User profile: wonteach

I have always thought of Nevada as just the place I happen to live. It's never occurred to me to think, "I'm proud to be a Nevadan."

But today, I am.

The big difference in legal status in Clark County is not black vs. white. It's the political in-crowd vs. everyone else. Bob Gilbert has many defenders among the political in-crowd. Why do you think he was paid a six-figure salary at taxpayer expense while on a leave of absence that I believe extended for more than a year? Do you think an ordinary faculty member, or a secretary, at CSN would be given the same deal while under investigation for stealing from the school?

Any person, black or white, with connections to the power structure in Clark County, will be given every benefit of every doubt. (S)he will get government contracts, makework jobs, and be handled with kid gloves by the law enforcement people. Anyone without those connections - black, white, Hispanic or Asian, male or female - watch your back.

On another website, I posted a question about whether ANY employee (other than Bob Gilbert) in the history of CSN/CCSN had ever received a one year PAID leave of absence, for any purpose. So far, no one seems to know of any such case, and several people have declared their certainty that there ARE no other such cases. Even when we allow for the the fact that the CSN administration became an ethical sewer the moment Richard Carpenter set foot on campus, the granting of such a unique (and expensive) privilege to an employee who was under criminal investigation seems inexplicable.

On another website, I posted a question about whether ANY employee in the history of CSN/CCSN had ever received a one year PAID leave of absence, for any purpose. So far, no one seems to know of any such case, and several people have declared their certainty that there ARE no other such cases. Even when we allow for the the fact that the CSN administration became an ethical sewer the moment Richard Carpenter set foot on campus, the granting of such a unique (and expensive) privilege to an employee who was under criminal investigation seems inexplicable.

To Sisolak - Part 5

When you get to be 61 (aren't we about the same age? Forgive me if that's an insult!), you start thinking about what you really want your life to be worth. I have become much less patient with people who impede the very goal for which I changed my life at the age of 40, and especially those do so purely for self-serving reasons. I do not intend to just "play out the string" and "go along to get along."

It wasn't until earlier this year that it really came home to me how seriously poisoned the culture of CSN had become as a result of the Carpenter tenure. In all those jobs, in all those states, in both careers that I described above, I have never known a person for whom I had the total irredeemable, personal and professional contempt that I had, and continue to have, for Richard Carpenter. I really didn't believe it was possible for any individual to be so obsessively self-centered, so blithely willing to sacrifice the good of his organization purely to promote his own career and to protect himself from criticism. It was also astounding to me that a person would go into educational administration knowing almost nothing about education and having so little intertest IN education.

If I were 31 instead of 61, maybe I'd just chalk the whole thing up to experience, probably look for another job, and move on. But as I said above, this is my last job. I'm damn well going to make it count. And that means that when a major decision is made, undermining my and everyone else's ability to turn this school into an educational institution we can be proud of, I'm going to say something about it. I'm going to say it loudly, I'm going to say it unapologetically, and I'm going to say it repeatedly.

You let us down. You let us down badly, in one of the most important decisions you can possibly make concerning the largest school in the state. And you had no excuse. The superiority of the credentials of the two other candidates were objective, clear, and unarguable. If you were unaware that CSN needs a drastic change in direction instead of "continuity," then you certainly SHOULD have known. It's your job to know. And you didn't do it.

Stan VerNooy