a script. They were not going to deviate.
Oh, they were not exactly staring, but their blank expressions never moved for 38 minutes. Either that is control or boredom. Maybe they were transcribed earlier for re-broadcast at this time.
We could start with the young woman, who has a longer title than my first two marriages melded together, which they shouldn’t have been. One Julie Golder Alion, J.D., is a Search Consultant for the Assn. of Community College Trustees. It probably did not take long to master her job. Throughout the meeting, I kept hearing Ms. Golder, as she prefers, recycling the same frazzled question to the knowledgeable Ms. Veach, “What other qualities?”
The other actor was Dandy Dan, known to his august colleagues as Dr. Daniel J. LaVista, Chancellor of the 9-campus Los Angeles Community College District.
Dandy — as we probably would have eventually addressed each other had we the opportunity to be more collegial — instantly emerged as a sore thumb, or more plainly, a secretive sorehead.
Did the Community College District hire him on purpose last year?
Image? Who Cares?
If the geniuses who run the community college system are interested in improving — heck, how about establishing? — public relations, they will keep Dandy locked in his office where nobody can look. Or seated in the corner with a brown paper bag over his head.
They thought the recently canned Larry Eisenberg was a disaster for the community college system? Has anyone paid attention to Dandy?
When the huge crowd for the Community Meeting barged into the room, I took a seat in front, in case the acoustics were in the same pathetic condition as the public relations.
I withdrew a recorder from my briefcase.
Dandy, a humorless scold, shot back a withering look as if I had just called him a Republican.
Waggling a finger, he swiftly scanned the landscape of his lugubrious lexicon, skidding to a halt when he reached “No.”
Why? Just because.
Oh, how adult.
Instead of engaging Dandy in what would have been a lopsided matchup, I retreated.
Without a recorder in sight, Dandy, an Easterner and darned proud of it, felt free to blister the low state of California education and its disappointing lack of innovation.
The whole District office, however, has not been fitted with ill-mannered misfits. A charming woman named Shawn Tramel — spelling out her title would carry us past the dinner hour — helpfully explained that West L.A. College hopes to have a President in place by August.
That is when West’s agreement with the perky and capable Interim Prez, Dr. Rose Marie Joyce, expires.
Dr. Joyce, if you will forgive the daring wit, is a dandy fit.
Hopefully, she will be able to squeeze in a few tutorials with Dandy the next four months regarding manners and the woeful absence of even a teardrop of public relations.
P.R. never may have been Dandy’s career weapon of choice.
Consider this bizarro outtake from 15 years ago.
From the Baltimore Sun, Jan. 27, 1996:
For the nearly 400 professors and administrators offered a buyout at Baltimore County's community colleges, the race will go to the swiftest and the strongest. To secure a spot in the buyout, eligible employees could face an overnight test of endurance — showing up in Dundalk no earlier than 12:30 a.m. on Feb. 16 and remaining in line for more than six hours before applications are accepted at 7 a.m. Only the first 50 are guaranteed a buyout. Those who do not make the list collected in a building at Dundalk Community College will face possible “dislocation,” or termination, under the reorganization of the two-year colleges by Chancellor Dr. Daniel J. LaVista.
