See:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/02/michigan-professor-strips-naked-class-shouts-there-no-f-king-god#ixzz289SI2v8h
Where would this go on the ARPA?
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
Links
41 comments:
Mental illness has always been considered different than general medical illness - just take a look at how this is being reported and at the blog comments appearing all over the net. If the guy had had a stroke, an epileptic seizure, fallen and broken his leg... but no, he had some kind of manic episode, which is largely being trivialized and sensationalized and even politicized.
Exactly. Chances are he had been displaying other symptoms well before this episode. Where is the compassion and the help?
Everybody jumps to mental illness or disability. But maybe he actually had a religious experience, see William James on the subject, who correctly pointed out that the experiences of many religious people of olden times would today be regarded as insane.
Or maybe he was just trying to demonstrate some theorem. To a mathematician who believed that God, the Divine order, is represented in mathematics, the frustrations of teaching mathematics to modern students might result in a crises.
I think, this would fall under teaching on the ARPA, but only if the professor were to make a clear the mathematical connection between the verbal statement and undressing the class. Apparently, the teaching act did not go too far if the students ran out.
People tend to think that religion and science are mutually exclusive. There is no blasphemy in analyzing in mathematical terms what fanatics simply attribute mindlessly to a god or gods. Surely, it is much easier that following forceful logic.
Conversely, religious people are often viewed as insane, but this is relative. Each religion has a valid philosophical foundation with its symbolisms and utterances. Shamans were declared insane by Soviet Anthropology (and by many others), and in Colonial America, witches were excommunicated by the religious and the brainwashed. It may have to do with us versus them, but in mathematics, you cannot substitute either side with 0 and then force a solution on such terms. Each side has valid variables, so the variables must be solved with the other variables in view, not 0. Perhaps, it might be a good time to look at division by zero instead of treating it like taboo.
As for teaching modern students mathematics: math (like humanities, arts, and sciences) in the K-12 is not taught vigorously. Compared to European and Asian levels, the US is way behind. And colleges bear the burden of catching up? Good luck!
What a distractor. The strategy of encouraging academics to discuss any nonsense as a wait to divert attention appears to be working.
Academics discussing nonsense?
You must be looking for the Postmodern Academic Playhouse of Dr. Pee-Wee-Vious, PhD, and friends - the place where you never have to grow up and absolutely ANYTHING can happen.
The link below will take you directly to the imaginary world of the PoMo Playhouse, where Zelig channels his inner Pee-Wee and gets all his bright ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0bHUtpXI3o
El Lloydo barfed up another masterpiece onto Huffington Post. If you disagree with what he's saying over there, I suggest registering for an account and leaving comments.
Re Jacobs and Online Ed
When even NPR (which David Mammet incidentally refers to as “National Palestinian Radio”) is on board with online Ed – you can be pretty sure that horse has already left the barn.
Online education is now the inexorable wave of the future – whether you like it (or Jacobs or some of his flunkies like Dr. Previous) or not.
(Not surprisingly, the opportunistic Dr. Previous has now seen fit to largely abandon his former and now out-of-fashion Postmodern Ship of Fools in order to hitch his little career toy wagon to the online Ed juggernaut).
What was in 2005 only an increasingly audible approaching rumble (when the earlier mentioned “Free Harvard Classes for Everyone Online” opinion column was published locally) – has now become an all-out stampede and academic feeding frenzy among universities to get a piece of the online action.
Painful as it may be to accept things like Khan Academy and ICE (and even more excruciating to have to endure the involvement of the likes of Dr. Previous) Jacobs seems to be in fact be at least more or less on the right track here.
Here is a September 30, 2012 NPR report on the current gold rush in online university education:
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/30/162053927/online-education-grows-up-and-for-now-its-free
To 10:39am:
No, no and no. Dr. Jacobs is not on the right track. ICE is not on the right track. And Khan Academy provides interesting tutorials, but it is not the answer to the so-called educational bubble. The answer includes many different ways of educating our students, not one on-line way. Face-to-face teaching and learning,with a wide range of methodologies, along with on-line supplements is much more promising. I believe there is no substitute for a group of people who meet in a room to share, discuss, question, react, work, write, and imagine together. Working on-line is helpful, but it will never substitute for human presence.
THE ONLINE ED TRAIN IS COMING DOWN THE TRACKS – YOU CAN EITHER GET ON BOARD OR GET RUN OVER
And particularly in times like these it is worth recalling the sage words of Clint Eastwood in the film, The Outlaw Josey Wales:
“Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’, boy.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEClGMJ2r3g
Re Anon 10:39
Sorry, but no to your no, no and no.
The old education myths persist - largely because of entrenched interests and the tried and true "If Man were meant to fly God would have given him wings mentality."
Face to face education could be ideal with ideal students and ideal teachers (teachers with maximum knowledge and competency in the subject materials being taught, and superior pedagogy and superior inter-personal and motivational skills and superior personal integrity and dedication and ability to keep personal prejudices and politics and playing favorites etc. etc. out of the classroom - things virtually nobody has in optimum combination).
Face to face education could also be ideal with ideal content and ideal access and ideal resources.
But even in the best schools the realities have always fallen far, FAR short of the ideal. Any teacher or professor or student with ANY experience and honesty at all can confirm this.
FAR less than ideal schools and teachers and students and logistics and classroom distractions and costs and politics and funding and access and biased inferior teachers and texts and course content and classroom and class time restrictions and on and on and on.
Until technology (originally BBC Radio and Television distance learning - then Open University etc.) began offering viable quality alternatives over the past several decades, we were stuck with essentially the same teaching modalities as Socrates in ancient Greece.
Not any more. Online is now vastly more flexible, is able to mimic unlimited individualized face to face teaching in a way even one-on-one face-to-face teaching cannot do and offers far better access, quality, cost effectiveness and efficiency.
Online also mitigates most of the academic social and other negatives common to schools and universities and offers superior across the board education satisfaction and outcomes for all stakeholders.
It's a no brainer and really a travesty that this did not all happen 20 or more years ago.
I (Zorox, a.k.a. Johannes de Silentio - JdS) have been banging this drum here and elsewhere for many years now and getting mostly the same old predictable response from all sides - "Hey! It cannot be done and should not be done!"
Now, reality has finally come to campus and forced it to happen by default - as I knew it inevitably would and said it inevitably would on this blog and elsewhere.
Quality online Ed needs to do a much better job educating the public, teachers and students about the many advantages of online Ed (and policing itself to at least try keeping the inevitable opportunistic flim-flam artists and riff-raff out of the loop).
Locally that means Jacobs & Co. need to provide some hard concise data outlining exactly how and why online is better across the board and why it represents the inevitable and welcome wave of the future.
I personally think it is noble of UT to try to be something of a leader here – but in my opinion, in the extremely fast-paced, competitive and high stakes world of hi-tech and high finance, the really big players in the private sector will soon sweep UT and most everyone else off the playing field – leaving it to the equivalent of the Googles and Amazons and Facebooks.
At which point it will be like the UT Rockets trying in vain to compete in the NFL against teams like the 49ers, the Packers or the Steelers. It will be no contest.
Khan, Coursera and ICE also have very limited current or potential lecture and course offerings. For most degree programs it will require much more specialized content then MOOCs will have the capacity to offer. And where is the discussion of quality of education and assessment that is now so much of the focus of higher education (including here at UT) in regards to MOOCs? How does anyone know that the students are actually achieving learning objectives in courses and programs that we are now required to provide and assess? They have great potential as additional content and for some courses, but how can they provide at no-cost a complete degree? At some point the need to prepare complete courses including grading and assessment will require someone somewhere to be paid - that is only a matter of time. No one is going to develop, teach or "coach" these courses without getting paid for it.
I read an article about 15 years ago by a former University of Michigan president where he predicted that most universities would partially, or completely, shut down. Is this the future?
REPENT - FOR THE END IS NEAR
For the education of the masses (i.e. particularly professional and undergraduate education) it seems the end is undoubtedly very near for many if not most traditional brick and mortar universities – which will need to either radically re-invent themselves, or perish.
Academics and the education bureaucracy have had an air tight monopoly on knowledge, education and academic and professional certification for many decades now – and the HUGE amount of political and economic power and influence and perks and bennies and career security that goes with it.
They will not go gently or gladly into that good night.
However, for real students, real education, real teachers, real scholars and real scientists, as well as for the real advancement of real knowledge and expertise and academic lifestyle flexibility, quality, efficiency, access and affordability – these developments will probably all be mostly if not entirely to the positive side.
This process is likely to take place over the next decade with the stunning rapidity we saw in recent technological advances and social transformations involving computer technology, PC's, iPads, Kindle readers, Google search engines and Facebook social networking.
Those who do not adapt quickly to the paradigm shifts will go the way of Borders Books or Blockbuster Video - once on top - now gone forever.
It will probably still make sense in the near future for elite scholars and scientists to congregate at elite intellectual hubs like Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT, though these places may by then have little resemblance to their present traditional selves.
Highly technical education and research in science, engineering, medicine etc. will still require at least some on-site brick and mortar education and research lab facilities – at least until such time as virtual labs are as good or better than real life.
As for places like UT, BG, Lourdes, ITT Tech, Owens and even OSU and the University of Michigan - particularly with respect to the humanities and social sciences, Education, Law etc. (not to mention the countless pseudo-disciplines like Women's Studies, Law and Social Thought, Africana Studies etc.) - it is difficult to see how these colleges, universities or academic disciplines can survive in anything even remotely resembling what they are now - if at all.
Somebody somewhere has probably already undertaken some sort of apocalyptic worst case scenario Rand Corp-style strategic planning in the event of a “systematic all out extinction occurrence” (a "massive cultural asteroid impact" as it were) involving brick and mortar universities (probably all black-ops, hush-hush, top secret, Operation Blue Book military intelligence reports sort of thing, so as to not panic the peaceful inhabitants of the tranquil sanctuaries of academe).
We have planning for worst case scenario campus security – it would seem some sort of planning should be in place for worst case scenario campus extinction.
JdS
come on folks, you have lost your thread, misdirected by Lloyd & Co. anonymous voices. if you think you can outlast this administration by your mental mastXXXXXXXX you are underestimating your foes, and you do not deserve your doctorates.
Sadly, one of you - but more impatient.
The following is a letter to the editor that appeared in today's Blade:
"Sufficient safeguards should have been in place at the University of Toledo Medical Center to prevent the negligent tragedy that occurred (“Changes in place after botched surgery; Failed kidney transplant at UTMC prompts new safeguards,” Oct. 7).
Patients and their families are aware that mistakes can happen in medicine. But what happened at UTMC was far more than just a mistake and far more than “baffling,” as the hospital’s paid consultant, Dr. Marlon Levy, put it. It was not something that would have been anticipated by any donor or intended recipient.
It is insensitive of UT President Lloyd Jacobs to talk of any silver lining in the tragedy that UTMC bestowed upon the family. The university’s reputation has been irreparably damaged. New policies and dismissal of a nurse — and the resignation of another — aren’t sufficient to address this disgrace.
Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Jeffrey Gold, the UTMC chancellor and vice president for biosciences and health affairs, need to be relieved of their duties for what took place at an institution over which they exercise absolute control and thus have absolute accountability. I cannot in good faith ever again refer a patient to that medical center."
This letter was signed by Dr. Christopher Halasy of Perrysburg, formerly at UT's student health center, if I'm not mistaken.
Will the BOT take heed? Or do Jacobs, Gold and Scarborough get yet another pass?
I was an undergrad in the College of Arts and Sciences in the waning days of the Horton administration. Today I was looking over the minutes of the August 28 Faculty Senate meeting. I am proud that folks like Mike Dowd and Andy Jorgensen are keeping the aspirational spirit of a public urban university alive in these days of mismanagement by unqualified goons. I think the "UT spirit" will outlast the Jacobs administration, but perhaps I am being naive.
Regarding the letter to The Blade, it sounds very foolish. Is the Dr. saying that he would never send a patient to UTMC because of a botched kidney transplant? How much sense does that make?
BTW, a Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA) article stated that there were approximately 225,000 deaths each year where doctors had some culpability whether from botched surgeries, wrong prescriptions etc... I'm no math wizard, but that would be about 225 in Toledo every year. I haven't seen any Blade stories about all of these DEATHS.
I'm not an apologist for Jacobs (I wish he would resign) or UTMC, but the Blade, and its weird owner, have had a vendetta against UT for decades.
The Blade has a vendetta against UT? really? The Blade always gives good press to MCO and since the merger has given good press to the administration of UT. Methinks it has something to do with the Block family and their membership on the Board. Can't criticize one without criticizing the other.
Here again we go with scam artists:
"New Interim vice provost for enrollment managemt nominated":
Dr. Cam Cruickshank oversaw dramatic enrollment increases as vice president for enrollment management at Tiffin University before founding Ivy Bridge College, an online college formed in partnership with Tiffin that in four years enrolled more than 3,500 students and 200 employees. In October 2011, Cruickshank founded Enrollment Builders, where he serves as principal consultant.
Here is a comment of a former employee of Ivy Bridge College.
Academic Advisor/Success Coach (Former Employee), Toledo, OH – April 3, 2012
Pros: alot of potlucks Cons: high turnover.
There is no typical day at work. No one knows what's going on. I learned how to play office politics. Management is inexperienced, and the hardest part of the job is holding your tongue, and just going along with things that you know will yeild zero results. The most enjoyable part of the day is communicating with co-workers. The majority of the positions here are geared towards entry-level employees, so for the most part, everyone is fresh out of college, and ignorant of corporate America. But after working here for a year of two.....they're not anymore :-)
Good that they want to bring this model here at UT... I am being sarcastic obviously.
He received his doctorate from UT - Not the strongest Education doctorate provider in town...even more in-breeding.
Dr. Clyde Crashcup Brings WABAC Machine to Campus
Re Anon 11:17
Dr. Cam Cruickshank?
Hmmm...
I wonder if he's any relation to Dr. Clyde Crashcup, who was once, as many of you may recall, a mentor and senior thesis advisor to our very own Dr. Previous – a.k.a. Leonardo.
Clyde Crashcup and ”Leonardo” pioneered early groundbreaking work developing what would later become an advanced Foucauldian version of Mr. Peabody's WABAC Machine (illustration below shows Mr. Peabody and his assistant, Sherman, entering the WABAC Machine).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3f/Waybackmachine3.png
The brief documentary clip below shows Dr. Crashcup and his then assistant Leonardo (Dr. Previous) working in the lab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnheB_ETwfo
Dr. Previous has more recently been hard at work trying to integrate sophisticated postmodern theoretical Foucauldian WABAC, or [(f)WABAC] technology into UT’s cutting edge academic program development strategies – Code Name: “Let’s do the Time Warp again!”
So if your computer crashes or all the lights go out on campus – or if time suddenly starts going backwards, at least you’ll know why.
I wonder how many high-salary administrative Riff-Raffs like Dr. Previous it takes to just screw in a light bulb around here.
Dictionary of Academia - Nice choice for a front page book post, Bloggie. The cover photo and title say it all.
Here are a couple more recent must-reads (with some review clips) for those who have seen through (or who desire to see through) the Marxist Feminist PoMo PC smoke and mirrors on campus and everywhere else in contemporary society.
Critical reading much needed - now more than ever. Outstanding and previously recommended:
The Victims' Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind
2012 By Bruce Bawer
“An eye-opening critique of the identity-based revolution that has transformed American campuses and its effect on politics and society today.
The 1960s and ’70s were a time of dramatic upheaval in American universities as a new generation of scholar-activists rejected traditional humanism in favor of a radical ideology that denied esthetic merit and objective truth. In The Victims’ Revolution, critic and scholar Bruce Bawer provides the first true history of this radical movement and a sweeping assessment of its intellectual and cultural fruits.
Once, Bawer argues, the purpose of higher education had been to introduce students to the legacy of Western civilization—“the best that has been thought and said.” The new generation of radical educators sought instead to unmask the West as the perpetrator of global injustice. Age-old values of goodness, truth, and beauty were disparaged as mere weapons in an ongoing struggle of the powerful against the powerless. Shifting the focus of the humanities to the purported victims of Western colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, the new politicized approach to the humanities gave rise to a series of identity-based programs, including Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Queer Studies, and Chicano Studies. As a result, the serious and objective study of human civilization and culture was replaced by “theoretical” approaches emphasizing group identity, victimhood, and lockstep “progressive” politics.
What have the advocates of this new anti-Western ideology accomplished?
Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom warned against the corruption of the humanities in The Closing of the American Mind. Bawer’s book presents compelling evidence that Bloom and other conservative critics were right to be alarmed. The Victims’ Revolution describes how the new identity-based disciplines came into being, examines their major proponents and texts, and trenchantly critiques their underlying premises. Bawer concludes that the influence of these programs has impoverished our thought, confused our politics, and filled the minds of their impressionable students with politically correct mush. Bawer’s book is must-reading for all those concerned not only about the declining quality of American higher education, but also about the fate of our society at large.”
Amazon link
http://www.amazon.com/Victims-Revolution-Identity-Studies-Closing/dp/0061807370/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351353833&sr=1-1&keywords=POSTMODERN+JARGON
Another outstanding work from the inimitable David Horowitz:
Radicals: Portraits of a Destructive Passion
2012 By David Horowitz
“From Karl Marx to Barack Obama, Horowitz shows how the idealistic impulse to make the world “a better place” gives birth to the twin cultural pathologies of cynicism and nihilism, and is the chief source of human suffering. A former liberal himself, Horowitz recounts his own brushes with radicalism and offers unparalleled insight into the disjointed ideology of liberal elites through case studies of well-known radial leftists, including Christopher Hitchens, feminist Bettina Aptheker , leftist academic Cornel West, and more.”
Amazon link
http://www.amazon.com/Radicals-Portraits-Destructive-David-Horowitz/dp/1596988126/ref=pd_sim_b_4
And...
One of the great taboo subjects in education intelligently deconstructed:
Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It (2012) By Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor Jr.
“As a high-profile defender of affirmative action, I used to think the so-called ‘mismatch’ problem was a bit overblown. Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor have caused me to think again. How many bright and promising minority students, we must ask, have failed because they were steered—with the best intentions, of course—into elite schools for which they were less prepared academically than most of their classmates? What better ways can we devise to boost academic achievement and expand the pool of qualified students of all races? We don't do future generations of students any favors by trying to ignore this issue or pretend it doesn't exist. If common-sense moderates don't step up and engage this debate, we only allow extremists to take control of it.”—Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Chicago Tribune
“This lucid, data-rich book is simply the best researched and most convincing analysis ever done of affirmative action in higher education, a work at once impeccably scholarly and entirely accessible to anyone interested in the social and legal ramifications of well-intentioned policies that, as the authors show, have a boomerang effect on the intended beneficiaries.”—Judge Richard A. Posner
“This book probably will make constitutional history. Written at the intersection of social science and law, its data conclusively demonstrate the damage that has been done to intended beneficiaries by courts’ decisions that have made racial preferences in college admissions an exception to the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws.”—George F. Will
“[Sander and Taylor] are intelligent critics who support the modest use of race in admissions but think very large preferences have harmful effects…. [T]his book is at its best when it skewers college and university officials – who feel morally superior for defending affirmative action – for in fact pursuing what Yale Law professor Stephen Carter has called ‘racial justice on the cheap.’”
—Richard Kahlenberg, The New Republic
“[A] powerful new book that explains the nefarious consequences of [undergraduate and graduate admissions programs] for the supposed beneficiaries of racial preferences. The dirty secret – not a dirty little secret, but a dirty huge secret – is how massive in size their racial preferences are.”
—Ed Whelan, National Review Online, Bench Memos
“The authors offer extensive data in support of their conclusions that the present system is not serving those students well…. This information will be argued over all the same, but the authors’ evenhanded suggestion that what might be a better strategy is to raise educational attainment by investing more in elementary and secondary education for lower-income students – ‘targeting economic need before racial identity,’ as they put it – seems unobjectionable on the face. The subject may be hard to talk about, but it must be, and this is a valuable contribution to opening that needed discussion.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Amazon link
http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended-Universities/dp/0465029965/ref=pd_sim_b_8
Lord spare us this crap. Is it any wonder why we are dismissed as off the wall?
I agree. This blabbering crackpot (a.k.a. "The Singing Bush") is effectively poisoning Bloggie's well of fresh critique. "Crap" is right! Somebody in charge please pull the chain and flush this turd before he (she) thoroughly stinks up the site.
Dear Blog
With all due respect (what little is left) the blabbering crackpot has pushed me over the edge. Dear Mike Dowd, as Chair of Faculty Senate, I respect you - - but they beat you're 'organization' 6 years ago. To Harvey Eisner, as AAUP President (for at least 9 years) go study what happens when union members are too satisfied with their contract, and then too frightened to protest their losses. To the rank and file faculty, you cannot outlast the dictators. You know that and for accepting this you deserve to move down to a certain point in Dante's Heck. To the few remaining blog readers, notice that there is a blog criticizing various aspects of comics (try Funky Winkerbean) and realize that you are like individuals engaging is physical self-pleasure to believe you are alive as the parade passes you by. Goodby my (former colleages), your students and any faculty you recruit are your losses. Signed: Anonymous (but not hard to guess) No Longer a Blog contributor or reviewer. Jack
Fare Thee Well, Jack! The Revolution will have to carry on without ya. Had you stuck it out a bit longer, you might be sharing the catbird seat with the rest of us. Rumor is still that Jacobs will apologize and step down before Christmas. If not this Christmas, then next.
"Hope Springs Eternal." ~ A Pope
Jacobs apologize? What a concept! That will probably happen on the same day that the BOT apologizes for the way they have constantly mismanaged this institution.
“One of my greatest regrets is succumbing to petty vindictiveness and abusing my powerful position as President of this university to destroy the Arts and Science College on its 100th Anniversary.
Granted I was egged on by a few of my hand-picked subordinates, I should have known better and now take full responsibility for an egregious error. I was obviously not 'improving the human condition' or ‘extremely student centered’ to have acted like a bully in a day-school sandbox.
Yesterday I looked into the mirror and the mirror chastised me with these words ‘Some Marine!’
Today I am reborn and filled with remorse. I am taking full responsibility for my past vindictiveness, arrogance and mismanagement of the Main Campus over seven years as President of this University. I am resigning.
Again. Apologies to all: to the students; to the faculty; to the staff; and to the alumni; and to the public at large. Most of all, apologies to Bloggie and those A&S brave hearts that had the good sense and perseverance to critique my misadventures online, time and time again. I can admit now that these informed and persistent bloggers were correct all along. God was on their side. I wish I had listened and acted on their advice instead of acting on the lame recommendations of those many sycophants that I mindlessly hired at great salaries to surround me and endorse my bad behavior. You all know who they are. I rewarded their greed and harmed many innocent others by doing so.
Anyway, I no longer believe in ‘creative destruction,’ and ‘acceptable losses’ and ‘collateral damages’ and throwing colleagues and principled employees under busses.’ Higher education is not a war between administrators and faculty. I was so wrong to assume that. Moreover, this University was never broken. I made that up. A public university is not a business and should not be perceived as such. If I implied or said so in my so-called “strategic planning” I can admit now that nearly everything I preached in the past was all feckless boilerplate.
It has been repeated since ancient times that "Behind every success story is a great crime." Today, as I am about to retreat to my farm with so many misgivings, I very much believe this saying to be wise and true: I was a Big Success, bigger even than Donald Trump, but my-vanity-leading-to-arrogance I can now, in retrospect, and see with utter clarity, was my ‘great crime.’
So it goes, and so go I. Goodbye."
-- President Jacobs' Overdue Resignation Speech, Doermann Theater, Wednesday, December 19, 2012.
lord how you delude yourself.
Only an academic could enjoy such mental masturba****! Is it any wonder that a physician and a lay board won so conclusively against such children?
Bloggie is saddened.
None is back!
Re Anon 1:33 “Children” – Academic Peter Pan Syndrome and More Sunshine and Fresh Air on Campus
All campus politics aside and in all seriousness – academia does not generally seem to be a very good place for young, often wild, irresponsible and unfocused students, or bookish, introverted, socially awkward, eccentric and often emotionally stunted grad students and professors to grow up and mature into fully functioning and emotionally healthy individuals.
Campus life tends to encourage and/or allow the formation and perpetuation of many negative and counterproductive habits and behaviors that often last a lifetime and inhibit optimal intellectual and personal growth and self-actualization:
…i.e. particularly among students but also faculty and staff – poor diet, exercise, sleep and grooming habits, alcohol and substance abuse, degenerate social relationships, behaviors and habits, lack of short and long term focus and discipline, poor study habits, endless procrastination, coming to class or work late or not at all, handing in assignments late, repeatedly dropping classes, pursuing pseudo-disciplines and pseudo-majors that offer little prospect for practical career choices, repeatedly changing majors, wasting countless unnecessary years on completing degrees and/or Masters or PhD thesis, dropping out entirely, etc.
…professors not handling basic class or departmental paperwork and administrative duties responsibly, phoning in their cut and paste teaching efforts year in and year out, wasting countless years and even entire careers on their dead end, redundant, meaningless and fruitless research programs…
…spending entire careers in the academic echo chamber and in small incestuous academic departments with the same handful of cranky colleagues, where perpetual petty rivalries, personality conflicts and turf wars reign supreme.
Far too many classrooms and offices are claustrophobic windowless, airless, concrete bomb-shelters.
Serious consideration should be given to finding innovative ways to throw open the windows of the Ivory Tower and let fresh cool air continuously blow through the classrooms, offices, dorms and academic departments.
The ideal of a vibrant Academy filled with people pursuing the ideal of the well-rounded “Renaissance Man” needs to be reignited.
It can otherwise often seem so very dark, cold, oppressive, depressing and hopeless for far too many campus stakeholders.
No wonder there is a systematic epidemic of student, faculty and staff depression and emotional distress in academia.
Bottom line: There are far too many really lost, confused, unhappy and unfulfilled people on American college campuses.
And unhealthy minds and bodies engender unhealthy behaviors and toxic ideologies – which in turn engender unhealthy minds and bodies which…
talk about your unhealthy minds
Welcome to The Promised Land
Indeed there is no other place known to humankind that even comes close to the college campus in resembling an unmitigated Earthly Paradise – a veritable utopian Whoville of collegiality.
Moreover, all inhabitants of the Sacred Groves of Academe are likewise epitomes of unparalleled cosmic wisdom and excellence – imbued with superlative holistic mental, spiritual, physical, emotional and material happiness, fulfillment, health and well-being.
Just look around you. Breathtaking examples of human perfection from one end of the quad to the other – all with heads held high, holding hands, smiling radiantly, filled with love, compassion and goodwill towards all – and singing ecstatic arias of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ in perfectly pitched unison.
Anyone who would dare to even question these undisputed facts must be mental.
Esteemed Colleague Bloggie,
Please accept this short missive as further evidence of our continued gratitude to you for allowing us to post assorted, perhaps at times “off topic” but nonetheless – and we do so sincerely hope – scintillatingly intelligent and highly entertaining commentary here on the ASC Blog (“us” being The Johannes de Silentio or ‘JdS’ Affiliated Group of Gentleman Scholars, Muckrakers and Gadflies – a.k.a. The Scarlet Pimpernel, a.k.a. The Associated Artists Formerly Known As Zorox).
The ASC Blog stands as a bastion of free speech in what remains, all obligatory protestations to the contrary aside, a largely censorious local media environment.
You have managed to prevail against the concerted censorship efforts of Dr. Previous & Co. et al. – and if for no other reason than your allowing us the opportunity (and indeed the exquisite pleasure) of continuing to bestow upon Dr. Previous, PhD, & Co. et al. the “recognition” they so richly deserve – in the form of a wide assortment of satirical skewerings – you yourself deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, or at the very least the Kierkegaardian Corsair (or “Leap of Faith”) Prize.
You do not owe us anything and we do not expect any special considerations or extraordinary efforts from you on our behalf.
Note: ASC readers should know that Bloggie has no direct affiliation whatsoever with JdS and indeed remains unaware of our actual identity (though both he and others may have their own theories and suspicions).
Though we, JdS, understand that you, Bloggie, may not necessarily endorse or approve of the content of some of our postings (perhaps most especially those postings from some of our more strident JdS contributors) we nevertheless very much appreciate your continued support of constitutional First Amendment free speech liberties.
Though you have chosen on some occasions to edit our contributions for various reasons known best to you (with your duly attached Editor’s Notes to that effect) – and have in addition also elected on various occasions to leave our contributions un-posted altogether, you nonetheless remain in our estimation an essentially very trustworthy arbiter of free and open discourse.
In this regard, please feel free to delete as you see fit any portions of our past or future contributions which you may deem, for whatever reason, unacceptable (with or without so noting – again, at your discretion).
We believe all parties will be best served if our contributions to the ASC Blog are, whenever you may deem necessary, partially edited or redacted by you as opposed to being censored entirely.
We remain &c. your humble servants,
JdS
Bloggie
This is your call, leave it all out there for such rambling bullshit (and your stroking by the bullshitters) or address the real issues of this lost cause. Jack
Let Freedom Ring
Yes, Bloggie - you can continue your noble path of protecting First Amendment free speech rights and providing a venue for some alternative, intelligent, relevant, provocative and utterly unique commentary here on the ASC Blog, or...
you can buckle to relentless, thinly and not so thinly veiled censorship pressures from the likes of “Jack”, Dr. Previous & Co. et al. (a.k.a. the REAL stroking bullshitters), who can only abide "free speech" within the confines of monophonic echo chambers that continually reverberate only their own biased one-sided agendas.
You remain essentially the last outlet locally where free-form academic and related commentary can appear. You hold in your hands the significant power to seal off one of the last remaining leaks in the local censorship bucket.
It's your call.
We, JdS, have NEVER requested that you censor anyone or anything because WE have nothing to fear from open discourse and the truth.
WE, JdS, are fully capable of deflating the bullshitters with ease and likewise easily defending our positions against all comers.
Those who DO fear the truth because it does not conform to their narrow ideologies HAVE consistently requested that certain voices (ours and yours included) be censored.
In our particular case the Grand Inquisitors of Censorship have been – aside from the ASC Blog – almost completely successful – at least locally.
Their fears and frustrations probably have much to do with the fact that we, JdS, have for several years now single-handedly taken up the gauntlet of fearless non-partisan truth and taken on and roundly trounced Dr. Previous and any and all other MoFo PoMo PC comers in every title bout we have been required to fight.
And as often as not there is no need for us to even put up our dukes because the bumbling Dr. Previous & Co. are more than capable of hoisting themselves by their own petards – and are usually most accommodating in that regard.
We simply sit by amused and watch them fire themselves over the horizon, propelled by the combustible gaseous emissions of their own fundament-alism.
Cont.
Freedom part 2
Notice that all the usual suspects from the ACLU and Banned Books Week etc. (Dr. Previous et al.) remain silent whenever the free speech rights of someone they don’t like are threatened.
They will sit by calmly as the mainstream and “alternative” media warps the truth and unjustly crucifies their adversaries.
Sure – they may make a great public show of defending things like appallingly mediocre, disgusting and offensive countercultural MoFo PoMo “art” or things that don’t really need to be defended – like the rights of total nut jobs like the KKK or Neo-Nazis, whom nobody can take seriously - or books which have faced no real censorship threats at all for many decades (except occasionally from the lunatic fanatic fringes – Islamic fundamentalists etc.).
But you can always tell whenever somebody (like JdS) is speaking the REAL and dangerous truth – because the Dr. Previous and “Jack” types go completely ballistic with frothing accusations of “hate speech” or “bigotry” or “sexism” or “racism” and other name calling, which are all actually nothing more than the PC versions of calls for censorship – and if that doesn’t work – they go subversive, trying any and all backhanded and underhanded means to bring about the censorship and suppression they so desperately desire.
Bloggie, we trust in your continued integrity and remain confident you will continue to do the right thing.
And we understand it is never easy to take a stand. You have no doubt (like JdS) suffered some significant personal and professional persecution for defending and allowing controversial free speech and maintaining the ASC Blog – but that’s what real heroes do. They take a stand.
Let free speech and reasoned rational civil discourse remain the tools civilized people use in a civilized society – otherwise we sink to the level of barbarism – where one-party mob rule and those who can scream the loudest and intimidate and oppress and malevolently manipulate others win the day. Then there will be no hope for the true and good to ever prevail.
Is anyone following the latest from the main campus? The admins have announced a 39 (or is it 36?) million main campus short-fall for the next fiscal year. In response, the union announced the results of an independent audit, which found UT on very sound financial ground. And, there have been suggestions that the 39 (36?) million in question more or less the same amount that was spent on a Medical Campus project. That's just what I've picked up. Maybe someone out there knows more?
Post a Comment