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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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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
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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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19 comments:
'I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.' – Woody Allen
Classic men's clothier Ben Silver in Charleston, S.C. is looking for aging dandies who can be model bow ties, buckle shoes and gangster suits.
Anybody got Burns' cell phone number
T-shirt seen along Summit St. the other day
Paris.
London.
ProMedicaville
It appears the UA Board of Trustees is just as effective as humble priest St. Patrick in driving a UT snake out of its midst.
I guess Akron wasn't a very good career move.
Jacobs was a one-trick pony: Transformative. He was clueless. He embraced change, any change, for the sake of change. I don't think he understood the difference between transformative and destructive. Nor did he give a damn.
Scarborough was just evil. He was a right-wing thug hell-bent on privatizing public higher education, or destroying that which he couldn't privatize.
And this bring us to Larry Burns. Mr. Smoke and Mirrors. He always struck me as a cross between a used car salesman and a Joseph Goebbles wannabe.
It amazes me that as I write all three men have been fired and yet are collecting roughly (nearly?) a million dollars a year combined.
To 6:40, it is obscene that these three are being "rewarded" for what they did to the University. They destroyed so much while they were at the University. They should have been forced to do community service or donate some of their million dollars to charity.
Or better yet, return some of the their million dollars to the university for scholarships or for the hiring of new full-time faculty. Most hard working faculty members don't make six figure salaries their whole professional lives yet these three end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars for trying to destroy the university.
And where was the UT faculty when the true vileness of these folks was recognized? Why did it take so long? What caused the Trustees to believe the snake oil stories so early and so long? I ask so that if it happens again (remember Kapoor?) maybe it will be a shorter time in purgatory.
Accuracy has never been a strong element of this blog.
It's Joseph Goebbels.
Al Baker is a great addition to the UT Board of Trustees.
As a former member of the MCO Board of Trustees, he possesses the institutional knowledge of Health Science Campus, something that is in very short supply in the Gaber administration and on the UT Board and nonexistent among Main Campus faculty.
He knows, understands and appreciates the life-sustaining work of the UT Medical Center and the historic role it has played in providing care to people with few or no resources, for its role as a health safety net for the community at large, for the educational role it has played as a 200+ bed "classroom" for thousands of medical, nursing and other health-professions students, and for the numerous contributions it has made to the science of saving lives.
I hope he also displays toughness in making sure trustees don't cave to every demand from ProMedica concerning UT's clinical operation.
,
Here’s hoping that at his first one-on-one meeting with President Gaber new trustee Al Baker asks her one simple question: What evidence exists that ProMedica Toledo Hospital can create long term an environment of curiosity, learning, cutting-edge medicine and people asking difficult questions that characterize the nation’s teaching hospitals?
There’s a good reason for that question. Mr. Baker can easily provide an historical tutorial on the untrustworthiness ProMedica has demonstrated over the years in its dealings with previous MCO and UT administrations and that for years, the biggest area rivalry was not the annual UT-Bowling Green football game, but the turf wars between ProMedica, MCO and Mercy Health Partners. He lived through it as an MCO trustee and has witnessed how ProMedica has used medical education as a pawn in its quest to dominate Toledo’s health-care market.
He brings an historical perspective and I hope a willingness to tap the brakes and critically judge ProMedica's true commitment long-term to blending academic and clinical missions for ProMedica Toledo Hospital and to become a true teaching hospital for UT health-professions students.
Meanwhile, the future of UT Medical Center’s signature cardiology, cancer, stroke and neurology and other patient-care programs,as well as its teaching role, is left twisting in the wind.
Such is the state of affairs in ProMedicaville, formerly Toledo.
One hopes that now the College of Arts and Letters is emergent, we can be slowly rid of the remnants of the jumped-up deans (and their numerous buddies) from the Jacobs/Scarborough era. Maybe deanships and associate deanships will be based on merit. What a novel idea! For a while, though, we will have to deal with the same-old-same-old: buddies, cronies, career bureaucrats disguised as professors, favoritism, budget games and general vindictiveness. The future is bright, it is the changeover that is the problem. New broom! Sweep clean.
There is a whole university that will be affected for years to come by this ProMedica Deal. Notice that the person who penned the deal is no longer here. I wonder why.
No, that's not true.
The latest document outlining the UT-ProMedica clinical education affiliation agreement that calls for a boatload of cash to UT over 50 years in return to making ProMedica Toledo Hospital UT's primary "teaching hospital" and throwing UT Medical Center under the bus was signed by the current board, President Gaber and Dr. Chris Cooper, dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences.
All are still here.
He's following the urge to conquer Poland?
Where is Dave Morlock?
"Maybe deanships and associate deanships will be based on merit". Since when have associate deans ever been based on any form of merit (and what form of merit would an associate dean need to have?). Associate Deans are appointed by Deans and in my limited experience in dealing with them (like most regular faculty who also have little direct involvement with associate deans) the majority are hard working and competent at their jobs, often under difficult leadership by their bosses - Deans and Provost. I can assure you that Associate Deans have a pretty terrible job, all the work and little of the reward, reports, meetings, etc,,, so sure they make more money, but not as much as many senior faculty. And believe me the best teachers and scholars do not make the best administrators (as Assc Deans or even Deans) so if that is what you mean by merit you are misguided but what those jobs actually require: budget experience, people management, crisis response, leadership, vision, time management, 27/7/365 focus and availability - skills and experience most faculty simply do not have regardless of student teaching evaluations, grants and publication record. And I am not nor ever have or will be an Associate Dean or Dean, but I know many and plenty of good ones, and know a bad Dean when I see one.
Dave Morlock took his money and headed to the green grass of venture capital land. He may have involved with the negotiated ProMedia agreement, but to suggest he left or was forced out because he penned the deal (inferring it was a bad deal for UT?), is simply wrong. The Board, President and Dean of Medicine signed because they saw the value for UTMC and our med students.
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