1. Three of the present deans are interims as it is. Why would you "can" interims? Is there a specific dean that Framer has a problem with?

2. Didn't Dr. Saunders previously address this matter by explaining that first there would be search for a Provost and THEN the dean searches would commence?

Framer and Cat in the Hand both seem a tad antsy.

Cat In the Hat wrote:

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Antsy?  In other posts, I raised questions.  I thought that was encouraged.  If you are looking for "compliant" dialogue, I'll quit posting.

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Questions are encouraged. On the other hand, as I tell my students, you should at least make an attempt to see if the answers are already out there and are readiy accessible.

The issue of the deans has certainly run through many threads on this board and is more complicated than any one simple answer. In fact, not everyone on the board agrees on this issue, although I agree with LVN that there is a kind of rough consensus developed through that discussion.

As you probably have detected, although the general sentiments on this board may be mostly compatable, there is no simple agreement on many questions or many answers. It would be better for you to go back over some of the most recent posts and catch up -- enter the discussion gently. New folks (or people who are returning after an absence) are always welcome. But it seems a bit disrespectful to jump in, throw out an idea and demand an answer when no one really knows who you are or what your objectives are. Otherwise it might appear that you are something we have experienced befroe on this board -- a provocateur posing as a questoner when the real design is to create some rhetorical fireworks. It is one of the reasons I no longer post anonymously.

Don't misunderstand -- I'm not accusing you of intending that. I'm simply noting that many on this board tend to be a bit suspicious of new posters who jump in without seeming to have spent any time trying to catch up. It tends to feel insincere to those of us who have seen similar things happen before . . .  you try to help someone catch up only to find that you are caught up in an endless series of arguments because the objective never was to listen, but to provoke.

So, Cat, if catching up and joining the discussion is really your objective, relax a bit. We are no longer in emergency mode -- there is time for listening and for thinking these days.

In fact, I'd say those two activities are highly necessary right now.


I am about to ramble on the subject of identity/anonymity.

I hope that some of you who continue to post anonymously will consider "coming out."  I know that for some, this may continue to be a necessity because they are in a position in which posting under their own name could make them vulnerable to punishment. 

But this is less true now than ever for many of us. My own feeling is that where there is no danger of punishment, there is a decreased need for anonymity. We have to balance somehow, the protection that anonymity offers with the threat it presents to the credibility of the poster -- and, by implication, any discussion group.

I hope some of you will consider posting under your own names. It is easy to post anything under the veil of anonmymity. The poster does not have to take responsibility for what is said or the potential damage that his/her utterances might do. Speaking under your own name, I believe, tends to encourage posters to be more thoughtful and responsbile about what they have to say because their name is attached to it.

Anonymity increases the possibility of gossip -- and gossip is deadly because it undermines trust. The primary basis for genuine discussion is trust -- and if I don't know who you are I don't know whether to trust you or not until you have built up a history of discussion that allows me to understand where you are coming from. We all have agendas -- having an agenda is not the issue. What is important is that our personal agendas, in one way or another, can emerge where they can become part of the discussion. Anonymity allows a poster to conceal such agendas -- one of the reasons, for those of us who remember, why we went through a period of posters who would create multiple identities -- which not only resulted in concealing personnal agendas, but also made it seem as though there were many more people out there expressing similar opinions than there really were. Sort of like packing the ballot box.

I will say this -- many anonymous posters have become known over the long years of discussion, though their true identities may not be known. Their posts have been consistent and genuine, and they have created a history within the discussion that has, the effect of creatng  an identity that can be trusted precisely because it has a history of responsbile and responsive engagement. This has been true of even those posters in the past who were not overtly in sympathy with many on the board. They were consistent, they were willing to engage in dialogue, they were willing to listen -- in other words, to engage in the most pasic presuppositions of civil discourse that allows civil discourse to function.

Such anonymous posters proved through their history that they treat their choice of anonymity with respect and do not use it as a tool to undermine genuine dialogue and engagement. I say this because I want it to be clear I am not against anonymous identities per se, only in the way they can be used to abuse genuine discussion.


This is a long post so it is going to have a lot of mispellings -- folks, is there a spell check on this thing? Seems like in the toolbar there is everything but that. I apologize in advance.

-- Edited by stephen judd at 11:46, 2007-08-18

Sorry, Cat.