Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.
DON'T BE A SHEEP
UT's Officially Disapproved Information Source and HISTORICAL ARCHIVE. The only source of truth, where Paradox Manifests: Hundreds of thousands of visits. Yet No One Admits to Reading It. Welcome to the "Grey Area" where "Unethical Utterances," i.e., criticisms of administrators, are commonplace. Make U.U. here where genuine civility still reigns, a.k.a., freedom......................... UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO'S EQUIVALENT TO RADIO FREE EUROPE
Search This Blog
NEW!!! Hard Eight by Professor Extreme
HARD EIGHT
Hard Eight: Auto-Ethnographic Essays on Academic Culture Featuring the End of the Arts & Sciences College, University of Toledo, 2010
Daily Koan
Should the newly discovered black hole be named in honor of UT BOT?
Swamp Bubble
Do you agree or disagree that University of Toledo suffers from administrative bloat?
How do you feel about the proposed UT Degree Guarantee program? (Reposted to allow more people to vote.)
How do you feel about the proposed UT Guarantee program?
How would you grade the overall performance of the Jacobs' administration on running the University of Toledo?
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
Bloggie applauds this perspicacious observer:
"The administration is in a panic mode to implement controversial and irreversible structural and curricular changes campus-wide by early February fiscal plan deadlines with only the vaguest notions of their impacts. The plan is, according to an interview with a top administrator published in the most recent Independent Collegian, to cast out many seeds and "see what grows." This experimental garden, as most senators articulated in many different ways, seems a costly recipe for disaster. Utter madness. Stay tuned."
Print Version of Dictionary of Academia Available on Amazon.com
The profound ruminations of the goaty Sage are now available in this 119 page satirical masterpiece. See: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1480292494/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B009RC0SJA&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1JV8N5BYAYY9WC9SJWD2
"Dictionary of Academia" Read it While it's Hot
A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.
Comment of the Week
"This is that old tension between the corporate way of doing things and the academic way of doing things. In the corporate world, you sweep everything under the rug to make your b.s. as shiny, pleasing to the nose, and profitable as possible. In the academic world, you operate with a higher moral standard. Veritas and all that."
Comment of the Week of August 13
Re UT academic posers and hypocrites:
Have their checks calculated in units of postmodern theoretical currency and issued in photocopied legal tender notes signed by Walter Benjamin with a photo of Karl Marx and a seal stamped “In Derrida We Trust”.
Comment of the Era
Wow! Ain't that something.
-Anonymous
Comment of the Week
Mention goes to the the anonymous commentator of Feb 7, who, regarding UT President Llloyd Jacob's "Investing in Faculty" letter, stated: "If we could use the same criteria for 'investing in administrators' we could cut most of those positions."
Comments to HLC
Make sure you address your comments to HLC to the email address listed below in the "Higher Learning Commission Wants to Know" post. This may be the only chance you have to be heard. Bloggie hears that UT administration has discussed giving faculty "training" so that faculty members know how to "properly" talk to the HLC folks. How's that for stacking the deck? Does everyone get a little script to read? Make sure you practice before a mirror at being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Comment of the Week!
Definitely, the Comment of the Week award goes to Anonymous 12:14 pm, Dec 3, under the "Higher Learning Commission Needs to Know" posting by Diogenes. Pithy and pointed!
--Love,
Bloggie
MESSAGE OF THE DAY:
DON'T BE A SHEEP
Independent Collegian Article on Dicey Administrative Spending
IC reporter Casey Cheap looks at bow ties, apartments and movie tickets purchased by UT administrators at university/public expense. See
TO CONTACT BLOGGIE . . .
Bloggie is always glad to consider submissions to this blog. If you have something that you wish posted please send it to:
ascbloggie@gmail.com
Letter and Petition from Foreign Languages Faculty Member
A couple weeks ago, at the beginning of summer break, we in the Department of Foreign Languages were informed that our secretary's position was being eliminated and that while she will not lose her job (she'll be transferred), that position is not to be filled. We apparently will be expected to do our own jobs plus what we can of the secretary's. That is clearly not acceptable, and so one of the steps we in FL are taking against it is an online petition now available for any who want to (including those who for whatever reason--not a registered Ohio voter, not a US citizen, etc.--cannot sign the petition against SB5), to read and sign.
I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.
It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.
Here's the link to the online petition:For those who can make it, there will also be an informational meeting--including lunch and petition-signing--next Friday, May 27 in FH 2420, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.
It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.
Here's the link to the online petition:For those who can make it, there will also be an informational meeting--including lunch and petition-signing--next Friday, May 27 in FH 2420, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Katherine Best
Wave of the Future or Merely Sometime Later This Week?
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a deeply fascinating article called, "When to Dissolve a Faculty Senate." Apparently this is any time that it becomes "adversarial" to administration.
The online comments to the article are priceless.
Nemeth on Mammon in IC
David Nemeth's most recent tour-de-force
Professor Nemeth has another fabulous and timely article in the new and increasingly wonderful Independent Collegian. See http://www.independentcollegian.com/forum/the-kraken-attacks-1.2340091
Nemeth Does it Again
See the forum article in The Independent Collegian at:
Nemeth's New Article in Collegian
The Independent Collegian has run another of Professor Nemeth's fine and provocative articles in its latest edition. This one discusses the double-talk by mouthpieces for the current UT administration concerning the effects of and reasons behind so-called strategic reorganization. Make sure you get the latest version of Newspeak 5.1 if you want to decode what UT administrators are really saying.
UT Ranks 13th Nationally on Administrative Bloat
See Appendix B of the Administrative Bloat report posted on 8/28 for evidence, but UT now has a higher proportion of administrators to students than all but 12 public universities in America. President Jacobs has finally put University of Toledo in the top tier. With Strategic Organization he may be aiming for number one.
This Blog is a free and independent information source. Contributions and comments are welcome. Contact: ASCBloggie@gmail.com WARNING AND DISCLAIMER !!!! This blog is entirely non-official!! People may express opinion here, exercising freedom of speech and association.
Recent Letters from The Blade
Jacobs' arrogance is astonishing
Recently, President Lloyd Jacobs of the University of Toledo stated that bonuses were justified because his administrators "took all the risks."
As a professor at UT, I am outraged that President Jacobs claims that administrators take all of the risks. What risks do they take that the other faculty and staffs on campus do not?
Administrators are protected by state and federal employment laws and by their contracts.
When ex-President Vik Kapoor was terminated, he remained a professor with a salary near what he was paid as president.
As president emeritus, Dan Johnson retained a salary greater than his pay as president.
In the recent layoffs, exceptionally few administrators were terminated. It seems to me that low-level personnel at UT have far more risks because the greater proportion of the layoffs have come from their ranks. And they did not have continuing salaries.
President Jacobs' answer to questions on two occasions regarding relinquishing part of his bonus was to the effect that he earned his bonuses and what he did with them was his business.
Administrators do not risk their personal money in their duties: they use taxpayer money and funds collected through donations and grants to the university.
Administrators take home salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and then add bonuses for longevity and whatever else the president decides is fitting for their contracts.
However, the lower-level personnel have much lower salaries and no such bonuses. Where is the risk?
It seems to me that these bonuses are convoluted: The lower-level personnel are taking the greater risks with no bonuses while the administrators with very rewarding jobs with little risk receive large bonuses.
Am I missing something here?
WALTER W. OLSON,
Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing
Engineering,
University of Toledo
It's the same old, same old at UT
I could hardly believe the arrogance of Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, president of the University of Toledo, when a reporter asked if he would be willing to forgo his bonus in light of the layoffs, raise in tuition, etc.
His comment was that he worked for it. Is that to say that the ones being laid off did not work for their pay?
All I can say is, business as usual at UT. Some things never change.
SANDY FLICK
Rose Acres Drive
UT also has checks, balances
In response to letter titled "Professors must focus on teaching," I would like to point out that the University of Toledo operates on the basis of shared governance.
This means that faculty members participate in the administration of the university.
A focus on teaching requires faculty to address administrative issues such as policies, procedures, and yes, finances, because these all affect classroom outcomes. A university with solid and equitable finances benefits everyone, including and especially the students. Just as the U.S. government is constituted to have checks and balances, so is our university government.
The UT-AAUP is one of those checks against UT administrators who most recently have displayed more concern for their own profit rather than a concern for the common good.
LINDA M. ROUILLARD,
Associate Professor
of French,
University of Toledo
Quote of the Year (so far)
The following is excerpted from the recent UT AAUP newsletter concerning the official university response to news of the bonus scandal:
. . . . Either Jacobs is misleading the media or he has misled the Board of Trustees. President Jacobs objected to "the general tone" of the UT-AAUP Newsletter. Many persons on this campus object to the "general tone" of the Jacobs Administration. During his tenure as President, he has introduced an administrative culture of fear and intimidation. . . . A point of logic must be raised here, with all respect to UT AAUP, the conclusions that President Jacobs has (1) misled the media and (2) the Board of Trustees are not mutually exclusive. Both would seem likely given his considerable talent at spinning "visions." |
How to Contribute
The Blog is now under new management, a consortium of ASC faculty who pooled their longevity bonuses to purchase it from its original owners. Your comments are still welcome but look for some changes. Contact: ASCBloggie@gmail.com. Your contributions might include new posts, images, comments to existing articles/posts, concerns about process and substance at UT's College of Arts & Sciences. This blog is entirely non-official, for which you can be thankful, unless you enjoy reading self-serving bureaucratic propaganda, and is intended as a discussion and commentary forum for UT A&S faculty and community.
Another Claim and Disclaimer
A blog is a blog is a blog. Information, comments and opinions found here don't represent official views, instead they represent truthful and sincere ones. If you want the official line on things go elsewhere. This is a discussion and comment page. You may even read things here that you disagree with, and then, maybe not.
ASCBloggie
Google News for "University of Toledo"
Google News for "Higher Education Ohio"
Blog Archive
-
▼
2010
(179)
-
▼
June
(18)
- Slides From Committee on Strategic Organization
- Cloud of Concern
- Faculty Senate Performance Review of Provost/Chanc...
- Faculty Senate Performance Review of Provost/Chanc...
- Larry Burns Now Faculty Member, too?
- TFP editorial on backstage shenanigans by UT upper...
- Press Release Messiah
- “To some extent this noise has to be considered co...
- Letter from Alum
- "Inside Higher Ed" Lambasts Jacobs (Once Again)
- Surprise! BOT minimizes faculty input and backs Ja...
- Survey? What survey? Oh, THAT survey ...
- Performance Review of President Jacobs, Part 1 of ...
- Performance Review of President Jacobs, Comments S...
- Review of "Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate Univers...
- Surgery is so much fun
- Accreditation News Submitted by Reader
- Les Femmes Nikitas!
-
▼
June
(18)
Links
15 comments:
So judging from this, the most important thing to the faculty is the faculty...
On a previous note, "zoroxyz10" presented want I think was an accurate criticism of "post modernism." In view of that comment, I had reason to think about recent course of events in order to answer the questions of someone who is in an important position in government and who is very concerned with what is happening at the University of Toledo.
I have come to the conclusion that partisan politics is a big factor in what is happening at this university. The overwhelming majority of the Board of Trustees were appointed by Governors Voinovich and Taft. They were appointed for their conservative views which they are currently invoking in their oversight of the university. They appointed (note: not searched,) a President that was previously noted for his views that were consistent with conservatism. He was previously noted to be anti-union and anti-academic.
A cornerstone of conservative leadership philosophy is control information and to restrict the free flow of information, particularly when that information does not agree with conservative views. During the Bush Administration, I had the opportunity on two different occasions and in two very different venues to talk with his Secretary of Commerce and the Deputy Secretaries. In both cases, they indicated that they were forbidden by the Bush Administration from presenting certain information and that they need to get permission from the Bush Chief of Staff before further discussing the issues.
We see this same control of information at the University of Toledo. Faculty do not have a direct communication link to the Board of Trustees. Lines of communications go through President Jacobs.
A common theme in conservatism has been that campuses are too liberal and need to be reeled in. We see that as The President has failed to have relevant searches in both the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education. In both cases, he has appointed people that he believes has conservative views and has kept them in these positions for extended periods of time.
Another theme in conservatism is anti-unionism. There is absolutely no doubt that the Jacob's administrations have been anti-union, first in the previous Medical College of Ohio and now at the University of Toledo. He has violated the union contract regarding research active. His administration has actively interfered with absorbing the Nurses into AAUP to the point where the SERB upheld a complaint on those activities.
The interpretation of most recent faculty evaluation of President Jacobs by the Board of Trustees is consistent with the premise that they are trying to impose conservatism on the university. The negative evaluation would be seen by a conservation board are consistent with their views that the faculty are liberals and need to be controlled.
Therefore, I suspect that matters on this campus will get much worse before they better as the members of the Board of Trustees have a number of years to go before they are replaced. The faculty's only hope is through the political process. They need to bring information to our politicians showing the abuses of the university being perpetrated by this Board of Trustees. Faculty themselves need to be active in the political process.
No--I think it's "truth."
Indeed, the roots of this go way back. I remember when Voinovich became governor and embarked on his anti-university crusade. He decreed that hence-forth all faculty would increase their workloads by 10% with no increase in pay. When that failed, he embarked on his plan to starve universities by slashing and burning their budgets and by fattening up community colleges because they could be molded to their cause.
Although the follies of complete abandonment to corporate interests and profit motivation have become obvious by the destruction of the American middle class through globalization, the collapse of the economy due to the rollback to pre-Depression era economic philosophy, and by the recent Gulf disaster, Americans still have not put all the pieces together to understand what has been happening.
The boards seem to be lagging behind the current yet inchoate ideas forming to counter the Republican menace that has been destroying our nation. As of yet, no one has been able to articulate a better understanding of what has been happening and what needs to be done. Obama has been trying hard, but just like the faculty and other little people at UT, he and others like him are stymied by the well-paid conservative propaganda machine that continues to spew out platitudes and bromides that long-ago were proven false. On top of this, the public is either unable or unwilling to attempt to put these pieces together....the result of modern media and technology that keeps people from focusing and thinking at a higher level? I don't know, but in any event, what is happening at UT has to be viewed in the context of what has been happening in our nation since the time of Reagan and probably no sea change will occur until complete and utter collapse occurs.
Sorry, but blaming our situation on W. and Karl Rove is just stupid logic that I would flunk an undergrad for.
EVERY state university in Ohio is governed by a board composed mostly of Republican appointees. If your story were correct, these boards should all have appointed nuts for presidents. But look around. Gordon Gee is pretty good, and so were the people in between his Grover Cleveland-like terms. Cincinnati has had several solid presidents (although I never liked Steger). BG had Sidney Ribeau, who was excellent, and his successor is pretty good too. Only Ohio U currently has a nut for president. Look around--is this a general problem or one specific to UT?
Our problem is not a general one of Republican appointed trustees. Our problem is OUR trustees, who have proven to be unbelievably gullible and biddable. They gave us not one but TWO nuts, Vik and Jake. And Jake without even a search. Talk about smoke-filled rooms!
In Vik's case they believed his promises to quadruple enrollment and grow money on trees. In Jake's case they believed that mimicking every other mediocre large public university, but with more syllables, would transform the human condition. Sorry, trustees, this is fodder for Dilbert.
I think this is simply a problem of public higher ed. You are right, the trustees are there for political reasons, and there's no reason to believe any of them knows much about higher ed. With luck we might get trustees in the future a little less entranced by the latest business buzzwords.
But for now I think all we can do is try to fight a rear guard action, bogging the administration down until they move on to greener pastures, like Rosemary did. And then we can get back to teaching and research.
I'm sorry, the faculty members who sit on the board of trustees committees are not direct faculty links to the board?
And Voinovich ended his term as governor in 1998 and trustees serve only 9-year terms. So none of Voinovich's appointees are on the board, and four of Strickland's are. (It's actually Strickland who insists universities align themselves with the state's economic development goals.)
You've already missed the Democratic primary to get someone more liberal than Strickland as the gubernatorial nominee and if Kasich wins, God help us all - he'll make the current board look like hippies.
Your political activity needs to start with learning basic facts like 9-year trustee terms and reaching out to your faculty board representatives to ask questions. Or, you know, going to the meetings.
Gee and Ribeau are good?!?!?!
Gee is leading an assault on faculty tenure and working to create the same sort of ASU model Jacobs is embracing.
Ribeau worked hard for 3 or 4 years then kicked back and collected a paycheck.
That you'd hold up these examples is bizarre to me.
Can someone explain this graphic? Anonymous 12:00 drew a conclusion from it, but I can't, because it's not clear what it is.
You don’t need to lace your bowl with kif to see that this righteous word cloud resembles the University of Toledo in the shape … of … a … SWIFT BOAT! The campus conversation is obviously contained and controlled by well-financed onboard propagandists mouthing the rhetoric of BOT members, President Jacobs and College Young Republicans crowding the helm. Their intent, which the tag cloud implies, is the isolation and character assassination of a concerned “faculty” whose members choose to exercise their First Amendment freedoms by speaking “truth” against “power” and its excesses and abuses on the UT campus.
The graphic is a collection of the most-used words on this blog. The font size reflects the level of use - bigger words are used more. The same goes for the words in bold print.
As sometimes happens here, the first post is a bit snarky and contributes nothing to the discussion.
5:58 Anon. I think to address what we are going through we need to understand it and to understand it we need to put it in context relative to what has been happening across the country for the last twenty or so years. You have to understand the larger forces and attitudes that have gotten us to where we are now. For a starter look at this review of Lawrence Soley's _Leasing the Ivory Tower: The Corporate Takeover of Academia_(South End Press, 1995) and you can see that this is a much larger issue than just UT. http://www.upalumni.org/features/reviews/leasing-ivory-tower.html
As far as the UT board of trustees, you can check out their web page to see the extreme business flavor of most of the board as well as the length of their terms. The vast majority were installed under Taft. http://www.utoledo.edu/offices/trustees/member_list.html
Voinovich was governor untill 1998, given that, his appointees would have been members up to 2007, well within the time frame for the formation of the "New UT"
It is true that no current serving Trustees were appointed by Governor Voinovich; however, the appointees of Voinovich and the remaining appointees of Taft are Conservative. Furthermore, the assault on the university started with the Voinovich appointees and was reinforced by the Taft appointees which continue to serve. It equally true that most of the public universities in Ohio have had problems with their Boards and their administrators. For example consider the University of Akron where its Faculty Senate was disbanded a few years ago. Bowling Green has not exactly been a pleasant place to be as of late, I am told.
The faculty selected to be at the table of the Board Committee Meetings have been hand selected by the administration. In no way can they be considered representative of the faculty constituency. Can they be considered links? Perhaps. But I have yet to hear a report from any of them back to the Faculty Senate. None of these appointees have asked questions of the faculty as to what issues that they should provide input for the faculty.
Looks like the true nature of the current administration's bile is slowly leaking out into the surrounding community and leaving a bad taste: http://www.toledofreepress.com/2010/06/18/live-and-learn/
Why don't you ask those faculty for a report? Why don't you go to the meetings? If this is the most serious and destructive issue UT has faced in however long, why aren't you making time to seek out information?
Anon 5:49:
Exactly what meetings are you referring to?
Faculty Senate Meetings? I have nearly a perfect attendance record.
Board of Trustee Meetings? I have class on Mondays Afternoons. Previously, when I did not have a scheduled class during the BOT Meeting, I did attend them. But I do not ever recall the BOT turning to its audience to solicit input, comments or issues. What I generally heard at BOT Meetings was 80% of the time dedicated to HSC issues most of which were innocuous and wasted time, 10% on a budget report that rarely gave any usable information and the remainder of the time on MC events. There was very little relevant discussion of pros and cons of issues: rather it seemed that everything had been discussed and decided out of public. The only thing done in public was the vote which was prefaced usually by a BOT member or two giving a comment consistent with how the vote would turn out. It was very clear to me that despite the Sunshine laws of Ohio, members of the Board were meeting out of public to discuss the issues and determine what would happen. This is the way the President wanted it and apparently, also the BOT. So of what use is the BOT meeting other than to hear decisions?
Post a Comment