It is much more, and then some! Top-down invasive and abusive initiatives now recklessly impacting the future of A&S College, its students, faculty, staff and alumni (for example, the jerry-built Learning Collaborative and the Roundtable Group) lack the ethical and moral foundations and commitments of a traditional public higher education campus "Thought Community." To appreciate the difference I recommend everyone to read the recent Chronicle of Higher Education essay “The Power of Place on Campus,” written by the Harvard educated polymath, public intellectual and businessman Earl Broussard:
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i34/34b01201.htm
Broussard recommends that responsible movers-and-shakers in academia wake up to the profound importance of American universities as products of history and tradition, thus sacred places for empowering ethical, moral and mindful thinking. He suggests we all “think of the campus as a thought community, and the city as a support system.” Earl’s humane vision of successful higher education that combines teaching, research and service in the new millennium is at odds with the corrupting business-model vision of the UT Jacobs Administration; for example, as documented in his “Directions” planning document. Broussard also believes the successful higher education campus of the future can reclaim its spiritual roots in a new age of ethical and moral responsibility, and that art, architecture, and spirituality will play a major role in that profound transformation.
Rather that lament that Jacobs is herding A&S College, our main campus, and the all of UT along a road to rapid ruin, I suggest we instead educate the BOT and the Jacobs administration quickly about the wisdom of the Broussard campus planning ALTERNATIVE, and urge them to abandon their present directions. Meanwhile, we concerned students, faculty, staff and alumni can join to embrace the Broussard vision, to climb together in unison, systematically, as an inspired Thought Community, to reach the higher moral ground that it aspires to achieve. This would be the high road that Jacobs et al never considered, or deliberately neglected, ignored, and abandoned in favor of taking their low road to mediocrity.
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UT is mediocre now. What road are you talking about? You've been average for decades and will be average for decades more.
Oh, you are the Ohio Alum who is an administrative shill? Actually, under Jacobs, UT is being driven well below mediocrity.
My own take is that Toledo as a city is below mediocre, and Jacobs is trying his damnedest to match the University with the community. It is a miracle that UT is even mediocre considering its surroundings and top leadership.
Jacobs will be lucky even to achieve mediocrity with his crazy prescriptions. What was his mortality rate as a surgeon? He seems to be aiming at 100 percent as a university president.
No, Ohio Alum, UT can do well. But it will not be because of Jacobs, but in spite of him.
Well said. UT survived Kapoor and UT will survive the Kapoor clone, aka Jacobs. It continued because of faculty, students, staff, and a community who care about it and who appreciate the potential there is here. This institution is bigger than a few individuals who consider themselves crown princes of the campus.
Earl Broussard's grand and uplifting campus "thought community" is an appealing ethically-based alternative to the continuing downward spiraling of UT set in motion its BOT and their unanimous endorsement of their Jacobs administration’s inhumane "Directions" document (which is predicated on the untenable assumption that a corrupting business model applied to a state-supported institute of public higher education can somehow “improve the human condition”!). Let's invite Earl to our campus to share his general ideas with us, and to suggest specific projects appropriate to our campus. The sooner the better!
A suggestion that is both sensible and constructive! Making UT a "thought community"--where ideas are discussed and debated, knowledge expanded and exchanged--would allow us to assume a much more desirable stewardship role than the course the Jacobs et al. protocols would have us travel. We already have many of the physical "prerequisites"; we have beautifully landscaped, green physical spaces, and even at Scott Park there's a lawn with a pond and ducks. I think we already have some UT-community bonds (other than the complaints of student parties, etc.), though as a commuting faculty member, I miss out on a lot of that. If we build on these foundations and (re-)discover ethics, UT could become a university worthy of respect whose degrees are of real value and whose thinking, discerning graduates would carry that value with them and pass it on.
YES, I would like to see a college plan that is not some vindictive prescription written by Jacobs (or "interpreted" by him from some vague guideline from a hand select committee and then implemented by the provost.)
And in case anyone has not noticed the English translation of "Thank you for your input" means "Fuck you very much." Apologies for the language, but someone needs to point out the obvious here: chronic disrespect and high-handedness by these administrative minions.
And "Provost" as used at has fallen back into its older meaning, obsolete everywhere in the world except at UT, "jailor." Although Gold (who seems to be the real Provost) doesn't seem to fit this mold.
But under the Jacobs Regime, UT has fallen into some sort of primitive charismatic organizational form of the sort discussed by Max Weber--the dominant head dog and his groveling followers; this is not a suitable organizational plan for a modern rational organization. Sycophancy replaces rationality.
Does Bloggie detect dismayed anger?
This alternative idea seems brilliant compared to what's going on now. But even if Jacobs and friends read this essay “The Power of Place on Campus" that you're talking about, do you really think they'll change their minds?
Will UT administrators change their minds? To the extent they are intelligent and observant, some will. It is in their self-interest to do so. The Good Ship UT is headed fast toward unforgiving shoals. Jacobs' "Directions" chart has led this administration (not to mention UT students, faculty, staff and alumni) into a Bermuda Triangle of internal contradictions. Individual administrative careers and ambitions are in jeopardy. The ethically-centered Thought Community seems a saving alternative to Jacobs' current course toward secularism, greed and disaster. It should be further explored.
It is interesting that Ted refers to UT heading toward the Bermuda Triangle--where things somehow mysteriously disappear. It's up to us to save UT from such a fate. Maybe the Thought Community can contribute to that. From what I've seen, the LA hasn't.
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