Roundtable Sinks In

Rumors

Are you all still waiting for the plan? Let's build our own.



1. Furlough the BOT as irrelevant. The savings in meals alone should be a significant aid.



2. Furlough anyone with a VP title and above.



3. Furlough anyone who spends more time in meetings than teaching.




4. Furlough anyone who has time to write and circulate long word-choked petitions denouncing other people's freedom of speech.




5. Furlough the CAS dean, who is only around part-time anyway.





How long should the furloughs last? Hmmmm, let me think. Some have interpreted the Mayan calander as saying the world will end December 21, 2012 so I suggest the furloughs end December 22,2012.

Nuggets of Truth

Furloughs

Has anyone seen the plan yet?

Question: How many administrators does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Not known. One custodian can do the physical labor but an unknown number of administrators will spend days trying to blame the blog for the light going out. Remember, if the lights go out around here, we had no control of the budget.

Council Meeting

The A & S Council met yesterday to give an airing to faculty views on the Round Table Report. Before going into that let me thank those who participated in this professional discussion. There were significant differences of opinion and people managed those without throwing tables, chairs or other faculty at one another. I would also like to thank those who wrote the report. An extraordinary amount of time and effort has gone into this document. The problem is, I just don't like the document. I was a member of the original round table. I attended the fall meetings of the "advanced round table" as a representative of A & S Council. I just do not see this as a visionary document.

A lot of faith has been placed in the twin concepts of integrative learning and technology. Historically, I just don't see those as having provided any great changes in American higher education. Both will take resources. As many of you know, resources make a college. With them, over time, you can develop a reputation as a quality institution. Without them, students will begin to believe they are attending a community college. Resources need to be used to recruit and retain high quality faculty and students. How one organizes or even teaches the curriculum rarely determines the quality of an institution.

Installment Two of Letter to ASC Faculty on Roundtable

January 26, 2010

 

To my Fellow Council Members:

 

I have already received further comments in response to my e-mail this morning on concerns about the Round Table Report. Here is a long one.

 

                                                                                                            David H. Davis

                                                                                                            Political Science

 

___________________________________________________________________

The deans letter, p 1, is insulting to faculty by being arrogantly, condescendingly patronizing. The RT Report is “Evidence that faculty has (sic) the skills and commitment to provide leadership needed to achieve the New Directions document.”  This suggests that the faculty, who are the ONLY substantive experts on campus, don't know how to run a university, teach and do their jobs, and for that  we need people like the Dean. Also her claim that the RT report preparation was “entirely faculty driven” is untrue.

 

Four large concerns, though, are (1) the arbitrary, administratively convenient, self serving definition assigned to shared governance--which consists of groups/formats controlled by and set up by Administrators, instead of faculty controlled/elected groups and formats such as departments and Council. It needs a statement saying what real governance is and is not.

 

2.  The subordination of the RT initiatives to the Academic Journey, a stupid metaphor and flow chart without much substance, is worrisome and limiting. The term used is “must align.”

 

3. Academic Freedom needs be guaranteed so that people like Administration Puppet No. 1 are not creating rubrics by which faculty teaching is evaluated.  No clicker = bad use of technology!

 

4. Also we need a guarantee of Dept faculty autonomy in electing chairs and controlling dept initiated programs. Not strong chair leadership, top down, but an empowering of chairs to do what dept. needs/wants.

 

The vague repetitious terms seem troublesome. Breakup of departments potential need be addressed by inserting dept autonomy clause. Just because something is vaguely “integrative” seems otherwise an excuse to cut it up.

 

This Report is badly written, utterly vague, open ended , and jargon ridden.  It is an example of magical thinking. 

 

 

Letter on Roundtable to ASC Faculty from Professor David Davis

From:   Davis, David H.  Sent:   Tue 1/26/2010 8:43 AM  To:     Cc:     Subject:   Concerns about Round Table for this afternoon  Attachments:  View As Web Page

January 26, 2010   To my Fellow Council Members:   The Executive Committee asked to have comments on the Round Table Implementation Report in writing. While the Report has some good ideas, many are not good. Here are some that worry me the most. I am particularly disturbed that the Report was sent to the Board of Trustees Committee on Academic and Student Affairs yesterday before the Council had a chance to discuss it. This violates promises made and appears deceitful. It helps to remember the idea of Zemsky and the Round Table started as a public relations ploy by President Jacobs as a way to distract attention from the Council’s vote of no confidence in the leadership of Dean Lee.                                                                                                   David H. Davis                                                                                                 Political Science   Abolishing departments p. 10 Breaking up departments, specifically English and Communication p. 10 Move departments or parts of departments p. 22. More power to department chairs rather than faculty p. 16 and elsewhere Defining the “scholarship of teaching” and the “scholarship of integration” p. 14, 19 etc. Defining and importance of “the Academic Journey” p. 2, 9, 13, 15, 22, 28, 30. Importance of weak students p. 13 and elsewhere More leniency for retention and academic probation p. 32 Deemphasize GPA in admission decisions p. 32 Rewards for engagement and community based research p. 19 Heavy praise for distance learning. Many pages. Priority for Collaborative Learning. Rewards for Collaborative Learning.  Many pages.   (Does this mean Law and Social Thought and Women’s Studies?)   Hiring priority for integrative studies p. 28 Very little for the natural sciences All graduate programs to be evaluated by November 1. p. 27 Note time line p. 28 Lack of pedagogical evidence supporting proposals.   Goal of reaching Tier I p. 33.  Top tier p. 5, 6 “THE GREATEST NEED IS TO RECAPITALIZE OUR FACULTY” p. 32