UT AAUP Brings Home the Bacon

From the latest UT AAUP newsletter:

Family Pigs at the Public Trough   by: Donald K. Wedding    According to the Toledo Blade on September 22, 2009, certain members of the Board of Trustees (Szuch, Hussain),  voiced support for President Jacobs' need to pay high salaries and bonuses for the retention of administrators.  Undoubtedly Jacobs enjoys such support from others on the Board of Trustees which tends to be clueless on the true state of affairs at UT. The Board of Trustees does not seem to grasp that the academic excellence of a university is determined by its faculty and students, not by its administrators and their financial gains.   High salaries and bonuses are only part of the payout to the UT administrative elite.  The Jacobs Administration has provided other perks including the hiring of family members of administrators as highly-paid consultants or employees.  The UT-AAUP has sought information on these family hires under the Ohio Public Records Act, but has been stonewalled by the Jacobs Administration.   Tammy Scarborough, wife of VP Scott Scarborough, has been hired as a Senior Accountant on the Health Science Campus. Also, Gordon Haggett, husband of Provost Rosemary Haggett, is employed by the UT Foundation. The UT-AAUP is seeking detailed information including salaries for these hires and others. For example, were the positions newly created? Were the positions posted or advertised? There are many questions, but UT has failed to provide information requested under the Ohio Public Records Act.  UT-AAUP will continue to press for more information.  We also request that persons having information on the above hires and others provide such information to the UT-AAUP in confidence.  Thomas Gutteridge, Dean of the College of Business Administration (COBA), hired Peter Gold, the brother of Health Science Provost Jeffrey Gold, as a consultant at $5,000 per month for six months for 30 hours per month of his time.  It is not clear what services Gold provided to Gutteridge and the COBA. This contract was apparently not advertised or competed, but merely awarded by Gutteridge to Gold.  The contract is in the form of a letter from Gutteridge to Peter Gold, signed by both.    Gutteridge and other administrators have expressed concern over the use of the noun pig in the UT-AAUP newsletter. In response, we refer them to Animal Farm by George Orwell, published in 1945. Animal Farm is a perfect caricature of the Jacobs Administration. In the book, the pigs take over the animal farm for their exclusive benefit to the detriment of all others. The piggish UT administrators are running UT for their private benefit and enjoyment including high salaries, bonuses, and the hiring of family members while faculty and staff are being terminated and/or threatened with furloughs.  The State of Ohio and its taxpayers are suffering severe economic hardship.  Meanwhile, back on the farm, the Jacobs Administration continues business as usual.