Hailing University of Texas at Brownsville President Juliet Garcia as the best thing since sliced bread and Velveeta cheese, the American Council on Education presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award for "exemplary contributions to women in higher education."
That kind of warmed the cockles of our hearts over here at El Rrun-Rrun and made us want to run out and see if the bobble-head Juliets were already available at the college book store. Alas, they weren't and we had to settle for a new likeness of the Pres Photoshopped onto the new ocelot mascot of the UTB.
The ACE (catchy initials for an educational group, though) said that they were celebrating Garcia's "trailblazer" performance and her role model as an "innovator" over her 22 years as president of the and inventor of the UTB-Texas Southmost College Partnership.
We understand that before Pope Benedict abdicated the papacy, there was a call for Juliet's canonization on the back burner that was left pending. One of the miracles witnessed was by Juliet's protege and comrade-in-arms (not his) Michael Putegnat. According to inside sources, Putegnat witnessed the miracle of Juliet walking across the water (a la Jesus) across the Ft. Brown oxbow Resaca one misty night in December .
Judging by the list of her accomplishments, it is easy to see why the ACE group (of which Garcia was also a past president) would present her with an award for her achievements over the course of her lifetime as a college administrator.
1. She conspired with past board members at the Genesis of the "partnership" to discredit and discard President Albert Besteiro so she could take over the reins of the community college and ease in the transition of the new invention, the UTB-TSC "partnership" of which she would be named the president.2. As a tit-for-tat from the Texas Regents Board at the UT System for harnessing the cash-cow TSC taxing district for them so they wouldn't have to use Permanent University Funds for Hispanics in South Texas, the System passed through a special bill (carried by Rep. Rene Oliveira) so that state property, the president's home, could be sold to the Garcias. The home, which had had $100,000s in improvements paid by the state was sold to them at a discount at $125,000 and paid through a low-interest note carried by her old school chum Fred Rusteberg's International Bank of Commerce. Now they're the partners in crime of the United Brownsville scam that is funded entirely by publicly-funded entities. Other People's Money is always easier to spend, isn't it?
3. Over the course of the 22-year history of the "partnership" Garcia forged an impressive six-year graduation rate for UTB-TSC students of a colossal 17 percent. Even traditionally-low performing states like Texas were able to compile a 76.78 to 66.83 percent Six-Year Outcomes for Exclusively Full-Time Students Who Started at Four-Year Public Institutions, according to the February 2013 report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. During this period, with an average of $50 million in yearly transfers to the UTB from TSC, we would have subsidized the third-wealthiest university system in the United States to the tune of $1 billion (with a B) over the last 22 years. What else did we get for this "innovative" approach of Juliet's? A freshman retention rate that hovered at below 50 percent, forcing even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to throw a couple of million our way to see if it would help. The United Way and United Brownsville neatly stepped in to "administer" the grant for a slight fee, of course.
www.studentclearinghouse.info/signature/4state/NSC_Signature_Report_4-StateLevel.pdf
4. In keeping with her "innovative" spirit, she and her minions wen to the community college voters to approve a $125 million bond issue to build the new UTB digs only to be turned down. Not one to pay attention to nay-sayers, she and her crew returned with politiqueras in tow with a pared down $68 million bond issue that passed. An audit of the bond issue after the damage was done found that Juliet and the UTB bunch aided and abetted by a pliant community college board had spent the $125 million anyway, along the way borrowing money from the various TSC funds to make up the shortfall. Take that you stingy taxpayers, thank you. That debt is till being paid by the community college taxpayers.
5. Now, like all good business people, Juliet knows you have to spend good money to buy quality. That's why those local students who are seeking certification in a vocational field like auto mechanics, air conditioning, nursing, or dental assistants have to fork out the same tuition rates and student fees as do Rhodes Scholars seeking a BA, a Master's, or a PhD. The result has been that UTB-TSC has the highest tuition rates of any community college in the state, if not the nation. So what if some people can't afford college? Not everyone is cut out for it, you know, as our high school counselors used to tell Hispanics here not that long ago. There's always McDonald's or the HEB. Of course, the gender that was most negatively affected were Hispanic female students, traditionally relegated to low-paying, barefoot-and-pregnant-and-in-the kitchen jobs. Thanks Trailblazer Juliet. We'll name the first baby girl after you.
6. This "trailblazer" was stymied by a majority on her new TSC board when she tried to get them to sign an new "partnership" agreement with the UT System that would have effectively abolished the community college and handed all of its assets (real-estate, bank deposits, buildings, dreams, etc.) minus the bond debt to the UT System. And she would have gotten away if it wasn't for those pesky trustees and their dog.
7. But wait, folks, there's more! As the new Super-Duper University and Regional Academic Health Center are being streamlined and considered by the Texas Legislature there's the little matter of getting local contributions from those it will serve. Yup. That means that we will probably be made to become part of a new taxing district to fund the new "gift" to education by the state to South Texas.
8. But wait. Garcia said she is in a "metamorphosis" mode and her next incarnation could be a better, improved persona. We would think that after such a performance, the last thing the taxpayers and poor students of this of this district would want is an encore.
Fuera! Fuera!
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