Will There Be Mergers? Soon?

"The Idea of the Presumption of "Yes"

Update on Dean's Ineffectual Efforts on Behalf of College

Read it yourself, but your sweet Bloggie interprets this as meaning--Now, now, shut up and go along with the program.



Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 16:37:04 -0400
From: "McClelland, Nina"
To: "Rouillard, Linda"
Cc: "Jacobs, Lloyd" ,
"Gaboury, John" ,
"Hymore, Diane"
Subject: RE: update on the library

Linda . . .

This confirms that I have:
1. Spoken with Dr. Gaboury regarding the library issues we
discussed. I learned that there was a committee involved in the
decisions reached and that the maps that were discarded were those - and
only those - that the Chair of the Department of Geography and Planning
identified as "no longer needed." Dr. Gaboury shared with me copies of
the related correspondence which I am attaching for your information;
and
2. Spoken with President Jacobs regarding the A&S Council Executive
Committee's request to add someone representing the Council to the
President's Committee on Strategic Organization. My sense was that,
because the committee is well along with its charge and the timeline
assigned was so short (30 days; i.e. report by June 9, 2010); and,
because the charge is institutional rather than College focused, he will
elect to continue with the Committee as originally constituted.
Please call or e-mail me if you have further questions.

Nina

Vibrancy?

The below message from the UT President was posted earlier by Bloggie as part of a larger message, so few seemed to have taken sufficient notice of its vague weirdness. Notice that a comment was posted too to an earlier post by a reader pertaining to this Strategic Reorganization. I have just these simple questions at this time, addressed to the BOT. Concerning your appointment of Lloyd Jacobs, isn't the honeymoon about over? How long are you going to let this guy going to spin these fuzzy yarns at the expense of the University?


Committee of Strategic Organization

Organizational structure can be an important tool for the attainment of strategic goals. Specifically, an organization that promotes interaction promotes creativity. Formal and informal interaction can promote vibrancy and excitement which in turn can result in new ideas and ways of thinking. For these reasons I have asked a group of faculty and administrators to continue the work begun during the recent trip to Arizona State University by thinking about our Organizational Structure. They will be benchmarking with other institutions as well as thinking creatively about Organization as Strategy. Ultimately, it is my hope that their deliberations will directly connect with the strategic planning process and constitute another implementation appendix for our recalibrated strategic plan?

The faculty and administrators involved are: Dr. Rosemary Haggett, Nina McClelland, Peg Traband, Patsy Komuniecki, Marcia King-Blandford, Jamie Barlowe, Beverly Schmoll, Miggy Hopkins, Ann Krause, Debra Davis, Charlene Czerniak, Penny Poplin Gosetti and Kaye Patten Wallace.





lj

Music for "Die Gedanken sind frei!"

MORE to Discover! Paper or Plastic?

Advice to The Administration! Quit cutting essential staff and services on the main campus to save pennies. Arts & Sciences has been bled enough and its wounds are visible and festering. Academic productivity is already smothering in decay. Morale stinks. Wake up! A penny saved is a penny! You continue to trash this campus with your maladministration and we hate you for it!

Caesar the Goat, 2005 to 2010

Caesar the Goat
10 April 2005—20 May 2010
Memoria in Aeterna

Known for starring in satiric cartoons directed against wholesale mediocrity in university administration, Caesar the Goat passed away this morning unexpectedly.

Often misunderstood, Caesar was best known for his role in what has become known as the Trojan Armadillo cartoon, which appeared on the ASC Forum Blog on April 20 of this year, which some say was directed at the University of Toledo of provost. Those familiar with Caesar’s artistic work pooh-pooh this notion, saying that the cartoon was directed at the entire UT upper administration and was meant to underscore that administration’s commitment to hopeless mediocrity and desperate attempts at self-justification via mindless advocating for change for the sake of change.

Said an expert familiar with Caesar’s works, “Caesar was horrified at how low University officials would stoop in an effort to pass off ideas that they had obviously just read in some airline magazine while on a university-paid junket as some sort of cutting edge organizational theory. Caesar simply snorted at the redundant term ‘transformative change’ which he described as ‘a pseudo-intellectual’s mantra.’”

Donations in memory of Caesar should be directed to either the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action or to the Michigan State University Veterinary Clinic.

He was interred in a private ceremony surrounded by his herd members and friends. Crackers were served.

Die Gedanken sind frei!

Hermann Prey sings "Die Gedanken sind frei!"

Hermann Prey


Annotation by Bloggie.

Here is the Pete Seeger version, banjo-ed in English;

Pete Seeger

For teaching writing--a BLOG??!!

As far as I can recall, satire has been used to show the opposing view, to goad, irritate, illustrate, and otherwise "piss off" those in power. That's what this blog is for. It is not meant to teach writing. No one should expect a blog to contain polished examples of anyone's writing. Does anyone believe that Swift's first draft of A Modest Proposal as good as what survives in the sample books?
Blogs are first drafts. They are written in the heat of anger, perhaps following the malaise of frustration or the funk of humiliation. Blogs are vents for letting off steam, with the hope that the steam burns someone or something into action. Blogging is writing of the underground, of the institution's loyal opposition, and like the union, speaks for the downtrodden and the misused and abused.
Long live the right to speak and write freely, as dangerous as that right may be! May the day never come when we have the rights, but--to quote a recent interview--we feel "...they don't necessarily need exercising in order to be retained as part of our freedoms and culture."

As the song goes "DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI!"

Transmogrative Change

A Few News Briefs (updated on 5/18):

1. So called "Reorganization" of the College appears to be underway, a committee of 12 nominally in charge, selected by some mysterious and wholly arbitrary process. The Dean, always compliant, is on it. Their deadline as charged by jacobs is June 10.
Here is the memo sent by Lloyd Jacobs after the fact of its organization:

Committee of Strategic Organization

Organizational structure can be an important tool for the attainment of
strategic goals. Specifically, an organization that promotes interaction
promotes creativity. Formal and informal interaction can promote vibrancy
and excitement which in turn can result in new ideas and ways of thinking.
For these reasons I have asked a group of faculty and administrators to
continue the work begun during the recent trip to Arizona State University
by thinking about our Organizational Structure. They will be benchmarking
with other institutions as well as thinking creatively about ?Organization
as Strategy?. Ultimately, it is my hope that their deliberations will
directly connect with the strategic planning process and constitute another
implementation appendix for our recalibrated strategic plan.

The faculty and administrators involved are: Dr. Rosemary Haggett, Nina
McClelland, Peg Traband, Patsy Komuniecki, Marcia King-Blandford, Jamie
Barlowe, Beverly Schmoll, Miggy Hopkins, Ann Krause, Debra Davis, Charlene
Czerniak, Penny Poplin Gosetti and Kaye Patten Wallace.

lj

2. A number of Department secretaries, >5, have been axed as of Friday, May 15. A list will follow when available.

3. Chair appointments have been delayed by the Dean's office, allegedly, until after the reorganization. Update: New information now has it these appointments are going ahead.

4. The Carlson Library appears now to feature video games rather than books. Also they have been throwing media materials, maps and government documents into the dumpster.

5. The Blade has published University of Toledo salaries on its website. You can see for yourself where the money pours. UT is truly an administratively-centered university. Administrative salaries skyrocket here and elsewhere. Here is the link to the article--which itself links to a salary database:

UT salaries


6. The Independent Collegian ran an article on the irresponsible use of big executive longevity bonuses by the BOT/Jacobs administration, citing as evidence the failure of large bonuses paid to retain Provost Haggett, et al. See:

Fat Stupid Bonuses

7. The BOT on 5/17, according to reporters, OKed a budget that will lay off an additional 36 support people.(Correction, apparently these are 36 people already laid off and approved. Interpretations, however, vary).

8. And no, Bloggie is not making any of this up.

UT Secret Administrative Planning Process

Note; See Post of April 26 for background.

Jacobs on Blog

Link to Inside Higher Ed Article on Disappearing Departments

Dear Bloggie: the following link is to an article that appears in
today's issue of Inside Higher Ed: "Disappearing Departments."


Disappearing Departments


I request that you post the link, perhaps even the article itself. It is important reading for our colleagues. Thanks.
--

Happy Grading!

Now that finals are behind us and grading ahead of us, I just wanted to wish us all the best with that task and a safe, happy, and productive summer!

A & S Meeting

Yesterday was the last (?) A & S meeting of the year and the last for Brian Patrick as chair. While most administrators will breathe a sigh of relief that the man with the supposed "demonic powers" is no longer chair, they will have missed the point. The point is A & S Council took responsibility this year for questioning this administration, its actions and, its motives for those actions. I see no reason for this to change under our new chair Linda Rouillard. The faculty and students are the ones who must live with the decisions made by the BOT and this administration. To the extent possible we must try to influence those decisions for the future benefit of the university and its students. In his parting remarks, Brian mentioned the "moral authority" of the Council. I would add that those of us with tenure have a moral responsibility to speak out. You either stand for something, or you stand for nothing at all.

Tuttle, Buttle, HEH Shuttle

Summation Time

It is hard to believe but the blog is now over two years old. Time sure flies when you're having fun. During that time we've seen both a dean and a provost either abandon the ship or get told to walk the plank. I suppose it depends upon one's perspective. I did find it fascinating that the Provost came to Arts and Sciences Council to discuss her long range plans for reorganizing our world only to resign less than a week later. That was one great way to build trust. Rumor has it she was never part of the "in crowd." So, what happens now? Most likely, we will get an interim provost to go with our wide variety of interim deans. (I don't suppose we could get an interim president, could we?)

Presidential Legacy