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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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17 comments:
So in the latest FS minutes the chief money guy is planning for across the board 2 percent pay increases for everyone. On the other hand at the union meeting they said they wanted to fire everybody and hire them back as contract workers without benefits for a substantially smaller wage.
What union meeting?
The union sent out a newsletter yesterday, with an update on the contract negotiations. Here's the opening two paragraphs:
"The UT-AAUP made its proposals for compensation and health care in July of 2012. BOT ...counterproposals which raise the member contributions for health insurance premiums from 15% to 22%, one of the highest rates for faculty in Ohio.
BOT counterproposal for compensation for the tenure-track faculty presents a 2% increase effective after ratification of the contract; a 1.2% increase to offset the proposed 22% that members would pay for health premiums; plus a 1% increase to offset the new caps proposed to summer session compensation. Subsequent annual increases of 1% would be limited to those members with a 2.5 merit score, followed by .5% specifically for merit and .5% for the College Faculty Excellence award."
The newsletter concludes the counterproposals will be rejected.
I have not done the math, but it seems to me remaining under the current contract is a better option for all members. Yearly pay would be significantly impacted by the new health care contributions and not offset by the pay increase (which won't be retroactive) and the reduction in summer pay (which for some high end professors would be many thousands of dollars but for even the lowly would be a reduction of one or two thousand at least, per course).
Meanwhile administrators make out like bandits. Even though Stansley left "early", he still took a king's ransom with him. And former administrators return to the fold for another round...We can spend $36 million on a foolish SIM center, but we must cut faculty compensation. I wonder if Jacobs pays 22% of his health care premiums...It's time for faculty to push back.
The Provost has invited "you and your spouse" to dinner and a lecture.
Whether the proposed contract is better then the current really depends on the rank and current base pay of faculty. If you do the math may be surprised to find that the 1.2% offset for health care increases does cover the increase from 15 to 22% for many faculty, same for summer salary offset plus lower summer caps (unless you are high salary and teaching two summer courses then impact is significant, but only 50% of all UT AAUP members teach in the summer). I am not saying that this is a great deal or the best one as there is always room for improvement through further offers from both sides. But for many faculty it is not terrible, yes retroactive pay would be nice but UT would simply take those moneys from future pay raises or cut faculty lines via upcoming retirements for more savings (which is what BSGU has done following their most recent faculty contract). And if you actually think that faculty and UT AAUP have enough power and support by members to "push back" using job action or strikes, you are not aware of Ohio labor laws and role of fact finding and how weak and shallow UT AAUP support is on this campus. But all faculty should do the math and determine for themselves the financial impacts.
"how weak and shallow UT AAUP support is on this campus."
Sad, but true. This Faculty has revealed itself as very chickens**t. A&S Council had many opportunities up to the day of its final demise to vote "no confidence" this Administration -- and consistently punked out. Blowhards, weasels and snakes. Will they show backbone and save Faculty Senate? Ha! Haha! Hahahahahahah .........
What Anon March 6, 2014 at 6:14 AM is stating, as I understand it, is that the more money you make the more the 1.2% is going to offset the increase in health care contributions. I'm presuming that the university pays a flat rate for health care for each faculty member covered and the health care cost per faculty member is not tied to salary whereas the 1.2% impacts individual faculty based solely on salary and does not factor in the increase in health benefits cost.
Or, in other words, the faculty hurt the most by this formula are the ones making the least money, which, unsurprisingly, must make perfect sense to this administration. And, the idea behind this as far as saving money goes, is to save the university money by shafting the faculty who make the lowest salaries.
Yes, if your health insurance increases like they say then even with a 2% pay increase it is still a pay cut if you take into account increased costs for everything else people need to live on.
If you make $50,000 per 9 months the 1.2% increase would be $600. If your current health care is $150 per month for 9 months the increase from 15% to 22% would cost you an additional $675 per 9 months.
If you make $40,000 per 9 months the 1.2% increase would be $480. If your current health care is $150 per month for 9 months the increase from 15% to 22% would cost you an additional $675 per 9 months.
Is any of that math wrong?
So yes those at the lowest faculty pay scale and carrying family coverage would see the greatest increase in costs.
Feel free to compare those rates to other providers and what other agencies and companies pay (and UTMC staff already pay at the 22% rate)
The venom evident in: "Blowhards, weasels and snakes. Will they show backbone and save Faculty Senate? Ha! Haha! Hahahahahahah " makes me wonder if the writer ever individually opposed the administration? On occasions I have bemoaned the lack of a "No Confidence Vote" but never with such glee. I wonder how the writer lives with those feelings?
This is the person that was invited to talk to the Honors College this Monday:
Michael Crow accomplishments:
(from http://www.cfraa.org/Why%20Michael%20Crow%20Should%20Be%20Dismissed/)
The following is a brief statement of the problems with Michael Crow’s administration and reasons that he should be dismissed. It was written by Prof. Emeritus and former Regent’s Professor, Geoffrey Clark, in 2004 and is posted here in edited form.
Governance Problems
Faculty role has diminished to nothing; Academic Senate purely a symbolic body.
ASU being run like dictatorship, on a “need to know” basis; all transparency lost. ASU not CIA, FBI, nor a large, for-profit corporation. It is supposed to be a university.
Crow intimidates, bullies, belittles, threatens, and otherwise expresses his contempt for ASU’s faculty. There is no place for this in any institution of higher learning.
Faculty have no say in their own futures, nor in the futures of the units to which they pertain; there is, in effect, no faculty governance
Abuse of Power & Authority
Credible people who have given their lives to ASU are being destroyed for no apparent reason other than the perception that they are opposed to the President’s plans; and/or that the administration covets their facilities.
There is a distinctly “chilly climate” on free speech at ASU that is all pervasive and that has been actively encouraged by Crow and some of his administrators.
Any perception of opposition to, or even concern about, the New American University by administrative personnel is cause for summary dismissal from their administrative posts.
Crow inflicted upon ASU by ABOR; there has never been an open discussion of anything connected with (i) the hiring of Crow, (ii) ABOR’s role in this, (iii) Crow’s unsavory CIA connections, nor (iv) his activities at Columbia.
Corruption of ASU's Teaching Mission
Teaching largely ignored at ASU.
Targeted hires based solely on the capacity to bring in large amounts of external funding.
Normal hiring practices routinely circumvented.
Targeted hires have no, or few, teaching duties.
Indirect costs generated by these faculty now go directly to the research institutes and centers that generated them; no benefit to students, faculty in general.
A ‘2-tier’ faculty, with a few elite programs and units riding on the backs of an enormous underclass of ‘teaching drudges’, whose career prospects resemble those of part-time, adjunct and contract faculty at the community colleges.
ASU students charged a ‘university tuition’ for a ‘community college’ education.
Corruption of ASU's Research Mission
Resources for research, including the Prop 301 tax revenues, diverted almost entirely to the Biodesign Institute.
Everything connected with the Biodesign Institute cloaked in secrecy, non-transparency, run from the top down, with no accountability whatsoever.
It is incumbent upon the ASU administration to make explicitly, publicly, the purpose of these buildings and the kinds of research to be conducted in them.
Look also at:
http://www.statepress.com/2010/11/03/destroying-education-through-privatization/
To celebrate the amount of bullshit thrown at us by our distinguished speaker Michael Crow, look at this article:
Reading this article about Arizona State University…
… gives you a sense of what it must have been like to sit in your communal apartment in Leningrad in 1956 and read about the anticipated glorious fulfillment of the Soviet Union’s Sixth Five-Year Plan.
(http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?p=37066)
Also here:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/08/18/20120818college-sports-subsidies-integral.html
"Lucas County now at Level 2. All second shift employees and future shifts resume normal operations and report to work."
Note the commanding tone. They no longer even address us using complete sentences or even the polite subjunctive form.
"Ja wohl! Zum Befehl!"
Also, even though it was illegal to drive this morning under a level 3 alert, employees have been commanded to use their vacation time to cover the time away today.
can you provide a link as I am certainly not aware of any command directed to staff that they must use vacation day for the level 3 UT closing yesterday, thanks
Well, whether it was posted as a link I do not believe. I was told the command was given orally to three members of one department and via email to one member of one department. Other than that it could have been some form of mass delusion on a small scale....but I also heard today that according to the law the task maskers cannot do that and that they have relented...kind souls that they are.
I know many staff in different offices across UT and remain amazed at the range by which middle management treat their staff, so it does not surprise me that some would take it upon themselves to actually tell their staff to use vacation days when the University closes which is not required by any policy.
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