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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Under Jake's Watch, UT Makes it onto Yet Another List

Alas.  See:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/25-universities-with-the-worst-professors-204146173.html

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not so sure that posting a link about how bad UT ranks in regards to the worst professors reflects on Jacobs (aside from using Rate Your Professor as the data source), but if you follow the link to the complete report on ranking of colleges by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity using numerous criteria and see UT listed as 641 out of 650 it clearly indicates UT has a problem on many fronts including now national image. I am well aware of the issues regarding any of these rankings but one from this source creates a huge image problem for UT regardless of the methodology questions.

Then there is this, apparently Jacobs is not the forward thinker he claims to be on MOOCs since majority of his peers do not see MOOCs as the savor of higher education:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/02/survey-finds-presidents-are-skeptical-moocs

Anonymous said...

Bloggie -

Though we cannot necessarily assume a direct post hoc ergo propter hoc correlation between Jake's influence and UT's appearing so near the top of this Worst Professors list, it is nonetheless both astonishing and heartbreaking that UT would rise to such high levels of lowness in any category.

Anonymous said...

Well, imagine what the ratings will be next year after the latest rounds of cutbacks and increased workloads. I don't know how far back these ratings go and if it's possible to chart the decline in teaching ratings and associate it with the decline in morale and Jacobs leadership. However, Jacobs should be held responsible either for the decline in teaching or the hiring of poor teachers or both. Of course what his cronies will argue is that he's currently in the process of getting rid of the bad teachers and will be replacing them with visionaries. Bloggie, you should have included a photo of the banner UT has hanging at the football stadium, proclaiming UT the best university in the universe: the irony would be priceless.

Anonymous said...

http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2013/05/02/Jacobs-defends-UT-professors-from-list-ranking.html

Anonymous said...

Jake goes on Youtube to defend faculty. Wow. That must have been hard for him. His nervous twitches while speaking praise of faculty were clearer than his words.

Anonymous said...

Wow, UT made #20.

The article says: "It's notable that some of the universities that landed on the worst professor list are schools that specialize in science, technology and engineering, which are academically challenging"

STEM - the way to go Morons Supreme Jacobs, Scarborough, Gold, Cruickshank, and Stansley! You are ruining the Humanities and Social Sciences, but can't do any better in STEM. And you want to be the supreme decision maker of this university!

You and your Band of Turds (aka BOT) are a disgrace to academia, society, and human race. Pack your shit and leave UT!

Anonymous said...

Latest UTAAUP bulletin reports that the faculty salaries reported to the Blade (which have been posted by the blade to a searchable database) are in error, in some cases to the tune of 23000$ (23000 MORE than the faculty member actually makes). Mistake or intentional PR blunder? And UT's response seems to be it is up to each individual faculty member to check the figures on the Blade website and report any errors back to UT.

Bloggie said...

Don't forget that UT also ranked nationally when it made #13 on the list of universities having the greatest ratio of administrators to students.

Alas, UT, whither goest thou?

Anonymous said...

"Jake goes on Youtube to defend faculty."

Well played, Ayatollah Jakeola. The faculty release a justifiably negative review, and a few days later, you're on the internet defending them anyway. The board and the public will eat that right up.

Anonymous said...

"Mistake or intentional PR blunder? And UT's response seems to be it is up to each individual faculty member to check the figures on the Blade website and report any errors back to UT."

That's because UT's administrators, including our leading accountant, got shit for brains: can't do anything right, and the PR blunder will blow over with the useless Blade. Jacobs apologizing for STEM faculty? What a horse's ass! Feed him a bowl of turd (BOT...).

UT bets its money on a few horses (lets the good ones in the useless Humanities and Social Sciences die), and these few horses are losing. Don't you love the irony? So, what's in your wallet? Hopefully your resume. We all need to get out of this Jacobs+BOT hell hole!

Anonymous said...

It's worth mentioning yet again that the forces energizing Jacob's & Co are state/national forces - just follow the latest news from the local and national AAUP ('right to work' legislation,' changes to ways in which out of state students can vote (or not) in the next elections, gerrymandering, etc. Incredibly, the right seems to have concluded its recent Presidential losses are the result of 1. student voting & 2. brainwashing by college professors. It also seems determined to hold onto power by increasingly bold voting district redesign. However, I will say that Jacobs & Co. do seem to be the least competent of Ohio's univ admins, given UT's abysmal financial condition (if the figures are to be believed).

Anonymous said...

I think it is all intentional. Install administrators and boards friendly to the right wing agenda to dismantle government services. Give those administrators a free hand to put the thumb screws to faculty, staff, and students to shake them down. Give themselves more money, more lucrative contracts to the outside right wing businesses and more donations to those candidates who support that agenda. Convenient. The only ones being squeezed are the students, faculty and staff....bunch of lazy liberals anyway. Thank the folks like the Koch bros.

Anonymous said...

Why the Pseudo-Academic Programs and Departments Must Go

The extreme budgetary duress under which the contemporary Academy presently finds itself – and the resulting very trying circumstances which are threatening the serious work of serious academics, scholars, teachers, scientists and researchers and their students and protégées brings us yet again to the discussion of the existence of and lack of justification for a wide assortment of pseudo-academic programs.

To whit, the interdisciplinary applications of Marxist-Feminist Postmodern Theory that have been deployed in countless academic disciplines, including English, Philosophy, Political Science, Art, Education and History, as well as in a virtually unlimited rainbow assortment of academic and non-academic on- and off-campus PC pseudo-studies, programs, departments, movements, cults, institutes, organizations, clubs, foundations, PAC’s, etc.

Such pseudo-academic disciplines, programs and departments and their pseudo-academic pseudo-scholarship have expanded and proliferated exponentially over the last several decades for purely political and non- or pseudo-academic reasons.

They were allowed formal programmatic access to college campuses by college administrators and BOTs that were either weak, fearful and ignorant appeasers, or deluded partisan fellow travelers.

These largely identity-politics-informed pseudo disciplines and departments (ranging from the relatively small and clearly ludicrous but nonetheless pernicious – like Disability Studies or The Office of Diversity, to the clearly politically toxic and destructive – like Women’s Studies, to bloated, politicized funding glutton leviathans – like Education colleges) have all served primarily as vehicles of mediocre careerism, useless teaching, meaningless research and wasted funding and as hotbeds of extremist Marxist-Feminist Postmodern activism, indoctrination and propaganda.

Such pseudo-programs are highly redundant and irrelevant and have long since outlived any constructive purpose or function they may have ever even theoretically possessed – even according to their own stated missions and objectives.

They serve either no purpose whatsoever – or, in those instances where they do serve some small academic or other purpose, that purpose always has been and/or would more easily and efficiently be served in the form of an elective course or two, or added or already existing curricular content within the confines of long-existing traditional academic departments.

Now more than ever, for financial, academic and ethical reasons – these PC academic and non-academic pseudo disciplines, departments, programs and courses and their false, meaningless, biased, useless, irrelevant and toxic course content and agendas should be categorically, summarily and systematically eliminated at all colleges and universities, locally and nationally.

The PC pseudo-program bureaucracies should be dismantled, the budgets redistributed and the people within these programs reassigned to more positive, productive and constructive work.

continued

Anonymous said...

Pseudo-Academic Programs 2

It is understandable that anyone with any interest in such pseudo-programs and departments as those mentioned above, or in their broader political agendas, will see only negativity and threat in these statements – since the only real beneficiaries of these programs (those who receive paychecks and direct funding and/or arbitrary political, professional or personal privilege through them) have primarily only ever been exposed to the one-sided cult-like dogma and propaganda of their own special interest groups.

If these PC pseudo-programs really are so important and indispensable to the university and to society as a whole, then it should be a simple matter for their constituents to clearly and concisely demonstrate this to the rest of us – in the open sunshine of reasoned, unbiased and objective discourse (as opposed to only within the insulated partisan echo chambers where only the already indoctrinated true believers mindlessly listen in rapt agreement).

Most of these pseudo-academic programs are grounded in outmoded, obsolete politicized theory and “research” that were utterly bogus from the beginning, are now at least several decades old (pre 1990’s or earlier) and have long since in any case been discredited and disowned even by some of their formerly most fervent supporters (Stanley Fish, et al.).

In other words, most of the present day Marxist-Feminist Postmodern pseudo-academy consists of nothing more than an imaginary holographic house of cards built upon a virtual theoretical and ideological foundation of illusory smoke and mirrors.

We therefore need and eagerly await more contemporaneous presentations – from the directors of these PC pseudo-academic disciplines, programs and departments to the campus community – outlining substantive facts, statistics, budgets, accomplishments, CV’s, course syllabi, published articles and other data as supporting evidence to justify the continued existence of such programs and departments – programs which from a rigorous academic perspective should never have come into existence in the first place.

Backlash buzzwords like “racist” or “sexist,” “or discrimination,” or trotting out vacuous platitudes about “raising awareness” or “promoting social justice” do not even come close to meeting the most rudimentary standards of reasonable justification for such programs. We can no longer afford, nor should we any longer condone such mindless, meaningless, divisive, rhetoric and slogans.

No reasonable person would regard Nazis as being the single definitive resource about Nazism, but Marxist-Feminist Postmodernists have no trouble accepting the incoherent dogma and jargon of their fellow cult members as infallible gospel.

It is precisely because the PC agenda cannot stand up to reasonable objective scrutiny that we have been confronted with the defensive, obscurantist Wizard of Oz style huffing and puffing and intimidation and posturing of relativist postmodern sophistry and the politics of meaning.

For people who have dedicated their careers to these pseudo-programs – fulfilling such a simple request for substantive information and supporting documentation to justify their very existence should be a matter of a few short minutes work – cutting and pasting a few documents and links and posting them to the ASC blog or to the Provost’s Office. They should be proud to openly share and explain their work.

continued

Anonymous said...

Pseudo-Academic Programs 3

But if these program heads cannot clearly demonstrate the validity and positive purpose of their own academic and professional pursuits (and we do not believe they can – and we indeed believe any reasonable person would feel foolish and appear foolish in even attempting to defend and justify to their colleagues programs which in fact amount to little more than a bunch of unmitigated politicized pseudo-academic jargon and nonsense) – then they are ethically obliged to voluntarily, actively and willingly participate in the dismantling of their own programs in the interest of the greater good (a.k.a. “social justice”) and for the sake of their own sense of professional and intellectual integrity and self respect.

The Marxist-Feminist Postmodern PC matrix of pseudo-intellectual agendas represent in sum a colossal waste of human and capital resources – millions of good, well-meaning, intelligent (but sadly indoctrinated) people and countless trillions of dollars all being wasted in the pursuit of misguided, meaningless and toxic delusions that only serve to further enrich and empower a small coterie of super elites and while coercing millions of people with pork barrel busy work jobs in return for their acquiescence and political patronage – all of which diverts much needed funding and attention from the many very real, urgent and pressing problems that continue to plague our world.

The following briefly illustrates one example of what we have been discussing here.

In his book “Frontiers in Legal Theory” (2001) Judge Richard Posner, arguably America’s preeminent contemporary legal scholar wrote,

“Today [2001] the CLS [Critical Legal Studies – a.k.a. Marxist-Feminist Postmodern Law and Social Thought] movement is passé´ except that, like the mother salmon off whose corpse her spawn feeds, it has nurtured three other fields of radical legal theory that continue to exert influence in academic legal circles: Radical feminist jurisprudence, postmodernist scholarship, and critical race theory [e. g. the politicized fantasy realm of Dr. Previous & Co.]. In all three derivative movements the influence of Foucault’s extreme social constructionism is apparent.”

Judge Posner’s curt admonitions notwithstanding, the link below shows our very own not-to-be-dissuaded Law and Social Thought Foucauldian himself, Dr. Previous (a.k.a. Suel Forrester, Southern Lawyer) demonstrating the literally incomprehensible practical applications and devastating effectiveness of relativist Postmodern Law Jargon Gibberish Theory in the courtroom.

(Please disregard the obligatory introductory advert and also keep in mind that Dr. P. was obviously under the influence of Skittles during the taping of this video):

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/suel-forrester-southern-lawyer/n11165/

Recommended Further Reading:

The Victim’s Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind, by Bruce Bawer (2012)

Save the World on Your Own Time, by Stanley Fish (2012)

Links to lists of UT academic and administrative programs and departments:

http://www.utoledo.edu/menu/colleges.html

http://www.utoledo.edu/campus/offices/index.html

http://www.utoledo.edu/campus/administration/scarborough/index.html

http://www.utoledo.edu/campus/administration/gold/index.html

JdS

Anonymous said...

"2. brainwashing by college professors."

While I am aware of professors who do not check facts but publish and teach like gods, that is not brainwashing since students have the opportunity to check -- an activity that is not discouraged. Braiwashing happens in closed circles like churches, small-town communities, etc. that do discourage questioning dictated (therefore accepted) protocols...true, it has happened on the large scale too in the East Bloc countries, and today it happens in N. Korea, Iran, the madrasas (sorry, not to offend those who really know what Islam is really about!), and some other isolated enclaves.

Brainwashing is also what you get from Rush (Trash) Limbaugh, various Jesus Radio programs (again by those who misuse and pervert Christianity in America), Tea baggers, and nazi (intentionally non-capitalized) sympathizers. These programs are targeted towards morons who do not check facts.

Most professors do expect student to check facts. Teaching only turns into preaching and brainwashing if somehow the professor starts getting the god complex and sees his or her students as flocks of sheep who have no brains to question or criticize. Perhaps the only drawback of tenure system is that these people get to stay. Such professors do not belong in public universities, but again, it is easy to see why right-wingers are undermining public education.

Anonymous said...

"As we reported to you on May 1, State Representatives Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) each introduced so-called "right-to-work" bills. Roegner's bill (House Bill 151) deals with the private sector, while Maag's bill (House Bill 152) deals with the public sector."

Question: when the rogue meets the maggot, what can you expect? Which one will eat the other?

Anonymous said...

wow. you academics have figured out how to shoot yourselves in the abdomen: let your intellectual colleagues have access to the microphone. if I were Lloyd I (maybe I am), I would be laughing all the way to the bank.
For as much as I despise LlJ. I admire his talents and his sure success. Too bad the Ph.D's did not respect him enough to use the tools necessary to fight him. Maybe Bloggie is Llj, as the blog exists as a source of strength for him.

Anonymous said...

faculty
how long can you live with the irrelevant in your dispute with the administration? Oh, you are not the faculty, you are the remnants. I am done guiding you. i believe you will out-last the administration, but it will be too late. UT is in the toilet.
JAKE

Anonymous said...

Is there a list of universities with the worst presidents? Bet UT would be at the top pf that list!

Anonymous said...

someone was trying to channel the faculty disappointment into a conflict between faculty and faculty. not too smart, transparent, and saying again that our administration hates faculty.

Anonymous said...

Dear Jake:

I am so happy you organized that press conference so quickly in defense of your faculty's honor. Your Blade buddies have reassured the world that UT is still the place.

Now I feel that we may still stay afloat in the toilet bowl instead of being flushed altogether with all that shit you and your BOT (bowl of turds) friends dumped after eating at Crony Island.

Yours truly,

Irrelevant Faculty

Anonymous said...

So, when is the Senat/AAUP vote of no confidence? Eyes on the ball folks.

Anonymous said...

Dear faculty from main campus
would it help you to realize there are more of you than there are faculty at the HSC?

Anonymous said...

Anyone else notice that the Blade has removed the incorrect information about UT faculty gross pay? Maybe the Blade is beginning to understand that this UT administration is either incompetent or deceitful.

Anonymous said...

There will be no vote of no confidence from the AAUP as it would not favor their efforts to secure a new contract and since Faculty Senate and the 9 month faculty do not return until end of August do not expect a vote unless at least the fall.

Anonymous said...

The summer will only give Jacobs more time to do things that will make a vote of no confidence more likely in the fall. Stay tuned.

Anonymous said...

No confidence votes are a badge of honor for presidents now. If it happens, it will be a story for one day, the world with yawn and that ammunition will be gone.

Anonymous said...

There will be no contract. Jacobs is stalling until Ohio becomes a right to work state. This will likely occur in the lame duck session following the election.

Anonymous said...

Agree that the "right to work" issue is the only thing that makes any sense out of UT's stalling vis a vis new contracts. They were certainly stalling when they expected SB5 to succeed. The "Right to Work" bills are just another attempt to get the same. Otherwise, UT could have saved itself money by renegotiating the health insurance at the very least. However, the latest word from Columbus is that the "right to work" bills are on hold, at least until after the gubernatorial election (the thinking being Kasich does not want it mucking up his reelection plans). Also agree that the cries for a vote of no confidence, in any format, by any group, is at the most just earning the right to say "I told you so" somewhere down the line. Jacobs & Co will rise or fall with other issues, not whether or not faculty give him positive or negative votes/reviews. As far as the BOT and Columbus are concerned, faculty are just a bunch of leftist fat cats too long on the public dole, and all the whining and votes and reviews just confirm that (to them).