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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Townhall Synopsis on April 27

A few items concerning President Jacobs' Townhall meeting of April 27 as reported by Bloggie's roving intelligence agents:

1.  Give thanks to Providence, but no UT administrators are being laid off today.  How the top- heavy careening of the Jacobs' administration might be affected by such a rash act, Bloggie does not even want to consider. 

2.  The low-level vulnerable people who are being laid off are being led away today by a HR professionals and disposed of in a "humane" way, according to the words of UT Central Committee members, comrades Jacobs, Haggett and Scarborough.  

3.  A UT rumor-control operation to trap reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries is now underway.  You are to report rumors to your Dean or the Provost.   (Nothing was said yet about  unauthorized conversations in hallways, but beware.)  Report  all suspicious gossip!  Bloggie thinks, to be even more helpful, that anything you might hear in the restroom that sounds suspicious should be reported immediately to the Provost.   You will be thanked for your input, of that you can be reasonably assured. 

4.  The townhall meeting was held in a room that held perhaps 25 persons, despite it being the townhall meeting of the semester that was most likely to attract attention.  This appears a deliberate choice,  although Jacobs attempted to pass blame to a low level functionary for the choice.

5.  Jacobs will be keeping his bonus because he earned it, and he defended it.  It's his.  

The amazing thing about all of this is that Bloggie is not making any of it up or even exaggerating.  And these points report only just some of what happened.  How does one even satirize an administration that is an auto-parody? 

CORRECTION.  Bloggie was wrong about the part of item #2 that concerns "low-level" people,  Apparently a few people were laid off that were not going along with the program, who by no means could be described as low-level,. e.g., Karen Rhoda , head of distance learning.  Now presumably Jacobs is free to turn this  DL fiefdom over to one of his liegemen-cronies. 

3 comments:

umbraged said...

Hi Bloggie, to your pt. 4, they probably thought they could do it because they made it really hard to find the "live" room number on the notices they sent out--the small print they were hoping no one would read, maybe?

Anonymous said...

You missed one - He said the practice known as double-dipping is heavily discouraged. Ironically, as the question was asked, anyone viewing the video had the opportunity to see the most recent vice-presidential practitioner directly over the presidents shoulder.
The dude must be made of stone - there was no reaction whatsoever.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Anonymous. I noticed that CHuck Lehnert didn't seem abashed by the question either. One wonders why he was given the opportunity to retire one day and be rehired the next, at 160k no less. I hear that among the 100 layoffs is a med tech from the student health center with 35 years experience. I wonder why that person wasn't given the option of retiring one day and being rehired the next, after applying for retirement. Wait, I think I know the answer...