The New School

Hey guys and gals: There's been a lot of discussion recently about The School of Renewable Energy. Wow. Maybe our problem in Arts and Sciences is we need a flashy name. Then we, too, could ignore the graduate council and just give out degrees to whomever. I am open to suggestions. Of course it will have to fit in with today's language. Here are a few modest possibilities:

The college of never ending whining.
The College of Hot Air. (endlessly renewable I might add)
The College of How Dare You Say That
The College of Do You Know Who I am? (I hope so because I've forgotten)
The College of Perpetual Motion

I'm sure you folks will have more (and better) possibilities.

Just one other thought, this one about gardens. As difficult as it may seem to believe, Dr. Tinkle has gardened and canned (or is that been canned?). It's a lot of work. Frankly a beer garden might do well and attract a lot more "workers".

Lock and load!

How do you bring down a charging Bull Moose? Choosing the right ammunition and delivery system is most important. What does our BOT and this administration read to get such lame ideas (“new entity,” “extreme student centeredness,” “market-smart”?) We already know they have religiously read Zemsky's "Market-Smart and Mission-Centered" screed, which considered in its entirety a sick antelope of an argument in support of creative destruction in public higher education that can be felled with a slingshot and a marble. What else do they read and recommend? The redundancy of questionable content and quality along our top Administrators’ bookshelves are a good measure of why we are herded into a cul-de-sac of mediocrity as a public higher education institution -- instead of invited on a fast track toward excellence in education.

As business-sector benchmarking of A&S efficiencies in its mission-related delivery systems is now already upon us in spades, what should we be reading to be able to prepare ourselves in Council and Senate to deflect its targeted blunt-force impacts on our professional integrity as a professoriate? As in the case of the Zemsky book, we should be reading what our own administrators read and recommend to each other, and from which they derive their 1) dogmatic arguments, 2) self-serving justifications for the hurt and injury they cause others, and 3) disciplined commitment to dubious leadership.

This booklist would include one book -- perhaps at the very top of their reading list -- by Jim (Jimmy) Collins, titled "Good to Great" (pub. 2001 -- and which was at the top of Business Week's best-seller list for six years, selling two million copies!). The UT administration's benchmarking drive seems heavily influenced by the "business-sector wisdoms" of this Collin's book. And so they seem to apply them in both broad and small strokes toward "transforming" UT (good) into UT (great) -- as measured by U.S. News and World Report's annual rankings game.

I recommend that all concerned UT A&S students, faculty, staff and alumni read the following article in preparation for Spring debates about the implementation of benchmarking and its impacts on the restructuring of the A&S College:

Denrell, Jerker. 2005. "Selection Bias and the Perils of Benchmarking," Harvard Business Review, 83, 4:114-119

This article is only seven pages long, but it effectively undermines the so-called "research-based" arguments promoted by Collins (and also Zemsky) that pertain to the efficacy of benchmarking in the business world, and as our Administration seeks apply this demoralizing and inappropriate practice here UT.

The Denrell article can be accessed here, at no charge, through Carlson Library's electronic journal service:

http://0-web.ebscohost.com.carlson.utoledo.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=4&hid=116&sid=a177fd79-e179-4317-b668-35195e20f557%40sessionmgr109

Read up, gird up, then act. Help save A&S and its advanced studies in the liberal arts. The Bull Moose is upon us! Lock and load.

"turn the page"

Our own Dean has suggested we cease to embrace our traditions and ideals as a proud professoriate and become passive sheep led to our slaughter. I have read "The Last Professors" and my "Chronicle of Higher Education" and my Omar Khayyam, Iqbal and I Ching – and, alas, my Zemsky. Against all odds I still strongly believe the tenured professorship in public higher education is a venerable institution worth fighting for -- and in the public interest. The public tax dollars support our loyal opposition in threat of totalitarian trends. Real First Amendment space in this country has eroded over the past hundred years to the point where it only resides now on the campuses of public higher education throughout The Land. The business model in public higher education seeks to privatize this last bastion of hope in the face of totalitarianism. It is up to us, the remaining core of our proud professoriate here at the University of Toledo, to fight this fight now and to win it or go down embracing a lost and worthy cause -- but in the end with dignity and pride. To not do so is to be ignorant of who we are and what we represent, and to betray the public trust, mainly by allowing ourselves and our students and the future of Feedom in America to be ground down under the cold heel of fascist tyranny, right here on our own campus. We can begin by dusting off the trusty p******r and resuming our c*********e resistance. We meet next on February 14 at the old location. Students, staff and alumni welcome. Free pizza and beer. Bring your best ideas. Anything goes ... theoretically (winkwink).

New Center for Renewable Energy Study Emerges at UT Under Supervision of Administrative Midwifery

The pains of spending real money in an imaginary way are so dreadful, like the throes of birth, that perhaps another $156K in bonus money should be awarded.

Budget Questionnaire to Chairs

Below is the questionnaire that went out to dept. chairs. It came from the ASC Dean"s office although we were given to understand at the ASC meeting of Feb. 4 that it is a distillation of more questions that came from higher up. Actually it was never made quite clear at the meeting who orginated this. Maybe it is sufficient to know it comes from On High. Unimpeachable Authority is involved, and maybe a good deal of very impeachable high density administrative thinking. Enjoy.



1. What is the standard teaching load in your department for both research active and teaching-centered tenure-track faculty? Please provide a list of faculty members who have course releases, along with the reason for the release.


2. If there are tenure-track faculty in your department who are not giving their full measure of effort to the work of your department, and if he/she were to increase their contribution through additional teaching of regularly scheduled courses, how many more classes could be taught by tenure-track faculty?

Fall Spring

Please identify the affected faculty:

3. With regard to work load in your department, could you indicate the average number of hours per week that your faculty spend in the following activities.

Activity Hours

Teaching regularly scheduled courses including
preparation, grading, office hours etc.
Indicate for each level
1000-2000 level
3000-4000 level
Masters’
PhD

Supervising, advising, mentoring etc. of students

Research and scholarship

Service and administration

4. Are all the courses offered by your department during this academic year programmatically essential, or are some courses in your schedule because of a strong interest on the part of a faculty member, but not essential to developing a solid foundation in the discipline for your majors or graduate students?

Please identify these courses:

5. Do you feel that any of your department’s course offerings are significantly similar to courses offered in other departments, and are there courses in other departments that could be used in place of any of your course offerings?

6. Could you estimate the number of sections that you could eliminate if, in courses where there was sufficient demand, you were to set the capacity of sections to their room sizes rather than using a predetermined uniform capacity based on pedagogical or other consideration?

7. Which of your programs or major specializations offered by your department have seen either significant increases or decreases in enrollment in the past three years? Which of your programs or specializations have the largest enrollments?

8. Can you identify ways to increase the enrollments in your programs or majors?

9. Referring to previously reported data, list institutions with departments or programs who you would consider to be peer department or programs. What institutions have departments or programs that you reasonably expect to compete with in the next five years.

10. Would it be possible to meet the obligations of your department without a loss of net revenue to the institutions if you were to cut full-time positions by 10% assuming no union contract restrictions?

A & S Meetings

Dr. Tinkle has heard through the grapevine (that's why my ears are purple) that yesterday's meeting was truly bizarre. First of all, it took forever to pass a straightforward minor for the fine folks in Physics. Why the hangup people, it's a science minor. Of course there will be prerequisites. Then there was all the hoopla over the statement encouraging the Pres to donate his bonus to scholarships. Now, whether the statement was good, bad or ugly did not seem to be the point of the discussion. Instead Benny called it immoral because we were telling other people what to do with their money. Excuse me, the church tells me I should tithe, advertisers tell me I should buy, the government tells me I should pay, and charities tell me what a good idea it is to give. These hardly rise to the level of immorality. The statement was voted down. Then there was a last minute addition of a group that will be trying to plant a garden. Nice idea. I wish them well, but the presentation went on for forty minutes. It was five o'clock and our fine representatives had not gotten to the relevant issue of the idiotic questionnaire. They actually had to vote to extend the meeting time. If one were conspiratorial in nature one might suppose that this was by design. How about it Larry???

Budget Questionnaire

Okay Folks, I'm baaaaack:

Yes sireee I have just returned from a long winter's nap. And just in time I might add. The old budget questionnaire is a real piece of work. If you haven't seen it, go ask your chair for a copy. The first thing to realize is that all this information is available should the Provost or whoever came up with this questionnaire want to go look. But let's face it, it's a whole lot more fun to have faculty turning in fellow faculty for not working hard enough. It's no fun to just go look at
ARPAs and then have a quiet conversation. NO but gosh and by golly let's get those little blighters to spill the beans on one another. Heaven forbid that faculty might want to teach a seminar in their area of research. There will be no more boutique courses taught here. It's got to be depressing to have spent years researching a particular area and then have it referred to as "boutique". The good Dr. Tinkle actually has several questions to ask.

1. Was the survey sent to all colleges or just A & S?
2. Who actually initiated this puppy?
3. What happened to the benchmarking study?
4. Have the fine folks at the Learning Alliance sent a report yet?
5. And a corallary to the one above, will we get to see the original or just an edited version?
6. Did anyone else read the questions and think it was 1953? Are you or have you ever been.....?

Good night and good luck