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USM Forum -- Message Board -> AAUP-USM MESSAGE BOARD -> Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Post Info TOPIC: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Coastian

Date:
Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

 
Yesterday morning, Tuesday 12 October, Dr. Diane Stevenson (English Department) came into her classroom to find that Ken Malone and an associate, Richard Farley, had entered her classroom, uninvited, and were grilling her students about some remarks concerning on-line courses that Dr. Stevenson is alleged to have made to this particular class last week. They continued to occupy Dr. Stevenson's classroom for some minutes after the class period's scheduled beginning. After the class was over, Mr. Malone, according to Dr. Stevenson, berated her vociferously in the hallway. According to a student, Mr. Farley returned to inflict similar treatment on Dr. Stevenson's afternoon class, where he got into a rather heated discussion with several of Dr. Stevenson's students, and, according to my informant, a long time USM student, acted very rudely to her students before leaving, as they say, in a huff.
 
Here's some backstory: Last Thursday, apparently, Dr. Stevenson relayed to her morning class her version of certain remarks made by Jay Grimes at a convocation at Gulf Park the previous week. These remarks concerned the University's plans to maximize on-line offerings through USM-GC. When Stevenson's remarks were reported by a student or students to Ken Malone, however, she was alleged to have described the complete abolition of USM-GC's brick and mortar operation,  and its replacement by an on-line "university" a la Phoenix "University." Allegedly Dr. Stevenson then warned students to go elsewhere to complete their degrees. At least this is how these remarks were reported by Denise VonHerrmann. Remarkable stuff here, but not exactly believable . . . I mean, would a sane person believe Dr. Stevenson had said these things?
 
Dr. Stevenson denies this version of events, of course, and herein lies the real kicker: As far as I can tell, the administration made no attempt to ask Dr. Stevenson for her version of events, never asked her for clarification, never tried to get her to either confirm or deny the allegations. No phone call, no e-mail, no friendly office visit from a perplexed, concerned colleague who just happened to be an administrator. El Pood did make a cursory attempt to notify David Wheeler, the English department chair, Monday afternoon, but, it appears that he and DVH treated the Malone version of events as proven fact, authorized Malone's visitation and then failed to comply with David's stipulation that Diane be contacted before her classroom was visited. Dr. Stevenson read Dr. Wheelers' e-mail informing her of Ken Malone's desire to visit her classroom mere moments before the class began. When she walked in the door Malone and Farley were already there.
 
The most disturbing thing about all this is the complete failure by the administration to observe even a modicum of civility or collegeality. DS was treated as some sort of malefactor from the moment the allegations were levelled. The administration thus seems to have acted in complete disregard, or perhaps ignorance, of that most elementary protocol of academic administration: when a student complains, ask the professor. Without doing so, they then entered Dr. Stevenson's classroom without her permission, and effectively without her knowledge, since Malone's request to do so was so late in coming, and since it doesn't really seem to have been "request" in any genuine sense of the word. Finally, Farley seems to have treated the students in a most inappropriate manner when he visited Dr. Stevenson's classroom Tuesday afternoon. The administration simply believe that they have acted appropriately in this case, yet they appear to act with impunity in everything they do, no matter how vile. I mean, they invaded a classroom with no warning to the students and only a nominal heads up to the professor. This is pretty outrageous isn't it? Even relative to USM's relatively high level of outrageous behavior?

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foot soldier

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Profes
Permalink Closed

When Stevenson's remarks were reported by a student or students to Ken Malone, however, she was alleged to have described the complete abolition of USM-GC's brick and mortar operation,  and its replacement by an on-line "university" a la Phoenix "University." Allegedly Dr. Stevenson then warned students to go elsewhere to complete their degrees. At least this is how these remarks were reported by Denise VonHerrmann. Remarkable stuff here, but not exactly believable . . . I mean, would a sane person believe Dr. Stevenson had said these things?



Are you being facetious? Given the situation at USM, yes a sane person would tell students to go elsewhere to complete their degrees. With all due respect to the USM faculty, I would not want my child to go to any school where the president would read the editor of the student paper's e-mail. (Remember Rachel?)

If this tale is true, this looks like a freedom of speech issue, and an academic freedom issue, since they invaded her classroom. I would support her right to her opinion. If she's getting reprimanded for simply disagreeing with the administration . . . there are 430 other people they can reprimand too.

Coastian, were you here last year? This sort of behavoir shouldn't be surprising after the Glamser/Stringer affair. I'm just surprised they didn't fire her and lock her out of her office.

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foot soldier

Date:
Permalink Closed

The administration thus seems to have acted in complete disregard, or perhaps ignorance, of that most elementary protocol of academic administration: when a student complains, ask the professor.

This has not been my experience of protocol at USM.

Remember, this administration does not know ANYTHING about academic and/or administrative protocols. They are amateurs, and they behave boorishly and amateurishly. My blood pressure is starting to rise, so I'd better quit.

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COAST Guard

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

There is so much to comment on that it's hard to know where to begin.  This post will focus on just one of the issues brought up by this very disturbing thread:


Ken Malone has no academic authority.


He is outside the academic chain of command (in any department but economic development) and he is an untenured assistant professor hired and promoted (and promoted and promoted) without search(es).  Didn't the Presidope distribute an organizational chart indicating lines of authority at the last President's Council meeting?


Dept. Chair?  Associate Dean?  Dean?  Provost?  Even if DW, DVH, and EP all passed the buck, it should have gone to JG. 


 



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Boss Man

Date:
Permalink Closed

Herein lies the problem...you folks are confused.  You're looking for a professional academic culture where administrators are faculty members and colleagues first...managers second.  What you need to understand is that USM is your employer....you need to teach your classes and shut up.  You should have no opnion other than the one the administration gives you.  When you realize this, you won't get so upset at decisions/actions.

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Invictus

Date:
RE: RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Pr
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: COAST Guard
"Ken Malone has no academic authority."


While this may be "technically" correct, I believe it is "operationally" incorrect. Pun intended.

Malone can be trusted to do things in exactly the fashion that Thames would do them. That is why he's an untenured assistant professor out-earning tenured professors with a ton of years in the system.

Responding also to Boss Man, I have observed over the past decade an increasing tendency for college administrators to refer to "employees" and not "teachers" or "professors." In my mind, this is part of the WalMartization of higher education.

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Coast Resident

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

My first point is that this thread is based on a report of hearsay reporting on hearsay (ie. this thread is about what someone said about what some student said that Dr. Stevenson and what she said that Dr. Grimes said) and thus what the true facts of the matter are, should be held in considerable doubt until facts of first hand accounts can be presented.


 


Concerning “that most elementary protocol of academic administration: when a student complains, ask the professor”, it does not appear that from all the hearsay reported that the student, or students, went to Malone to complain about Dr. Stevenson but to express their concerns of pursuing their degree at USM if what Dr. Stevenson said were true. It appears, again from the hearsay, that Malone may have thought he might have a complaint against Dr. Stevenson if she were in fact spreading incorrect information and suggesting students quit USM and go else where. In this case it does not seem unreasonable at all that he should want to speak with other students who would have firsthand knowledge of the validity of what had been told to him. If what he had been told were incorrect, no need to bother Dr. Stevenson, if correct then he may have a complaint.


 


Based on the hearsay, it does not appear that Malone “invaded” the classroom but had arrived prior to the class beginning in order to speak with the students who would have first hand knowledge. To the best of my knowledge, the classrooms and the buildings they are in are state property and do not belong to the instructor but are provided for their use and as such, I would not think that Malone as the campus administrator would need “permission” from Dr. Stevenson to enter the classroom space prior to her arrival and the beginning of her class. As there is no hearsay report as to what the other students in the classroom said concerning Dr. Stevenson’s prior comments to them, that “After the class was over, Mr. Malone, according to Dr. Stevenson, berated her vociferously in the hallway” would tend to suggest that the other students verified to Malone the accounts (what ever they were) first reported to him.



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Boss Man

Date:
RE: RE: RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Pr
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
Responding also to Boss Man, I have observed over the past decade an increasing tendency for college administrators to refer to "employees" and not "teachers" or "professors." In my mind, this is part of the WalMartization of higher education."
My point exactly.

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Coastian

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

 


Oh Coast Resident, how you do Quibble, Quibble, Quibble.


I'm not even going to dignify your sophomoric semantics exercise with a response.


We'll see how you respond when high ranking administrators start interrogating your students in your classroom and classtime about what goes on in YOUR classes. I promise I won't be too hard on you if you're upset.


This university is dying.


 


 


 


 



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Invictus

Date:
RE: RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Pr
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Coastian
" We'll see how you respond when high ranking administrators start interrogating your students in your classroom and classtime about what goes on in YOUR classes. I promise I won't be too hard on you if you're upset."


I suspect rather strongly that "Coast Resident" will never have to worry about Ken Malone or any other university administrator "invading" his or her classroom.

Just taking the contrarian's viewpoint here & not knowing Dr. Stephenson from Adam's housecat, I'd offer that when I taught full-time for a living, had I come into my classroom to find an administrator "interrogating" my students about something I'd said, I assure you it wouldn't be the administrator chewing me out in the hall. It would be quite the opposite.

Malone is banking rather heavily (a) thatShelby Thames is going to live forever and (b) that other institutions are going to be looking for a sycophantic hit man. I would figure Kenbot will be back in the private sector (where he has a lot less experience than he wants you to believe) in about 24 months.

Just bide your time. Cosmic justice has a way of playing itself out.

quote:
"This university is dying. "


I'm not sure it's dying, but it's pretty danged sick. Come to think of it, in the 30-odd years I've been associated with USM , it's never been very healthy. It's been a lifelong cripple. Sure, at times in the past 20 years it looked like USM might recover, but each time, the IHL board refused to permit the proper treatment. And most lately, it selected an "attending physician" who had a known track record of malpractice.

Malone may be objectionable, but he's a symptom not the disease.

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Heel thyself

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
" I'm not sure it's dying, but it's pretty danged sick. Come to think of it . . . it's never been very healthy. It's been a lifelong cripple. Sure, at times in the past 20 years it looked like USM might recover, but each time, the IHL board refused to permit the proper treatment. And most lately, it selected an "attending physician" who had a known track record of malpractice."
The faculty and other contstituencies of the university have occasionally been administered a placebo which turned out to be nothing more than a bitter pill.

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A Senator

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Profes
Permalink Closed

Board members may be pleased to know that senators have asked the Faculty Senate to investigate the events described and discusse in this thread. Discussions will occur at the November meeting unless a special meeting of FS is called.

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The beat goes on

Date:
RE: RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Coast Resident
". . . . . .  the classrooms and the buildings they are in are state property and do not belong to the instructor but are provided for their use and as such, I would not think that Malone as the campus administrator would need “permission” from Dr. Stevenson to enter the classroom space prior to her arrival and the beginning of her class."
I'm having a deja vu experience. Substitute computers are state property for classrooms and buildings are state property, substitute Stringer and Glamser for Stevenson, and substitute read their email for enter the classroom space. Where does it stop? Does this mean we have no privacy when we enter the men's room?

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Invictus

Date:
RE: RE: RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berate
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: The beat goes on
"Does this mean we have no privacy when we enter the men's room? "


Cripes! The first thing I do when I enter a men's room, no matter where I am, is check the air conditioner vents & other similar fixtures for surveillance equipment!

But to follow the "deja vu all over again revisited" theme to it's logical conclusion, let's substitute "Jack Hanbury" for "Ken Malone." Could it be that he's just shortened his career immensely?

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Chicken Soup Lady

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Profes
Permalink Closed

From your mouth to God's ear!

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D-Day Invasion 2004

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

"Malone Invades Coast Classroom?" Sounds like we need to round up the troops, commandeer some Higgins boats, land at Long Beach, and take back that campus.


http://www.higginsboat.org/html/museum.html



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Slush

Date:
RE: RE: RE: RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berate
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
" Cripes! The first thing I do when I enter a men's room, no matter where I am, is check the air conditioner vents & other similar fixtures for surveillance equipment! But to follow the "deja vu all over again revisited" theme to it's logical conclusion, let's substitute "Jack Hanbury" for "Ken Malone." Could it be that he's just shortened his career immensely?"

That raises some other interesting questions:


This quote from the SunHerald linked on the AAUP front page indicates that Richard Hadden is the Director of Strategic Venture Development for USM.  Wasn't that the job Malone was hired to fill? 


The university also will occupy several offices at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Gulfport beginning Nov. 1, said Richard Hadden, director of strategic venture development for Southern Miss. (btw, is this the same Richard Hadden who headed up technology transfer at Ole Miss in 2000?)


When Economic Development gets re-reorganized into political science and science/technology, where does Malone as department chair go? 


Has running the customer service operation and filling in for the Provost on the coast become a full-time job?



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Green Hornet

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Profes
Permalink Closed

Rumor on the coast is that Dr. Diane Stevenson resigned. Any one confirm??????

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ram

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Green Hornet
"Rumor on the coast is that Dr. Diane Stevenson resigned. Any one confirm??????"
I can only "confirm" that is the rumor in Hattiesburg, too.

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LVN

Date:
Permalink Closed

I was a student during the sixties, and call recall some very outrageous things being said in classes by some very outrageous instructors. Other than actual threats to life, order, and property, or outright personal insults to students, I cannot think of anything a teacher could say in class that would justify the sort of response being reported. Even putting the best possible construction on Professor Malone's actions, they seem unjustified. And I echo an earlier concern, by what right does he intervene in this situation? If Professor Stevenson did in fact resign, then godspeed to her, and I can't say that I blame her.

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coastian

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

 


D-Day:


There are more than a few of on the Coast who would gladly act the role of the French Resistance in such a scenario.


What was the Allied High Command code message that set the saboutage in motion? Something, somethings fills me with a monotonous langour (?) A line from Rimbaud or Baudelaire I think.


Long live the Free Coast!


 


 



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The truth shall set you free

Date:
Permalink Closed

So, what does her legal counsel have to say about all this?  While the checkbook is opened from last week's little settlement...


I know, I know there's an appeal and it's never fun but, seriously, I hope she has good counsel.


Do we know if the resignation was forced "under duress" or did she just say "enough of this bs"?



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Miles Long

Date:
Permalink Closed

Well, it could be worse.

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D-Day Invasion 2004

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: coastian
"  D-Day: There are more than a few of on the Coast who would gladly act the role of the French Resistance in such a scenario. What was the Allied High Command code message that set the saboutage in motion? Something, somethings fills me with a monotonous langour (?) A line from Rimbaud or Baudelaire I think. Long live the Free Coast!    "

Chanson d' Automne by Paul Verlaine - “Wound my heart with a monotonous langour.”
BBC Broadcast to French Resistance: Code phrase for "Commence D-Day support operations immediately."



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Time Has Been Like Verlaine & Rimbaud

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Profes
Permalink Closed

Arthur Rimbaud's only published work has a title that is quite evocative of USM, in my humble opinion.

And yeah, this is Invictus here. I just couldn't resist throwing in my own Nom d'Aplomb handle with a little Bobby Die-lan quote ("You're a Big Girl Now").

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Invictus

Date:
Permalink Closed

Well, on my face!

The handle I used in the last post is "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go."

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concerned late night viewer

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

Invictus, are you O.K.?

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Chicken Soup Lady

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Profes
Permalink Closed

I have found a great place for Ken Malone to excercise his business talents.
Plus, it's a long, long way from Hattiesburg. and the Gulf Coast.

http://www.mum.edu/worldpeace/



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hot link's body double

Date:
RE: Malone Invades Coast Classroom, Berates Professor
Permalink Closed

http://www.mum.edu/worldpeace/

__________________
Tongue in Cheek

Date:
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Are the programs offered on line?



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