CSU: No Money For Spring Break

By Professor Doom

     Prudent and wise leaders care for those that they lead. When times are lean, such leaders know to scale back, and in times of plenty, leaders might expand, but do so cautiously, being careful to set aside some of the surplus for when times become lean again.

     Our leaders in higher education boast, and brag, and boast some more about their amazing leadership. They’ve awarded themselves impressive degrees, splendiferous titles, and, of course, sickeningly large salaries and perks based on their own self-assessed impressions of their leadership skills.

     I don’t begrudge a wise king his palace, there should be rewards for doing good work, keeping honorable stewardship over those ruled.

     Our leaders in higher education insist they are great leaders, why, they even have Ph.D.s in the field of Leadership—I’m serious, type in “Leadership Ph.D.” in Google and see with your own eyes that such a field exists. It’s pretty much the degree you need to get a high-paying job in higher ed…it’s curious I never see TV ads for such degrees, even though it’s been far more a growth industry than most everything else. But I digress.

     The last decade or two has been a time of plenty in higher education, torrents of money have flowed onto campus via the student loan scam. Our rulers, for the most part, have squandered the money, building themselves ever more elaborate campus palaces, hiring ever larger legions of sycophantic deanlings under them, and well, I’ve already mentioned the kind of loot these guys personally plunder from the system.

Admin: “If we don’t keep at least 90% of our students, this school will need to shut down.”

--I’ve heard many warnings like this over the years, because even public institutions never seem to put anything aside, or have any capacity to deal with more than slight hardship. I’ve seen schools lose 10% of their students and collapse.

      I reckon the plentiful years are coming to an end, and the lean years are coming. Across the country, our states are starting to suffer badly under the Keynesian policies of our government, specifically the money-printing that transfers so much wealth to DC…transferring it away from everyone else.

     One of the first major state schools to show the true capabilities of our leaders in higher education is Chicago State University. I’ve discussed the hand-over-fist plundering of the Chicago Community College System before…but the plundering by the university leadership has also left the universities vulnerable to the slightest downturn.

      With funding being cut, the university is shutting down practically overnight—nothing was put aside during those years of plenty:

Chicago State University announced Tuesday the elimination of spring break this year to ensure its students will finish the semester before the school may be forced to close down due to a lack of state funding.

    It’s so bad that the school can’t even stay open for the length of being shut down during spring break! They literally have nothing. Ok, it isn’t as quick as all that, the school actually has gone for almost 9 months without money beyond tuition:

Illinois' public universities and community colleges haven't received state money since summer because of the budget stalemate between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the General Assembly.

     I grant not having money coming in is a problem, but…the leaders had to have seen it coming, and did nothing. They’re looking at solutions now, at least:

"We're looking at how to be efficient in the summer," he said. "We have a number of buildings on campus that are really minimally used, we can close those."

--like most campuses, this place is hugely overbuilt. Despite the unused buildings, here’s a 4 page list of construction projects for this campus, with tens of millions budgeted…

     

      Read that administrative plan again: they’re going to close the unused buildings. Gee, you really needed a Ph.D. in Leadership and 8 months to come up with that plan? These guys get paid hundreds of thousands a year for this level of acumen…

     I’m not merely criticizing the leadership of CSU here. Across the country, campuses have been choking on the dust of construction for years. Even as on-campus student numbers have been falling (due to far more profitable online coursework being offered), even as class sizes have been doubled-and-doubled-and-doubled again, and faculty positions have been cut, more and more and more administrative palaces were erected. I haven’t been on a major university campus yet that doesn’t have buildings that are basically empty, even during peak operating hours on campuses with nothing but growth.

     Our leaders have taken that loan money, turned our campuses into amusement parks for the students, and built palaces for themselves. They can’t even sell these useless buildings, merely shut them down for lack of funds.

      Truth be told, the money is still available, but the politicians just don’t want to budget it, for reasons that, well, seem credible to be me:

“Chicago State has a history of financial mismanagement, including state audits in recent years that found the school to be a financial wreck. A state audit in December, though, found relatively few problems.

Rauner's office has also criticized what it called "waste," ''cronyism" and lavish administrator perks in Illinois' other public universities…”

     Again, read between the lines. The school was a financial wreck, but once admin had no choice but to show a little integrity and responsibility, then there were few problems. Hey, leaders, maybe you could have behaved with integrity when you weren’t put up against a wall?

      As far as assertions of waste, cronyism (I see no need for quotes for these), and lavish administrator perks --so blatantly lavish that the paper saw no need to put quotes around this phrase!--well, yeah, no kidding, I’ve shown many times in this blog that waste, cronyism, and lavish perks for the administration are part and parcel in higher education today.

     Of course, the gentle reader needs to understand that if this school shuts down, it’s the students and faculty who will pay the price. It’s always a disaster for students when their school closes, as transferring more than a few credits is usually problematic and not every student is in a position to go to another university. Faculty have been reduced to adjuncthood; when the school closes, they’ll just be fired without benefits.

      Ah, but admin? Those are still full time public employees. You can believe there will be plenty of golden parachutes to go around…

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Retaliation Against Prof For Disagreeing

By Professor Doom

     I want to talk some more about this tenured philosophy professor who was fired, because it isn’t just the firing, it’s the overkill that is truly amazing here. While in the “normal” world a pink slip is usually enough, the rulers in higher education revel in displays of power over their underlings.

    There’s a powerful culture of fear on campus now, especially when it comes to dealing with admin. These guys are, all too often, nuts, mad with power, and with no respect for any rules of decency or common sense.

     Seriously, even tenured faculty find themselves keeping their mouths shut now. This poor fool spoke up, and the petulant rage flowed:

"Further, because of your conduct and its impact on the university, you have been designated persona non grata," the letter continued. "As such, you are not welcome to visit the university’s campus or to attend any university activities or sporting events on the university’s property. Failure to comply with this directive will result in legal proceedings."

      Persona non grata? Seriously? For disagreeing with the Poo Bah? Much as ancient Egyptian pharaohs would obliterate all traces of their enemies, to the point of scraping faces off of statues, the same fate awaits those who dare resist the Poo Bah’s authoritah:

Their profile pages had been scrubbed from the university’s website by Monday afternoon.

     It’s not over, of course, as the Poo Bah (justifiably) sees enemies everywhere:

"…found incontrovertible evidence of the existence of an organized, small group of faculty and recent alums working to undermine and ultimately cause the exit of President Newman." He added that the university would "hold those individuals accountable for these actions."

     Seriously, faculty have been working in the culture of fear in higher education for many years now…if we’re going to change things, we know we need to work clandestinely. What other possible result could come of severe punishments for those that speak publicly?

     For what it’s worth, I really doubt the Poo Bah is pushing this new plan out of integrity. The bottom line is our schools have been focused on growth to an obscene level, to the point that graduation rates are ridiculously low. Up until now, a school with a 0.6% graduation rate would be rewarded for having good growth (even if much of that growth was through fraud), but it’s possible these days are finally coming to an end, and the new definition of “retention” is just focusing on future measures of school success besides growth.

      But perhaps I’m being cynical here, and the Poo Bah is honestly a decent person trying to help students. Are the actions of the Poo Bah so far, namely petty and vicious retaliation, those of an honest and upright man? No, they are not. Thus I conclude this plan has nothing to do with integrity, nor a belief in education, because our leaders in higher education care and know nothing of such things…the Poo Bah has his marching orders, and he’s just executing anyone who won’t follow along what is, coincidentally, a more honorable plan than taking advantage of our kids as they stumble out of high school.

      The executions include getting rid of tenured faculty, “job for life” rubbish be damned.

     So, I again maintain tenure is nowhere near as great as people outside of academia think. In theory, you can only be fired from tenure after a due process is followed. Time and again, of course, I’ve seen administration casually disregard due process…you have to fight, and fight hard, to get admin to follow the rules, because they’re so untouchable that they see no need to follow the rules.

      The fired tenured professor lacks my experience (probably because he hasn’t spent time at a questionable community college), and is stunned at the blatant misbehavior of the Poo Bah and admin. He at least was spared more gravedancing by the Poo Bah, who wanted to call him back to campus (despite the persona non grata designation) for some extra browbeating:

“…the letter, obtained by The Chronicle, also said that as a tenured faculty member, he had the right to attend "an initial in-person meeting to advise you of the reasons behind the decision" and to invoke a "notice and appeal" process. It then asserted that Mr. Naberhaus had declined to participate in such a meeting on Monday, an accusation that he disputes.

"The due process is supposed to occur before someone is terminated" if they have tenure, he said. "You’re going to fire me first and then have talks about whether the firing was justified or not? That is crazy."

--you can see the referenced letter here; I have similar documentation of how pinheaded confused admin at a community college is regarding the concept of due process.

     At first I thought this the old “you missed the secret meeting nobody told you about, so we’ll hold that against you too” ploy…admin has a large playbook of dirty moves, but I’ve had the displeasure of seeing most of them firsthand. Actually, there was a different reason the professor didn’t go to the meeting:

He also challenged the administration’s claim that he had refused to attend the meeting this week to discuss his firing. He said he had decided not to attend after he was told that he could not record the meeting, nor could he have legal counsel present.

     So many of our “leaders” in higher education act like criminals, it’s reasonable to conjecture that they may well be criminals. It’s a safe bet the Poo Bah had legal counsel available, and would have had such at the meeting…why wouldn’t he want the (formerly) tenured professor to have the same? Knowing that administrators lie so readily, I can understand why the admin didn’t want the meeting recorded, at least…

      Luckily, the fired faculty is at a school with a tradition of honor and integrity. Thus, he’s not alone, and other faculty are willing to speak up at this inappropriate treatment of one of their own. I’m glad to see there are still some schools with faculty like this:

“They also passed a resolution with near-unanimous support calling for Mr. Naberhaus and Mr. Egan to be reinstated.

Mr. Naberhaus said he was pleased to see such a movement growing among the faculty. The local AAUP chapter, created just last week,…” 

--note: “near-unanimous” support from the faculty. The gentle reader should consider the treatment this tenured philosopher received, and weigh it against my claim that there are sycophants in the faculty. When the kangaroo court is set up, wonder who will be on the committee? If the gentle reader cannot guess, allow me to remind the reader that administrators get to pick who is on committees…


     I’ve mentioned the AAUP before, a union of faculty. I have some qualms about unions, but considered them all the same (and received much smackdown at my community college for even mentioning them). I still feel they can only make a real difference if accreditation mandates institutions to allow unions, but until then, the fired faculty is getting what should happen at every institution: the faculty standing together for integrity, instead of fracturing into factions representing the standards of integrity, sycophancy, and incompetence…integrity being the smallest faction by far at too many campuses.

      I wish him luck. I grant that having tenure does give him some protections: he gets fired first, and then gets to talk about the firing with the Poo Bah who fired him. Even if he gets his job back, other tenured faculty are definitely taking notice here, and dropping their heads even lower. Tenure doesn’t mean much against an overnight declaration of persona non grata and having one’s face scrubbed off, after all…

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Tenured Prof Fired For Disagreeing

By Professor Doom

     I feel the need to once again point out how little tenure is worth in higher education today. Faculty, even the few remaining with tenure, generally know better than to speak out, especially if they believe the Poo Bah is wrong. To disagree with the Poo Bah is fatal.

      Another tenured faculty was fired for daring to disagree with the Poo Bah recently. Funny thing is, I think the Poo Bah is correct in some sense (stopped clocks and all that)…but still believe tenured faculty should be allowed to disagree without fear of retaliation.

     Ok, so let’s hear what the Poo Bah said that caused disagreement:

"This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies," he told Gregory W. Murry, an assistant professor of history, according to the student newspaper. "But you can’t. You just have to drown the bunnies."

The president’s plan was to identify students who had been pegged as less likely to succeed and to keep tabs on them for the first month of the academic year. If they didn’t seem to be on the right path by late September, the college would encourage them to drop out.

    

     After years of being told by Poo Bahs that growth is everything, that all integrity must be sacrificed at the altar of growth, that cheaters should be tolerated because it helps with growth, that Pell Runners should be tolerated because it helps with growth, this…is a complete reversal. A stunning reversal.

      To actually encourage failing students to drop out, rather than destroy themselves with student loans? That smacks of integrity, Mr. Poo Bah. What’s up with that?

     I grant he could have been more polite about describing the situation, and perhaps “drown the bunnies” isn’t the sweetest way to express this pro-decency strategy. There’s been an uproar over this analogy, but the Poo Bah is in no danger; unlike faculty, who can have their careers utterly destroyed by uttering the wrong word, Poo Bahs are quite insulated from the culture of fear on campus today.

     Still, I’m shocked that a Poo Bah would advance an idea that looks like integrity. What, pray tell, could cause a Poo Bah to have integrity?

“…Mr. Newman’s plan to use a freshman survey to help weed out students who, by leaving in late September, could improve the Roman Catholic institution’s retention numbers. Mr. Newman has said he wanted to prevent at-risk students from making an expensive mistake…”

--Emphasis added.

     “Retention” is one of those administrative words, like “leadership,” which administrators grunt all the time. Because admin is basically untouchable today, words mean whatever they want them to mean.

     For faculty, “retention” means keeping students in class no matter what. More accurately, it means keeping students on the roster no matter what. Failing a student is tolerable…just don’t let them drop the course. It’s why 25% or more of the student base of community college campuses are fake students, Pell Runners who are just drifting from campus to campus to pick up checks. Admin wants those Pell Runners, for growth…and if faculty try to report the fraudsters, then admin comes down hard on the faculty because the honest faculty member who punts fraudsters will have low retention numbers. Like I’ve said before, admin might have the lion’s share of the blame of the fraud in higher education today, but faculty aren’t blameless here.

      Anyway, this is a new Poo Bah, and they always have big plans, usually stupid plans as well. This plan is good, but there are problems with it, from an administration point of view. Taking the burden of retention off of faculty would shift it to administration--not something administrators would like (hence why I’ve never seen this integrity-based plan before).Moreover, a plan that doesn’t promote growth has a problem: you need all those students to help support the bloated and highly paid administrative caste.

      Thus, another administrator, the provost, spoke out against a plan that would create less victims of higher education. This was foolish; you cannot argue with the Poo Bah. He was, of course, removed from his position as provost in short order.

     Two faculty also had a problem with the plan, or at least with referring to weak students as “bunnies” to be drowned. They, too, were fired. This is hardly news to anyone in higher ed; I’ve seen new administrators come in and destroy everyone who would oppose their plans in short order enough times before.

     Administration really favors brute force for getting its way now. One of the fired faculty wasn’t disagreeing so much as simply being honest. Thus, he made sure the student newspapers knew the details. Retaliation was swift and sure:

Ed Egan, director of the university’s prelaw program and adviser to the campus newspaper, The Mountain Echo, was [fired]. The newspaper broke the story about the opposition to the president’s retention plan.

      I’ve mentioned before how admin controls the student newspapers now. Two new sycophant advisors were quickly appointed to “help” run the paper so it doesn’t reveal any more inconvenient truths. Again, this is standard administrative procedure.

     The other professor to be fired was a tenured philosophy professor. Please understand, tenured philosophy professors are not fly-off-the-handle hotheads, this guy simply…disagreed with the Poo Bah.

     The tenured professor wasn’t fired for breach of academics, and the Poo Bah doesn’t even bother to justify the firing as anything but retaliation:

Mr. Naberhaus, who has publicly criticized the administration but doesn’t consider himself a "rabble rouser," said in an interview on Monday night that a campus security officer had delivered a letter signed by the president, confiscated his computer, and escorted him to his car.

The letter, a copy of which The Chronicle obtained, said that Mr. Naberhaus owed "a duty of loyalty" to the university and that his recent, unspecified actions violated that duty and justified his firing.

--you can see the letter here.

     The gentle reader really needs to understand how warped higher education is today. We’re all supposed to have unquestioning loyalty to whatever ruthlessly destructive scheme the Poo Bah and his sycophant cronies come up with. Poo Bahs are not immortal, however, and these guys often leave once they’ve finished plundering the school well enough to feather their nests. The old Poo Bah leaves, then a new Poo Bah arrives.

      And as soon as a new Poo Bah comes in, we’re supposed to all be perfectly and unquestioningly loyal to him and his new plans, even if the new plans are the exact opposite of the previous Poo Bah’s, or even the previous week’s, plan.

      This is why spineless sycophancy is now the primary trait for success in higher education in today. Again, I recall my time in a community college where we’d hear a plan from one administrator, and sycophant faculty would choke on drool with their praise and approval of the administrator’s plan. Then, an hour later, a different administrator would come in and present a diametrically opposed plan, and those same faculty would nigh break their hands applauding the wisdom of the new plan.

      It’s demented, and any faculty who dared try to point out a flaw or even a blatant contradiction in the plans would only find himself the object of scorn and backstabbed by the sycophantic majority. Again, this is the voice of experience telling the gentle reader this.

      Back to the point: tenure is often sneered at as an unfair “job for life.” This guy was a philosophy professor…philosophers argue about everything. But, even a tenured philosophy professor can find tenure is worthless if he dares to argue with the Poo Bah.

      We’ll look at this some more next time.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com