In a recent meeting with Faculty Senate officers, I understand that the topic of service was raised--I believe in the context of post tenure review.  It was reported to me that Thames was dismissive of service as an area of evaluation.  I believe his comment was "We don't want faculty to make a career of service."

In the climate that Thames has established--where only faculty positions that can "pay for themselves" will be filled, where the most important criterion for promotion, tenure, and raises is how much money you can bring in, what incentive is there for faculty to participate in all this work that is going to be required to meet SACS standards?  Untenured faculty would be foolish to volunteer for such work, which would take them away from research and grant-writing.

How is Thames going to mobilize the faculty to do this?  Will there be Midas-style financial incentives?  Is that what the $500,000 is for? Or will he fall back on his natural management technique--bludgeoning the underlings into submission?

Leadership implies willing followers.