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Jacobs' arrogance is astonishing
It's the same old, same old at UT
. . . . 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." |
28 comments:
If this also happens to be the infamous one "where the sun don't shine" then it's more than accurate as a descriptor.
Jacobs GONE.
The Lord works in mysterious manners, and the BOT is even more mysterious.
Some of the BOT members love LJ, others do not, but does not surprise me that they found a soft funded landing spot for him. I for one am just glad to see him gone, could care less about the how, why, where and money issues, more interested to see UT more forward. Starting with current Dean of Engineering named Interim President on Monday and lawyer already in the Provosts office as Interim Provost
Regarding Anonymous at 6:03: There is a saying in Czech, "One hand washes the other."
One has to been concerned about the ability of this Board to actually conduct a decent search and hire a good candidate when they clearly can not even manage to move LJ out without making sure he is taken cared of and the Board takes no responsibility for his hire and actions that apparently only he will be held accountable for.
Official announcement:
"To our Alumni and Friends,
I am writing to let you know that UT President Lloyd Jacobs has been nominated to be a Distinguished Fellow with the Council on Competitiveness, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit working to increase the United States’ economic competitiveness in the global marketplace. As a result, Dr. Jacobs has decided to take a long-deserved sabbatical during the 2014-15 academic year.
The Board of Trustees has great gratitude for his tireless service and for elevating this institution to new heights on the national stage. Given that success, it is easy to see why the Council on Competitiveness would look to him to put that expertise to work on a national and international scale. . .
The Board will identify interim leadership and make that announcement at its meeting scheduled for Monday, June 23.
The strength and talent of our faculty, researchers, physicians and health care providers continue to attract the students and patients that will keep this University in a leadership role for decades to come."
We can only hope that somewhere, someone in the media will recognize how fishy this all is, investigate it, and call the Board to task. Nothing will change at UT if the Board of Trustees isn't shaken up. This is the second lame President the Board and dumped on UT and it will be a long and competitive debate trying to determine which of the two was more destructive.
Personally I will be interested in how he fulfills his teaching load increase and completes his "metrics" when he returns. Seems he will qualify as a fat and lazy faculty member when (if?) he returns as a professor of surgery.
Hope he never returns.
Jacobs will be an emeritus professor at most, and at his age will never perform surgery again. My guess is that he will up at his farm in Michigan. It's just a charade.
Naming the overblown, unnecessary simulation center after Jacobs is perfect.
More important, can UT attract a decent human being who is a real academic?
So now UT is going to be paying for two Presidents over the next three years? And since LJ's contract was to end in 2016 (although he was stepping down in 2015) the Board now just added another year to 2017?
You pay for it now or you pay for it in the lawsuit in terms of court costs. The Board fired him but not for cause ("for cause" in the legal sense) and therefore proving he deserved to be fired would have unquestionably been litigated. More bad PR for UT and Jacobs may have well won.
Any and every UT president will alway get a parachute when they leave. Holding on to anger even after he's gone will just punish you, not him, and it won't help UT move on. My two cents.
Dont know if holding on to anger is the right way to describe it. Maybe more like plain old disgust. Aren't we still paying Dan Johnson. or did that lifeline finally get severed?
Plus he will get to drive a $70,000 BOT-gifted 2015 GMC "U Con" to the bank beginning July 1st. My bet is that he will be laughing all the way. His bumper sticker will read: "Your Tuition Dollars At Work"
The last three posts regarding salary hit the nail on the head. These are all six figure salaries and I'm sure the interim president gets a salary bump while he keeps the chair warm. The big question, for me, is where do they find the money? We've been a sinking ship the last four years. The Board gives its rubber stamps to reducing copying, downsizing the secretaries, et al, and then at the drop of a hat find millions to pay for admins to sit on their behinds - Jacobs on a sabbatical, interim president keeping the chair warm, new president's salary, Jacobs continuing salary after his sabbatical, Johnson recently brought back, but god help you if your department needs new computers or paper for the copiers.
I am not questioning the buyout or "parachute" concept as yes it is very common including for University Presidents. But many of us are upset about is the amount and terms including all the additional benefits at a time of repeated annual budget crisis and many recent questionable actions and decisions by LJ. Close to $1.5 million in salary and benefits is not going to impress any potential donors. And it appears to many that the board overpaid in order to ensure his silence. Again resulting in many people wondering if this Board can even govern effectively and direct the future of UT including selecting the next President.
Agree that this is a buyout to ensure silence. I suspect that what is really going on is that LJ has dirt on the board and the board knows it. Shades of J.Edgar here.
Unfortunately, the BOT believes that you ensure the reputation of UT by preserving the reputation of the BOT. Not true.
A free and independent press would look into this.
I find the whole thing ironic to farcical proportions. He seems to have always maintained that faculty and staff were overpaid with too many perks and under worked....now he gets 400,000, plus a house, car, unlimited free parties and booze and house keeper and repair people to sanitize the place the next day, a secretary *wink* as compensation for trainwrecking UT and he essentially has nothing to do and it is OK?
Re @4:22
Remember the administrators deserve their rich salaries because unlike faculty, administrators assume all the risks! That is what LJ said, right?
If this is what you get for failing, imagine what the rewards would be for success!!
If the members of the BOT had any moral fiber (insert your own editorial comment here), they would tender their resignations.
The University of Toledo has a bright new future. we can attract more students and better students by emphasizing the value of a rounded degree which contains mastery of Arts, Letters, and Science. We do not need an administration whose enrollment plan is to eliminate tuition for anyone from an Ohio public urban public high school - yes that was suggested by the LLJ team - leaving iy to the UT to live on Pell Grants, Federal Loans, budget cuts, DL for all and subsidy. We can have an administration that plans jointly with faculty and staff. We can design a curriculum that builds on the best of the present and prepared for the future. To make these claims for UT - we will need to ask for evidence of demonstrated success at their implementation. Remember, UT was a "Grand Experiment" for LLJ and for the BOT. Many times during LLJ's early weeks his sycophants repeated their belief: "There is not an idea that LLJ cannot improve on." Let's start by agreeing that such a personality is not a help for UT.
Now that LJ and SS are gone, it is time for faculty (with support of the new interim president and provost and board) to remove all of the college deans who were given appointments without a search process. Some are not qualified to be dean of their colleges.
Serious reality check needed by most of the posters. The BOT has not changed. Not a single member. Their thinking has not changed. Nada. The mandate from the gov's office has not changed. Not a bit (in fact, look forward to a very likely lame duck legislative workload bill). The mood of the country has not changed. The public regards university faculty as just so many elitist fat cat couch potatoes (note a previous thread reference where a faculty member making 80k plus posted on a blog he retired because he couldn't read the OED on his walk to class. That's the sort of attitude that outrages the general public.). And the right wing regards faculty as leftist liberals who have been brainwashing American students for generations - to them academia needs a good housecleaning. In other words, LJ and SS are success stories, in the long game, as far as the Board is concerned and you can expect the new admins to be tasked with picking up right where they left off.
Two new Board members were recently appointed and I believe there may still be one more seat to be filled. So yes some of the Board members have changed for 2014-15, but you are correct in that the overall direction of the Board as set forth by the State of Ohio is unlikely to change.
And as much as faculty would like to think they have influence and power the current Deans are staying in place unless the future President or Provost feels differently. And of course by removing them if you assume that will result in national searches and better candidates and ultimately a better Dean, given recent history by this administration in hiring any management position I think you are asking much more then this University and Board can provide.
IHE and CHE do not investigate, they simply have writers and posters who often just report or post from other sources, so unless the State of Ohio pursues legal action we will never know the details
I have no confidence that this Board under the direction of the state can improve UT in anyway and have no confidence that faculty can make or demand any improvements given the poor political and public climate in Ohio against higher education and professors. Regardless of the persons that become President and Provost the personalities and approaches may differ but the actions and results will stay the same.
As long as people like the Koch brothers can continue to lavishly fund politicians, advertising, think tanks, and research to support their belief that all government institutions, especially education, are inherently evil and liberal (oxymoron to them) and the constituency keeps buying it, then we will have nothing better than what we now have.
Although I think the communication and working relationships with faculty and staff could be improved with the next President and Provost, I also doubt that the overall direction at UT and higher education on Ohio and the United States is going to change anytime soon as the issues and external pressures will remain forces.
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