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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." |
How to Contribute
The Blog is now under new management, a consortium of ASC faculty who pooled their longevity bonuses to purchase it from its original owners. Your comments are still welcome but look for some changes. Contact: ASCBloggie@gmail.com. Your contributions might include new posts, images, comments to existing articles/posts, concerns about process and substance at UT's College of Arts & Sciences. This blog is entirely non-official, for which you can be thankful, unless you enjoy reading self-serving bureaucratic propaganda, and is intended as a discussion and commentary forum for UT A&S faculty and community.
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A blog is a blog is a blog. Information, comments and opinions found here don't represent official views, instead they represent truthful and sincere ones. If you want the official line on things go elsewhere. This is a discussion and comment page. You may even read things here that you disagree with, and then, maybe not.
ASCBloggie
11 comments:
Hey,
The Jacobs administration would love to buy it, but then how are they going to pay for bonuses to useless administrators and people like Condoleeza Rice?
Bloggie
We can only hope your wanting to step aside is entirely voluntary and does not involve any undue behind the scenes pressure on you and/or the ASC blog.
In the essentially dogmatic, one party leftist groupthink Academy and our essentially one party and one media company town of Toledo (Dr. Evil and assorted wannabes and Mini Me’s) your blog has served as a very rare and valuable alternative venue for some real dissent and high minded intellectual discourse related to higher education and many other important issues – things generally disallowed and suppressed by the superficial and vacuous talking head drive-by media and partisan pseudo-academia.
It is heartening to know politics, market forces and special interests do not yet completely control free speech, freedom of information and free intellectual discourse.
It will be a sad day indeed if the ASC blog is completely shut down or taken over by biased partisan ideologues committed only to censorship and mind control.
To be clear, has this blog gotten 160,000 visitors or 160,000 hits? Those things are quite different.
"It is heartening to know politics, market forces and special interests do not yet completely control free speech, freedom of information and free intellectual discourse."
My esteemed colleague: Capitalism is just as detrimental to free speech as Communism. Neither system can tolerate agnostics, skeptics, and dissidents. One may pay you to be quiet while the other gives you a high party rank or sends you to the Gulag. Both system need uneducated masses to brainwash and exploit -- politically, ideologically, and economically.
Free intellectual discourse? Remember McCarthyism and the black listing? When the Communist implants were rounded up (which is what it was supposed to do) they got paranoid and started to invent enemies. Or just look at the new Texas Education system. There is a new vocabulary just for educators. Free discourse, my foot! They might as well be a different planet, not just a different nation.
Not everyone is a leftist in Academia, and not everyone challenging right-wingers is a leftist. We all need to educate students to look out for fear mongers and demagogues: these can grab power easily and lead us into new wars. Historical experience can support one thing: educated masses pose greater threat to communism while in so-called democracies media, video games, TV, movies, toys, etc. keep people isolated to the point people do not understand words like solidarity, and that is what political systems need -- a disunited front. That is why unions are perceived as threat to various power systems. Unions are not necessarily leftist. In Poland, they dragged the communist system to its end.
Bloggie - are you still there?
What do you suppose we are to make of the recent uncoiling of COIL and the latest of many re-reincarnations of the mercurial and ever-shape-shifting Zelig the Human Chameleon?
Is the Academic Anaconda merely readjusting administrative positions in order to get a better choke hold?
Esteemed Colleague reply (part 1 of 3),
Perhaps you are wise enough to understand that totalitarian oppression and blind fanaticism and idealism come in many, often benign and even well-meaning guises, from both the right and left ends of the political spectrum (as I do and as I have explicitly stated in numerous ways in numerous previous posts on this blog – see the classic work “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” by Erich Hoffer, for an outstanding, cogent and concise exploration of these issues).
But the default presumption in academia (as well as in the mainstream media and entertainment and public sector government, non-profits, arts, humanities and popular culture) has for several decades now been essentially Marxist, Feminist, Postmodernist, Collectivist, Leftist and Liberal.
This tangled, convoluted and incoherent ideological Marxist Matrix informs the ideology and rhetoric of everyone from Obama and the Clintons to Michael Moore and Al Franken to the Occupy Movements – from the academic Arts and Humanities to the Social Sciences and beyond – even infiltrating the academic sciences and professional schools (Business, Law, Education, etc.)
Academic freedom, tenure, and the civil liberties delineated in the AAUP founding documents, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights etc. were designed, drafted and ratified to protect free speech and the free exchange of ideas.
But in leftist fundamentalist Newspeak, Groupthink, Orwellian academia and mainstream media, entertainment, popular and political cult-ture – “freedom” means the freedom to speak only dogmatic leftist “truth”.
Academia, academics, academic bureaucrats and administrators, students, pedagogy and curriculum now lack in large measure the essential ingredients necessary to form any cultured person, institution or society – namely personal and systematic moral and intellectual character and integrity.
The contagion of personal, intellectual and cultural decadence and degeneracy and ideological conformity has been intentionally spread by Marxist ideologues throughout our culture and institutions – infusing Marxist-Feminist-Postmodernist Political Correctness and Identity Politics from the sacred groves of Academe to the sacred precincts of our Church’s, Temples and Mosques, from Wall Street to Main Street, from Washington to London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, from TV Land to Hollywood, from the Public Sector to the Private Sector, in families, schools, businesses, communities, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, country clubs and fraternal organizations, non-profits, corporations, the military and on and on.
Following the playbooks of everyone from Hitler and Mussolini to Stalin and Mao to Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Gramsci, to Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers, Noam Chomsky and Saul Alinsky to the Obamas, Clintons, Jesse Jackson and Rahm Emmanuel and countless leftist agent provocateur individuals and organizations – the plan is to undermine Western, American, Capitalist, Judeo-Christian culture and society from within (since we have too many bombs and missiles for a frontal assault).
How?
Debase the social, cultural, spiritual and intellectual morals and ethics from the ground up and from the top down, undermine the family, monogamous marriage, pregnancy, the church, the quality, content, pedagogy and curriculum of schools and universities, the media, our healthcare (not systematic cultural and institutional proactive, preventative, common sense, simple, sustainable and economical diet, rest and exercise health and well-being protocols – but rather reactive, high tech industrial medical-pharmaceutical disease maintenance complex) and criminal justice systems (not personal responsibility but personal and cultural crime and degeneracy), the popular and elite culture, the economics and the legal tender currency (The Fed, corrupt Wall Street markets, going off the gold standard, bloated taxes and government, etc.).
Parts 2 and 3 follow
Esteemed Colleague part 2
…Intoxicate, delude, placate and coerce the hoi polloi with “beer and circus,” cultist propaganda, pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-scientific academic and popular pseudo-intellectualism, idealist militant ideology, endless calls for more laws and funding for more “social justice” programs, materialism – labyrinthine and oppressive centralized government laws, taxes, regulations, jobs and subsidies – proliferation of addictive substances and behaviors – drugs, sex, rock and roll, rap, hip-hop “culture”, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, junk food, texting, sexting, cell phones, smart phones, Ipods, video games, television, sports, entertainment, amusements, pornography, gambling, casinos, prostitution, shopping, endless mindless talking, reality TV, exhibitionism, personal drama and endless distraction, thrill seeking, degenerate and/or agitprop art, literature, music, media and culture – all moderated and mediated by phalanxes of political, media and academic commissars, judges, attorneys, bureaucrats, politicians and financiers and a police state industrial-criminal-justice prison complex.
The results? A helpless, debased, debauched, dependent, ignorant, sick, obese, lazy, entitled, indoctrinated, addicted, immoral, populace ready to mindlessly serve Great Leader and The Matrix (or sit endlessly rotting in prisons, rehab clinics and welfare offices).
If the toxic, misguided personal, professional and/or socio-political dogmas and agendas of Marxist leftists are served – then the matter at hand, whatever it may be, is by definition true and good – no matter how patently false, morally repugnant or destructive to individuals or society these dogmas and agendas may actually be.
We are all “free” to support these dogmas and agendas, whether actively or passively – but to do otherwise, to openly and publicly question these dogmas and agendas means to be ruthlessly, ferociously and forever shunned and branded with the indelible Scarlet Letter(s) of Political Correctness: B for “Bigot,” N for “Nazi,” S for “Sexist,” R for “Racist” etc.
I know first hand that this personal, professional, political and financial shunning, persecution, discrimination, suppression, oppression, slander, libel and gossip comes from all directions, in all forms and at all levels – formal and informal, official and unofficial, overt and covert, direct and indirect, external and internal (from within an organization, community, neighborhood, friends, colleagues or family), from both identified and unidentified sources – it involves persistent snubbing and shunning in public and in private – in one’s home and in the marketplace, public square or workplace – snubbing and shunning not only of one’s self, but of anyone associated with one’s self (the offending “heretic”) – spouse, children, family, friends, loved ones, colleagues.
In such a tacitly and often covertly toxic and oppressive “society,” is it any wonder most of us – in academia and elsewhere – elect to conform and rationalize if not actively enable and take advantage of leftist lunacy?
Part 3 follows
Esteemed Colleague part 3 - the last
For those who may still truly care about and understand things like truth, goodness, reality, fairness and personal and intellectual character and integrity, go to some of the following recommended resources.
(Note: If you ever begin seeing such people or ideas appearing on campus or in required academic programs and courses and readings for course syllabi – not to mention the mainstream media and popular culture – you will know there may still be hope):
Here is someone I never heard about or learned about in school and came to very late, who is nonetheless outstanding as an author on basic personal ethics, morals, integrity, common sense, Christian virtue, good habits and good living. He was once world famous and widely read, but is now, as far as I can tell, quite obscure.
He should nonetheless be read along with the likes of Aristotle, Cicero, Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Hume, Schopenhauer, Mill, Emerson, Thoreau, et al.
Samuel Smiles – (Character, etc.)
More recent and known:
Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph (2012), by Dennis Prager (also see Prager’s other works and his website and radio talk show).
“The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas” and “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning,” both by Jonah Goldberg (also search Golberg’s online articles at National Review Online etc.)
The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House (2012) by former New York Times Editor In Chief, Ed Klein.
What’s so Great About America? By Dinesh D’Souza.
The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (2011), by David Mamet (yes, THAT David Mamet).
Intellectuals and Society; Economic Facts and Fallacies; Black Rednecks and White Liberals, all by Thomas Sowell.
Other important authors:
Patrick Buchanan (Death of the West, etc.)
Roger Kimball (Tenured Radicals, The New Criterion arts and culture journal, etc.)
David Horowitz (Frontpagemag.com, Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes, One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy, The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party etc.)
Andrew Breitbart (Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World, etc.)
Mark Steyn (After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, etc.)
Tammy Bruce – lesbian feminist and former National Organization for Women Leader (The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values, etc.)
Adam Carolla (In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks: . . . And Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy)
John Stossel – (No, They Can't: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed, etc.)
Keep reading from the above selections and follow-up online on Amazon and on related websites for similar authors and readings – and by listening to the radio talk shows broadcast by many of these authors until you finally “get it.”
Watch Fox News and Fox Business on TV.
Check out Bill O’Reilly. Listen and think with an open mind.
Then, once you finally see the light, try to do what you can in your personal and professional life to REALLY help save yourself, the ones you love and maybe even the world.
May you live long and prosper.
END
30% of Students With Loans Drop Out of College
Outstanding student loan debt $1 trillion
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1688896327001/30-of-students-with-loans-drop-out-of-college/
"What do you suppose we are to make of the recent uncoiling of COIL...?"
COIL has been a taxpayer-funded failure from which its dean (the hero of the "Thanks Ben" blog posting: http://ascforum.blogspot.com/2011/11/thanks-ben.html) greatly (i.e. financially) benefited -- he got a raise, and now he is on his way to future tax-payer funded failures as Vice-Provost.
Now if this is the business model that Jacobs, Inc. is promoting, UT is in more trouble than what we might have thought. What business or corporation rewards failures? Or do Lloydie, Goldie, and the BOT eff-ups really think that their empire is too big to fail? Maybe they'll get a bail-out money to feed their greed and stupdity. The feds will be alerted if they have not already been...
To be honest: it may not be so strange that the BOT godfathers with business backgrounds continue to watch and let their sidekicks -- two surgeons: Jacobs, Gold) run the show. Word has it that they will get rid of these two when they are no longer useful. But the real fun comes when authorities round up the rest of the BOT on various charges... So, do keep an eye out on Wikileaks or other sources for updates -- it is only a matter of time! Order shall return to UT.
bloggie, where (when) are you? Why so long in posting comments of the week? Tired of leading the revolution of academics who talk a lot but don't act?
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