Also of possible interest:
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/new-ua-president-takes-helm-this-week-has-history-of-wasting-no-time-with-tough-decisions-1.500053
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
25 comments:
So who are the ten that would like to join him...any guesses here?
Easy! Those ten with the brownest noses.
'Even his detractors respect him,' Jacobs said."
[But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. ~ Galatians 6:4]
Can we nominate folks we'd like Scott to take with him?
Today's Blade has several letters to the editor that demonstrate the community's outrage at administrative greed and trustee incompetence. People are watching.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Letters-to-the-Editor/2014/07/03/Payout-to-UT-chief-is-too-much.html
I'd like to hear some people's thoughts on Dean Naganathan as interim president and him possibly applying for the job, and his appointment of John Barrett as interim provost.
The record reveals that neither of these interim administrators raised any objection in the past when Jacobs demolished Arts and Sciences College for childish, vindictive reasons. For example, neither supported censoring the Jacobs Administration through a no-confidence vote when the opportunity arose multiple times in Faculty Senate.
On the other hand, John Barrett's official photograph on the UT Provost website indicates his conscious choice to present himself to the world sans necktie (and more significantly, sans bowtie!). It appears he is his own man, and owns his own -- perhaps maverick -- brand. Already John has reached out to some of Jacobs' harshest tenured faculty critics by announcing his intention to continue the Provost Book Club, and so seems eager to engage an informed faculty on state public higher education issues as these will play out in the future, and particularly on the University of Toledo Main Campus.
Dean Naganathan seems sincere about his eagerness to rapidly improve tenured faculty morale on the Main Campus as a préalable nécessaire for improving the academic reputation of the University of Toledo regionally, statewide and nationally. Let's judge better by his actions during the next several months.
I'll weigh in here. A number of postings have referred to the petty dismantling of A&S and I think there is strong evidence to support that. Basically, when A&S was split up so too was the budget spit up, right down the middle as I recall, despite the fact that the new LLSS college had far more staff, faculty, and students. Now that seems to me as either grossly incompetent (something thrown together with very little thought) or as vindictiveness (as punishment), and LLSS has been struggling ever since as a consequence. And so for me, if the interim pres or new pres want to get off on the right foot, they can immediately rectify what to everyone, including students, was a harmful reorganization (and I don't mean recreating A&S I mean taking a long hard look at the LLSS budget).
My question is this: what exactly do interim anythings do? and why do we need one or two of them? or, bluntly, given what has to be their interim boost in salary, what exactly are they being paid to do that justifies their bump in salary? And if indeed their interim status is indeed interim, and they return to whence they came, will they find their salaries returning to the previous amount or is this just another one of those administrative 'it goes without saying' perks?
Well there does have to be someone "in charge" to make decisions. Ultimately one person has to be responsible and without that person it is not good either. I do not want to start trashing him before he even gets going or the detractors will be blamed for future failure. Now is time to be supportive, optimistic and to join in and take responsibility and initiative.
I think it's a fair concern, in these difficult economic times (at least for some; just read the sale of Rolls Royce's, which cost 6 figures, is at an all time high). You would imagine at a public university paid for with taxpayer dollars this contract would be available someone, in fact available somewhere before it is signed.
What is the boost in salary for the new interim Pres and new interm Provost and what deal did they negotiate for when/if they return to their former positions?
My memory is that Kapoor returned to the Engineering college with his salary intact, Johnson left his position as Pres as part of the merger but did not take a reduction in salary and then returned from afar to a lucrative position (right in the middle of the budge crisis as I recall).
For anyone keeping tabs on Kapoor, he seems to be currently at UCF in Florida. The Emeritus Citation from UT is worth reading: http://www.nanovk.com
Ah, this reminds me of the hilariously titled talk that Xunming Deng gave to the Department of Physics and Astronomy in January: "How to Set Up a University Technology Commercialization Company?"
I had assumed the final question mark was a mistake, but maybe it was part of the joke.
With all due credit to the late Tom Loomis, sports writer and columnist extraordinaire for The Blade, here’s some tasty Friday fricassee that the UT community can savor.
First, after reading Thursday’s Blade story about Xunlight, Inc., here’s hoping that the Board of Trustees and interim president Naganathan will extinguish once and for all the $10 million dumpster fire that is Innovation Enterprises, Inc.
An independent audit needs to be conducted to determine how the $10 million was spent and that audit should be made public.
That’s the only way that confidence in the university is going to be restored in the minds of alumni and residents in the community.
With the clarity of hindsight, that money could have gone for things more central to UT’s academic mission — more student scholarships, additional classroom instructional technology, faculty and staff development programming, more undergraduate and graduate research opportunities, more effective internship programming for undergraduate students — or for even saving a few jobs of staff members who were thrown under the bus during the 2009, 2010 and 2011 layoffs.
The only thing that IE produced was a smelly, hold-your-nose scandal.
Second, when are members of the presidential search committee going to be named? The committee should be selected and named by at least the start of the school year, if not sooner. The Board of Trustees, which has been somewhat tight-lipped about its progress in naming a committee, needs to show a sense of urgency.
A lot of politicking, jockeying and backroom lobbying no doubt is currently under way by people who want to serve, but time is of the essence.
A new president is going to need time to get up to speed on the many thorny issues facing the university. The committee and the Board of Trustees are only to have one chance to get it right.
The Board desperately needs to get this right, or face a humiliating vote of no confidence that will make national news. I wonder how Huntington Bank, Signature Bank, Dana Corp., Medical Mutual of Ohio, HCR ManorCare,or the Blade would react if their employees on our Board got national attention for their lack of due diligence.
Both were faculty members so that experience and perspective can only help to improve relations between administration and faculty, Nagy was Dean under Jacobs so no surprise he was quiet during the reign that included splitting A&S, Barrett served as chair of Faculty Senate one year, but I am not aware of him speaking out publicly against Jacobs but given that the Law School is in many ways separate from the other main campus academic colleges that is not too surprising
The appointments of the interims will not become official until first the Board academic affairs committee approves the list of personal changes at their next meeting in August (their agenda and that list become public just prior to that meeting) and then approval of full Board in September. An if they only serve as interims they would return to previous position and pay level as that has been the normal practice with interim appointments. Such interim appointments are common at universities and in other private and public sector positions as authority and decision-making needs to continue until the point a permanent hire is made.
For those who would continue to lament about the lack of a vote of no confidence in Jacobs by UT faculty (and now the questioning of role, or lack of, by the two new interims in regards to such a vote), it is worth pointing out that the BOT was well aware of what appointing Jacobs as President would mean for relationships with the faculty - they supported such division. Such a vote would not only have been unsuccessful (as if the Board cared what the faculty felt about Jacobs) like the no confidence vote in a A&S Dean, pushed by many on this board, such action against Jacobs would have resulted in retribution back at the faculty as it did with the break up of A&S. As an April 23, 2013 article from IHE pointed out although such votes are becoming more common, they are also most often not successful in removing Presidents.
RE: Anonymous said...
For those who would continue to lament about the lack of a vote of no confidence in Jacobs by UT faculty......
oh lord. fear of retribution is used to justify inaction. it is surprising that any group of faculty are organized with post hoc advice such as that.
Especially fear of retribution for a vote of no-confidence that would have been meaningless as without broader public,local community, and political support, there simply was no way that a vote by the faculty alone was going to be enough to remove Jacobs. Anyone who believes otherwise has no idea as to the underlying reasons and support for the appointment of Jacobs to start with.
1. So, part of the contract that Jacobs and the BOT signed says they won't say anything bad about each other. Is this just another way for Jacobs to protect his "legacy", or are more things being hidden?
2. I hope there will be an organized faculty effort when the presidential candidates come on campus so that there is a clear understanding about people will be treated and shared governance. Is that too much to ask?
While rumors continue to circulate around UT that Jacobs has been charged or arrested, nothing in the media or other online sources to date.
cojmment
There appears to much confusion regarding sightings of Jacobs being escorted out of his office on the medical campus by police, he is not being arrested but due to recent threats has more security escorts (this from a UT Police source I talked to).
Yes, it is high time to play the victim card. Funny how tyranny and paranoia join at the hip. Seriously, I wouldn't want to be stalked by Mary Worth either.
Toledo Talk blog has a lengthy series of posts on Jacobs starting back in March, if you scroll down to the most recent posts from the last week plenty of more "rumors" regarding latest events, much smoke but no fire as of yet.
Post a Comment