Friday, February 29, 2008
Missionizing the Mission
With the closure of New College of California, some are asking how it was that a board of trustees with deep pockets and well-heeled connections could be so flaky. I think part of the answer lies in how they viewed themselves and their fiduciary appointment. Given the marketed image of poverty counseling -- including legal and family counseling clinics -- along with Latino-centric teacher education, the trustees likely saw themselves as akin to missionaries, or in terms more appropriate to the Mission District where they operated, as patrones.
Unfortunately, as we know all too well, missionaries are just another form of colonizer--in this case colonizers of the mind. By exploiting the populations they ostensibly served, the trustees of New College were no different than other hustlers who've looted poverty programs since the 1960s. Like the HUD scandals, the New College scandals involved using minority fronts to rip off minorities, as well as idealistic white young people. The only difference was that New College trustees actually bragged about their incompetence and intention to break the rules. All part of the defiant posture of piety I guess.
One of the most stupid of the trustees I met was the chair of the board, Cathrine Sneed, a black woman who made her career teaching felons gardening. Fine in itself, but embarassing when she went on KPFA community radio announcing New College gave away degrees to prisoners in San Quentin for their life experience--a claim that wasn't true, but was nevertheless widely-circulated as an example of how flaky the institution was. Oddly, the white boys running the place -- Martin Hamilton and Peter Gabel -- thought this was clever marketing.
It's hard to say how much cocaine abuse or growing up rich affected the attitudes of some of the New College trustees, but the arrogance of thumbing their nose at the laws enacted to prevent fraud in the use of federal Department of Education funds was clearly influenced by lifetimes of skating on misbehavior due to their political influence. Trustees Peter Gabel and James Sweeney in particular.
Gabel's father-in-law, Agar Jaicks -- a Democratic Party national committee member -- was probably responsible for the $400,000 in political pork Pelosi shoveled New College's way during her run for office, and maybe this high-level connection helped protect the school from the wrath of WASC for a while, but eventually even peepless Pelosi couldn't save them from themselves. After 30 years of flaunting higher ed regulations, the house of cards simply had to collapse.
Unfortunately, as we know all too well, missionaries are just another form of colonizer--in this case colonizers of the mind. By exploiting the populations they ostensibly served, the trustees of New College were no different than other hustlers who've looted poverty programs since the 1960s. Like the HUD scandals, the New College scandals involved using minority fronts to rip off minorities, as well as idealistic white young people. The only difference was that New College trustees actually bragged about their incompetence and intention to break the rules. All part of the defiant posture of piety I guess.
One of the most stupid of the trustees I met was the chair of the board, Cathrine Sneed, a black woman who made her career teaching felons gardening. Fine in itself, but embarassing when she went on KPFA community radio announcing New College gave away degrees to prisoners in San Quentin for their life experience--a claim that wasn't true, but was nevertheless widely-circulated as an example of how flaky the institution was. Oddly, the white boys running the place -- Martin Hamilton and Peter Gabel -- thought this was clever marketing.
It's hard to say how much cocaine abuse or growing up rich affected the attitudes of some of the New College trustees, but the arrogance of thumbing their nose at the laws enacted to prevent fraud in the use of federal Department of Education funds was clearly influenced by lifetimes of skating on misbehavior due to their political influence. Trustees Peter Gabel and James Sweeney in particular.
Gabel's father-in-law, Agar Jaicks -- a Democratic Party national committee member -- was probably responsible for the $400,000 in political pork Pelosi shoveled New College's way during her run for office, and maybe this high-level connection helped protect the school from the wrath of WASC for a while, but eventually even peepless Pelosi couldn't save them from themselves. After 30 years of flaunting higher ed regulations, the house of cards simply had to collapse.
