Thames deserves respect - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jan 29, 2005

Thames deserves respect

Date: Jan 29, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: bugged
"Thames raised salaries, he got buidlings built, he is expanding the coast to be a real campus with a growing population of students, he has improved efficiency and cut dead wood from the budget. So, where is the fault in all of that??? He is pulling more money into campus and you gripe? What is with you?"

Quick Henry, the Flit

Date: Jan 29, 2005

From Robert Cambell's Liberty & Power:

"The raises that those professors who remain at USM have received over the last two and a half years are not enough, in most cases, to put them ahead after deducting inflation and the the cost of health insurance. And even if the professors were taking home more money--would it compensate for administrative arbitrariness, plummeting academic reputation, threatened loss of accreditation, crumbling infrastructure, departmental supply budgets dwindling to $0, and a library that can no longer afford to buy a single new book?"

Neither the new dorm nor the International Building were SFT's projects, nor is the new student union. What buildings do you mean??

Date: Jan 29, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: LVN
" Neither the new dorm nor the International Building were SFT's projects, nor is the new student union. What buildings do you mean??"

My dear LVN, the poor troll means the Trent Lott Building, you know, for that economical development program with little to no faculty, no students to speak of........

Date: Jan 29, 2005

Date: Jan 30, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: bugged
"Thames raised salaries, he got buidlings built, he is expanding the coast to be a real campus with a growing population of students, he has improved efficiency and cut dead wood from the budget. So, where is the fault in all of that??? He is pulling more money into campus and you gripe? What is with you?"

Thames raised salaries? BS! He gave a few, as in about 10, hand-picked fellow "researchers," including his daughter, sweetheart "Midas" awards of astronomical sums. A somewhat greater number received a percentage raise of from 2-8%, but the overwhelming majority of the faculty and staff received no raise until the Faculty Senate - not Shelby! - insisted that everyone receive at least $400 extra per year. $400 more a year was not Shelby's idea and does not even come close to covering health insurance cost increases and loss of benefits in other areas.

Buildings? Other than the still under-funded Trent Lott Mausoleum, what building has Shelby initiated? All the others presently in progress or recently finished were already in progress when he became president.

Never, ever trust enrollment numbers put forward by this Administration. Besides, even using their own numbers the growth rate of USM is well below most other state universities in MS.

Improved efficiency? Yeah, right, all the new Administrators and a micro-management style have produced a top-heavy system of massive inefficiency.

Cut dead wood? Created Administrative dead wood is ,ore like it. Never have I seen a school where most of the Administrators not only are unqulaified for their positions - they don't know enough to know that they don't know what they are doing and have no idea what a university is.

So, bugged, got anymore Mader talking points you'd like to discuss?

Date: Jan 30, 2005

Frank Glamser deserves respect; Gary Stringer deserves respect; the Gulf Park library deserves respect; and most of all, integrity and high professional standards deserve respect--I see none of this coming from the Dome!! Respect is something one earns.

Date: Jan 30, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: O Henry

I always wondered what a troll looks like. Now, thanks to the vintage photograph posted by O Henry, I know. But be careful about referencing vintage materials, O Henry, lest LVN conclude you are in a nursing home

Date: Jan 30, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Lots to be learned from the past
"But be careful about referencing vintage materials, O Henry, lest LVN conclude you are in a nursing home"

There is a very famous bit of doggerel suggesting that the difference between universities & nursing homes is a lot smaller than might be suspected on the face of it:

"Where Ma Raney and Beethoven once unwrapped their bed roll
Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole,
And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul
To the old folks home and the college.

I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane,
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge.'

[Dylan, Bob. 1965. "Tombstone Blues," Highway 61 Revisited. New York: Columbia Records.]

Date: Jan 30, 2005

Actually LVN is looking for a good one for herself. But just try to find a good old ladies' home that will let you have your cable modem, a couple of worthless spoiled cats, AND the preferred brand of blue hair rinse! Sigh. Plus, they don't want me wearing a NO QUARTER tee shirt - - -

(Thanks for the Dylan lyrics, Invictus. Those are always great.)

Date: Jan 30, 2005

That is the ONLY time I have ever seen Ma Raney and Beethoven in the same sentence.

Date: Jan 30, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: musicologist
"That is the ONLY time I have ever seen Ma Raney and Beethoven in the same sentence."

Well, for the past 39 years, I haven't been able to hear the name "Ma Raney" without associating it with Beethoven. As the Bard wrote more recently:

George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
"You can't open your mind, boys
To every conceivable point of view."

[Dylan, Bob. 2001. "High Water (For Charley Patton"). Love and Theft. New York: Columbia Records.]

Date: Jan 30, 2005

Ma Rainey and Charley Patton... I see that Bob Dylan still has an affinity for artists who recorded for the Paramount label.

If only their records had been better made, and better preserved.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jan 31, 2005

We musn't forget that Thames has blessed the CISE department with his wonderful darling daughter. Each day the program grows with leaps and bounds and becomes a better place for future teachers to expand their horizons. Now let's all sing Kum Ba Ya and eat Elmer's school paste.

GAG, cough cough

Date: Jan 31, 2005

[threatening comment deleted]

Date: Jan 31, 2005

Go back under your rock, redneck.

Date: Jan 31, 2005

Wow, something someone said must have Bugged WASP.

Date: Jan 31, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: WASP
"

Quick Henry, the Flit!

Date: Jan 31, 2005

Expanding services on the Coast?

What about the fact that education majors now can't take their final French class because it was cancelled? One student is having to take Spanish I in place of French IV.

Raises? Cut deadwood?

With the exception of a few who have good, decent, honest bosses who awarded them properly, only the beloved got decent merit raises. It didn't always matter if they actually did any work. In fact, the deadwood got the biggest raises in my department.

Built new buildings?

Honey, those were in the cards eons ago.

Date: Jan 31, 2005

Date: Jan 31, 2005

Shelby Thames deserves respect? Sure, about as much as is due Dan Rather....

Date: Jan 31, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: WASP
"[threatening comment deleted]"

Sorry. I got here late.

Was WASP clever enough to post "[threatening comment deleted]" or stupid enough to post a threatening comment that really had to be deleted?

Date: Jan 31, 2005

AND thEN there's MISS (Mrs./DR.) dANA gAY tHAMES, !! woo HOO.

"only the beloved got decent merit raises""

Date: Jan 31, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: ram
"
Sorry. I got here late.
Was WASP clever enough to post "[threatening comment deleted]" or stupid enough to post a threatening comment that really had to be deleted?

"

The answer is B.

Date: Jan 31, 2005

Nice polymer science extension building, nice Chic-fil-a (however that is spelled), sushi in the International Building, more golf carts to improve efficient travel for iTech employees and custodians, an innovative basketball coach, an innovative damn-the-torpedoes COO of Cooast Caampus, a MIDAS program to celebrate the brightest and best-est, a budget that ensures no boring library books, a strategic plan that was created by SpongeBob, an administrative body struck with terminal leprosy, an ad for a pilot who must be in search of an institution worthy of a plane, a 600+ faculty that has no confidence in anything this person says, does or represents...................

He does deserve respect. He has power. We respect that power, because we've seen what it can do. We respect it so much that we gather all the might that we can to fight back. We respect his influence so much that we send letters to IHL by what must be thousands during the past few months. We respect how much damage one little man can bring to a nearly-100-year-old institution. Just think, if our madman stays in power, he'll bring us to our 100th anniversary. Will anyone be left to view, with respect, the celebrations scheduled by our favorite little gnome? Will he survive his own nasty little nature that long to even see such a thing happen, as president or not?

Never has a man shone so dim, so frail, and so quaintly in the light of an enlightened faculty and a fantastic long-term past president.

Respectfully yours,

Bugged

Date: Jan 31, 2005

a strategic plan that was created by SpongeBob,

If you know anyone who was on the strategic planning committee a year or so ago, ask them to show you a copy of the plan they were creating when work stopped. It demonstrates understanding of a quality academic environment, with the vision and goals to create and support that environment. That document is light years from the useless, uninspired draft strategic plan that has been circulated by the administration.