GL-i agree with your assessment of the asst. to the president. your list of potential replacements is awful.  we might might not miss a beat--we'd be dead.

cossack--thanks, but i've no interest in administration.

As a frequent apologist for the administration and a close relative of a member of the current administration, SCM might not be the best person to look to for advice on possible members of the new administration.

stinky cheese man wrote:

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incredulous--i hardly think i'm an apologist for the current administration, no more than you are.  and you, like others have confused me with some poor soul on campus. 

gl--i know several of the people on your list and they lack what i call a "birds eye view of the university."  the different research cultures in the colleges, etc.  i'm not sure vern would want to give up his time in the antarctic, for example.  i think the idea of leaving jay in until his replacement can be found with saunders riding herd on him and the deans would work. 

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I hope that you are right. But I have never thought much of Shelby or Jay's ability to see beyond their own disciplines either.

With two of the three interim deans being associate profs who owe some allegiance to Jay, I'm not sure they are in the position to do much to deal with our current dome culture. Also, the trust margin with Jay has worn so thin that it could easily begin to interfere with Dr. Saunder's work as president.

I guess Jay must be pretty used to being the guy who merely carries out the President's bidding (but I think he is now a true believer). I suppose this is a model that can continue for the short run, but wouldn't it be nice to get to a place where the President doesn't micromanage the Provost, and the faculty have some faith that our Provost will do the right thing for the right reason?   

SCM,

"gl--i know several of the people on your list and they lack what i call a "birds eye view of the university."  the different research cultures in the colleges, etc.  i'm not sure vern would want to give up his time in the antarctic, for example.  i think the idea of leaving jay in until his replacement can be found with saunders riding herd on him and the deans would work." 

I think that riding herd on the Provost and deans would be better than nothing.  However, I have had experience in running a state agency in another state and I have never seen the "riding herd philosophy" work very well.  It can work when there are major decisions, but so many decisions are made by chairs and deans that are small in nature but accumulate into large problems.  Often the chair rewards the syncophants who are not productive and not the good publishers and good teachers.  Currently, the mood of the faculty is cautiously optimistic, but another semester or two of bad chairs and bad deans and all of the optimism will be gone replaced by anger.  If the President leaves all, or most, of the bad administrators in place for even a semester, the exodus of good faculty will crank up a again no matter how much she tries to monitor.  In reality, she has no way to even know who the bad administrators are unless she spends a lot of her valuable time talking to faculty.  Given her task, she likely cannot spare that time.  The only alternative is to hire an outsider to ferret out who the problem people.  If she were ask a current administrator, their response would be that it is the faculty who are the problem, not administrators. 

Our college has already lost several productive faculty and I expect more to leave before Fall if they get an offer.  I would be one of them except the job market for crippled old white males is not that robust even for one with publications.  I think that USM faces a situation where productive faculty have been beaten down to the point that they have no confidence that it will change.  The so-called PERS slaves either have left or will leave in the next two years.  Without a competent administrative team, USM will not be able to recruit the quality of good faculty it has in the past.  In my area, I fear that we have recruited our last blue chip (for us) recruits unless there is drastic change.  Few faculty will face recruits and lie about the situation and the grapevine works fairly well when things are going bad at an institution.

Otherwise, the future looks bright.

The underlying issue here is that academics as a whole don't want to be supervised, and the types of academics who go into administration love to supervise.  Hence, you have issues with faculty who will never admit that administrators' views have merit and administrators who will never concede that faculty's views have merit.

Reflect upon the post by the alum.  There IS a real perception out there that faculty are lazy, play golf all the time, and are a drain on the public dole.  Obviously, there are individuals who work less than is acceptable, as there are individuals who routinely work 60+ hours/week regularly.  Unfortunately for USM faculty, there is a lack of discretion regarding choices made by some faculty that impacts ALL of the faculty.  There is also a failing of recent administration to properly educate the populus about the work we do.  Finally, there is a failing of a number of the hard working faculty to recognize that "perception is reality" and that IF Hattiesburgers resent golf-playing profs, THEN maybe golfing profs should use a bit of discretion in their links pursuits.  Golf is simply an example -- the same could be said for animus directed at high-dollar auto driving faculty, high-dollar homeowning faculty, etc. 

Of course, a suggestion such as this is inevitably followed by outcries of "I should be able to do what I want!"  I will only respond by saying that USM professors are public servants.  When you ride down the road and pass an old guy in a beat-up pickup truck who is wearing dirty clothes and working daylight to dusk to make ends meet, then you are looking at our employer -- his tax dollars pay our salaries, provide our offices, and allow us to engage in the type of pursuits we enjoy.  It's not a sin to play a round of golf now and again, or to drive a nice car, or to live in a nice house, but there is -- and, again, "perception is reality" -- a perception that a large number of USM faculty abuse the public trust.  It's hard to blame the middle-class taxpayer for his or her perceptions when we're doing little or nothing to address those perceptions.

Now, what does this have to do with the thread at hand?  This is one example of an issue that sends faculty into hysterics: "I don't play golf!" or "I don't drive a fancy car!" or "I don't live in a ritzy neighborhood!"  That is most probably true.  Unfortunately, there are too many of us who don't want to admit that we do have this problem -- Timberton, Canebrake, Woodstone, Audobon Place, etc., are replete with USM faculty.  The USM parking lots are filled with new, nice cars.  There are USM faculty who are spotted every Friday on the local courses here in Hattiesburg.  Hattiesburg Country Club, Canebrake Country Club, the Racquet Club, etc., all have USM faculty as members.  In a lot of places, that wouldn't matter.  In Atlanta, for instance, does anyone really know who works where?  Do the faculty at Emory, Georgia Tech, or Georgia State deal with these issues?  NO!  Why? Because Atlanta is a large city.  Hattiesburg is a relatively small city.  Yet, some folks want to continuously act as if the realities of living in the two cities are the same!  The link to the thread at hand is that this is but one issue that we as faculty are collectively unwilling to admit exists and is a problem.

So, as scm, gl, Cossack, and others debate where we're going, I must interject that we're not going anywhere unless and until we are willing to admit that, on any given issue, part of the fault lies with administrators and part lies with faculty.  On any issue, the blame must be shared.  Many of the issues in the FS "op-ed piece" are 99% with Thames and 1% with faculty.  However, there are many, many, many issues on USM's campuses for which the primary responsibility falls to both administrators and faculty. 

Unless faculty are willing to admit that there are problems under faculty control that MUST be addressed with different methods and attitudes, then no amount of administrative change will make USM better than it is right now.

Dr VanNostren wrote:

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Of course, a suggestion such as this is inevitably followed by outcries of "I should be able to do what I want!" I will only respond by saying that USM professors are public servants. When you ride down the road and pass an old guy in a beat-up pickup truck who is wearing dirty clothes and working daylight to dusk to make ends meet, then you are looking at our employer -- his tax dollars pay our salaries, provide our offices, and allow us to engage in the type of pursuits we enjoy. It's not a sin to play a round of golf now and again, or to drive a nice car, or to live in a nice house, but there is -- and, again, "perception is reality" -- a perception that a large number of USM faculty abuse the public trust. It's hard to blame the middle-class taxpayer for his or her perceptions when we're doing little or nothing to address those perceptions.

Now, what does this have to do with the thread at hand? This is one example of an issue that sends faculty into hysterics: "I don't play golf!" or "I don't drive a fancy car!" or "I don't live in a ritzy neighborhood!" That is most probably true. Unfortunately, there are too many of us who don't want to admit that we do have this problem -- Timberton, Canebrake, Woodstone, Audobon Place, etc., are replete with USM faculty. The USM parking lots are filled with new, nice cars. There are USM faculty who are spotted every Friday on the local courses here in Hattiesburg. Hattiesburg Country Club, Canebrake Country Club, the Racquet Club, etc., all have USM faculty as members. In a lot of places, that wouldn't matter. In Atlanta, for instance, does anyone really know who works where? Do the faculty at Emory, Georgia Tech, or Georgia State deal with these issues? NO! Why? Because Atlanta is a large city. Hattiesburg is a relatively small city. Yet, some folks want to continuously act as if the realities of living in the two cities are the same! The link to the thread at hand is that this is but one issue that we as faculty are collectively unwilling to admit exists and is a problem.

 

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So if a USM faculty member is married to a doctor or a lawyer they still have to drive a Civic and live in a "modest" home? 

 

So now we need a table showing which ranks/colleges get to live in which neighborhoods and what they can drive? Will it be ok to play miniature golf instead of real golf? What about the faculty person in my church who's also retired military? What is she allowed to drive? Did her prior "public service" earn her some Volvo points?

Most important: Who will be the arbiter of these decisions?

As for me, a middle-class taxpayer from a working-class background, I want faculty to show up and do their jobs. Period. Drive whatever you can afford. It is nobody else's business what you drive or where you live. Frankly, the people around here are way more put off by some of you guys' bumper stickers than by what they're stuck to.

Invictus wrote:

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Dr VN's post is worth reading & re-reading.


Unless faculty are willing to admit that there are problems under faculty control that MUST be addressed with different methods and attitudes, then no amount of administrative change will make USM better than it is right now.

Let's hope that the new administration admits that there are areas that are and must be under faculty control. By the same token, faculty must admit that there are areas that are and must be under administrative control. USM hasn't ever really been that way -- it goes back far before SFT -- and it will require everyone to step up to the plate and do what's right.

Good luck to all of you!

-- Edited by Invictus at 13:42, 2007-05-16

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Thanks, Invictus.

As I reflect on some of the responses on this thread -- to stinky cheese man, to Cossack, to me -- I stand amazed at how little some of this board's participants have learned over the past 5 years. 

There are sentiments everywhere celebrating the demise of Thames, a man who made bad decision after bad decision.  The problem with placing all the blame at the feet of Thames is that Thames is, in cosa nostra parlance, a button man.  Earlier in the thread, mention was made that something like 85% of the USM faculty found Thames unfit prior to his hiring, yet he was hired anyway.  Think about that for a minute.  EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT of the faculty thought he was unacceptable, yet he was hired anyway.  Have you really thought about WHY that was?  Many want to blame the IHL, the University of Mississippi, or Mississippi State University for Thames' coronation.  Those entities are only partially to blame.  Later on in the thread, it is mentioned that Thames represents the wishes of locals.  Now we're getting warm.

To understand the Thames Administration, one has to understand the history of USM.  Research the beginnings of the university, when the decision was made as to WHERE the site would be.  Laurel wanted it badly.  However, Laurel was viewed as becoming too powerful for the wealthy power brokers in Jackson and North Mississippi.  Laurel had arts, culture, railways, population, etc.  Giving Laurel a college would give Laurel the opportunity to become too powerful. 

Hattiesburg wanted the college as well.  Laurel's "little sister," Hattiesburg offered little of what Laurel had, but Hattiesburg did have some powerful families with fortunes to spend.  Allying themselves with the North Mississippi power brokers, the Hattiesburg folks landed the state college.  Those families' names are still prominent in Hattiesburg/Oak Grove today.  Some of those same names are mentioned in Exit 13 as well. 

So, since its inception, USM has been a bought and paid for university.  The local powers simply want a return on their investment of long ago -- paving, services, landscaping, painting, building, maintenance, etc.  Under previous regimes, such activities were more clandestine, and information was less readily available to the watchers.  Thames was more blatant in his activities.  However, it's not as if the local puppeteers have changed all that much. 

When you're lauding the Faculty Senate for its admittedly incomplete and unadmittedly factually questionable "op-ed piece" and celebrating the fall of Thames, just remember that the puppeteers haven't changed.  Or do you think they have?  I mean, the IHL really went out and got an "outsider" for president, didn't they?  It's not like she's related to local politicians/businesspeople.  Oh, wait.  She is. 

Saunders may be a return to something like we saw under Lucas, but my guess is she'll be a slicker version of Thames -- still catering to the local powers.  The worst kept secret in South Mississippi is that the local powerbrokers run USM.  All faculty need to admit that and start viewing USM in that light, or we'll be right back here in a few years, and at that point we'll be labeled a disgruntled faculty who helped run off 2 presidents in 10 years and are working on our 3rd.

LVN--fisking.  hadn't heard of the term. looked it up.  thanks for the education!

LVN:  Just wanted you to know that I'm with you on this...but time will tell in terms of what Dr. Saunders will be able to do.  Some people will always see the glass half empty.

Your friend,

Truth

Godless Liberal wrote:

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Dr. VN-

Probably most publics and privates in Miss (and across the nation) have their own powerful back room boys and girls doing their slick machinations (look at some of the fiascos in Miss College's history...

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I beg to take issue with you on this one, Godless Liberal. MC's history is one of taking swift, deliberate, and appropriate action in the event an impropriety occurs.