secret 2:30 information - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Dec 9, 2004

secret 2:30 information

Date: Dec 9, 2004

Would somebody provide a little background on the "secret" 2:30 meeting? Such as who supposedly attended & where it was held.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
"Would somebody provide a little background on the "secret" 2:30 meeting? Such as who supposedly attended & where it was held. "

Really no secret -- the Deans and heads of most of the major councils and committees and the Provost and Joan Exline. Probably a few others I don't know.

It makes sense --the university needs to do damage control. It wants to speak with a unified voice. INstitutionally, this is important, if you look at it in objective terms. Some of the folks who were in that meeting are good people and they will have to struggle now trying to balance maintaining a critical stance vis a vis the administration while at the same time being loyal to the institution by maintaining a solid front to the public. After all, It is one thing if major constituencies are at war. It is another completely if every aspect of leadershiop -- management, faculty and staff -- is balkanized. The one thing that might actually really kill the place is if it actually looks like the university is coming unglued at the seams instead of this being a struggle between competing ideas of how a university should be run. IN the latter case, there can be a winner and a loser and life can go on . . . in the former it is just chaos.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

in addition, SACS is going to want to see that such a meeting happened. part of the reporting is documenting that such meetings occur.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: stephen judd
" Really no secret -- the Deans and heads of most of the major councils and committees and the Provost and Joan Exline. Probably a few others I don't know. It makes sense --the university needs to do damage control. It wants to speak with a unified voice. INstitutionally, this is important, if you look at it in objective terms. Some of the folks who were in that meeting are good people and they will have to struggle now trying to balance maintaining a critical stance vis a vis the administration while at the same time being loyal to the institution by maintaining a solid front to the public. After all, It is one thing if major constituencies are at war. It is another completely if every aspect of leadershiop -- management, faculty and staff -- is balkanized. The one thing that might actually really kill the place is if it actually looks like the university is coming unglued at the seams instead of this being a struggle between competing ideas of how a university should be run. IN the latter case, there can be a winner and a loser and life can go on . . . in the former it is just chaos. "

As long as nobody is asked to lie. But the confidence in USM has eroded to the place where nobody is going to be able to distinguish truth from fiction in whatever things a spokesperson says. Everything is suspect at the present time.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Truth or Consequences
"As long as nobody is asked to lie. But the confidence in USM has eroded to the place where nobody is going to be able to distinguish truth from fiction in whatever things a spokesperson says. Everything is suspect at the present time."

Absolutely true. One very good thing about having such folks present is that if there is some spin put on these meetings that portrays the meetings falsely then those who are in them no longer have an obligation to keep the secrets or to play the public face. They can can solid for the institution (where it can be separated from the personalities who manage it) but they do not have to allow themselves to be used to mislead the public.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: stephen judd
" Really no secret -- the Deans and heads of most of the major councils and committees and the Provost and Joan Exline. Probably a few others I don't know. It makes sense --the university needs to do damage control. It wants to speak with a unified voice. INstitutionally, this is important, if you look at it in objective terms. Some of the folks who were in that meeting are good people and they will have to struggle now trying to balance maintaining a critical stance vis a vis the administration while at the same time being loyal to the institution by maintaining a solid front to the public. After all, It is one thing if major constituencies are at war. It is another completely if every aspect of leadershiop -- management, faculty and staff -- is balkanized. The one thing that might actually really kill the place is if it actually looks like the university is coming unglued at the seams instead of this being a struggle between competing ideas of how a university should be run. IN the latter case, there can be a winner and a loser and life can go on . . . in the former it is just chaos. "

Stephen,

What if the choices are:

(1) Speak with a unified voice in support of Shelby Thames--and guarantee the continued destruction of USM

or

(2) Everyone who is not Thames or one of his henchpeople speak with a unified voice against Thames--and possibly prevent the destruction of USM.

Shelby Thames, after all, is going to keep speaking with the same voice, until and unless he is relieved of any position of authority.

Doesn't fear of chaos merely play into the hands of Thames, his supporters, and his sponsors?

Robert Campbell

Date: Dec 9, 2004

robert asks the question i have been pondering all day. what if we get our wish--the IHL fires Shelby. What then? Who will be interim president? We're already searching for a provost, so we'd be missing a president and a provost. Bring back Lucas? What if he says no way? Grimes? I don't think he wants to. Given the attitude some have, can anyone step in (Joe Paul)? Can the university go through the process of trying to fill these positions and manage the SACS issue? If not, do we lose our accreditation? Does the idea that "be careful what we wish for because we may get it" begin to resonate with people. don't have an answer. what do others think?

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"robert asks the question i have been pondering all day. what if we get our wish--the IHL fires Shelby. What then? Who will be interim president? We're already searching for a provost, so we'd be missing a president and a provost. Bring back Lucas? What if he says no way? Grimes? I don't think he wants to. "

HOLLANDSWORTH! HOLLANDSWORTH! HOLLANDSWORTH!

Date: Dec 9, 2004

oh foot soldier. the stories i could tell about hollandsworth. i don't think so.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"robert asks the question i have been pondering all day. what if we get our wish--the IHL fires Shelby. What then? Who will be interim president? We're already searching for a provost, so we'd be missing a president and a provost. Bring back Lucas? What if he says no way? Grimes? I don't think he wants to. Given the attitude some have, can anyone step in (Joe Paul)? Can the university go through the process of trying to fill these positions and manage the SACS issue? If not, do we lose our accreditation? Does the idea that "be careful what we wish for because we may get it" begin to resonate with people. don't have an answer. what do others think?"

DON COTTEN! DON COTTEN! DON COTTEN!

Date: Dec 9, 2004

oh truth--talked to don about 2 months ago. he said he retired two years later than he should.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"oh truth--talked to don about 2 months ago. he said he retired two years later than he should. "

I suppose we missed our chance w/Don when Papa Shelboo was "invested" as president. Don Cotten would have made such a fine president...ah, the tragedy of it all.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

i didn't want to diminish the christmas spirit, but don told me then that shelby would be president until he died.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"robert asks the question i have been pondering all day. what if we get our wish--the IHL fires Shelby. What then? Who will be interim president?"

IHL would do well to look for a "professional" interim. There is a small group of retired presidents who basically specialize as interim presidents & some of them have specific expertise in such things as difficult accreditation problems or financially mismanaged institutions. There was an article in a major education publication (the Chronicle perhaps?) a few months ago about this emerging "consulting specialty."

Someone not currently associated with the university might be the best choice for an interim... someone with a shipload of SACS experience, excellent people skills & a respect for the concept of shared governance...

Date: Dec 9, 2004

invictus--but as the university goes about trying to find such person what do we do about SACS? So much of what has been going on has been because we have "interim" people. Don't forget, Don Cotten and Andy Griffin were "interim" in their respective positions throughout the latter stages of the Fleming administration, and they didn't feel empowered to do certain things. what i worry about is us losing accreditation while we wait to get an administration in. We have at best two years to get this all resolved.

Date: Dec 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
" IHL would do well to look for a "professional" interim. There is a small group of retired presidents who basically specialize as interim presidents & some of them have specific expertise in such things as difficult accreditation problems or financially mismanaged institutions. There was an article in a major education publication (the Chronicle perhaps?) a few months ago about this emerging "consulting specialty." Someone not currently associated with the university might be the best choice for an interim... someone with a shipload of SACS experience, excellent people skills & a respect for the concept of shared governance... "

Invictus is right. As difficult as this is for me to say, the web is so tangled here that a "professional" interim president might be the most appropriate for USM at this time. The very fact that the web is tangled seems to preclude turning the task over to an insider no matter how respected that person might be. Too many connections and conflicts are woven into the web for an insider to do the job that needs to be done on an interim basis.

Date: Dec 10, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"invictus--but as the university goes about trying to find such person what do we do about SACS? So much of what has been going on has been because we have "interim" people. Don't forget, Don Cotten and Andy Griffin were "interim" in their respective positions throughout the latter stages of the Fleming administration, and they didn't feel empowered to do certain things. what i worry about is us losing accreditation while we wait to get an administration in. We have at best two years to get this all resolved. "

I hope you aren't suggesting that IHL should leave Thames in the presidency because USM doesn't need any discontinuity during the SACS "recovery" process. Because if you are, I'm gonna have the boys in the white uniforms come downr from Whitfield to get you!

If I could pick anybody in the southeast right now to come in & take over while this probation gets worked out, I'd pick Dr. James Rogers, recently retired Executive Director of the Southern Association of Colleges & Schools. Quite a guy. However, I don't think he's available...

Date: Dec 10, 2004

I'm afraid that too much focus on this will be both paralyzing and polarizing to us right now. There will be good external, interim options when we need them. Let's make sure we need them!

Date: Dec 10, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
" I hope you aren't suggesting that IHL should leave Thames in the presidency because USM doesn't need any discontinuity during the SACS "recovery" process. Because if you are, I'm gonna have the boys in the white uniforms come downr from Whitfield to get you! If I could pick anybody in the southeast right now to come in & take over while this probation gets worked out, I'd pick Dr. James Rogers, recently retired Executive Director of the Southern Association of Colleges & Schools. Quite a guy. However, I don't think he's available..."

Sorry Invictus, I agree with SCM and Stephen Judd. The SACS issue has been tossed from administration to administration. The damage has been done and we are on probation. The timetable is short or we ALL go down with a sinking, unaccredited ship in 12 months. I do not believe an interim president could "fix" things in that timetable even if it were even a vague possibility we could hire one. I also point out that the probation is not for governance or academic freedom issues, although it was certainly for a series of bad decisions somewhere along the line. As much as the posters on this board would like to twist the knife in the wound, lets don't kill the university in the process.

Date: Dec 10, 2004

An Interim President (Dr. Richardson) got Auburn off probation in exactly one year.

Date: Dec 10, 2004

Interesting take COST faculty. So SACS is to Thames like Iraq is to Bush. "Don't change presidents during a war." Interesting, but I hope we don't lose both Iraq and SACS.

Date: Dec 10, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Deiter
"An Interim President (Dr. Richardson) got Auburn off probation in exactly one year. "

Exactly. These "professional" interim presidents know what they are doing. They can hit the ground running (unlike SFT, who only hit the ground running USM into the ground).

Date: Dec 10, 2004

CoST faculty,

i hope we can agree on one thing: Keeping Shelby Thames and his crew in power, for the sake of "continuity," will guarantee deaccreditation. Even if you don't believe that Thames was brought in to do that kind of damage to USM, he has been doing it--and left in power, he will keep doing it. University presidents who deliberately destroy their Institutional Research units and exhibit complete disdain for assessment are in an excellent position to get their institutions deaccredited.

From your comments, scm's, and those of other posters here, I gather that the pool of local talent is depleted. The senior figures who would be respected are firmly retired, and administrators who have risen to positions of authority under Thames are lacking in competence, trustworthiness, or both.

That leaves one alternative: USM needs the kind of president who comes in from the outside to rescue seriously troubled universities. In essence, it needs to be put in receivership (the academic kind, not the business kind).

Robert Campbell

Date: Dec 10, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: COST faculty
"I also point out that the probation is not for governance or academic freedom issues"

I can't speak to the details of accreditation (while there are so many of you who can) but it seems that the forward directions cannot be ignored in the accreditation process as the past deficiencies are corrected. As long as this president, hell-bent on his misguided "run the university like a bidness", projects a mission that the faculty did not help to create and does not support there will be further accreditation issues down the line that ARE based on governance.

Date: Dec 10, 2004

COST Faculty, I think this is about shared governance. Isn't the problem, the core of SFT's bad management, that he doesn't consult the people who know what to do--and/or fires them? The reorganization took out the Deans who were in place when we began working on the last SACS recommendations. Their staffs almost always went with them. Offices were closed and shuffled all over campus, with valuable staff moved or dismissed. Other valuable staff (for instance Linda McFall!) and faculty (Susan Malone!!!) quite rightly fled as fast as they could. SFT dismissed and appointed and dismissed again and shuffled . . . and in the end, as someone put it in this week's AAUP meeting, there was no one minding the store.

To lay this at the door of his staff, as SFT cravenly did in today's HA, is nonsense. Maureen Ryan, once in charge of "Institutional Effectiveness" (or was it Efficiency? sorry, can't keep up with the euphemisms), was stripped of her staff and exiled to College Hall. Brad Bond stepped in and tried to reinvigorate the strategic planning effort with a series of town meetings--and we never heard more. Brad's fault? I doubt it. Exline has been in charge only since July, and if I understand her charge correctly, it's aimed at the next visit, not at addressing the recommendations from the last visit (correct me if I'm wrong, folks).

What, after all, would it mean if SFT didn't know (which I don't believe for a moment)? The possibilities are: (a) his staff are incompetent, unable to recognize big trouble when they see it; (b) his staff are unreliable, either dreadful communicators or so scared of him that they just creep quietly along in the shadows. And if either of these things is true, WHOSE FAULT IS THAT? Who appointed and hired much of the staff we now have at the upper levels of administration??

(Hardworking staff and faculty out there, I don't mean you!! I know many of you have been struggling to meet the SACS recommendations for years. I mean that SFT's claim of ignorance, if true, would indict his management, not his staff.)

All of this is the result of a "management approach" that holds consultation and consensus-building in contempt. If I may wax philosophical, it's also the result of deliberate ignorance. If you decide that history is worthless, that "the future belongs to us," and pursue a scorched earth policy, that's what you'll get--scorched earth.

By all mean, let's work together to get the probation lifted. Our university is in deep trouble and we need to repair the damage. But, bad as it is, the SACS probation is just the surface damage, the result of the damage inflicted on the university's foundations by SFT's policies. While we work together, we must also reject absolutely SFT's cowardly effort to lay blame on unnamed staff and faculty.

If SFT had respected the traditional expectation that knowledgable faculty and staff should be fully involved in policy decisions and implementation, and if he had respected the history and people of his own university, he wouldn't be in this mess today. Nor would we, my friends.

NO QUARTER.
Anne Wallace

Date: Dec 10, 2004

Add:

that the e-mail surveillance was not.

From Let the academics govern on another thread:

No one wanted this to happen; no one is glad that it happened. At the same time, let it be the wake-up call to the IHL that Shelby Thames must go. Let it be the wake-up call that the:

appointment of Shelby Thames over the opposition of the faculty was not

reorganization of the colleges was not
inflated enrollment numbers was not
vp's hyped credentials was not
suspension of respected, tenured professors was not
forced settlement at the hearings was not
embarassing risk manager was not
overwhelming faculty vote of no-confidence was not
faculty senate resolution of no-confidence was not
repeated cost of lawsuits was not
inability to muster support for the bond issue was not
constant hype, and spins, and lies was not
rankings drop was not
turnover of hundreds of faculty was not

Certainly there are more examples but STUDENTS, PARENTS, ALUMNI, FRIENDS this is the one that should shake you from any lethargy and ambivalence. This is not an internal power struggle; this is not a clash of strategies; this is not a disagreement about leadership styles; this is the academic future of your university. If you havn't been involved before, then now is the time to make your voice heard and to say Shelby Thames must go. Shelby Thames CANNOT solve this problem no matter what he promises to the IHL or to the media. He cannot because he has shown himself to be unwilling to use the rich, but diminishing, resources within the university - the faculty leadership.

Date: Dec 10, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"CoST faculty,
That leaves one alternative: USM needs the kind of president who comes in from the outside to rescue seriously troubled universities. In essence, it needs to be put in receivership (the academic kind, not the business kind).
"

This is absolutely correct. Unfortunately, I doubt that the IHL board is smart enough to see beyond the borders of the state, and at this point I would not trust them to appoint someone capable of addressing the problems. That they seem behind Shelby even now is incredibly frightening.

Great post, Anne Wallace, as usual.

Date: Dec 10, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Newgirl
"Interesting take COST faculty. So SACS is to Thames like Iraq is to Bush. "Don't change presidents during a war." Interesting, but I hope we don't lose both Iraq and SACS."

interesting thoughts about leaving shelby in place to get thru this "little" problem, but i always remember what one of my sage usm professors told me while i was pleading my case for to get my grade changed "your actions in the past dont inspire confidence in the future"

Date: Dec 10, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Anne Wallace
"COST Faculty, I think this is about shared governance. Isn't the problem, the core of SFT's bad management, that he doesn't consult the people who know what to do--and/or fires them? The reorganization took out the Deans who were in place when we began working on the last SACS recommendations. Their staffs almost always went with them. Offices were closed and shuffled all over campus, with valuable staff moved or dismissed. Other valuable staff (for instance Linda McFall!) and faculty (Susan Malone!!!) quite rightly fled as fast as they could. SFT dismissed and appointed and dismissed again and shuffled . . . and in the end, as someone put it in this week's AAUP meeting, there was no one minding the store.
...
"

Anne,

You've shown how being put on probation by SACS is a consequence of Thames' contempt for shared governance--even if shared governance is never once mentioned in any of SACS' findings.

Clemson University has many pockets of dysfunctional management. But every administration here has understood that real commitment and careful organization are vital if the mountain of reports required by SACS is to be generated in a timely fashion. Every department has to be involved in the process, and a significant portion of what is in the reports has to come from faculty members who know their own programs, and are in a position to collect further data about them if needed.

By contrast, a handful of departments at Clemson (out of approximately 50 total) are so badly managed that their programs have failed reviews by the (South Carolina) Commission on Higher Education or by more specialized accrediting bodies, such as NCATE.

If you were to take the least competent, most tyrannical department chair at Clemson and elevate that person to the presidency, we might begin to approximate what you have been living through at USM.

Robert Campbell