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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
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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 . . .
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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." |
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13 comments:
Diogenes, please explain to us how this works. Are we supposed to direct our comments on UT to this email address? How do we know that Larry Burns or Lloyd Jacobs are not reading them? Is this truly anonymous?
I know that the administration has tried very hard to control the process--even being worried about the assessors hearing stray comments on the elevators.
Anyone with praise or concerns about the stewardship and condition of our university and who wants direct access to the members of the Higher Learning Commission can report to them via this secure link. Your report (comments) can be "Anonymous" or signed, as you dictate. Clearly state your preferences in this regard when using this link.
I think the question to Diogenes was about maintaining total anonymity.
Either way, what is the guarantee that HLC visitors will act on the complaints from concerned faculty?
Small talk in the elevators (few seconds between floors) will not help things turn around. HLC visitors will be coming to a war zone. Another concern is that these HLC visitors may be corrupt and easily swayed by smooth-talk and generous hospitality (dinners, sports events, you name it...) by admin -- all covered of course through the general and some illegitimately hi-jacked funds (NO! not their bonuses), so will there be any improvement as a result of HLC visit?
Some administrators may hope that this will be another farce of higher education...
Anonymous 8:49. I know who you are! (har! har!).
And, you are much too negative and cynical. This HLC investigation team has the capacity and may have the will to intervene responsibly on behalf of UT main campus students, faculty, staff and alumni in order to right the egregious wrongs inflicted by the inept Jacobs administration on an esteemed academic reputation and proud traditions.
The timely intervention of the HLC team can reverse the obvious and measurable descent into mediocrity this campus has suffered due to BOT/Jacobs mismanagement over the past six years. The rapid dismantling and decline of the academic function of Carlson Library and the senseless, mean-spirited destruction of A&S College are two glaring examples.
No one except the conspirators and flunkies behind this systematic and intentional academic decline can ignore the obvious: since the advent of Jacobs Inc. there has been no measurable value added to the main campus academic mission. Faculty and staff morale are presently abysmal.
Students meanwhile seem too caught up in bread and circuses these days to pay close attention to their shameful manipulation by derelict stewards with small or no concern for bettering the intellectual learning environment and thus the present and future conditions of all hope-filled and hard-working students on the main campus.
Faculty and staff can either sing praise to the Jacobs leadership or articulate their concerns by sharing relevant anecdotes and data with the HLC. Whichever, the HLC needs to know the extent of good management or mismanagement in quantitative and qualitative detail. So click open the secure email address provided here and speak your own mind and heart.
Look what the cat dragged in: The Orwellian thought police (from 1984), a psychic, or just simply my long-lost soul mate (Anonymous 1214PM, dec3) :-))
We all need to be united on this front as concerned faculty, librarians, staff, and students. So, a good balance of cautious optimism, cynicism, even mixed in with negativism may be needed because there are cases where the feds have turned a blind eye on serious issues (like mine safety) and turned the other way, or hid their heads in the sand.
I am sure we all have seen big pharma's hands only got slapped when in fact many victims of our lousy insurance system died because the FDA failed. Or when the Education Department just watched the biggest abuses in the student loan area by some universities getting kickbacks for the interest they made for preferred (and private) lenders. We never saw those administrators led away in chains on TV...
I heard the UT administrators expected faculty to memorize something to be told to HLC visitors in those slow-moving elevators. Perhaps they can slow those elevators even more... Will the elevators be bugged?
You are right on getting as many people to support this cause as possible, but are they specifically coming to investigate the egregious wrongs? Or is it just a visit to extend UTs accreditation? In that case, they may not be much concerned about internal politics.
Do they really care about the library and the low morale among its staff and faculty -- which is being exploited?
Are they going to restore the library to its independent (COIL-free) status and return the books and journals that were thrown out on a previous dean's orders (word has it that he's getting a big paycheck for his failures).
Will this visit further expose the wrongs by Jacobs, Inc. and its overpaid cronies in administration and BOT??? Even if they get exposed (probably not through the Blade), will the public care (true, their taxes are supporting this university acting like hospital with a small office called "the university")?
I would propose that we all submit our concerns, praises, etc, and be given a chance to comment on the draft -- if there is time. When is this submission due?
Maybe UT-AAUP can reorganize and make sure that the good visitors from HLC truly hear our voices.
The HLC won't solve our problems, but their visit can certainly make more visible our problems. That in turn will demonstrate the ineffective leadership on this campus and put pressure on the BOT to revise its opinion of Lloyd Jacobs and his cronies, and revise their own half-baked, uninformed decisions. The HLC visit is an important opportunity to make public the sloppy decision-making processes that violate our own institutional policies. If the team from HLC is intelligent, it will include in its report and comments a serious concern for lack of shared governance here. HLC has required follow-up visits at other institutions when it has determined a lack of shared governance. The recent initiative of the BOT to institute a University Senate with no clear precipitating reason should signal to the HLC that the Jacobs administration is deliberately trying to oust faculty from shared governance even as it gives lip-service to staff and student input. While the HLC can see good things happening on this campus (good faculty working hard, good students studying hard, good staff working hard), it will also see that we are seriously hampered by hordes of self-interested administrators whose main preoccupation is increasing the size of their already bloated salaries.
For better or worse, the current dramatic changes at UT and more broadly in higher Ed have been precipitated by inescapable economic realities i.e. there is simply not enough money to fund the inefficient and unsustainable American education status quo.
Peter Schweizer's latest book describes the unsustainable agenda driven policies and boom and bust bubble economics of student loans, government housing programs etc. that are bringing ruin to American college campuses and the American dream:
Architects of Ruin: How big government liberals wrecked the global economy---and how they will do it again if no one stops them
Was the financial collapse caused by free-market capitalism and deregulation run amok, as liberals claim?
Not on your life, says Peter Schweizer. What we are really witnessing is a massive failure of social engineering by liberals.
Architects of Ruin, bestselling author Peter Schweizer describes in riveting detail how a coalition of left-wing activists, liberal politicians, and "do-good capitalists" on Wall Street leveraged government power to achieve their goal of broadening homeownership among minorities and the poor. The results were not only devastating to the economy, but hurt the very people they were supposedly trying to help.
The story begins in the 1960s with Saul Alinsky, the legendary Chicago rabble-rouser who trained his acolytes in highly aggressive techniques of community activism. Alinsky's disciples—along with race-baiting activists like Jesse Jackson—seized on the "redlining" controversy of those years to argue that banks were guilty of racial discrimination. In the 1970s, with the help of liberal senators like Ted Kennedy and William Proxmire, legislation was passed that put bankers under the thumb of local activists.
In the Clinton years, a new generation of liberal technocrats came to power in Washington and on Wall Street. Schweizer describes how a powerful phalanx of elite liberals, including Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Andrew Cuomo, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Janet Reno, Deval Patrick, Henry Cisneros, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer, and many others, aggressively pushed banks to make trillions of dollars in loans to individuals who should never have received them.
Meanwhile, Clinton forged a new form of state capitalism in which the big Wall Street financial companies were repeatedly bailed out—with their profits intact—from a series of costly errors, leading them to take ever larger risks. Both financial policies had profoundly distorting effects. The result was the bursting of twin bubbles in mortgages and mortgage-backed derivatives, in turn leading to a global economic collapse.
This tale of liberal "Robin Hood capitalism run wild" has never been told. But more than just a story about the past, it is also an urgent warning about the future. For today, the very same people who planted the seeds of the collapse are back in Washington, tasked with cleaning up the mess and determined to use the crisis they caused as cover for a massive overhaul of the American economic system.
These people have learned nothing from their past mistakes and are busy applying the same methods to other sectors of the economy—health care, the auto industry, real estate (again!), and above all the promotion of "green" technologies—inflating bubbles that are sure to bring about another crisis. Ordinary Americans who foot the bill for the last state-capitalist bubble have reason to be afraid—very afraid—of the inevitable
The HLC needs to know about this...
http://www.independentcollegian.com/smoking-huts-reach-a-new-high-1.2679953
Anonymous 7:17. Ho-hum. Have you no original thoughts? If not, use quotes and cite your sources.
Everything posted in this idiotic neo-conservative Hoover Institution screed you burden us with here is plagiarized from idiotic neo-conservative Hoover Institution screeds easily accessible on Amazon.com.~Books.
Pathetic One: Get a brain. Contribute something original to a conversation. Empower yourself instead of your pathologically profiteering puppeteers.
Liberal Screed Buzzword Name Caller 2:59:
I happen to have more original thoughts in my little pinky than you could even attempt to conceive.
It should have been obvious to anyone it was a clipped book description.
Typical of you to focus on a minor MLA style oversight on an informal blog and resort immediately to knee-jerk name calling rather than actually trying to address any of the salient points.
And what pray tell are your "original thoughts" -- oh irrelevant-liberal-grant-funded-propaganda-producing One?
That's okay... don't bother.
We already know Rachael Maddow and the other MSNBC talking pinhead types do your "thinking" for you.
Anon 2:59
Great job catching those missing quotation marks, Ralphie!
We’ll be sure to put a gold star on your Red Rider BB Gun Christmas theme paper!
Be careful not to get too excited, though, or you’ll shoot your eye out!
Thank you, Ralphie…
Merry Christmas, Ralphie…
Ralphie??
Ralphie!!
You can take your seat now, Ralphie…
Dear Anonymous of Dec 5, 1108:
It's not the HLC but the DEA (or even ATF) :-)))) Those butt huts are everywhere: maybe we should install A/C, heating, flatscreen TVs, boomboxes to get smokers more comfortable. After all, who's gonna see our high-paid UT ($400K+) physicians if nobody gets sick????
Ralphie...
There's a clever spelling error hidden just for you in the previous post.
Did you catch it?
Hint: Be sure to drink your Ovaltine AND don't let Black Bart and his gang RIDE away.
Good luck!
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