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Post Info TOPIC: Gulf Park Library in Jeopardy
insurgent x

Date:
Gulf Park Library in Jeopardy
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Message Circulating on the Faculty Senate List


 


 Fellow Senators:

A document has surface  at Gulf Park detailing a very elaborate plan to
do extensive renovation to the top floor of the new Gulf Park Library
Building to create a new conference center.  The detailed design
drawings show the virtual elemination of the third floor stacks area
containing the main book collection and study area for students at Gulf
Park.

The new conference center will serve a specialty program "The Executive
MBA" which will be a hybrid online and weekend program.....We do not
need new classroom space to accomodate a weekend program at Gulf Park. 
The new degree expects to enroll 28 persons per year and needs
"premium"  space.

We and the Coast community struggled for many years for a decent
library here. The battle for that building was long and hard. That teaching
and learning tool was built to ALA standards for a 2500 student campus and
to support a new four year program and anticipated new bachelors degree
programs on the Coast.  This sacred building is now apparently to be
torn up in the interests of  a 28 student graduate hybrid program.---for
weekend use only!!!

The committee who concocted this plan of destruction had NO FACULTY
SERVING ON IT.   Ken Malone chaired the committee, and four technical
people from physical plant and ITech on the Coast served with three
architectural consultants.   Is it normal that a faculty is deeply
involved in planning a building that is an important academic tool, and
that that building is then torn up with NO FACULTY input?    I admit
that I know longer know the meaning of  normal after thirty years in
this business.  The better question would be "is this good
instructionally.?"

The Gulf Parl library building has serious implications for the
integrity of our four-year instructional program on the Coast.  I think
we are flirting with new accreditation problems when we devote vast
community and faculty effort to a tool for instruction, and then let
one man take that tool away without debate.

This is a grave  mistake for USM on the Coast.  It seems that if we
have  any old fashioned commitment to doing the right thing instructionally
in this institution, we are destined to be batted from pillar to post
almost daily.   Our organization is being run by people that have no
experience of  running a school and no appreciation for basic teaching
and learning processes.

I would invite the Senate to lodge a protest about the destruction of 
crucial  library facilities at Gulf Park without faculty and student
input....and without community input,----this was THE Building needed
to make a four year program feasible ---that was what Board members told
Coast 21 not 5 years ago!!!!

J. Pat Smith



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Anne Wallace

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A later message on the FacSen listserve from a librarian added to this picture a bit: the change is being described as "temporary," since apparently they plan to build (? I may have garbled this--renovated some other spot? sorry) a facility to be permanently dedicated to this "program."

But of course many things that are initiated with the promise that they're temporary become permanent. In my home state of Kansas the state government swore that the moment the highway was paid for the toll booths would come down. They're still there, almost 20 years after the payoff, doing a rousing business. And once the library moves the books out of third floor and can accommodate them elsewhere, it's not unlikely that this "temporary" facility will become permanent.

As a colleague pointed out to me today, the new library is beautiful and much larger than it needs to be for the current collection. Of course it was built in expectation that Gulf Part would open its four-year programs and would enhance its library accordingly. But if the powers that (unfortunately) be are planning to go to a heavily if not wholly online format, then of course there would be few residential students and an excellent excuse to slight the libraries.

It still staggers me that any academic, especially one of SFT's purported standing, would be so dismissive of our libraries. To call what's happening "erosion" would be an understatement.

NO QUARTER.
Anne Wallace

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insurgent x

Date:
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Also circulating on the Faculty Senate List


Fellow Senators:

Speaking from, and maybe for, the Coast about the plans for Gulf Park's
library,let me be absolutely clear: Three years (the projected period for exclusive use of the 3rd floor of the Library by the "Executive MBA" program) is UNACCEPTABLE. Absolutely
unacceptable. Three weeks would be too much. Three days. 

Not only are the conclusions about the shifting of the stacks deeply flawed, but, more importantly, there are values at stake here. As anyone knows who's been there, the third floor of the GP Library is an absolute architectural jewel, a spacious loft full of books and light and air, and, as such, a living symbol of USM's committment to higher education on the Coast and to humanistic values generally. These are important, almost sacred committments, committments to our community and our vocation; they MUST be honored.

It would be sheer travesty, sacriliege, to pull the books out of the third floor--books that I and other GP faculty and professional staff moved into that space ourselves, with sweat and hand trucks--and give over the best public space in the University to some specious, self-designated "elite" that's dedicated to the sanctification of money grubbing, avarice and greed. That will not pass. Senators, we need to be sure we know the facts about the plans for the GP Library, but if they are as Barton Spencer intimated, I, for one, will resist them with every resource at my disposal.

Will Watson



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Abomination

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The Hattiesburg library is also being nibbled away. The addition of the new Starbucks, at the expense of student study space, is to be deplored. And at any "world-class" library it's unheard-of to allow patrons to take their coffee and snacks right into the rest of library; yet, here at USM, anything, anytime, anywhere for a buck.

I, for one, will never spend a cent in that Starbucks. Vote with your feet.


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USM Sympathizer

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I guess it's hoping for too much to hope that the Sun Herald will finally take a position contradictory to that of the USM administration?  Surely there must be support in the community and student body for leaving the library alone?  Or are both of these assumptions naive?

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FireShelby

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We can't afford to buy new books, and the old ones will be covered with coffee stains and pastry crumbs. 


I also refuse to spend any money in there.



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Bakunin's Ghost

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stronger measures are now called for than the effete boycotting of starbucks: it's time to get disobedient; bring out the monkeywrenches, gang, the black cat stencils, the chalk and aeresol cans, the high carbon chains and kryptonite bicycle locks, the legal defense fund, the mass arrest instruction workshop: only civil disobedience is going to dramatize the tyranny and idiocy of the dome enough to get folks attention. look to it, at USM the time is now!

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Fine Point

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quote:

Originally posted by: insurgent x

" Three years (the projected period for exclusive use of the 3rd floor of the Library by the "Executive MBA" program) is UNACCEPTABLE. Absolutelyunacceptable. "


Not to get this thread off topic because it is really about the library, but:


There is NO approved "Executive MBA" on the coast or elsewhere.  Any chance that we're talking about the "Executive Master's program in Economic Development"?  I don't know if that one is approved either.



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foot soldiers

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The barbarians have passed the gates. They are raping and pillaging. Arm yourselves.

I am generally not a violent person, but I think it is time we crush Ken Malone under a stack of large atlases and unabridged dictionaries.

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Reporter

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quote:

Originally posted by: USM Sympathizer

"I guess it's hoping for too much to hope that the Sun Herald will finally take a position contradictory to that of the USM administration?  Surely there must be support in the community and student body for leaving the library alone?  Or are both of these assumptions naive?"

USM Sympathizer, I wonder if the people are even aware of what's going on down there.  They won't be getting the information from the S.H. unless it is very positive news.  If Kevin Walters of H.A. picks up on this maybe the Clarion Ledger will pick it up, but I have my doubts about the S.H.  Maybe people at Gulf Park can get the word out to the public.  But would S.H. even entertain letters on this.   Oh, I just remembered that S.H. has the "Sound Off" besides the letters.  That is where we need to head to get the word out.  "SOUND OFF!!!

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Angeline

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quote:

Originally posted by: Bakunin's Ghost

"stronger measures are now called for than the effete boycotting of starbucks: it's time to get disobedient; bring out the monkeywrenches, gang, the black cat stencils, the chalk and aeresol cans, the high carbon chains and kryptonite bicycle locks, the legal defense fund, the mass arrest instruction workshop: only civil disobedience is going to dramatize the tyranny and idiocy of the dome enough to get folks attention. look to it, at USM the time is now! "

Stronger measures indeed!  Others can keep writing letters, sending emails, and so on (and there is a place for that) but it is time to lay our bodies in the gears of the machine and bring it to a halt.  Can we say "spontaneous" one-day walkout, uh, I mean sickday?  Can we say refusing to serve on accreditation committees?  Can we say public protest/teach-in?  Can we say enough is enough?  After we can say it, let's do it!

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insurgent x

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Just posted on the GC-Faculty List under title "Message to Malone about Library"


Ken:

Given your silence,(I asked Malone for details about the Library conversion last
night, Will W.) I thought I'd mention that tomorrow morning in my English
102 class--a class in argument and persuasive writing--I am going to offer my
students the option to respond, as part of a formal assignment, to your plan to
convert the library into a conference center for your MA program. I'll use
Pat's description of it and add some relatively mild inferrences of my own.
Students, about 18 of them, would respond to this topic in their first essay.
Because their assignment will be to argue for or against the planned
conversion, discussion of your plan would be entirely consistent with the aims
of English 102, which is a class where I, and many of my colleagues, frame
writing assignments in terms provided by community debates. The other two
assignment options will concern the recent fracas over high rise condominiums
in Long Beach--the classic economic development versus quality of life
paradox--and the recent revelation that the No Child Left Behind Act mandates
that public high schools provide students' personal information to armed forces
recruiters.

Have a nice day,

Will Watson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English


 



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truth4usm/AH

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quote:

Originally posted by: insurgent x

"  Just posted on the GC-Faculty List under title "Message to Malone about Library" Ken:Given your silence,(I asked Malone for details about the Library conversion lastnight, Will W.) I thought I'd mention that tomorrow morning in my English102 class--a class in argument and persuasive writing--I am going to offer mystudents the option to respond, as part of a formal assignment, to your plan toconvert the library into a conference center for your MA program. I'll usePat's description of it and add some relatively mild inferrences of my own.Students, about 18 of them, would respond to this topic in their first essay.Because their assignment will be to argue for or against the plannedconversion, discussion of your plan would be entirely consistent with the aimsof English 102, which is a class where I, and many of my colleagues, framewriting assignments in terms provided by community debates. The other twoassignment options will concern the recent fracas over high rise condominiumsin Long Beach--the classic economic development versus quality of lifeparadox--and the recent revelation that the No Child Left Behind Act mandatesthat public high schools provide students' personal information to armed forcesrecruiters.Have a nice day,Will Watson, Ph.D.Associate Professor of English  "

Go, Will Watson!  Awesome!  This is the kind of thing that faculty need to start doing...

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Will Watson

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Gee, Thanks, Truth4USM! Don't want to come off all egomaniacal or anything, but at this very late hour--both literally and figuratively--it occurs to me that maybe certain topical questions of governance, fiscal policy, academic freedom, and the nature of the University should now become course matter and assignment topics in every class in our University. How hard would that be?


Let's jam on this idea. Brainstorm. Saul Alinsky, in "Rules for Radicals", a very useful text, (Saul built the "Back of the Yards" collective in South Chicago in the 40's, a model for neighborhood organizers everywhere), says that one of the best ways workplace activists can unsettle elites is by doing the very thing the elites task the workers with doing. Sound paradoxical? Well, Alinsky gives the example of O'Hare airport janitors caught in a union busting drive who decided that the best restrooms to be cleaned were those directly adjacent to the gates of arriving flights. Their reasoning was that by closing those restrooms for cleaning they would be forcing hundreds of deplaning passengers in dire need of bladder relief to hot foot it a few hundred yards to the next john, causiong constrnation and confusion, but fulfilling their job descriptions to the letter. After a few days of non-stop customer complaints, and concourses full of passengers on the verge of "accidents", management called off the union busters and recognized the results of the NLRB election held the next week. Yet all the janitors were doing was their jobs: cleaning the cans.


If da dome wants us to shut up and teach, well . . . I leave youse to your own conclusions


 



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PO'd

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I give up on this school....GP is the red headed stepchild of USM and we don't expect anything less from them anymore. I do have to say I LOVE the third floor, it is my favorite place to study. What is wrong with a room in the AEC??

Dr. Watson, I doubt anyone else will follow your lead, but we sure wish they would. By the way, loved your class last summer!!

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libraries rise and fall

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This plan has been in the works since June 2004.


The curse of a beautiful library is the lust of others to use the space for their own purposes.



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Left (formerly Leaving Soon)

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Originally posted by: Bakunin's Ghost
"stronger measures are now called for than the effete boycotting of starbucks: it's time to get disobedient; bring out the monkeywrenches, gang, the black cat stencils, the chalk and aeresol cans, the high carbon chains and kryptonite bicycle locks, the legal defense fund, the mass arrest instruction workshop: only civil disobedience is going to dramatize the tyranny and idiocy of the dome enough to get folks attention. look to it, at USM the time is now!

Originally posted by: Angeline

"Stronger measures indeed!  Others can keep writing letters, sending emails, and so on (and there is a place for that) but it is time to lay our bodies in the gears of the machine and bring it to a halt.  Can we say "spontaneous" one-day walkout, uh, I mean sickday?  Can we say refusing to serve on accreditation committees?  Can we say public protest/teach-in?  Can we say enough is enough?  After we can say it, let's do it!"


My first response is "By all means, DO IT!" But unfortunately, if only the faculty do it, the public (or at least the anti-intellectual idiots among them, and many there seem to be) will have just one more reason to condemn "those professors."

Who would be willing to step forward? If a day and time were announced for more dramatic sorts of protest than we have thus far seen, would there be sufficient response from alumni and friends of USM (including former faculty) within reasonable travel distance to make it work? What do you think?


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Andy

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Where is the Concerned Students group that did so much last year?  I've heard nothing about them this year.  Does it still exist?



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Shirley Knott

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Is the "28" a hypothetical number?  Are there really 28 students out there who have been LIED TO and told that the University of Southern Mississippi offers an executive MBA program? 



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Views

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quote:

Originally posted by: FireShelby

"We can't afford to buy new books, and the old ones will be covered with coffee stains and pastry crumbs.  I also refuse to spend any money in there."


Alternately, how much difference is there between this situation and people sitting at home, reading books that are checked out, while chewing on cookies and drinking Rock Star Energy Drink? That could wind up in the books too, and the libraries send many books home with students each week.


You have a point, but dangers exist no matter where the books (and coffee drinkers) are.



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Will Watson

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I'm not sure where that number--"28"--came from. It might have some sort of Kabbalic "executive mba" significance unknowable to the unititiated. Remind me to ask Madonna the next time we channel Howard Hughes together. On a more mundane note, I have a number of copies of "the plan", forcefully entitled "Gulf Park Library 3rd Floor Modifications for the Executive MBA Education and Conference Center (Long Beach, MS: The University of Southern Mississippi: November 2004). If anyone would like to peruse one I'll be at the Faculty Senate Meeting tomorrow. I'm using them as a case study in institutional rhetoric for my English 102 class.


The administration, in the trembling, apoplectic person of Jay Grimes, today claimed that this plan was, indeed, thoroughly vetted by the faculty. Strange how the Gulf Park Library Director, Ed McCormick, told me today that he had never seen it and that discussions of the plan to convert the library, discussions held by the Gulf Coast Planning Committee last year, had been confined to "theoretical" and "speculative" critiques of the idea.


You know, you would think that if Ken Malone and Co. were going to effect such a sweeping renovation of the Ed McCormick's Library they would have at least brought him in on the ground floor. Yet, he isn't even cited as a member of the "Project Pklanning Committee" (5). No librarian is thus cited. Nor any real professor, unless one counts Ken Malone. I guess that those "speculations" by the Planning Committee were, in the distorted, self-serving view of our august administration, tatamount to consultations with the entire academic side of the University. Ed tells me that as many as two other faculty members sometimes attended these meetings, although he could only remember seeing either of them once. Maybe the administration operates under the principle of "silence gives consent." 



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Curmudgeon

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quote:
Originally posted by: Views

"
Alternately, how much difference is there between this situation and people sitting at home, reading books that are checked out, while chewing on cookies and drinking Rock Star Energy Drink? That could wind up in the books too, and the libraries send many books home with students each week.
You have a point, but dangers exist no matter where the books (and coffee drinkers) are.
"


The biggest difference is the roaches end up at your house. Mixing food and drink with the stacks is a bad idea.

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COB faculty

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As a member of the business school faculty I can tell you that no EMBA program has been developed or discussed by the faculty.  There are no plans for an EMBA program under development by business school faculty.  There is no mention in any of our strategic planning documents about an EMBA program.  If there are plans for an EMBA program it is a clear violation of SACS and AACSB standards.  This information needs to be sent to IHL board members and the  commisioner.  I hope the Graduate Council has not approved a business program that was not submitted from the B school. 



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views

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quote:

Originally posted by: Curmudgeon

" The biggest difference is the roaches end up at your house. Mixing food and drink with the stacks is a bad idea."

That's where good sanitation (good custodians) comes into play. If that job is done, there is less effect, no? I don't think there is going to be any toleration of food and drink remnants left lying around for the roaches, but that depends on several different people doing their jobs well.

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Googler

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quote:

Originally posted by: COB faculty

". . .If there are plans for an EMBA program it is a clear violation of SACS and AACSB standards. . . "

How can an EMBA program be a clear violation of AACSB standards when the AACSB-accredited Wharton School at Penn is recognized as having one of the best EMBA programs in the world? http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mbaexecutive/

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CoB Faculty

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Googler - thanks for pointing out my lack of clarity.  An EMBA program is not a problem.  An EMBA program that is developed without involving the business school is a violation of AACSB standards.  I believe an EMBA program developed without faculty input is a violation of SACS standards.  An EMBA program that is designed and delivered by non-qualified faculty (in this case persons with a PhD in business [SACS] making intellectual contributions in refereed outlets [AACSB]) is just a world class "Uniquely Southern Mess!"

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stephen judd

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quote:

Originally posted by: Googler

"How can an EMBA program be a clear violation of AACSB standards when the AACSB-accredited Wharton School at Penn is recognized as having one of the best EMBA programs in the world? http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mbaexecutive/"


Googler: I suspect the COB faculty member cites this as a violation because this might be an academic program that has been created not only without faculty input but even perhaps the knowlege of the faculty of the College that might be administering it.


Faculty cannot be said to have control of academics if these kinds of things happen. If these kinds of thing happen there is no such thing as shared governance either -- and that runs completely counter to what our proposective Strategic Plan says USM claims about its belief in shared governance.


 


 



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stephen judd

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quote:

Originally posted by: CoB Faculty

"Googler - thanks for pointing out my lack of clarity.  An EMBA program is not a problem.  An EMBA program that is developed without involving the business school is a violation of AACSB standards.  I believe an EMBA program developed without faculty input is a violation of SACS standards.  An EMBA program that is designed and delivered by non-qualified faculty (in this case persons with a PhD in business [SACS] making intellectual contributions in refereed outlets [AACSB]) is just a world class "Uniquely Southern Mess!""

sorry to get in the way COB Fac -- we seem to have responded at the same time.

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CoB Faculty

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Thank you Dr. Judd.  It appears that we interpret the standards in a similar manner!

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stinky cheese man

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i just talked to someone with institutional memory. several years ago there was an attempt to develop an MBA program on the coast for those at Stennis, etc. (won't tell you the developer). it may not have been called an "executive" program, but it was designed to faciliate those working business people who desired an MBA. but folks, lots of prestigious (sp?) business programs have such programs.

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