Interim Dean

The excitement never abates here at UT. We now have an interim dean. According to our Provost she is Data Driven. Oh my. Now I must admit Data was great on Star Trek The Next Generation but I'm not certain it is the adjective I was most looking for in a dean. After some twenty-nine years of college teaching, it has been my experience that universities use data when the data fit what the administration wants done. They ignore data otherwise. There is one other picky little item that bothers me. If our interim dean was on the dean's advisory council, what role did she play? Was she aware of our previous dean's shortcomings and what did she do to try to correct those over the past year? Her credentials seem excellent but limited. She has been an adjunct professor. How much teaching has she actually done and to whom? As we all know there is a great deal of difference between teaching senior pharmacy majors and introductory general education classes. In a time when general education is being attacked it does give me some concern. However, having said this I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt partially because I have no choice and partially because her background tells me she is not a pushover or a puppet.