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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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12 comments:
Or this one...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/16/how-did-we-get-here-university-hall-at-this-point-of-time-the-anthropocene/
Linebaugh's rant relies too much on his personal interpretation of the changes in the library, the so-called loss of "books." Books are not being "lost" they are simply available in a different (electronic) form. And the point about stopping by the library to check the etymology of a word in a hard copy of the OED is ludicrous: the OED is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on OhioLInk. His "rage" has many important points (in particular the gutting of the history department), but they are lost in his own personal hangups over "forms" of scholarship and literature.
As far as "contingent" faculty goes, our lecturers are unionized and in a quite different situation (they have benefits, sick leave bank, etc) and I believe they are "tenured" after being rehired a certain number of years in a row. Their workload and recent increases in class sizes are an outrage, however. In regard to the big picture, I think the most important moment came when it was noted adjunct salaries had declined approx 40% since 1970 and administrative salaries had increased over 30% since 1970 - actually I think it was university presidential salaries that were cited, not all upper management.
However, once again the video reports what is just a personal hangup a particular professor has: "Climbing Walls". As long as a university provides rec services to its community I fail to see the difference between climbing walls and skulling teams, for example, except that the former is associated with grunts and the latter with elites and the former costs a whole lot less.
Anonymous 6:42. Professor Linebaugh's essay written in anger at the pinnacle of his academic career and on the threshold of his retirement from the University of Toledo deserves better, kinder, than your cruel retort.
Obviously he loves books and you have no respect for them. How sad. Your unwillingness or inability to appreciate the profound difference between books and bits is highly unromantic,not to mention uncivilized, cold and inhumane. You probably believe in this tripe:
“Today’s technologies have created the biggest change in education since the invention of the printing press.” — Anant Agarwal, President of EdX
Blinded bit by bit, you, Mr. Agarwal, and too many mindless others, look into your mirrors day after day and rejoice in your rapid evolution into perfect cyborgs.
This makes Mr. Linebaugh very angry. Me too. Machines already govern the Garden. Humanity already withers away.
Adjuncts living in poverty are the canaries in this coal mine.
The Singularity is here.
Academia is changing and not just at UT, look all over the country and you can see many of the same changes, including to libraries. Surely as faculty in 1920 or 1950 or 1970 were complaining about changes in their profession and in higher education so would one in 2014. These changes include the need to attract students with residence halls and recreational centers (competing against other colleges but also new off campus housing) as students pay big bucks for on campus housing. Again just another reality to higher education in 2014. And as to his rant about summer teaching to the Dean (summer classes are assigned by chairs not the Dean) hard to see much long term concern as since 2009 he has earned over $80,000 per year - pretty good gig to teach a few courses each term (and now on a pension of over $50,000 per year for life) And if anyone has a need to complain about working conditions and salaries on the UT campus it certainly is not the tenured faculty but instructors (who have no tenure protection) and teach twice as many courses for half the pay of many tenured faculty or the staff and perhaps most importantly part time instructors teaching a course for as little as $2000 with no job security and no benefits.
Anonymous 12:21. Your latest blog entry continues your ad hominem attack on Professor Linebaugh by invading his privacy to reveal his annual salary. It then adds insult to injury be speculating on his retirement income. What’s next? Will you soon be announcing his retirement to Mauritania and listing the medicines he might be taking along with him?
I am curious what motivates your animosity for this dedicated professor? Ok, so he wrote an angry essay articulating how the Jacobs administration deliberately sent his dream career and the careers of many other dedicated senior tenured professors on the Bancroft Street campus into a demoralizing tailspin over the past eight years. His specific complaints are part of a shameful institutional historical record that can be easily verified.
Plus, in this posting, you introduce a red herring into your desperate rhetorical strategy by bringing up the condition of adjunct faculty on this campus in contrast to the condition of tenured faculty.
Blame President Jacobs and his bloated, overpaid, administration for conspiring to grow UT’s poorly compensated contingent teachers in order to free up student tuition for risky business ventures and frivolous non-academic pursuits.
BTW, have you read this? http://chronicle.com/article/A-Caring-Professor-May-Be-Key/146409/
I have to agree, although I love books and have a large collection in my office and at home, the publishing industry is changing with digital the new norm. In recent years all the papers I have published have relied only on digital sources for journals, books and other references, and my collection of e-documents is quickly numbering as great as my printed collection. It has been several years since I stepped a foot into the Carlson Library for research. The historical collection and key texts are still important but increasingly even many of those if not in my collection or the library I can find online. Romance of books aside, the use and utility of libraries is changing, the use and role is simply not as it once was.
From today's (May 19th) Inside Higher Education:
"At the 25 public universities where presidents earn the most, student debt is rising faster than at other public universities, according to a report issued Sunday evening by the Institute for Policy Studies. The report also found that they are increasing the use of non-tenure-track faculty members at rates greater than those of other state universities."
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/05/19/presidential-pay-student-debt-and-adjuncts#ixzz32AS9wGdQ
Inside Higher Ed
When is someone going to recognize the plight of the large number of faculty who are not eligible for STRS. The state changed the rules of the game on their ARP plans. With the increase in employee contribution, fees taken by STRS, decline in university contributions to Social Security levels, and federal policies that reduce Social Security outlays, we have many faculty on this campus and across Ohio with no viable retirement plan.
Re:anonymous 5:27 a.m. Curious that a. Faculty member at a public university bemoaning his salary - which is public information on a fairly accessible website, needs to be defended when the salary is announced.
in any event, faculty have better to do now than rants such as originally published or defenses of such rants. keep the focus on the chance now to improve UT through active, public, noisy, faculty advocacy.
The original post in this thread was directing us to a vid on "contingent" faculty, many of whom hold PhDs. In 2000 the % of Americans with Doctorates or Professional degrees was 1%. The latest stat has this number at 3%, a considerable increase in 13 years. However, the first video directs us to the distinct possibility that even though you may find yourself, after years of education, in an elite stat, you have not earned your way into the tenure track club. And by the way, the latest stats regarding jobs and 4 year degrees shows that having a undergrad degree is essential to a successful job search. Or, in other words, a 4 year degree is a valuable degree; a graduate degree, not so much.
Depending on your field there are plenty of opportunities for graduates with MS/MA and even PhD degrees outside of academia, I know of many recent graduates with advanced degrees getting great career jobs with very good salaries in the private and public sector, certainly many more then are trying the academic career route.
Linebaugh's posting referred to his issues and challenges with his pay level and inability to secure summer teaching to supplement his 9 month salary (which has nothing to do with Jacobs or the Dean as chairs and departments assign summer teaching) so since his salary is public along with his pension percentage it was worth noting in response that he is certainly well compensated for his work. And as a senior tenured faculty member such complaining about his salary is misplaced considering that the vast majority of faculty including many junior faculty, all instructors and all part timers (plus many UT staff) are paid much less and more deserving to complain. He has every right and justification to complain about the impact this Administration has had on his work environment and lack of replacement faculty in his Department, but in my view the global changes to libraries due to technology and his salary are not where he should be directing his anger.
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