February 11, 2017 – Mohave Community College, Arizona

Technically, I visited this college on Friday afternoon but as I have much travel to do over the weekends so, I’m logging it here for clarity.  

Arizona Differences: they don’t have motorcycle helmet laws or daylight savings time, they do have Cracker Barrel Restaurants, and they don’t have unionized teachers.  I know the latter from a conversation with an Associate Dean at Mohave Community College.  It was an enlightening and interesting conversation.  Whereas in the morning it felt like everyone I ran into was a warm relative from a similar family, when I arrived at MCC in the afternoon I knew most students would be long gone, so I found the campus Deans office and started making inquiries about the size of the college etc.  These questions were clearly above the pay grade of the student worker manning the front desk so I was welcomed into the AD’s office.  

There is a status thing that academics sometimes do when confronted with another.  The dance of “Hi who are you” resolves to a few basic questions on pedigree.  Where do you teach? Full time or part time?  PhD or MA?  What field.  Getting the butt sniffing out of the way, I think I communicated clearly that I was not looking for a job or wanting anything other than collegiality and to learn how colleges elsewhere worked.  This encounter and my subsequent, very enlightening, conversation reinforced the stereotype an administrative perspective is not one of we are all in this together.  I learned we shared similar frustrations with educational politics, and that in function, we are dealing with the same technical issues.  But I did not get a strong feeling of solidarity.  In Arizona protocol for the day to day college decisions on process does not appear to be as written out as in California.  I’m referring here to title V and other legislation or union contracts that set out decision-making authority on some specific issues in quite some detail.  My impression was that even without this legislation scaffolding.  The problems are still the same, and they are no easier for leaders of a college to work out.  People still need to work with other people, and respect and clear communication of common goals.  Not doing that is what keeps getting us into turf battles, and entrenched positions.  Just like on the national politic if we do not understand the other party we have no other options but to oppose, deny and destroy.  Many of the technical issues that were frustrating at MCC are the same that we have struggled with.  The CCSF way of doing things is no better, we just had and have to struggle through them until we can find operational systems that work for everybody.  (We are still engaging in this struggle on a daily basis…)  Today’s conversation reminded me that I still need to write Will Wu a big thank you letter. He has done functional wonders for the college by just explaining, and communicating details and deadlines. 

Camping:

Leaving Kingman I went in search of an inexpensive campsite to stay at.  GPS did not tell me the destination elevation when I set off and I ended up in the mountains south of Kingman.  It was excessively windy in town when I left and the campsite was up in Hualapai Mountain where it was windy and cold!  There was still snow on the ground as I pulled up.  Considering the impending darkness and distance required to go back I decided to risk staying with in hope that I would not freeze or blow away by morning.   I was the only person, crazy enough to be camping at this time of year.  The only other neighbors were some elk.  Not a good sign when your co-habituating with what looks like reindeer.  The campsite also had Rentable teepees many with dirty snow piled up on them.  I found a teepee deck platform that was not in use and the extra ground insulation made the cold bearable and the mountain took the brunt of the harsh winds.  By morning more of the snow had melted but I forsake a campground breakfast for plugging in my heated jacket liner and pointing the motorcycle south…