Just a couple of quick notes. First, read the article below. However, when you do make certain you are not close enough to strike the family cat. It will anger you as it did me. It will verify what most of us who have been in higher education for a while have known but not had the facts to state. Administrations and staffs at universities have grown at an enormous rate. Please read it.
Second, you may have noticed the posters around campus explaining to students that the Higher Learning Commission is coming to town. Since the HLC may stop and talk to students, the University wishes them to be informed. There is a web site students can go to in order to read all of the fun reports. I have a much simpler road for students to take:
1. If asked questions, be friendly
2. If asked questions, be honest
3. If all this fails, throw your arms in the air and run away yelling, "its all Tucker's fault."
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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
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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.
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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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7 comments:
Aww, I wouldn't hit my cat. But I might run a bow tie through the food processor. That article's list of administrative improprieties reads like a how-to manual for the Jacobs gang.
Ginsberg has hit the nail on the head. Someone should call him and invite him to UT to do research for his next book on administrative bloat and waste.
About the post "Big Appetites", I have found this other post online (source: http://iranianredneck.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/deanlets-deanlings-and-the-decline-of-higher-education/)
I rarely get excited about the release of a new book, but Benjamin Ginsberg had me doing a pre-order on Amazon as soon as I caught whiff of the previews. Ginsberg takes on the principal problem in American higher education, the excessive growth of meaningless and harmful administration. Bogus fads like “assessment” and “strategic planning” and “on line “education”" and such require an ever increasing phalanx of deanlets to “manage” the resources necessary to deliver these bullshit products. And, I have a feeling that Ginsberg isn’t going to hold his punches regarding the motivations of the people who fuel bureaucratic growth. At the top, he clearly points the finger at careerist top administrators who move from place to place, justifying doing nothing by making worthless plans (often plagiarized from other universities or simply rehashed–because bullshit is bullshit is bullshit!!!). Vision statement. Yeah. Right. Strategic Plan? Are there any other kinds of plans? Random plans? In reality, all actual administration is more random planning!!! You plan to use your resources according to how those resources have been randomly allocated to your department by some careerist asshole!
My hope is that Ginsberg doesn’t stop at the top–those high paid presidents and deans who move from place to place doing nothing and bailing out before they can be held accountable for fucking things up. Those people came from somewhere. They started out as deanlets and deanlings (he uses these terms! I should have copyrighted them!). Failed scholars who barely made tenure (or didn’t make tenure, in many cases) and moved into administration. Leeching on to some academic fad which they hope to ride into a cushy, highly compensated administrative job. We have several of those assholes who are successfully becoming deanlets at my humble university. They are the most loathesome pieces of shit you can possibly imagine. But, since the upper administration has been a revolving door (we’ve had four chancellors in the ten years I’ve been here), they’ve been able to implant themselves like tapeworms in the bowels of the University. And what do these tapeworms do? They require that we reconstruct our courses, force students to take bullshit courses which they designed (often taking kickbacks from publishers and consultants who also feed this parasitic infection in higher education), and they increase our workload by making people perform bullshit psychometric “assessment” which they don’t even understand. Some failed humanities professor who never had a single course in statistics or measurement actually had the audacity to tell me that I was a bad teacher because I refused to play along with the “no child left behind” model of academic assessment. My only hope is that they’ll be hired away to become Associate Deans at some other college…..and not replaced.
People might want to read (and comment) on this article in the Blade about the BOT's concerns with respect to the retention problem: http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2012/01/24/UT-board-eyes-ways-to-change-enrollment.html
Has anyone else noticed that UT seems to be in some sort of agreement to display commercial pop up advertisements from its webiste? Whenever I access UT pages I also frequently get a pop up window with an advertisement.
Here is one that popped up when I brought up the UT home page:
http://www.educationconnection.com/programs/?CID=eddyecsdisplayfads_university
If you're interesting in spin, compare and contrast these two articles: the first from the Blade (http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2012/01/25/Area-colleges-universities-post-drops-in-enrollment.html) about enrollment dips at UT; the second from UTNews (http://utnews.utoledo.edu/index.php/01_25_2012/ut-sees-jump-in-international-transfer-student-populations)about the "jump" in enrollment, including, wait for it, an extra 29 international students! Your head may or may not be spinning yet, but Larry Burns is spinning like a top.
"BOT's concerns with respect to the retention problem"
Retention problem, my foot! That's just a case of :"The Blade" (getting quite dull, though) trying to save face by printing crap like this...
BOT members are getting way too much to be concerned about a "slight" drop (which is only relative), which is nothing in comparison to what each of them gets out of having Jacobs, Inc. around. This is good business, so worry not: BOT members will keep Jacobs and Gang around and -- they hope -- the University Senate in hopes to getting more out it. A great case of puppet government. We just need to figure out who the puppeteer is...
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