Thoughts on a Phony Parade

Grip and Grin Euphoria. www.japantimes.co.jp

The following email came out today from the fearless Vice President of Public Relations at Northwest College:

You’re invited to a brief groundbreaking ceremony for the college’s new Yellowstone Building next Thursday, May 16, at 4PM at the construction site just west of the tennis courts. An invitation post card was put into your mailbox this morning. As you’ll see, the post card also includes announcement of President Prestwich’s Farewell Reception the day before; more about that event will come to you from Board of Trustees President Mark Westerhold.

I hope you’ll put the groundbreaking ceremony on your calendars and plan to help NWC launch construction of our exciting new instructional building.

Thanks, all.

Mark

After reading this, all I could imagine was that this would be another one of those dull gatherings featuring old, important-people-dressed-in-suits carrying on with a bunch of sterile, gold-plated, one-time-use shovels resulting in another one of those overblown grip-and-grin photo sessions.

In short, a phony parade. And the only people more phony at a phony parade are those that attend. 

Yet, my hope is that this ground-breaking ceremony will result in something less predictable than the above scenario.

I have a couple ideas.

How about a bunch of students with regular shovels doing the actual ground breaking? Any students… whoever wanted to come up and shovel. Perhaps even a Bobcat handy to give the students a “construction thrill.” We can leave the important people in suits on the sidelines. They get paid enough as it is. They need no further recognition.

Could we have a ground-breaking contest? As in, who can shovel off the most sod (measured in square feet) in… say, five minutes.

I don’t know. Honestly I haven’t given it much thought, but I’ve given it a lot more thought than anyone who organizes a phony parade.

I was going to send my suggestion in a “reply all” response, but I have a tendency to get in trouble when I make suggestions like this via a campus-wide email, so I’m subscribing to that “once burned, twice-shy” outlook—and safely posting it here.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe the ground-breaking ceremony will be something with a little more imagination, but I doubt it. After all, we are talking Northwest College here—a place where we tout originality and creativity, but when it gets right down to it, we fall in line and follow everyone else to justify our institutional direction.

At the risk of being a phony, I may have to attend just to see if I’m wrong.

Postscript: As expected the groundbreaking ceremony was ceremoniously unimaginative. Each VIP took turns at the podium to bring the sparse audience to a level of excitement they hadn't experienced since... um, ...maybe lunch that same day. Gold-plated shovels (spray-painted by one of the physical plant employees) were driven into the already-broken ground by the hard-hat wearing VIPs in nice suits (with the exception of the one token student). 

Photo by: www.japantimes.co.jp

Northwest College: Marching Toward Mediocrity

Northwest College Landmark, a photo by mdt1960 on Flickr.

It was announced in the college email today that Northwest College photographer David Vaughan resigned from his position—effective immediately.

The email came from Payroll Specialist Tracy Gasaway, but it was a forward from the Human Resources Director, Jill Anderson. Why Anderson couldn’t have sent the announcement to everyone herself is beyond me. Yet, another illustration of the convoluted practices of an administration that is far from being above board.

I learned earlier this morning that Vaughan turned his keys in sometime after midnight, when no one was around.

This was a case of someone who wasn’t really wanted—someone not appreciated. This cloud of ingratitude has lingered since Vaughan’s first year on the job when he learned newly-hired college president Miles LaRowe would not have supported the photography position had LaRowe been on the job sooner. An air of non-support and disinterest for his position has prevailed since that first year.

Given such neglect, it seems reasonable that the college’s leadership considered firing Vaughan at any given time, but they couldn’t produce any dirt on him. So, like any spineless, paranoid and heartless operation, they strung him out—making things so discouraging for him, that he simply gave up and quit on the college.

The verbal language that came from those in his department and the administration was typical administrative lip service. But, when it came to putting things in writing there was only a vacuum. No one really supported or fought for Vaughan except those who had no power or real input to his situation. Even the photography department that educated Dave years ago and its four-faculty-members-strong status was relatively mute.

Ironically, other members in his department glided effortlessly through the job-banding process and saw significant pay increases—$10-15K more than his salary. His plea for a proper job banding and compensation was passed around from one incompetent administrator to another like an unwanted stepchild. In the end, Vice President of College Relations, Mark Kitchen and Human Resources Director, Jill Anderson even admitted their own detachment and ignorance of Dave and his position as they planned to hand his case over to an external consultant. Incompetence prevails again at Northwest College. But really, they simply didn’t care.

It’s disturbing to know that Vaughan doesn’t have another job lined up at this time… that’s how bad it was for him. Imagine how miserable you’d have to be in a job, leaving it without having anything else lined up—given the current economical climate.

Ironically, this past spring, an anonymous source reported that Vice President of Administrative Services, Kim Mills received a $10,000 pay increase—something V.P. Kitchen could not verify or deny in his highly, self-touted “rumor clearinghouse” intranet site. One has to wonder how much flack Mills endured for his comfy $10K boost compared to Vaughan’s three-year pursuit for proper job banding. And to no one’s surprise, Mills is considered one of the key administrators who had strongly objected to Vaughan’s job banding reclassification.

Dave Vaughan, College Photographer, a photo by mdt1960 on Flickr.

Another individual who is also critical of the college made a poignant observation about how trouble seems to find those at Northwest College who don’t fit a “Stepford” profile. Such individuals typically work in their own circles due to a unique component in their jobs. Sadly, these are the people that make any learning institution dynamic—which is what education should be. How can a school be dynamic if everyone is on the same page? Like racial profiling, if you’re not seeing the world through the same lens as everyone else at Northwest College, you’ll likely be dismissed.

College professor Harriet Bloom Wilson was one of the first to chime in regarding Vaughan’s departure, “What a pity. David’s photographs have captured all that is special and beautiful about Northwest for years. They represent us around the world.”

My guarded response to Bloom-Wilson’s comment (because I’ve been reprimanded for “improper use” of college email) was simply, “Yeah, starting with myself, he made us look more special and beautiful than we really are.”

What I really wanted to say was something like the following:

“Way to go NWC administration… another step closer to mediocrity.”

“NWC… you will be absorbed.” (From a popular Star Trek episode)

“NWC… where mediocrity prevails.”

There’s so many descriptors of NWC’s administrative leadership that have come up again and again in conversation over the years regarding the dismissals of talented staffers like Dave who have left on their own or were removed outright. So, I’ll put these descriptors here so there can be no doubt as to the words that are spoken in such conversations about the college’s leadership:

Ineffectual
Vapid
Paranoid
Two-faced
Phonies
Insidious

Myopic
Pollyanna
Nefarious

Along the lines of nefarious, several NWC staff members have benefited in their elevated salaries and retirements by listing the supervision of Dave’s efforts in their job description. This is the greatest deception of all because from Day One, Vaughan has been a one-man photo operation who has scheduled shoots, made first-level photo-editorial decisions, developed and executed unique and creative compositions for shoots, made purchase decisions regarding equipment and supplies, communicated with all college staff regarding photography work and managed an extensive data base of images. No one “above” him directed Vaughan in any of these areas. I hope the light of shame finds and exposes these individuals in their incompetent, self-serving, resume-building, life-wrecking ways.

In parting, Vaughan was responsible for many things that never credited his contribution. Most outstanding was coming up with the college’s slogan/jingle, “Northwest College: Your future, our focus.”

In the past years as Vaughan’s enthusiasm waned thanks to the insipid support coming from those around him, he developed a few more slogans that were more accurate of what he felt—reflective of his experience as a Northwest College employee. One of my favorites was, “Northwest College: Don’t not do.”

Thanks Dave for all you did. No thanks to Northwest College and its toxic administrative culture—strangling anything extraordinary or with an inkling of creativity.

Picking On Posers

Art Tourist
Originally uploaded by mdt1960

Art exhibit openings remind me of going to church—to paraphrase the words of Holden Caulfield (the main character of Catcher in the Rye), “…many of its attendees are a bunch of phonies.” And like many church-goers, I attend because there is a certain guilt I take on when I consider not attending. As a fellow artist myself (a questionable declaration), this guilt is rooted in that my non-attendance could be interpreted as not supporting the artist and, in general, the arts. Fortunately, any guilt experienced is not unbearable, but certainly aggravating.

I just attended an exhibit opening last night and walked away with the same disdain I had the last time I attended one—thinking to myself that I’ll never attend another.

Yet, as I sit here and think about it, attending an art exhibit opening is something akin to attending a high school football game—something I can definitely relate to and enjoy. Like a football game, many people attending an art exhibit opening could care less about the art that is on the walls; they are simply there to socialize and discuss anything with the various individuals they seldom see in attendance. Further, there are others who surely attend for the sole purpose of “being seen.” So, why does the insincere motives of an “art-going” crowd get under my skin unlike the insincere motives of the “football-going” crowd?

Added to my consternation for such settings, when I queried a colleague (also an artist) about his thoughts on exhibit openings last night, he concurred with me, but followed up with a reference to the food and drink provided in saying, “Well, this is a pretty good spread here.”

I will confess that in my attendance last night, I did get to visit with a few individuals that I haven’t seen in a spell, but nothing prevents me from calling them up and inviting them to join me over a cup of coffee either. Now that I think about it, attending an art exhibit opening is a material-world version of signing on to Facebook—nothing more than a backdrop for humdrum socializing.

As an aspiring artist myself, the question of whether or not to attend an art exhibit opening is a true conundrum. If given an “opening” for my own exhibit, I’d just assume not have one, but that’s pretty anti-social. Which (as far as I’m concerned) is OK, because being anti-social has nothing to do with an art exhibit.

Perhaps I would feel better about attending art exhibits (whether my own or those of others) if I knew for certain that the conversations by those attending were limited to topics of the exhibited artwork or art in general.

My solution from here on: stop attending art exhibit openings, but visit the exhibits during regular viewing hours while attempting to leave a fairly intelligent or thought-provoking comment in the guest book. Hopefully the artist will appreciate this approach more than me swooping down on the complimentary hors d'oeuvres and wine while participating in the listless conversations in the presence of their works.