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A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.
DON'T BE A SHEEP
UT's Officially Disapproved Information Source and HISTORICAL ARCHIVE. The only source of truth, where Paradox Manifests: Hundreds of thousands of visits. Yet No One Admits to Reading It. Welcome to the "Grey Area" where "Unethical Utterances," i.e., criticisms of administrators, are commonplace. Make U.U. here where genuine civility still reigns, a.k.a., freedom......................... UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO'S EQUIVALENT TO RADIO FREE EUROPE
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NEW!!! Hard Eight by Professor Extreme
HARD EIGHT
Hard Eight: Auto-Ethnographic Essays on Academic Culture Featuring the End of the Arts & Sciences College, University of Toledo, 2010
Daily Koan
Should the newly discovered black hole be named in honor of UT BOT?
Swamp Bubble
Do you agree or disagree that University of Toledo suffers from administrative bloat?
How do you feel about the proposed UT Degree Guarantee program? (Reposted to allow more people to vote.)
How do you feel about the proposed UT Guarantee program?
How would you grade the overall performance of the Jacobs' administration on running the University of Toledo?
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
Bloggie applauds this perspicacious observer:
"The administration is in a panic mode to implement controversial and irreversible structural and curricular changes campus-wide by early February fiscal plan deadlines with only the vaguest notions of their impacts. The plan is, according to an interview with a top administrator published in the most recent Independent Collegian, to cast out many seeds and "see what grows." This experimental garden, as most senators articulated in many different ways, seems a costly recipe for disaster. Utter madness. Stay tuned."
Print Version of Dictionary of Academia Available on Amazon.com
The profound ruminations of the goaty Sage are now available in this 119 page satirical masterpiece. See: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1480292494/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B009RC0SJA&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1JV8N5BYAYY9WC9SJWD2
"Dictionary of Academia" Read it While it's Hot
A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.
Comment of the Week
"This is that old tension between the corporate way of doing things and the academic way of doing things. In the corporate world, you sweep everything under the rug to make your b.s. as shiny, pleasing to the nose, and profitable as possible. In the academic world, you operate with a higher moral standard. Veritas and all that."
Comment of the Week of August 13
Re UT academic posers and hypocrites:
Have their checks calculated in units of postmodern theoretical currency and issued in photocopied legal tender notes signed by Walter Benjamin with a photo of Karl Marx and a seal stamped “In Derrida We Trust”.
Comment of the Era
Wow! Ain't that something.
-Anonymous
Comment of the Week
Mention goes to the the anonymous commentator of Feb 7, who, regarding UT President Llloyd Jacob's "Investing in Faculty" letter, stated: "If we could use the same criteria for 'investing in administrators' we could cut most of those positions."
Comments to HLC
Make sure you address your comments to HLC to the email address listed below in the "Higher Learning Commission Wants to Know" post. This may be the only chance you have to be heard. Bloggie hears that UT administration has discussed giving faculty "training" so that faculty members know how to "properly" talk to the HLC folks. How's that for stacking the deck? Does everyone get a little script to read? Make sure you practice before a mirror at being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Comment of the Week!
Definitely, the Comment of the Week award goes to Anonymous 12:14 pm, Dec 3, under the "Higher Learning Commission Needs to Know" posting by Diogenes. Pithy and pointed!
--Love,
Bloggie
MESSAGE OF THE DAY:
DON'T BE A SHEEP
Independent Collegian Article on Dicey Administrative Spending
IC reporter Casey Cheap looks at bow ties, apartments and movie tickets purchased by UT administrators at university/public expense. See
TO CONTACT BLOGGIE . . .
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Letter and Petition from Foreign Languages Faculty Member
A couple weeks ago, at the beginning of summer break, we in the Department of Foreign Languages were informed that our secretary's position was being eliminated and that while she will not lose her job (she'll be transferred), that position is not to be filled. We apparently will be expected to do our own jobs plus what we can of the secretary's. That is clearly not acceptable, and so one of the steps we in FL are taking against it is an online petition now available for any who want to (including those who for whatever reason--not a registered Ohio voter, not a US citizen, etc.--cannot sign the petition against SB5), to read and sign.
I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.
It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.
Here's the link to the online petition:For those who can make it, there will also be an informational meeting--including lunch and petition-signing--next Friday, May 27 in FH 2420, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.
It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.
Here's the link to the online petition:For those who can make it, there will also be an informational meeting--including lunch and petition-signing--next Friday, May 27 in FH 2420, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Katherine Best
Wave of the Future or Merely Sometime Later This Week?
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a deeply fascinating article called, "When to Dissolve a Faculty Senate." Apparently this is any time that it becomes "adversarial" to administration.
The online comments to the article are priceless.
Nemeth on Mammon in IC
David Nemeth's most recent tour-de-force
Professor Nemeth has another fabulous and timely article in the new and increasingly wonderful Independent Collegian. See http://www.independentcollegian.com/forum/the-kraken-attacks-1.2340091
Nemeth Does it Again
See the forum article in The Independent Collegian at:
Nemeth's New Article in Collegian
The Independent Collegian has run another of Professor Nemeth's fine and provocative articles in its latest edition. This one discusses the double-talk by mouthpieces for the current UT administration concerning the effects of and reasons behind so-called strategic reorganization. Make sure you get the latest version of Newspeak 5.1 if you want to decode what UT administrators are really saying.
UT Ranks 13th Nationally on Administrative Bloat
See Appendix B of the Administrative Bloat report posted on 8/28 for evidence, but UT now has a higher proportion of administrators to students than all but 12 public universities in America. President Jacobs has finally put University of Toledo in the top tier. With Strategic Organization he may be aiming for number one.
This Blog is a free and independent information source. Contributions and comments are welcome. Contact: ASCBloggie@gmail.com WARNING AND DISCLAIMER !!!! This blog is entirely non-official!! People may express opinion here, exercising freedom of speech and association.
Recent Letters from The Blade
Jacobs' arrogance is astonishing
Recently, President Lloyd Jacobs of the University of Toledo stated that bonuses were justified because his administrators "took all the risks."
As a professor at UT, I am outraged that President Jacobs claims that administrators take all of the risks. What risks do they take that the other faculty and staffs on campus do not?
Administrators are protected by state and federal employment laws and by their contracts.
When ex-President Vik Kapoor was terminated, he remained a professor with a salary near what he was paid as president.
As president emeritus, Dan Johnson retained a salary greater than his pay as president.
In the recent layoffs, exceptionally few administrators were terminated. It seems to me that low-level personnel at UT have far more risks because the greater proportion of the layoffs have come from their ranks. And they did not have continuing salaries.
President Jacobs' answer to questions on two occasions regarding relinquishing part of his bonus was to the effect that he earned his bonuses and what he did with them was his business.
Administrators do not risk their personal money in their duties: they use taxpayer money and funds collected through donations and grants to the university.
Administrators take home salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and then add bonuses for longevity and whatever else the president decides is fitting for their contracts.
However, the lower-level personnel have much lower salaries and no such bonuses. Where is the risk?
It seems to me that these bonuses are convoluted: The lower-level personnel are taking the greater risks with no bonuses while the administrators with very rewarding jobs with little risk receive large bonuses.
Am I missing something here?
WALTER W. OLSON,
Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing
Engineering,
University of Toledo
It's the same old, same old at UT
I could hardly believe the arrogance of Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, president of the University of Toledo, when a reporter asked if he would be willing to forgo his bonus in light of the layoffs, raise in tuition, etc.
His comment was that he worked for it. Is that to say that the ones being laid off did not work for their pay?
All I can say is, business as usual at UT. Some things never change.
SANDY FLICK
Rose Acres Drive
UT also has checks, balances
In response to letter titled "Professors must focus on teaching," I would like to point out that the University of Toledo operates on the basis of shared governance.
This means that faculty members participate in the administration of the university.
A focus on teaching requires faculty to address administrative issues such as policies, procedures, and yes, finances, because these all affect classroom outcomes. A university with solid and equitable finances benefits everyone, including and especially the students. Just as the U.S. government is constituted to have checks and balances, so is our university government.
The UT-AAUP is one of those checks against UT administrators who most recently have displayed more concern for their own profit rather than a concern for the common good.
LINDA M. ROUILLARD,
Associate Professor
of French,
University of Toledo
Quote of the Year (so far)
The following is excerpted from the recent UT AAUP newsletter concerning the official university response to news of the bonus scandal:
. . . . Either Jacobs is misleading the media or he has misled the Board of Trustees. President Jacobs objected to "the general tone" of the UT-AAUP Newsletter. Many persons on this campus object to the "general tone" of the Jacobs Administration. During his tenure as President, he has introduced an administrative culture of fear and intimidation. . . . A point of logic must be raised here, with all respect to UT AAUP, the conclusions that President Jacobs has (1) misled the media and (2) the Board of Trustees are not mutually exclusive. Both would seem likely given his considerable talent at spinning "visions." |
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15 comments:
That's the sort of structure Vik Kapoor might have engineered.
More than a "legacy" this top-heavy and fragile house of cards represents the unsustainable outcome of Jacobs' reckless strategic planning after four years.
A stressed UT student body already overburdened with debt is represented by a single irreplaceable card at the bottom of the stack. Student-centeredness indeed! Meanwhile, a bloated administration at the very top exacerbates the inherent instability of this impossible architecture by suddenly shifting about in unexpected ways in search of self-advantage.
When that student body soon becomes faced with possible double-digit tuition and fee increases to cover the expenses of the revised Jacobs "Directions" strategic plan, what then?
A Haggettial Legacy:
http://www.ntdaily.com/?p=9031#more-9031
This is sad.
Why are UT Faculty prejudicing the people at the new employment of Provost Haggett? It is true that she was not a strong provost on our campus and I as well as many others am not standing in her way to go. But all in all, she broke no law that we know of, she performed her duties in the manner that she thought best and she served the university.
I am a professor that has probably given her harsher criticism here than most other professors. I don’t think she did a good job here as Provost. I don’t know that she had to the opportunity to be a good Provost here. At the very first meeting of Main Campus Issues that she attended after she became Provost, I attempted to have the HSC representatives removed because I wanted her to be a strong Provost. When the letter regarding the College of Education came out, I was the one who publicly upbraided the President and Provost Haggett for its content and tone.
Yet I did not think that the President really gave her the respect and support to perform her job adequately. This was evident at BOT meetings where she was in a position where the Health Sciences Campus was always given front billing and her role was secondary. Often times, the President would turn to her and say, “Did you get that, Rosemary?” clearly establishing a secondary role. I don’t think I ever heard him say this to Provost Gold.
It seems to me to be dishonorable to be sending essentially anonymous and unsolicited comments to the people she is going to have to work with in the future. There is no need to hurt the lady. I think she has probably been hurt more than we will ever know. So give her a break. We should be wishing her success rather than trying to precipitate her failure.
Furthermore, these comments made to the North Texas community reflect poorly on this university… I can’t help but to wonder if the people of Denton aren’t asking, “What kind of people at the University of Toledo?”
If can not wish her luck and God speed in her new assignment, then just please let her go quietly. There is nothing to be gained and a lot to be lost by continuing this dialogue.
Can we move Walt's comment to be a post on the main page, please?
Hello Walt. I disagree. Your compassion seems misguided and undeserved. Dr. Haggett is an experienced professional. She was very highly paid for three years of loyalty to lunacy. She now proves herself decisive when it counts as this right-time departure entails a promotion in rank and moving on to subtropical climes where she will earn even HIGHER pay! If you ask me that's a lesson in administrator moxie you sadly fail to appreciate!
Yes, Gretchen, I probably do not understand administrator moxie.
But allow me to ask these questions:
1) Is it wrong to seek a higher salary?
2) Is it wrong to seek advancement in position?
3) Is it wrong to seek a better climate?
I think it is important we attack these people no matter how bad it makes us look. If it makes us feel better it is worth it.
How does it make you feel good to see others wallow in misery?
The reason we argue and are at times critical is to improve our systems.
Somebody once said that the big difference between the Britsh and Americans is that Americans are happy to see whereas the British are unhappy. (This was said by Herbert Agar, an Englishman.)
Hello Walt. You ask:
1) Is it wrong to seek a higher salary?
2) Is it wrong to seek advancement in position?
3) Is it wrong to seek a better climate?
These are questions that our MBA and Law Schools should have been asking their students over the past few decades, but did not. Everyone in the professional schools (and I will throw in medical, pharmacy, education and library schools) agreed to assume "Greed is good!" and all seemed copasetic with this shared self-deception until the housing bubble burst. Now we all know, or should have learned, that greed does NOT "improve the human condition."
The irony at UT is that the Jacobs Administration with the encouraging of its Board of Trustees are so far behind the "new-ethics wave" in the marketplace of goods and services that they persist to fine-tune and push an obsolete "Directions" strategic plan that valorizes greed and ignores ethical and moral behavior. That is mismanagement of public higher education pure and simple.
Don't UT administrators and the members of the BOT read the Wall Street Journal and the Chronicle of Higher Education?
(See here: "Harvard Business School Names Nohria New Dean" WSJ May 5, 2010:B9 e.g.: "Mr. Nohria says his focus going forward will be on business ethics, a cause he has long championed, particularly during the financial crisis. He has also been a vocal critic of management education and the leaders it produces")
President Jacobs and his hand-picked coterie embody the worst aspects of the threat to public higher education by persisting to impose a nefarious business model and its 80's "managerialism" ideology.
We have witnessed these corrupting influences of late trickle down from the Jacobs kleptocracy to infect some of our weakest-willed tenured professors and student-body officers, as well as others clueless to the threat. Thank God for this blog and the new Independent Collegian staff for reporting mismanagement and unethical behavior at UT.
Jacobs Administration response thus far to all this honest reporting about its ineptness has been an orchestrated chorus of crocodile tears painfully out of tune with reality and the times.
Greed is not good.
hey ms grunt-
perhaps walt's third item is important- have you noticed how long capable women administrators last here at UT? just asking...
I agree with Gretchen. Jacobs' insistence that we must pay "market value" for the senior leaders and that we must pay "longevity bonuses" doesn't seem to have paid off. The upper-level administrators still leave (thank goodness!). Let's try a different approach: what if we paid upper-level administrators a fair wage rather than an exorbitant salary and see who is dedicated enough to step up? Let's see if we can attract candidates who care about higher education more than they care about collecting the highest gross income? If you want the big salary, go to work for the private sector. If you care about the greater good, then salary shouldn't be the most important factor. The governor of Ohio earns 142k per year. Does the governor work less than President Jacobs or a university Provost?
Just like the stock market, and the pay for Wall St. brokers, it is a bubble of their own making.
The people running around swapping this jobs are the ones telling each other how much they are worth. And just like when the stockmarket busts, it is the average joe, the ones who really do all the work, who takes all the hits, while those on top, the cause of these bubbles, the ones who tell themselves and everyone else they are worth it, continue to rake in the cash.
First, I agree with most of the comments made. People are greedy. One can ask for anything but it certainly does not need to be granted…
When mediocre talent are being paid these exorbitant salaries and bonuses, it is a self feeding, positive feedback loop that is irrational and will cripple institutions such as ours.
Our problem is that our BOT and our administrative executives are paying the salaries under the assumption that we are getting high quality talent.
But evidence is showing that we are not. What accomplishments have these individuals shown to warrant the employment benefits that they are receiving? It seems that our BOT and executive administrators are not doing their due diligence.
But I do not agree that we should be trying to prejudice others against a person when that person has not been convicted of a crime in a court of law. People have the right to be greedy and to improve their lot in life. While I might not have much respect for a greedy person, the fault here lies with the people hiring and paying the salaries, not the people asking.
And with respect to bonuses: I do believe that it is not consistent with public government and public institutions to be offering bonuses. It is one thing to offer bonuses from the money that you earn as a private company and a totally different thing to be paying bonuses from tax monies and other publically controlled funds when the electorate has not specifically voted to authorize these disbursements. While the former is in the form of a gift, the latter is in the form of theft.
Several of you bring up important points about what is paid to whom--not that administrators at whatever level aren't important, they are, no matter their degree of competence. And I wouldn't want to have their jobs. But what about the people who are doing the real work of a university--the teachers, and the staff who help support them? You're so right that we don't go into this to get rich--but would it be so wrong to pay us more in line with what our work is worth? I don't know of any full-time instructor who works a 40-hour week Monday through Friday--and many part-timers work well over what their hour count is. Most of us hit 40 hours sometime midweek, and our weekends (and summers) are often used for job-related activities that there just isn't time for on the days we spend teaching.
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