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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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15 comments:
Hmm...wonder what authorities would say if they know about Larry Burns's summer class in Communications, you know, the class of athletes that then went to Greece?
It’s really laughable that the Communications Department offers a course like that, which I assume was approved by the department chair, the college dean, and that august body known as the Faculty Senate, a know-nothing, do-nothing course that has the substance of cotton candy and corn dogs.
Where's the academic rigor, the intellectual challenge?
Just another example of why UT will always be mired in the bottom tier of the U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of universities.
UNC Chapel Hill: The Sokal Hoax, The Happy Hoax and now Rocks For Jocks and Grade-Gate – Oh My!
Dr. Faustus a.k.a. Johnny Academia bargains for his soul with the PC Mephistopheles, Mr. Louis Cypher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQfiuHK_U84
This thread plays right into our wheelhouse of criticizing (pseudo) academic PC motivated malfeasance and related issues in higher education.
The athletic controversy referenced in the article at the head of this thread is typical of the sort of athletic corruption that plagues college sports and all sports – but it is especially instructive to us because of the involvement of elements of college pseudo-academic PC gone wild (yet again…).
And in addition to the “course” referenced in the above comments there are COUNTLESS other examples at UT of powder-puff courses - in the Ed College, Women's Studies and all over campus in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Take your pick. There’s a cottage industry among college students nationwide devoted to identifying the BS Easy-A colleges, programs, courses and profs.
UNC Chapel Hill was also ground zero for the legendary Sokal Affair – something academics should sadly be all too familiar with it, but for those who may not be, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Bogus, biased and politicized “research” in substantive academic disciplines has occurred far too often – increasingly because of increasing pressure on researchers to get the “right” (i. e. politically correct) answers and findings in their research work – particularly with respect to hot button issues like human intelligence, race, sex, gender, global warming, etc.
Here is a more recent well-publicized example of bogus academic work involving the widely cited and highly popularized work of a current UNC Chapel Hill professor – which is especially interesting because it also involves Alan Sokal reprising his role as academic debunker.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/16/barbara-fredrickson-s-bestselling-positivity-is-trashed-by-a-new-study.html
In another article about Barbara Fredrickson’s debunked work below, masters student Nick Brown, who originally began to question the work because it simply appeared on the face of it to be too absurdly neat and arbitrary said: 'If you want to be an academic whistleblower you have to be prepared to lose your job. I’m able to do what I’m doing here because I’m nobody.'
Man don’t we (JdS) know it!!
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/19/mathematics-of-happiness-debunked-nick-brown
One more article on the same incident.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/07/28/notes-on-positivity-ratio/#.VEfRdRZ0Y0I
At issue is,
1. How such bogus academic work manages to so often pass peer review muster and make its way to publication in academic journals, books and widespread acceptance among academics and the general populace (particularly in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences – and in assorted pseudo-academic disciplines, notably Education, etc.).
Answer: Because the peer review process too often involves critique by predisposed and biased fellow travelers who are often inclined to overlook – whether intentionally or unintentionally – obvious errors or biases in research, because of one or more factors, including strong undue outside political and/or academic influence and coercion, and/or their own personal biases, and/or ignorance, and/or academic or ideological predilections, or career ambitions).
cont.
UNC cont.
2. Why, once the errors have been discovered and pointed out – it is not absolutely mandatory for academics to formally respond to criticisms and to then systematically either appropriately amend or retract the work – and moreover be required to formally follow established protocols to ensure that all affected parties are notified of said amendments or retractions AND that measures are taken to retract all secondary citations AND to see to it that only the amended work can be cited in the future or, in the event of total retraction, that the work cannot be cited at all by other researchers and writers.
Note, for instance, that there IS mention of the debunking of Fredrickson’s work in the Wikipedia article about her below (retrieved 10/29/2014).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Fredrickson
At least since the advent of the post-1960’s postmodern Academy, it has become increasingly possible for academic known to be utterly bogus to be allowed to nonetheless persist and be cited at will ad infinitum by anyone who may either be ignorant of the facts or intentionally interested in promoting bogus academic or political agendas.
This has the effect of seriously undermining the integrity of academic work, bringing it down to the level of utterly unaccountable and unscrupulous pulp romance or New Age book publishers, who are absolutely free to publish and sell books filled with utter garbage, so long as their remains a sufficient market of lowbrow, deluded ignoramuses willing to pay for it.
It is this sort of pervasive sloppy self-policing in academia that has allowed politicized, PC pseudo-academic disciplines and Marxist-Feminist Postmodern gibberish to persist and percolate through the Academy and popular culture long after it was well-established and recognized by anyone with a clue that it was all sheer nonsense and propaganda.
Such bogus, biased, meaningless, mediocre and toxic (pseudo)-academic work makes all serious scholars and researchers look bad.
The work of all of the usual suspects in the postmodern science wars and culture wars should either be formally retracted by those in the relevant disciplines or, barring such a voluntary house cleaning, be systematically and rigorously critiqued, debunked and expunged by roving bands of conscientious academic ghost busters like Alan Sokal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQCCPP8aZBY
Has anyone been following Larry Burns' Twitter feed? He was in London for the Detroit Lions football game last weekend and tonight he's at the home opener. Is he paying for these tickets and taking vacation time?
Or are we paying for him to go on these vacations through these ridiculous "partnerships" with sports teams? I hear all in these sports contracts are well into the 7 figures combined.
Seems like "the Relevant University" is more about Mr. Burns feeling relevant personally in Detroit and Cleveland.
Glad to see that everybody at UT is starting to see what Larry Burns is all about--himself.
Some follow-up on the above, etc.
Is academia’s terrible secret the same as Joe Gould’s Secret?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOV0tawBwMs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gould%27s_Secret
Why we (JdS) post here:
We have explained “elsewhere” at great length our history, motivations, views, controversies, methods, etc. but the ASC blog meisters have, for reasons best known to them, elected not to allow us to post a link here to said comprehensive blog post “elsewhere” – so, very briefly…
Some time ago we were forced into quasi anonymity by the local and regional PC Thought Police (academic and otherwise). We subsequently found free speech sanctuary here, for which we have repeatedly expressed our gratitude. We chose this blog because it was already well-established and was read by our intended audience – academics and other thoughtful people and community leaders.
At the end of 2013 we intended to move on to other endeavors, but for reasons explained in detail “elsewhere” we were compelled to return for a curtain call.
Some have contended the readership of the ASC blog is exceedingly sparse, but we can unequivocally state that, to the delight of many and the great chagrin of others, the blast radius of our own posts here has extended to at least a 500 mile radius from ground zero – having wreaked a combination of widespread amusement, gut busting laughter, great admiration and yes, a notable degree of outrage and havoc among those who have found themselves at the pointy end of our criticism.
Moreover, the fallout from our humble postings here has been detected as far away as both the east and west coasts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-22tna7KHzI
Never underestimate the power of the written word – especially when what is written is true, funny and well-written.
Now on to the follow-up material.
cont.
Follow up cont.
For those who may not have taken time to read the linked articles in our previous post above, here are some excerpts from one of them – The Daily Beast article – linked below. Note that before moving to UNC Chapel Hill, Barbara Fredrickson was a professor for 10 years at the University of Michigan (where she did much of the work criticized below).
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/16/barbara-fredrickson-s-bestselling-positivity-is-trashed-by-a-new-study.html
“It’s not a great time for psychology. Diederik A. Stapel, a Dutch social psychologist, has recently confessed to serial fraud. That he gamed the peer review process of his field’s best journals so often and for so long calls into question the quality-control mechanisms of academic psychology. If garbage can pass peer review, as long as it is well-written and well-formatted garbage, then the authority conferred by appearing in peer-reviewed publications would seem to be slight.
That the flaws of Fredrickson and Losada’s study were eventually exposed may seem like a sort of success, but they probably would have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been such a blockbuster paper. If it was cited 1,000 times, how many other academic research psychologists actually read it? Twenty? Two hundred? It is not heartening that it took eight years for a grad student to catch the bogus math…
…Finally, most work in the psychological and social sciences suffers from a lack of conceptual rigor. It’s a bit sloppy around the edges, and in the middle, too. For example, “happiness research” is a booming field, but the titans of the subdiscipline disagree sharply about what happiness actually is. No experiment or regression will settle it. It’s a philosophical question.
Nevertheless, they work like the dickens to measure it, whatever it is—life satisfaction, “flourishing,” pleasure minus pain—and to correlate it to other, more easily quantified things with as much statistical rigor as deemed necessary to appear authoritative. It’s as if the precision of the statistical analysis is supposed somehow to compensate for, or help us forget, the imprecision of thought at the foundation of the enterprise.
It’s interesting that Fredrickson in Positivity avoids the term "happiness," because she feels "it's murky and overused." One may say the same of "positivity." There is definitely murk…
…The problem is not that Fredrickson is a bad research psychologist. The problem is that she’s one of the best. This is how it’s done by chaired professors at major universities at the top of the game. Filigrees of rhetorical precision atop unsteady pillars of conceptual bluff. Now and again, someone sees through the decorative math, but the semipro philosophizing just goes on and on.
As the great economic historian Deirdre McCloskey once wrote, "The scientist is always trying to persuade people that her evidence is just like the proof of the irrationality of the square root of two. If she can get people to agree that she has demonstrated the impossibility of monetary policy under rational expectations, she can knock of work early." Or, one might add, land a mass-market book contract, give a TED talk, and make more than few bucks consulting.”
Respectfully submitted,
JdS a.k.a. (to some) THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
Lord, let the bullshit cease....it is clear that the publisher of this stuff shops around, can bloggie move it along?
This is what is so great about Bloggie!
In the name of First Amendment freedoms he will accept (if not embrace) the most odiferous of doggerel deposited upon his doorstep. For example, JdS is certainly full of it -- and compelled to share.
So God Bless Bloggie, who (perhaps only out of morbid curiosity) offers this sturdy soap box in support of JdS and every other creep with a complaint that has ever crept out of an Uncanny Valley.
Bloggie
well, there are plenty of things I not longer read, no longer do, no longer watch, and no longer listen to - as I do not believe that the display of each persons' first-amendment rights are all of equal value or equal worth.
Thanks and So-long.
Posting moronic treatises in a moderated blog has nothing whatsoever to do with First Amendment rights or so called free speech issues. Get real. No one has a constitutional right to post in a blog. Bloggie moderates this blog; he just doesn't moderate it to keep posts on topic. His gatekeeping is hidden because we never see the posts he rejects. And the idiot who keeps posting these stupid lectures and has a hair up his backside about an "ism" that was barely relevant 20 years ago isn't a free speech candidate but a psychiatric intervention candidate: in the past he's actually responded to his own posts in an attempt to create a buzz about them. Also take note of the "JdS aka..." moniker, which he gave to himself in a childish attempt to give his postings and identity credibility, and to suggest he has a "presence" on this blog. The simple fact is almost no one even reads these long ramblings and almost no one ever replies to them, except to comment on how puerile they are and/or how much they destroy the topic at hand. The only presence he has on this blog is the one he has created in his own mind. It's pitiful, however it is certainly true that the tread usually just dies after his ramblings.
Thanks,
We wondered why Bloggie approval is necessary for posting and then Bloggie likens his approved posting as doggie doo. Too bad, readers of this blog just have to wade through it or not bother. I guess I am joining the not bother.
If Bloggie depended upon circulation, perhaps...no, what am I saying? circulation loves the bizarre, even "college circulation".
Still too bad.
One final point, I promise. My interest in this Blog was that I thought that I believed (and still do) that the regime of LLJ made public speech such a risk that few were willing to speak the truth, especially from the perspective of actually seeing how politics and sausage were made (messy). I mistakenly perceived the blog as a type of "Sojourners Truth", at least between the lines. But the Bloggie-approved lines are so dense and full of excrement that any truth about the LLJ administration at UT (not just in A&S - all of UT) is lost. Goodbye and thanks for listening. Signing off.
Bloggie is just so . . . culpable. Instead of confessions, Bloggie should perhaps offer referrals to therapeutic services for poor ambivalent souls.
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