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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.
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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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25 comments:
The Jacobs' administration has indeed used the late College of Arts and Sciences as a scapegoat.
The Goats of Wrath!
This article may be of interest: "When did executive pay at public universities get so high?"
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/moneybox/2012/03/uc_davis_chancellor_linda_katehi_s_salary_makes_her_a_member_of_the_1_percent_.html
I learned in the Toledo Free Press that an Obama administration official was on the Scott Park campus last week to discuss the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This wasn't mentioned in any UT Update email. I suppose Lloyd "Issue 2" Jacobs didn't want a big turnout for a Democrat.
Another reason for keeping quiet may be that Jeffrey Gold would have had to add yet another job title to his signature:
Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D.
1.Chancellor
2.Executive Vice President for Biosciences and Health Affairs
3. Dean of the College of Medicine
Did he forget
4. "God"?
5. might be "Director of Patient Protection"?
Well, if he added these, he might be just as important as Chuck Lehnert...
Does anyone have any insights on why the Provost is "retiring"? Has he been frozen out because he sometimes worked counter to the dictates of the administration?
The March 13 UT Update trumpets the College of Law's ranking as 129th of 195 programs. Am I missing something? I don't think the 33rd percentile is anything to be proud of.
About Provost McMillen:
He had already planned to retire last year, but agreed to do one more. In the wake of glowing success with the accreditation, he thought it's time to go.
By the way, we need to have UT-AAUP post a link to the HLC report on UT so we can all take pride.
Word has it that the library is short of being able to support your teaching and research, and the shrinking space and funds will not change this trend.
Does the HLC report contain information on the continuing destruction of the library? Better yet, just ask Jeeves...
They ain't getting back the hijacked library resource fee either by the way... How else will they pay the salary+bonuses for the ex-dean who started all this???
Instead, there will be more space for food, sleeping, facebook, tweeting, texting/sexting, and even mini-golf is not ruled out either. One thing you may consider for your staycation...
STEM(ed). From Slashdot (03/15/2012)
"'In response to the alleged shortages of qualified American engineers and technology professionals, numerous initiatives have been launched to boost interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers and to strengthen STEM education in the United States. Unfortunately, these programs have not proven successful, and many blame the laziness of modern students, the ineptitude of their teachers, poor parenting or, when there are no other excuses remaining, they may even jump to moral decay as a causative agent. However, the failure of STEM is because the very policies that created the shortages continue unabated. This is not a uniquely American problem. The best way to increase interest in STEM degrees is by making certain that STEM careers are actually viable.'"
I had heard that the Provost had indicated to departments that there was some wiggle room for hires - wiggle room around the absurd requirements that lj had established. I'm going to guess that this was at the Provost's discretion, and with the Provost leaving...
The Provost had aslo found some travel money for some faculty in the college formerly known as A&S - his discretionary funds. With his departure, there won't be any travel money available next year within that college. Not sure if the other colleges are in the same boat.
Anyone know what it's costing UT to host all these post-season consolation games for the basketball teams?
Are UT administrators secretly getting their ideas about synergy etc. from the TV sitcom 30 Rock?
You be the judge (30 Rock script excerpt below):
Pete: Liz, I have an idea -- something to boost staff morale.
Lemon: Pete, no. I listened to you when you wanted to take the staff to that R-rated hypnotist, and that sucked.
Pete: It was pretty bad. Nutmeg!
Lemon stands up like a zombie and starts to pull up her shirt.
Pete: Aaaah, rodeo rodeo rodeo!
[Lemon stops stripping and looks around in confusion.]
Pete: Look, I think we can take the show to Miami for a week.
Lemon: What? Can we afford to do that?
Pete: If we do it on the cheap, double-up rooms. Think about it,
Liz. Florida! I can rent a convertible. You can complain about the heat with elderly people!
Lemon: I can sell this to Jack.
[Cut to Jack's office. Pete holds a sign that reads "MIAMI = SYNERGY."]
Lemon (giving presentation to Jack): Cross-promotional... deal mechanics... revenue streams... jargon... synergy!
Jack (or is it JAKE??): That's the best presentation I've ever seen. Get started right away, Lemon!
Re "Upcoming election season offers UT prominent voice" in UT Update -- right, like I'm going to let IssueTwo Jacobs and his pro-corporate weenies get involved if my organization brings a candidate to campus.
Article in UTNews about Jacobs. Worst Boss. The article lists traits of horrible bosses. Surprised they printed this since you could read "Jacobs" in the description.
Have you seen the list of people of the "advisory" committee for the Provost "search"? Who are the candidates, I wonder. Maybe we should start a pool to bet on who will be chosen by President Jacobs with the advisory committee just nodding in consensus. Will it be President Jacobs' favorite consultant, Barry Cohen (who has an MA from the University of Texas at Austin)? Or Tom Brady, who will soon be inducted to the Plastics Hall of Fame?
STUDENT LOAN DEBT THREATENS ECONOMIC RECOVERY
As the U. S. and world economic recovery sputters along - the approaching drumbeats of the student loan implosion grow ever louder.
Both sides agree the status quo is unsustainable.
Obama says: "We can't just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition. We'll run out of money."
Newt Gingrich is even more blunt, calling student loans a Ponzi scheme.
Read all about it here:
http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20120403&id=14951638
Gingrich may be right on the money on this issue: big schools -- the ones that get big research dollars from Uncle Sam (yet do not pay a cent of taxes on property they own) may be getting big kickbacks for each student loan signed. One such institution is not far from us...
Just imagine the interest (from student loan interest) that feed the administrators at these universities, their cronies in the lending/collections industries. If you even dare to challenge them, they come after you with their buddies in the collection who ruin your life like communists did when you challenged them.
In other words, you do get into the maze of American Debtors' Gulag if you are way in over your head in student loan debt. The education department, your representative -- don't expect them to help you since they may be part of it.
Yes.
Just as the unsustainable, politicized real estate bubble was artificially inflated with government subsidized home loans made to unqualified borrowers, whose sole purpose was to serve as fresh red meat to feed the bloated housing market's insatiable appetite for new home buyers...
... the unsustainable, politicized higher education bubble has been artificially inflated with government subsidized student loans made to financially and/or academically unqualified student borrowers, whose sole purpose has been to serve as fresh red meat to feed the bloated education market's insatiable appetite for more students.
The winners (at least in terms of professional career advancement, pay, benefits, job security etc. - not in terms of integrity and providing a valuable education to students) are the education elites (tenured professors and upper administrators - and the banking and lending and collection industries who make a killing in the boom times and get bailed out when everything goes bust -- private profit - public debt) and to a lesser extent the unwashed adjunct faculty and staff also benefit from the education gold rush.
The losers are 1) the taxpayers, who always end up holding the bag for these political Ponzi schemes, and 2) millions of grossly indebted students, who were conned into signing student loan "mortgages" they could never really afford in exchange for over-priced under-valued educations sold by fast-talking education sales reps (media, college recruiters, education propagandists, etc.)
Though some students will receive more or less fair value in their educations, many if not most will not -- i.e. needless to say the droves who never graduate and also those who receive essentially useless pseudo educations in the humanities, social sciences, etc. -- and even increasingly degrees in what were formerly pretty much sure things in the job market (law, medicine etc.)
The student loan bubble is approaching critical mass and it's now not a matter of if the trillion dollar bubble will implode but when and how badly the aftershock will cripple the economy and higher Ed.
STUDENT LOAN DEBT - ONE MORE THING
I neglected to mention what the co-conspirators in the student loan Ponzi scheme (education elites, banks etc.) are required to offer in exchange for getting their cut of the action.
They must agree to: 1) Look the other way as obvious, massive ongoing political, financial and educational malfeasance takes place right under their noses; 2) Always vote "D" for more taxes and more big government “education” and other “social justice” programs; and 3) Never, ever so much as question any of the accepted politically correct liberal academic, economic and political dogma that keeps the whole game going.
Liberal academics and politicians – particularly those at the pinnacles of university administrations and the high-level bureaucrats who manage the massive multi-hundred-billion dollar government education syndicate – are not so very different from Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) and Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) working the “skim” in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Casino’ (and I’m paraphrasing here) :
“Don’t forget. When those nasty looking men in expensive pin-striped suits walk out of the cash counting room with suitcases full of dough… ‘You didn't SEE nothin' and you don't KNOW nothin'. CAPICHE??"
The student loan postings are spam. The exact same postings have been appearing in all sorts of online forums for the last few months.
RETIREES WITH STUDENT LOAN DEBT
"About $36 billion of our nation's burgeoning student loan debt is owed by people 60 and older."
http://money.msn.com/debt-management/article.aspx?post=d921ed1b-2cda-4cdf-8289-9b6ec2ccc309
Re Anon April 5, 2012 2:00 PM
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! NOW HEAR THIS!
THE TRUTH IS ALL JUST SPAM - IF IT DOES NOT CONFORM TO ACCEPTED, SANCTIONED ACADEMIC LIBERAL DOGMA.
ALL PODS ARE HEREBY INSTRUCTED TO IGNORE ANY OBVIOUS FACTS OR COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.
SIMPLY CONTINUE LISTENING TO THE PLEASANT VOICE OF THE MATRIX PUPPET MASTERS PLAYING IN YOUR HEAD... AND GET BACK TO WORK.
IF YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS - PLEASE REFER TO THE RELEVANT SECTIONS OF YOUR LIBERAL PC HANDBOOKS (DURING REGULARLY SCHEDULED BREAK PERIODS ONLY, OF COURSE).
REPORT ANY THOUGHTS OR BEHAVIORS WHICH MAY DEVIATE FROM STANDARD GROUPTHINK MENTALITY MODULES IMMEDIATELY TO A TEAM LEADER FOR APPROPRIATE REPROGRAMMING PROTOCOL ACTIVATION.
THAT IS ALL.
...So, you're saying student loan debt figures and analysis from MSN (posted above) and the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and CNN and Fox News and The Blade and Obama and Newt Gingrich and countless studies and books and articles from government, academic and other sources etc. etc. etc. are all just spam?
Better do a quick reality check.
Sounds like the likely source of the spam may actually be the result of your own sustained, long term indoctrination.
But thanks anyway for the spam.
I agree with this article. Cost of living has increased, I pray more for insurance, no raises for years...my real wages have gone down, tuition goes up...who is getting the difference? NOT FACULTY OR WORKERS! http://abcnews.go.com/Business/us-professors-stagnant-pay-leading-higher-tuition/story?id=16088503#.T4LA4vtSSXo
..and not students, either.
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