Hello,
I'm currently a UT student in my 2nd year of grad school and my 6th year at UT overall, and I often read and enjoy your blog.
I've heard the diversionary rhetoric in the e-mails, and I've also heard a few of the popular conspiracy theories. Why was the College of Arts and Sciences "reorganized?"
I'm currently a UT student in my 2nd year of grad school and my 6th year at UT overall, and I often read and enjoy your blog.
I've heard the diversionary rhetoric in the e-mails, and I've also heard a few of the popular conspiracy theories. Why was the College of Arts and Sciences "reorganized?"
14 comments:
Type "bad behavior" followed by "vindictive" in the Search box.
There are only competing theories on why A&S was reorganized. No one from the President's inner circle has leaked anything that contradicts the official version. And of course many believe that the official version is a smoke screen and that there is a hidden agenda behind the reorganization. Whether the reorganization saves the university money in the short and/or long term should be a matter of public record, but again many believe that UT's admin lacks the transparency to enable anyone to follow the money.
I have possible answers but I don't think anyone but Jacobs and his inner circle knows for sure. First, it was to erode a power base in the main campus. Not sure this worked as he expected but we shall see. Second, it was to allow him to channel money to the science programs without also having to give it to the arts programs. He seems to want us to be a technical STEMM school, and to want to underemphasize, defund or disband (who knows) the arts programs. Of course we need English, Languages, and the social sciences but merely to provide the balance that our science students need(I think he has made this argument publicly). We do not need to support, he seems to believe, students who wish to major in these "irrelevant" programs. Then again it may simply be his desire to jump in the front by doing something no one else is doing. That makes us unique (which is not necessarily a positive trait). Possible explanations but I don't think Jacobs ever really answered the question directly.
HSC faculty member
Has anyone looked a tthe enrollmnet numbers that were released? I don't understand Larry Burn's comment that retention is up when the report shows that number of continuing students has dropped by 338 for a decrease of 3.06%. Does anyone else understand this?
Following up to HSC's reasoning: don't forget the admin made a big deal out of Mark Taylor's visit to campus last year and previously board members and talked about the same: the argument that the current economic situation requires universities to stop competing against each other and and duplicating programs and instead "compliment" each other. In the minds of UT administrators this means sending the humanities programs to BGSU. The plan seems to involve turning UT into a STEMM/technological university (with a minimum of humanities classes) and BGSU as the humanities/ethnic studies/etc locus.
"UT enrollment continues to grow in strategic areas" -- UT Press release of September 16th
How can you tell the spinmeisters in the Jacobs Administration?
They all wear asbestos diapers and bow ties.
Answers:
1. The administration did not have enought deans to meet the Higher Learning Commission's goals of one per ten students.
2. It's obvious you do not understand your place in the modern university or you would not ask such an irrelevant question.
3. Real Answer? The president was still mad at the faculty for voting "no confidence" in a previous dean. Now for the sake of your future here, be nice and quiet and hope they don't find out who you are.
The Jacobs administration obviously thinks it's trendy to have smaller, specialized colleges. And the problem with running everything like a business, the way they so joyfully claim to do, is that the business world is really bad at distinguishing between a trendy idea and a good idea.
The reasonably well-regarded east coast university where I went to grad school recently consolidated colleges. So did Ohio State. There's nowhere near a consensus that either of these two opposing approaches -- consolidation or division -- is better than the other. The only real consensus is that shaking things up is good for the administrator's CV.
"Through me the way to the suffering city; Through me the everlasting pain; Through me the way that runs among the Lost.... Nothing was made before me but eternal things And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope - You Who Enter Here." It seems an apt description of the Jacobs administration to me...
According to the University's accounting system, a part-time instructor in the humanities, earning $2250 for teaching one course, is really getting $263/hour. Not only does the administration not value the humanities, but according to their fuzzy accounting, humanities programs simply drain money away. Why should the University hire full-time faculty when they can hire cheap part-time labor and still claim that humanities departments are too costly to maintain? I find the argument that humanities programs lose money and the assumption that a University should be run as a for-profit enterprise dubious. I think they are both illustrative of Jacob's contempt for education.
Anon 6:18 -- To be fair, my research before accepting an offer here indicated that $2250 is also the rate for an adjunct to teach a course in the natural sciences. Your point about eschewing full-time faculty in favor of part-timers stands, though.
Are their perchance any lessons to be learned from the misguided federal government investment in the Solyndra solar fiasco that might pertain to UT and local solar initiatives??
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/13/gop-to-hold-hearing-on-now-bankrupt-solar-company-that-obama-once-touted/
...AND THE "CONSENSUS" ON GLOBAL WARMING CONTINUES ITS RAPID COOLING...
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/14/nobel-prize-winning-physicist-resigns-from-top-physics-group-over-global/
Is government subsidized solar just another misguided, politicized, speculative, unsustainable, insider environmentalist green bubble scam waiting to implode (like "global warming", wind turbines, etc.)?
Is UT going to end up splattered with even more red ink when local solar initiatives go bust?
Might the wasted funding on unsustainable pie in the sky green initiatives do far more good if earmarked instead for investments in human capital, i.e. quality faculty and quality programs that produce quality graduates and solid, new, REALISTIC innovative economies?
Who knows? The Shadow knows...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/15/despite-stimulus-funding-solyndra-and-4-other-companies-have-hit-rock-bottom/
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