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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

more consultants

So, we're going to hire more consultants to help reorganize the place. I assume that's because the Zemsky crowd did such a bang up job two years ago. The President keeps claiming he wants faculty input but then decides someone from the outside knows the place much better than we do. Our dean has moved. The college has been disbanded and now more consultants. Happy Holidays all.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"shared governance": Administrators working with consultants.

No one said they would share governance with the faculty. Only that they would share.

Anonymous said...

The letter as sent to two consulting firms:

Thanks very much for meeting with me and with Trustees from The University of Toledo on Friday, November 12. We learned much from our interaction and felt the meeting was a success. It gave us a better understanding of what [you] might bring to the table as The University of Toledo continues to reinvent itself.

We hoped the meeting was helpful to you also in understanding better what The University of Toledo is, what its mission is, and where its current efforts are directed. We would like to invite you to submit a proposal for undertaking a portion of this work. In an effort to define clearly what we are looking for, let me restate the following:

1. We place great value on student centeredness and desire to meet the needs of our students now and for the future.
2. We place great value on our faculty, their buy in, and the need for the Board, the
administration, and the faculty to continue to develop unity of purpose.

Specifically, we would invite a proposal that would address a concise and limited portion of our reorganization. We would like to evaluate our number of departments against its current level. We may wish to reduce the total number of courses offered, and we may wish to reduce the number of programs and majors offered at The University of Toledo. It is our purpose to measurably produce cost savings as well as to continue the elevation of stature that we seek.

We’d like to place a timeframe on this undertaking of three to four months. We believe that allowing the timeframe to extend beyond that period would be detrimental. We would invite you to submit specific costs, including estimates of travel costs and lodging if such would be required.

As I’m sure you are aware, as a state institution we have certain purchasing requirements. We will be sharing your proposals not only with our purchasing department, but with other stakeholders as well.

Once again we greatly enjoyed our meeting with you last Friday and found it tremendously informative. We look forward to the potential for working together on this project. Should you have any further question, do not hesitate to call me.

Sincerely,
Lloyd A. Jacobs, M.D.
President

Anonymous said...

Our student dollars at work: more consultants to tell President Jacobs how to spend the univeristy rich. Meanwhile classes are cancelled and sections closed for the lack of Professors and Lecturers.Transferring to another university is sounding like a very good idea.

Anonymous said...

How many times are we going to reorganize? How many conslutants are we going to continue to provide incomes to? How can we afford always reorganizing all the time.... *weep*

Michael Kistner said...

Notice how the consultants are told to look at downsizing departments and eliminating programs only -not one word about the possibility of keeping everything as is. At what point do we drop the use of the word "University" and use "Enterprise" instead?

Anonymous said...

At first I didn't like the term "enterprise"--too positive for what's going on here ... And it made me think of "Star Trek"--and I realized it's not so inappropriate: science fiction! That UT can be subjected to Jake's surgery and remain a university (and jake promotes raising it to a Tier 1 university at that)! And if you saw the letter from Jake to the new consulting firm: the statement that he values the faculty--pure fiction!

Anonymous said...

"We place great value on our faculty, their buy in, and the need for the Board, the
administration, and the faculty to continue to develop unity of purpose."

President Jacobs has a funny way of showing this: instead of talking to faculty and hearing their input, he hires consultants.

Anonymous said...

Anon 9:39 quotes from a letrter from Jacobs to the current consulting firm (CCF):
"We place great value on our faculty, their buy in, and the need for the Board, the
administration, and the faculty to continue to develop unity of purpose."
This is so clearly untrue--and it makes me wonder:
What else in the letter--or in Jacobs' other communications with the CCF--isn't true? And does that even matter to the CCF? I'm sure the administration would value the CCF's buying into what the administration tells them.
And 'unity of purpose': what the Board and administration push onto the faculty (and staff and students).

Anonymous said...

Crazy email from the dean to donors/alumni:

Greetings,

It is my pleasure to announce to you that effective today, WE - the leadership, faculty, staff, students, and alums of the University of Toledo's College of Arts and Sciences - are giving birth to triplets. After one hundred years, three months, and four days of successful teaching, research, and service to a great University, our College will become three new Colleges. Their names:

The College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics;
The College of Visual and Performing Arts;
The College of Languages, Literature, and Social Sciences (LLSS).

We are adding the names of our new Colleges to our extensive list of Points of Pride. We hope you will, too!

The origin of this change attributes to the vision and goals of our President, Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, and our current and past Board of Trustees.

"My own vision for The University of Toledo is entirely congruent with the idea of 'a transformative force for the world.' I believe The University of Toledo is positioned to be among the handful of institutions that historically have had great impact on human society. I believe The University of Toledo can and should be a leader in a transformation underway in our society, in which universities take a leadership role for the world of the future.

In the 21st century, a new role is being asked of universities, not only to educate, but to innovate, to set the bar for health care quality, and to make the place where we find ourselves a place in which it is pleasant to live. The University of Toledo is and will be a leader in this societal transformation. It will be among the world's high impact institutions." (From Dr. Lloyd Jacobs in a letter to all university stakeholders, 11/9/10.)

Truly, we begin this new era with transformational reorganization. It - and all the principals associated with it - have my personal support and confidence. I am most sincere in wishing them all - and only - the best; and, to everyone especially to you - for being part of our proud past and providing the stable ground for new growth and prosperity - THANK YOU.

With warmest personal wishes,

Nina I. McClelland, PhD
Dean

PS - A very special keepsake from our College Centennial Year is the History Book written by the University's Archivist, Barbara Floyd. It is available to you electronically through the link: http://www.utoledo.edu/as/pdfs/100years.pdf. I hope you will read it with pride. You may or may not be mentioned personally in the text, but your role in our legacy to UT IS appreciated.

Anonymous said...

Crazy email from Dean to donors/alumni Part 1:

Greetings,

It is my pleasure to announce to you that effective today, WE - the leadership, faculty, staff, students, and alums of the University of Toledo's College of Arts and Sciences - are giving birth to triplets. After one hundred years, three months, and four days of successful teaching, research, and service to a great University, our College will become three new Colleges. Their names:

The College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics;
The College of Visual and Performing Arts;
The College of Languages, Literature, and Social Sciences (LLSS).

We are adding the names of our new Colleges to our extensive list of Points of Pride. We hope you will, too!

Anonymous said...

Crazy email Part 2:

The origin of this change attributes to the vision and goals of our President, Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, and our current and past Board of Trustees.

"My own vision for The University of Toledo is entirely congruent with the idea of 'a transformative force for the world.' I believe The University of Toledo is positioned to be among the handful of institutions that historically have had great impact on human society. I believe The University of Toledo can and should be a leader in a transformation underway in our society, in which universities take a leadership role for the world of the future.

In the 21st century, a new role is being asked of universities, not only to educate, but to innovate, to set the bar for health care quality, and to make the place where we find ourselves a place in which it is pleasant to live. The University of Toledo is and will be a leader in this societal transformation. It will be among the world's high impact institutions." (From Dr. Lloyd Jacobs in a letter to all university stakeholders, 11/9/10.)

Truly, we begin this new era with transformational reorganization. It - and all the principals associated with it - have my personal support and confidence. I am most sincere in wishing them all - and only - the best; and, to everyone especially to you - for being part of our proud past and providing the stable ground for new growth and prosperity - THANK YOU.

With warmest personal wishes,

Nina I. McClelland, PhD
Dean

PS - A very special keepsake from our College Centennial Year is the History Book written by the University's Archivist, Barbara Floyd. It is available to you electronically through the link: http://www.utoledo.edu/as/pdfs/100years.pdf. I hope you will read it with pride. You may or may not be mentioned personally in the text, but your role in our legacy to UT IS appreciated.