Sorry to post one Thirsty next to another, but this one seems to be on a related topic. I have been only tangentially following the events at University of Virginia, but I am struck by one puzzling observation. Most of the faculty at UVa seem to actually like their (former) University President.
The idea of liking one's administration is foreign to me. The concept of faculty rallying to the defense of of a senior administrator leaves me in an almost Hiram-Like state of bewilderment.
Discuss.
I work at a CC, not a uni, but I do like my president. He seems effective as a PR guy and he does what he can to help us stay afloat. He (and the VPs) really understand the strain the faculty is under sometimes because of our underprepared student population.
ReplyDeleteThe president of the last CC where I worked was a joke. He was hostile to the faculty, very hostile.
The president of the last uni where I worked was awesome and unilaterally admired by the faculty.
I think the Sullivan-love may be a little overstated in the media- my guess is that some faculty did really like her, but more are just really pissed at the wannabe-corporate-raider types on the BoV. At least, that's how I would feel if I were them.
ReplyDeleteSlightly off-topic, but I briefly attended an evangelical Christian school (despite not being very religious myself) during a presidential transition. Most of the conversations and official statements that I heard from faculty about the new president had to do with their conviction that he was "God's man for the job" rather than his actual qualifications, plans for the future of the school, etc. I didn't stick around long enough to find out how that worked out for them.
I agree re: the Sullivan-love. From what I've heard, faculty weren't all that happy about her planned changes to budgeting procedures. But they like the BOV's ideas -- and its high-handedness -- far, far less. When heard in the context of an exchange with the business-school-jargon-spouting trustees, she sounds like one of them. If by any chance she's reinstated (which seems like a possibility at this point, but who knows), she may actually find herself in a significantly stronger position vis-a-vis the core faculty than before. 'Twould be a tricky position, however -- being idolized can be as dangerous as being demonized.
DeleteNo,no, and no. He came in quietly enough, but soon showed an authoritarian side that has grown only stronger. The new academic plan produced under his guidance turns out to be what he wants, period. Despite the presence of faculty on the committee that produced the plan, it is essentially an administration document that foresees increasing administration control over all aspects of the university. Areas of success will get more money, those that are not as successful (measured mostly by external grant money, but also numbers of publications) will be increasingly marginalized. Faculty will be told how to teach courses, how much on-line content to have, etc. His proposed four areas of strength and concentration seem to exclude the humanities. Now he is announcing that we are heading into a new fourth eras of university evolution and, of course, he's just the man to lead us there.
ReplyDeleteIn every way he has been oppositional to faculty and to even minor, cost-free ways to improved working conditions. This has trickled down to the Faculty levels, so Deans are also becoming similarly dictatorial and unwilling to acknowledge any restrictions on their power or the concerns of faculty members. Faculty that have been around for a while say the last round of collective bargaining was the most hostile and negative ever. But he seems to have the ear of the Board of Trustees. The Senate has been tamed through heavy-handed tactics and a the realization that opposition can be bad for one's career. All that aside, he seems to be a monstrous egotist, despite being only a modest academic success.
No, I loathe him, and I believe a majority of my colleagues would not like to see him renewed.
Since mine has militarized its 9 campuses in response to protests that under his watch tuition has skyrocketed ...
ReplyDeleteNO.
Ours seems like a very distant figure to me, though I haven't heard any major complaints from faculty, and he has helped to build our institution's reputation (and I do see him walking around campus fairly frequently, often wearing university insignia gear). He seems to have a very positive reputation in the larger community (perhaps especially the business community).
ReplyDeleteThe one time I was in a small-group meeting with him, years ago, he described the creation of a hierarchy of titles for NTT faculty ("NTT associate," "NTT full," etc.) as "low-hanging fruit" -- i.e. cheap and easy to implement. The system is now more or less in place, and the cheap part has proven all too true (promotions but no associated raises, so some NTT Associates still don't earn as much as a first-year TT Assistant prof in the same department). The easy part has been less so (there was opposition, or at least foot-dragging, from lower admin types -- why, I haven't figured out, but it resulted in a significant waste of department-level, both TT and NTT faculty, time and energy ). Honestly, he and the upper administration and the board of trustees all seem focused on building a reputation in general, and an R2-to-R1 transition in particular, and tea-party the faculty who actually do most of the teaching. Since the sort of increasing class stratification among faculty that results is a nationwide trend (perhaps especially but by no means exclusively at up-and-coming R2s), I don't really blame him, except perhaps for a lacking a truly creative vision that might somehow integrate both research *and* teaching excellence, and true institutional support (not lip-service) for both.
I'm hoping that student discontent about rising tuition, combined with the student loan crisis, might eventually help to encourage a renewed focus on the importance of teaching, and teaching faculty, but I'm not holding my breath. It seems far more likely that all of us -- both overworked TT faculty striving to fit in a bit of research and teaching while carrying far too large an administrative/service load and overworked non-TT faculty teaching far too many courses with far too little compensation and too little chance to reflect on or help shape the curriculum -- will be tarred with the same "lazy, overpaid faculty" brush.
Our faculty is actually really unhappy with our current president because the last time the contract negotiated, he failed to make sure the county was onboard and thus we've been without a contract for two years. However, he increases funding for student services and other things that aren't part of our union, while not helping us out at all.
ReplyDeleteAdministrators are not living beings. This is an inviolable and universal law. All statements made by administrators are vile lies with contradictions that would vaporize anything that was alive. A colleague who expresses a desire to be an administrator or who has even the slightest amount of respect for an administrator requires immediate and intensive hospitalization. Administrators promote their necessity because they are completely unnecessary. It is an act of kindness to fire an administrator. Utopia awaits those colleges and universities that eliminate the repressive weight of idiotic administrators (sorry for the redundancy).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm at a church-affiliated SLAC. Our administration isn't perfect, by any means, but I think it is, for the most part, made up of good people trying their best to do the right thing -- and not of people trying to feather their own nests.
ReplyDeleteIt could be SO much worse that I don't want to complain (much).
So -- to answer the question at last => Yes, I like them.
I'm truly caught: our Prez is an old friend of the family, yet I despair of the decisions that have been made during his tenure and the way those decisions were presented to faculty. I do still think he's a good and thoughtful guy -- but the upper administration have gotten him to drink the kool aid that results in tunnel vision and adoption of market values in all areas of life, work, and scholarship.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, as my parents have both succumbed to illness that will slowly end their respective lives, Prez is one of the few (really few) of their old friends who continues to visit them on a regular basis and treats them as the people they are, not the conditions they have.
Our current president is corrupt, aloof, and constantly in trouble with breaking academic rules for student athletes, and has an Ed.D. and some very silly ideas about education. Still, he's far better than the hostile, ineffective, shortsighted, stupid, bloodsucking vampire I had previously, whose idea of providing support was to say, "Make it so." Savor the good administrators, for they are rare.
ReplyDeleteI have had the experience of working under competent and incompetent administrations, with deans that were homegrown and hired guns, institutional leaders that were serious, thoughtful, empathic people and "leaders" that were ambitious, shortsighted weasels. In times like these, particularly, it's very easy to tell which administrators are the kind of leaders you speak up for, and which ones you shine on until they move on, and which ones you stonewall until something breaks.
ReplyDeleteFuck no. Tea-partyer drank the tea-partying Koolaid.
ReplyDeleteI don't hate our president. He's competent and very good at fundraising and money management, and started his career in the classroom as a professor. But he is increasingly -- odd. He seems to have changed his personality and goals dramatically in the last couple years. His vice-president, on the other hand, is extremely reasonable, which is nice and rare in an administrator. He kind of keeps a brake on the pres's stranger whims and hallucinations. On the other hand, he has a ridiculously bad temper if even slightly thwarted. Both of them have a tendency toward paranoia, but I think that's a job requirement.
ReplyDeleteSo: our administration is human, all too human. But overall, most of my colleagues and I like them fine, minor annoyances aside. If you can live with a president who hallucinates meetings that never really happened, or didn't happen the way he says they did, and a vice-president who occasionally bursts into a fit of shouting, but is otherwise pretty rational -- Well, I've been at worse places. Neither of them is corrupt, and the idea of them even glancing in the direction of something unethical is absurd. And they don't suck at the teats of business, for which I am very, very grateful, and can overlook a lot of minor character flaws.
We are a large system. Our president is, by far, the best of the bunch. He used to be a faculty member at our college, so he has that perspective. Most faculty like him, but there is some concern that he succumbs too easily to system pressures. His VPs are a mixed bag, but most people do like our deans. Again, they come from our faculty, so that helps them a lot. Our system despot has pushed a lot of ugly changes onto the colleges. He is despised by the vast majority of the faculty system wide.
ReplyDeleteDuring my time as an adjunct, I taught at a church-related SLAC, and we had a president who believed he was called by God to do his job. When he began behaving erratically in public, eventually the trustees strongly encouraged him to retire. For awhile, it was embarrassing to read the newspaper because we'd turn up every couple of weeks as a result of his craziness.
Another Big Thirsty (Is two in one day allowed?)
ReplyDeleteI think we do things that are not allowed ALL the time here.
Our current president is a real hamster's asshole.
ReplyDeleteI have to ask: is that bigger and/or better than a rat's arse? (I'm not sure that's a math question, but we have a few self-proclaimed experts in Ancient and Modern Hamsters, Gerbilism, etc. Someone should know!)
DeleteIt has to be smaller, assuming they are both adults. A hamster can fit in the palm of your hand. A rat takes at least two hands and can be even bigger depending on the species.
DeleteLast time I saw my president, I told him to get the pickle out of his ring piece, and he still doesn't know that I work for him.
ReplyDeleteI do hope that's several euphemisms in a row there.....
DeleteThere's a striking common thread here - maybe we really are just four proffies at Miami U. The UVa situation seems to reflect a broader desire to bear those ills we have than fly to others. Depressing.
ReplyDelete