What’s Wrong With Hiring Prostitutes For College Recruits?

By Professor Doom

Me, recently: “Excuse me, I’m a bit lost. Can you tell me where the library is?”

Student: “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Me (realizing my foolishness): “Never mind that. Can you tell me where the stadium is?”

Student: “Sure, it’s that way.”

Me (now oriented): “Thanks.”

--I was lost on campus, and made a gaffe when asking for directions. I’m hard pressed to decide which is more depressing about higher education. Is it A) That every student knows where the stadium is, but not the library? Or B) That campuses are so overbuilt that you can’t even see a nearby stadium large enough to hold over a hundred thousand (I’m serious) people?

     It really is nuts, just nuts, how enthusiastic people are about college sportsball. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a few games on my TV, even attended one around 30 years ago…but I just don’t understand why all rules, all concepts of integrity, go out the window in the name of sportsball. The gentle reader really should understand that Penn State might be extreme in the  lengths it’ll go for sportsball, but it’s only a little extreme.

      A recent book reveals yet another sex scandal in sportsball:

The University of Louisville is facing allegations in an upcoming book that Andre McGee, a former member of the basketball staff, paid escorts to have sex with recruits and players on the roster

     Now, please understand, our sportsball candidates and players are already showered with inducements to come to campus…as long as they can play, they get whatever they want. Of course, if they’re injured to the point of not being able to play, they’re kicked off the team as well as thrown out of school (sportsball players rightfully complain about this treatment), but that’s for another day.

      I’ve written before of the wide open conspiracies on our campuses, and, like so many other unpleasant acts on campus, you can’t find out about today’s scandal from anyone on campus. Instead, it comes from someone outside the system:

“…the book is titled Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen and is written by "self-described madam" Katina Powell, who resides in Louisville, and Indianapolis-based journalist Dick Cady.”

     So, a journalist got a madam to “fess up” to who her clients were. Gosh I wish I could get a journalist to talk to me about some of the frauds I know about…admittedly, what I have to say isn’t as “sexy” as this.

      Now, granted, just because it’s in a book, or on the internet, or even (especially?) distributed by a mainstream news site, doesn’t mean it’s true, but it’s clear someone thinks the allegations might have some substance:

 Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney in Jefferson County, Kentucky, has started the process of issuing the subpoenas, citing a "source familiar with the proceedings."

      What really strikes me as so interesting about these scandals is how it takes years before it finally makes it to the news. Even though dozens, if not hundreds, of people knew about completely obvious whoremongering…it still takes years.

     Part of the reason is because is only a few people have integrity, especially in higher education…the lone whistleblower can’t get any back up, ever. The media is, as always, clueless about this:

How can it be going on for four years, that many people be involved and that many people see what's going on and Rick Pitino doesn't know anything about it? You have players that are very, very loyal to Pitino. And if they thought anything was wrong or anyone was going to get in trouble, I'm pretty sure they would have gone back to report to Pitino. When I would ask Andre, "Does Pitino know about this?" he would laugh and say, "Rick knows about everything."

      Rick Pitino is the sportsball coach for the school. He knows, of course he knows. As I’ve written before, wide open conspiracies are common on campus, so I’m not surprised many people would have to know what’s going on and yet nothing was done.

     The madam Powell, of course, explains that these assertions of ignorance are complete crap:

She also insists McGee told her Louisville head coach Rick Pitino was aware of the situation. While she never saw evidence that Pitino knew what was happening, she finds it hard to believe he wouldn't have, according to Barr and Goodman: "Four years, a boatload of recruits, a boatload of dancers, loud music, alcohol, security, cameras, basketball players who came in [to the dorm] at will ... " Powell said.

     Much like with other people that had to have known what was going on, I’m sure when it’s time for an interview, the witnesses will all be “no longer with the company” or “on sabbatical” or the like. Not like we haven’t seen that before.

     Again, it’s all just “allegations” at this point, but a number of players, former players of course and thus out of reach of the system, have come forward to say that, yeah, they went to parties with prostitutes provided, and they were even given money to procure the prostitutes.

In terms of finding out what is or isn't true, Pitino said, according to Hamilton, "I can't find anybody at all that knew anything about this."

--cover up.

McGee has resigned as an assistant at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, per Jeff Goodman of ESPN.
He was previously placed on administrative leave.

--retaliate. Get rid of everyone that knew about it, and gee whiz, you can’t find anyone that knows anything about it.

      All of this behavior is par for the course in higher education…cover up and retaliate; I’ve seen it, even been on the business end of it, enough times to know how it goes. 

     Still, I don’t really see the problem, at least when you put things in perspective.

     These athletes are provided all sorts of other perks—they get free tutoring, on a level no “normal” student could dream of (while UNC’s tutors were writing papers for the athletes, other places give “only slightly less aggressive” tutoring)…and this is fine. These athletes are upheld as godlike heroes, and the university does nothing to challenge that status…I can’t help but suspect many a student athlete has used his position to get sex with relative ease, so it’s not like the recruiters were offering all that much, really. Spending $10,000 on prostitutes (the kind of money we’re talking here) is chump change compared to the free tuition the student athlete gets…as long as he can play. Seriously, athletes get so many benefits (as long as they can play!) for their entertainment that I’m hard pressed to really care about the addition of prostitutes.

    We have huge, major crimes going on every day in higher education; not just “against the law” crimes, but serious issues of integrity that, even if the written law says nothing, still qualify as crimes against humanity. Compared to this I just don’t see hiring prostitutes to attract sportsball players as a big deal. Nevertheless, this is what higher education is fixated on, to the point that huge academic scandals merit absolutely nothing at all. Maybe I could hire some prostitutes to help me a write a book on much of the fraud of higher education today.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

    

    

Accreditation Helps Student Loan Plundering

By Professor Doom

     Time and again I’ve highlighted the immense frauds going on in our community colleges; the top-down set up of these places, combined with lack of oversight, really makes it easy for the plundering to go on hand-over-fist here.

     “Lack of oversight” isn’t exactly accurate. There’s this thing called “accreditation” that is supposed to make sure schools are legit. Alas, accreditation is pretty much in on the scam nowadays, and, being run by the same people that run the schools, generally won’t shut down a school no matter openly fraudulently the school is run. 

     There is also a Board of Trustees that’s supposed to oversee the school’s spending, to make sure it’s done responsibly. All too often, there’s a quid pro quo arrangement between the “trustees” and the administration of the school to split the plunder as much as possible, although shared governance with the faculty (you know, actual educators) usually slows that down. Not all community colleges have shared governance, which is why they’re so prone to plundering.

     Some time back I highlighted a rarity in higher education: a school losing accreditation. City College of San Francisco was threatened with having its accreditation removed, but not for fraud, or for anything relating to education—because, hey, accreditation really has nothing to do with education. Instead, the issue was the school was operating far too legitimately, with shared governance, and, I’m serious, not enough administrators. Yes, insufficient administration was cited by the accreditor as a problem, even though the school was running fairly well for a community college.

     The Federal government stepped in and pointed out that the committee removing accreditation didn’t have much in the way of faculty on it (just administrators, bitter over the plunder they weren’t claiming), and asked the accreditor, ACCJC, to make some more reasonable complaints, or else.

      ACCJC made some demands, and the community college gave in to the accreditor, making changes:

Because of ACCJC sanctions, shared governance was dismantled and the elected Board of Trustees was removed from power. A "Special Trustee With Extraordinary Powers" was installed who could do as he wished in the name of efficient operation.
ACCJC's critique and its sanctions were the impetus for the installation of a revolutionary new reign of new Administrators.

     So, instead of a fairly reasonable system designed to help students and provide the education taxpayers were paying for, a new system without checks and balances, and a new band of administrators, moved in. What, pray tell, do the new accreditation-approved administrators do?

     Commence to plundering:

City College of S.F. splurges on administrators’ travel, meals

     That’s right, the new Poo Bah goes on fabulous junkets to China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, and eating whatever he wants for free (and these guys’ eating habits are positively royal, as I’ve shown a time or two in this blog). I really want to point out: this is a community college Poo Bah…he has no business traveling all over the world on the college’s expense account, which is probably why he can provide no records explaining the purpose of the trip. Administration provides a laughable excuse:

“…without required records about the purpose of the trip. College officials said the trip was to recruit foreign students but couldn't say whether any enrolled as a result.”

     Do the citizens of San Francisco honestly want to pay for a community college to help educate Vietnamese, Chinese, and Taiwanese kids in those countries? Seriously? This is the lie admin wants people to believe.

City College of San Francisco has spent thousands of dollars on fancy restaurants and international and cross-country travel for two top administrators — often with no record of what the expenses were for — since the school’s successful campaign in 2013 for a parcel tax to help save the college from bankruptcy, records show.

     Anyway, the Poo Bah at any institution doesn’t just “up and go” with nobody noticing. I grant that these guys are irrelevant to education, and this particular Poo Bah certainly proves it, by being gone for so much and yet the school still ran fine. In any event, he had to have provided, in advance, notice that he was disappearing for a while. In theory, the Poo Bah’s boss is the Board of Trustees…one that was placed there with influence from the accreditor.

     I’ve often insinuated that accreditation is in on the scam, and certainly I’ve seen and shown numerous cases where accreditors clearly looked the other way while institutional fraud was being committed. However, simply looking the other way is one level of facilitation, but this case is different, as accreditors ripped out a legitimate system, and helped to install a fraudulent system.

     What then, does this accreditor-approved Board have to say about this plundering? Let’s see:

Rafael Mandelman, president of the City College Board of Trustees, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the district started an investigation after the newspaper started looking into the issue.

     I ask the gentle reader to read between the lines. The president here knew full well the Poo Bah was traveling all over the world on highly questionable trips, but he had no problem with it until, and this is key, after the newspaper started looking into the issue.

     It’s a safe bet, then, that all sorts of plundering is going on at CCSF now, plundering that will continue unabated unless it makes the newspapers. Now, the Poo Bah being gone for a month or two was easy enough for our media to notice…the gentle reader needs to understand there are many, many frauds going on that media will never figure out and, as the president of the Board of Trustees admits, such frauds will never be stopped by the board, or even officially noticed, until it hits the papers.

      And the accreditor is on the record now, stating that schools which don’t use this pro-fraud system will risk losing accreditation. How does one consider this, and not deem that accreditors are part of the fraud of higher education today?

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Advice to New Professors Not A Joke.

By Professor Doom

     The College Misery is a defunct website by and for faculty, with less emphasis on formal discussion and more on simply laughing at how pathetic higher education today is.

     One of the last  posts from one of the contributors to Misery lists advice to new professors in higher education, and, while funny, most of the humor is coming from the truth and validity of the advice. I’d like to go over this because not everyone knows exactly what a mess this kind of job is nowadays.

If you're not an adjunct, you must daily kiss the university president's shoe.  It's required of all full time faculty.  Just be glad it stops at the shoe.  If you express even a bit of annoyance or frustration with how things are done, or even a criticism for improvement, you'll be asked "do you like your job?"…  Say, "Yes, sir or ma'am."  Look at the carpet.  Slink, slink away.

     The President, or Poo Bah (since there are so many bizarre titles nowadays), is mostly paid based on his or her ego, and considering the 7 figure pay they tend to command, it’s a large, large, ego, indeed.

     These guys rule over the campus, and are serviced by a noble administrative caste that also does as they will. Faculty don’t even rate as vassals, merely serfs. Teaching? Research? Integrity? These things are worthless in administrative eyes, what is desired is subservience.

      What is particularly noxious about this is how hostile administration is to any advice from faculty. Examples of this abound, but my personal favorite was when a friend tried to save the institution about 20% on computer costs (a huge sum of money here) by changing suppliers and getting more appropriate systems (we were getting computers with pricey sound cards…but we could never have the sound on because of the faculty were kept in a cubicle warehouse). 

     The response for trying to help? A dressing down which included, in writing, a threat of termination for insubordination. Granted, the administrators involved were probably getting huge kickbacks from the computer supplier…but they could have been more polite about things.

      So, indeed, this advice is valid: do not make eye contact, and avoid these fickle, treacherous, beasts as much as possible.

If you are an adjunct, you must kiss everyone's shoe.  You won't get an office.  Work out of your car.  You might be criticized for not spending enough time with students.  Figure it out.  No one cares.  You're cheap, and your money is on the dresser.

     The most common type of professor on campus today is an adjunct, a sub-minimum wage worker that is treated most disrespectfully, in exchange for helping to free up enough money for the Poo Bah’s salary and perks. While I referred to faculty above as serfs, most folks don’t know that serfs were basically privileged slaves (i.e., they had some rights, but it was easy enough to execute them wholesale if the noble so desired); adjuncts are slaves without the rights of serfs.

The students are our bosses and our customers, somehow both at the same time, and you will be told as much.

     Administration forces this attitude on faculty because most campuses are all about sucking in the student loan money, so everything else falls aside to that. Most amusingly, this attitude is starting to reap some hysterical dividends for administration, in the form of the recent ridiculous student “safe space” revolts on our campus, with students raging at administration.

Fear.  Let that be your keyword.  Not knowledge, not wisdom, but fear.  Be afraid.

     I’ve written before of the culture of fear in higher education, which is rapidly degenerating into a culture of terror. There are so many minefields in higher education now…annoy the wrong administrator, and you’re fired. Say the wrong word in class, even if it’s true, and you’re fired. Post a photo of your kid doing a yoga pose, and you’ll be suspended and forced to undergo psychological evaluation. Mention an essay about the wrong sort of political thought…and you’re labelled as a troublemaker.

      And this culture of fear is what we have in a time of plenty, when money is pouring onto campus from the broken student loan scam and runaway tuition. Can anyone even imagine the bloodbath once the free money stops flooding our schools? Or what would happen if students decide that indebting themselves for life for worthless coursework is a bad idea, and decide not to come to campus no matter how much loan money is offered?

     Some advice to new faculty is missing here, so allow me to toss in something important:

Don’t catch cheaters, and don’t accuse anyone of cheating.

     This rather follows from the previous advice. We have an out of control administration that I can’t help but suspect cheated into their positions in many cases. This isn’t strictly administration, I suspect, though admin with bogus  credentials are caught often enough. There’s a huge industry of “write your essay” and “take your college course for you” type businesses now…we all know who the customers of these businesses are, and a reasonable person can make an easy conjecture as to why administration does nothing about it.

      Yes, it’s ok to try to make it tough to cheat, but it’s a losing proposition. You can purchase the answers to entire college degree curriculum courses online now, and campuses have an “underground” system where the test you passed out five minutes ago are already available, with solutions, to anyone who knows where to look.

      Administration punished faculty who catch cheaters…I’ve seen many faculty victimized for having integrity, and not once in over 25 years have I seen faculty rewarded for having integrity. So, most faculty have given up, not just by only offering multiple choice exams (the easiest to cheat on), and by helping students avoid plagiarism by telling them exactly how it’ll be checked for (“Please submit your essays to turnitin.com first to make sure it passes, before turning ‘your work’ in to the professor”) but also by simply not caring anymore.

      One more piece of advice:

Don’t use e-mail to communicate with faculty or admin.

     E-mail leaves a paper trail, at the risk of warping that cliché, and it’s so trivial to say something that indicates wrongthink on the part of the faculty. If you only talk to these people, then you can always double back and say you were misheard, or misspoke…there’s no saving yourself from screwing up on an e-mail.

     One commenter would agree with my advice, I’m sure:

In my first crazy semester as a full-time I have an office profession, I managed to step on a land mine. Let's say the waters were a churning. Literally, I got a call from department head 10 minutes after my truly innocent email.

--“truly innocent”? Good luck with that when you’re hauled before the kangaroo campus court system.

     The comments section gives more useful advice:

Stay on the good side of the Office of Student Retention and Appeasement. Practice saying "when the student fails, it means the teacher has failed," "there are no wrong answers, just different ways of knowing,"

     Many campuses have some version of the Office of Student Retention, staffed with administrators who are paid to squeeze faculty until the students are happy. The quotes given above are good quotes, and I’ve have them spewed at me by education experts and deanlings. Because it’s not possible to have rational conversations with such people, there really is no response but agree, lower your eyes, and slink away…

Bring lots of cookies to the final!!!!

     I have to disagree a little with this advice. Yes, some departments are notorious for giving “pizza party finals” but it’s very clear that actually giving finals is now a rarity. Campus is nearly deserted during finals week, even though, in theory, there should be around 50-60% of the usual number of people on campus (I’ll spare the gentle reader the calculation). 

Student: “The only classes I have with finals are math classes.”

Me: “It’s because we’re the only department that still cares.”

     So, the above advice is good advice, representing what higher education is today, for many faculty. We’ve deeply indebted the next generation, in exchange for the precious education that comes from the privilege of putting them in this system…a system that treats the educated like dogs. Does this really sound like a system worth going into debt for?

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com


(Edit: College Misery is no longer defunct: http://collegemisery.blogspot.ca/)