* What would make the task forces better?
* Are there task forces that should be added?
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Verified Facts
>>> The Board of Trustees would not agree to have a student at their meeting. Instead, John Henry Baliton (ACsG President) met with John Puerner (Board Presdent) and Jean Ford (SVP Human Resources) on Wednesday prior to the Board meeting. Baliton presented the student issues, and Puerner agreed to hand out the one-sheet to the Board himself.
>>> Rachel Tiede was dismissed without options for further employment on May 28th, contrary to statements by Koshalek. See her statement.
>>> Nathan was requested to remove his blog post by administration officials, but he has been apologized to.
>>> The erasure of Nate Young's image was intentional, but there has been an apology and the image was restored. Evidence.
>>> Nate Young resigned because he disagreed about the direction of education
>>> Rachel Tiede was dismissed without options for further employment on May 28th, contrary to statements by Koshalek. See her statement.
>>> Nathan was requested to remove his blog post by administration officials, but he has been apologized to.
>>> The erasure of Nate Young's image was intentional, but there has been an apology and the image was restored. Evidence.
>>> Nate Young resigned because he disagreed about the direction of education
20 comments:
With the exception of Education, the task forces are headed by people who have no talent in the area and have horrible relationships. It is an insult to our extremely talented CTO and to the vast number of faculty and others that Tech and Community/Art Center Relationships are headed by people who were "yes" people to Richard, no matter what, and "no" people to everyone else!
We need to have real representation no just input in running the college. We means the faculty and the students and the folks in the shops and studios.
Art Center is about collaboration and creativity. Lets see that spirit in the creation of meaningful task forces!
I agree.
The task forces need to be rethought for the next 18 months to go smoothly.
To show that RK and the Board is serious about carrying out the mandate, we need new task forces.
Dismantle the current task forces. They are stacked with political insiders and rubber-stampers.
We need transparency all around. How can we begin to assess task forces when we don't even know who is "Future of Art Center"?
It seems like so far the only task force that has been fully formed is the Education.
However, the biggest issue for the task forces is their vague description of mission statement. There is a lack of specificity of tactics.
"This task force will ensure that the educational agenda continues to move forward, providing Art Center students with the highest quality experiences and opportunities."
This statement does not say anything about how things will be taken care of, and the same goes for the rest of the mission statements.
This kind of vague, non-specific, un-detailed but grand language is already in the admissions books and part of the problem is that very language that excludes everybody in the schools community. There is a desperate need for transparency in operations of the administration. The mission statements need to provide more detail on how they intend to accomplish their grand visions and what is the educational ideology and agenda.
I agree the current proposal has many 'insiders'. (I think some of these people need to leave the school period).I feel there should be more current faculty on these 'task-forces' I believe that many of our teachers (not all) have a good handle on what is necessary.
Outrolugar - I agree with you that the language is very vague. This needs to be addressed ASAP.
Its more like PR than anything else. I think these task forces were a last ditch effort by RK to try to appease everyone while at the same time maintaining more control over the college. I think there are far too many RK sympathisers on these task forces.
Anonymous wrote:
"We need transparency all around. How can we begin to assess task forces when we don't even know who is "Future of Art Center"?"
Unfortunately, the "culture of fear" still persists at Art Center (and for good reason). A big part of why we're here writing this has to do with this culture of fear.
"I think these task forces were a last ditch effort by RK to try to appease everyone while at the same time maintaining more control over the college."
Yes, they indeed were. And he is STILL in charge, and none of these "steps" have been scrapped.
An edmail I just wrote to John Puerner, chairman of the board:
----------
Dear Mr Puerner,
Thank you for posting the recent statement from the board. I have a follow-up question about the aftermath.
Before the board's meeting, Richard Koshalek created several task forces to supposedly address student/alumni/faculty unrest.
These task forces are being widely criticized as being stacked with political "bridge" insiders and wholly inapprorpriate choices. For example, the appointment of Rich Haluschak to numberous task forces, as well as Jean Ford. Few on campus feel that these task forces are anything but last-ditch efforts on Koshalek's behalf to create some illusion of change.
I think that it is very important that the board address these concerns and seriously consider the dismantling of these specific task forces until some trust can be re-established.
thank you anon 6/26/08 8:47 AM
Don't worry about the task forces anymore. John P's statement only endorsed 1 of them. The most straight forward one, the one about IT. A nice way of saying they don't endorse the other three. Soon they will be de-solved and at minimum redefined. If a new org is announced, then they will be gone all together. How could they keep task forces that were created by the ousted president? Pretty basic. Doesn't mean that all those people are bad or gone. Just that their premise and need has changed significantly.
John Puerner also released a statement saying that the master-plan was being halted. Less than 5 days before the school went ahead and FILED that same master-plan with the city of Pasadena.
John Puerner is a liar.
I want to address the educational task force. It is headed by Nik Hafermaas. Nik is one of the few Chairs hired through an international search and selected by a search committee, then hired by Nate. (The other two candidates were top educators from the UK and USA--so we can assume that he was the best candidate worldwide!)
Second, Nik was selected by Nate Young to be a Dean. Then he was selected by Richard to head the Task Force. If he was an "inside man" for BOTH Richard and Nate, that either says that he was a trusted leader respected by many or that he was great at playing politics. Either way, I can think of few other "leadership players" who would have respect all around. If there are better options from among the Deans or the Chairs, I'd like to hear them.
Now, let’s look at the make-up of the rest of the Task Force. Many of these people were elected by their peers. The rest were chosen by Nik (not RK).
Chair representation:
Marty Smith—Chair of Product Design, an experienced Chair with an established track record leading the #1 program in the country
David Mocarski—Chair of Environmental Design, former chair of Illustration, long-time contributor and well respected faculty and chair at Art Center in many different forms
Laurence Dreiband—Chair of Fine Art Media (elected by his peers to this post)
Anne Burdick—Chair of Graduate Media Design, ACCD alum
Jane McFadden—Director of Art and Design History, Humanities and Design Sciences (elected by her peers to this post)
Faculty Representation:
Mary Matyseck, Foundation Studies, Faculty Council (selected by Faculty Council to this post)
Rob Ball, Environmental Design faculty, ACCD alum
Student Representation:
Jillian Mamey of the ACSG—outspoken, feisty—the student who ran the Ahmanson student meeting and attended the Education Committee meeting with the Board wearing her Education First gear and reportedly speaking out without being intimidated. (selected by ACSG to this post)
If anything, it’s a bit too heavily weighted toward the Industrial Design area and one or two of those people might need to be replaced by someone from Film, Photography, or Illustration. But I find it hard to believe that anyone out there thinks that this is not a well-rounded group.
The problem, of course, is that Mariana Amatullo and Rich Halushek are also on the task force—I have heard that is something the task force is going to take on.
From what I know, the Education Task Force, at least, has been pro-active and has posed all the questions about its role that are being posed here.
Please, don't paint all task forces with the same brush. In regards to Puerner's comments about the IT task force--that's a hoot! As mentioned here, the IT task force is the one with the least relevant head assigned to it. Perhaps the Board wants all the Task Forces headed by the CFO.
Has anyone heard when the new task forces will be announced?
The point is that its taken them allmost 10 years and a major upheaval in order for the admin to start addressing issues that have been ongoing. The president saw that he was in trouble and in a last ditch effort decided to set up these task forces. Now he has 18 months to try and start doing the job he was supposed to be doing since 1999. No offence but I think a new approach is needed from new leadership. I saw that some people are trying to defend Nik, but honestly he was appointed to the task force after Nate left (and i know he loves the idea of the DRC). At the end of the day these forces need to be abolished and new leadership needs to be installed. I doubt anything good will be carried out in an efficient manner during the next 18 months. There are still too many people with vague loyalties and jaded views towards the students in place.
Could you expand on your comment jaded views toward the students in place.
Do you think that faculty and and Chairs office are jaded? or just administration.
And do you think these jaded people believe ACCD would be better off without this scrutiny?
I don't want to waste time talking about what has already happened and will not change but are we talking about a significant population who would rather not do the hard work of addressing the issues?
I am not sure who wrote the jaded comment about students. Actually I think the students may be skeptical at what they see when attending the task forces or similar meetings. It is great they are interested in attending despite how late in the term it is. On one hand they have less information and insight into what is going on, yet in general I actually think that the students are quite smart and insightful. They may not have the depth of knowledge or experience, but their insight and inner gut feeling that what is happening today is just not right or efficient is quite high. When you pay $15K every 4 months, you pay attention. My impression is that studnets are quite skeptical and put off by the charade they have to sit through at each meeting. Nothing has or will really happen through these politically driven pretend meetings.(I guess some do try to make the best of them, but none the less, they will end up ineffective.) And thus students view it as a waste of time watching dysfunctional leadership stomp around, make lists, and pretend to be in charge. Has any board member attended any of them?
I think some of the jading may also come from the fact that the prezidente appeared to be super available and involved with student groups before his big vote. And already this has died off. They now feel tricked. I heard he doesn't even really come to the main campus anymore. Rumor is he hides out elsewhere. What a great example we will have for the next 18 months.
NEED MORE FACULTY REPRESENTATION!
Don't forget that all the leaders of all the task forces and the acting CAO were picked and approved and previously pro Richard. ?? This is not a biased comment. Look into it. And this wonderful example of letting the ousted leader pick all the interim heads was demonstrated to be successful where? What? This is just bad example of how to set up a balanced and open minded transition team. Students. Do your research. Something is wrong here.
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