Faculty Senate Vote - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Feb 2, 2005

RE: Faculty Senate Vote

Date: Feb 2, 2005

David Beckett's interview tonight on WDAM was excellent. David very eloquently stated that the Senate did not use the words "no confidence"; by virtue of that comment, he implied (forcefully, I might add), that the implicit meaning of the vote was no confidence. Well done, Dave!

Date: Feb 2, 2005

I applaud the courage that the current USM Faculty Senate showed with this vote. All of you are to be commended.

Quite simply, NO FREAKIN' QUARTER!!!!

Date: Feb 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: thenextstateover
"Not only SFT, but remove DANA, Malone, Mader, Grimes, Lassen, and others I may have temporarily forgotten. "

You mean all the "psychophants."

Date: Feb 3, 2005

Congrats to the Faculty Senate, and best wishes to ALL the good folks at USM!

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: 1/USMTTT
"David Beckett's interview tonight on WDAM was excellent. David very eloquently stated that the Senate did not use the words "no confidence"; by virtue of that comment, he implied (forcefully, I might add), that the implicit meaning of the vote was no confidence. Well done, Dave!"

It's clear that the FS is trying the "good cop" approach this time. That seemed to be the faculty consensus. If it fails to impress the IHL, it will be time for the rubber hose. In Viet Nam era terms, it may be necessary to destroy the village to save it.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

An important observation about the FS vote is the natural turnover in that body. Many senators are new this year, but the view of reality remains unchanged. Similarly, there are about 100 new faculty on campus as compared to last spring and yet the faculty's assessment of the situation remains unchanged.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

Bravo Faculty Senate!!! You all continue to follow your conscience, and I applaud you for that.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Rachel Quinlivan
"Bravo Faculty Senate!!! You all continue to follow your conscience, and I applaud you for that."

Great to hear from you Rachel. I hope Gary and Frank read the board today. It's becoming a regular family reunion.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Rock Solid
"An important observation about the FS vote is the natural turnover in that body. Many senators are new this year, but the view of reality remains unchanged. Similarly, there are about 100 new faculty on campus as compared to last spring and yet the faculty's assessment of the situation remains unchanged."

What you find with new faculty and with new senators is that there is a similarity in thought - this is not the right president for this university, and a new president could do much toward bringing the whole campus together for true unified action.

The SACS situation is not in danger because the faculty are at odds with Thames, but because Thames and his administration have never chosen to engage the faculty and staff and students as SACS REQUIRES.

No matter what the public and alumni have thought before, they can surely understand that this administration has neglected accreditation issues and if we lose accreditation, the exodus of students and faculty will be enormous. There will be no reason to stay behind at Southern Miss Community College.

That is what we need to stress over and over again. Thames and his people have put us on probation and may well lead us into non-compliance in the next SACS round.

Thames..... leave, please leave. There is not a single faculty member that would state "four more years" on your behalf. Not one. They may not want a "no confidence" vote for a number of reasons, but not a single one of them wants you around for four more years. Of that, you can be sure.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

let me begin with saying that i believe Thames need to leave as president, and the sooner the better. that said, and i know i'll get beat up over what i'm about to say, but i'm a big boy. i get very concerned about statements like the following:

"No matter what the public and alumni have thought before, they can surely understand that this administration has neglected accreditation issues and if we lose accreditation, the exodus of students and faculty will be enormous. There will be no reason to stay behind at Southern Miss Community College.

That is what we need to stress over and over again. Thames and his people have put us on probation and may well lead us into non-compliance in the next SACS round."

first, don't hope for the loss of accreditation (and i'm not saying the statement does, but i've seen other posters wish for such). i don't think it will happen, but no one wants it to happen, even if as one person put it "to win the war we may have to burn the village." we wouldn't be "Southern Miss Community College." we would merely be a shut down university.

second, the thames administration did little (if you think it is less than little then pick your favorite word) to help with SACS. however, as SACS will tell you it is a continuous process. it was supposed to start in 1995. what happened for the years before thames? some of us more familiar with SACS not only wondered about it but asked in years like 97, 98, 99, 00, and so forth. no administration from '95 on really cared. the university as a whole needs to be concerned about accreditation every year. it's time to change how USM thinks about accreditation.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
as SACS will tell you it is a continuous process. it was supposed to start in 1995. what happened for the years before thames? some of us more familiar with SACS not only wondered about it but asked in years like 97, 98, 99, 00, and so forth. no administration from '95 on really cared. the university as a whole needs to be concerned about accreditation every year. it's time to change how USM thinks about accreditation. "

scm: I agree with you that USM needs to take acreditation more seriously and that's been a need for a long time. However, I take exception to your post in a couple of respects:

There was a good bit of attention paid to strategic planning in the Fleming administration. It was a comprehensive and broad-based effort, and while it wasn't perfect, it was a good foundation on which to build. More should have been done at that point, but it wasn't. Then Fleming left and we had a year or so when nothing much got done in the interim between Fleming and Thames.

Then Thames comes in, throws out anything that Fleming had a hand in. He gets a letter in January 03 saying trouble is coming and does nothing. He gets another letter in Jannuary 04 saying trouble is still coming and does nothing. We get slapped with probation in December 04 and everybody's scrambling. We hire all these people and consultants. All of a sudden everybody is working on stuff: assessment plans, core requirements, compliance issues on extremely short deadlines. We're going back and creating stuff that should have been done 2-3 years ago. Now it looks like we may be starting over on strategic planning because the plan we've been handed by the administration is junk.

I BLAME THAMES. If he had paid attention in January 03, we wouldn't be in this predicament now. If he had mandated a proper participative strategic planning process with shared goals, shared vision, and an attempt to get buy-in from all university constituencies, we wouldn't be without a workable strategic plan on the back end of this whole thing.

No, the SACS problems are not entirely his fault, but he squandered an opportunity to save us...all because he wasn't paying attention. That's not the kind of university president I want.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

magnolia--yes, the fleming administration spent time on planning, but little else. there were numerous faculty that didn't like that process feeling like it wasn't inclusive enough. the fleming administration didn't spend enough time on assessment. in fact, the SACS consultant has questioned why the old general education curriculum was changed, due to a member of the fleming administration who serves in the FS, when there was no assessment of the old gen ed curriculum. in fact, i have the memo that was used to "recruit" faculty members for that committee, and it clearly indicates the gen ed curriculum was going to be changed, no matter what. if you couldn't sign on to that agenda, then don't serve. already a SACS no-no.

there are plenty of people to blame for this situation. remember, SACS looks at it over a 10 year period.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
was no assessment of the old gen ed curriculum. in fact, i have the memo that was used to "recruit" faculty members for that committee, and it clearly indicates the gen ed curriculum was going to be changed, no matter whatf

Not meaning to defend the Fleming administration--there were certainly some problems there--but I have a question: didn't the revision of the gen ed core have to do with the need to reduce the hours? Wasn't there some kind of mandate, maybe from IHL?

So much water under that bridge, I just don't remember.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

there may have been some IHL mandate but i don't think so. it was myron henry's mandate. and now we're getting scrutinized about a decision way back then. as i say, the SACS folks look at this over the long term as well as the short term.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"
first, don't hope for the loss of accreditation (and i'm not saying the statement does, but i've seen other posters wish for such). i don't think it will happen, but no one wants it to happen, even if as one person put it "to win the war we may have to burn the village." we wouldn't be "Southern Miss Community College." we would merely be a shut down university.

"

Do you really think that the IHL would walk away from a large state owned campus which includes lots of new buildings and the only senior college in south Mississippi? Wouldn't there be great political pressure from south Mississippi legislators and USM alumni? Isn't it much more likely they would make a serious and sudden attempt to get it reacredited? You may recall they couldn't even close Valley and the W.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Incredulous
"Wouldn't there be great political pressure from south Mississippi legislators and USM alumni?"

I'm afraid the politicians and alumni to whom you refer will have met their match with SACS which does not succumb to political pressure. SACS never joined the old boys club.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

Do you really think that the IHL would walk away from a large state owned campus which includes lots of new buildings and the only senior college in south Mississippi? Wouldn't there be great political pressure from south Mississippi legislators and USM alumni? Isn't it much more likely they would make a serious and sudden attempt to get it reacredited? You may recall they couldn't even close Valley and the W.

no--i don't think the IHL will walk away from USM. it's the reason i've said on numerous threads that i believe we will be reaccredited. but we (the faculty and staff and administration) have to act and work like we want to retain our reaffirmation. the IHL can't do it for us. SACS would tell us that. the institution has to want to keep our accreditation--SACS will look to see what we do to keep it. real simple. for SACS, show us you want to keep it.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Arm Wrestler
"I'm afraid the politicians and alumni to whom you refer will have met their match with SACS which does not succumb to political pressure. SACS never joined the old boys club."

The pressure to which I referred would be on the IHL to save USM.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

Fleming was working on a plan - so was Aubrey K. - Thames threw all of it away when he made a "clean" sweep of positions when he became a littler Napoleon. I'll say it, It truly is SFT's fault that we are on probation. Use your memory from the past few years and don't even begin to think that SFT isn't at the core of our problems.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Incredulous
" The pressure to which I referred would be on the IHL to save USM."

Sorry. I misunderstood.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

Fleming was working on a plan - so was Aubrey K. - Thames threw all of it away when he made a "clean" sweep of positions when he became a littler Napoleon. I'll say it, It truly is SFT's fault that we are on probation. Use your memory from the past few years and don't even begin to think that SFT isn't at the core of our problems.

disagree SCM--i use my memory of the past few years and more years than that--starting in 1995. we have had lots of plans--i have a copy of the faculty/staff newsletter from 1992 when we went through the process. planning is but one part of the process. assessment was supposed to start in 1995 as was evaluation. sorry, i know what the SACS consultant said about assessment in the fleming administration. and please, don't tell me how to use my memory--it's a lot better than so many around here.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

Your sense of history IS better than mine, but tanking SACS is Thame's fault. No one else's. At least everyone else tried to play the game. If I'm wrong, let me know.

Date: Feb 3, 2005

disagree--others failed. as i say, it's a 10 year process. since i know an associate executive director at SACS, i have a sense of how they think about things. they would give you a sobering perspective on things, a little more objective than what's on this site. things that should have started in '95 didn't, and those of us familiar with the process wondered why. and although there looked like progress was happening in the fleming administration, as i said, the gen ed core issue was not consistent with SACS. that's not just my opinion, it was the opinion of many at the time, and it is the judgment of the SACS consultant now.

Date: Feb 4, 2005

You say tuh-may-toe, I say tuh-mah-toe. Let's call the whole thing off.

Was it the last straw that broke the camel's back? Or did every straw contribute equally? Lawyers and doctors might answer differently.

Horace starts a fire out on the lawn. Like a bad boy he leaves it burning. Aubrey stops by for a while, but it's just a little blaze. Along comes Shelby. He has ample access to fire extinguishers; but nobody else has seen the fire, and he is busy moving his fire marshals to positions where they can be more efficient.

In January '03, Shelby gets a warning that the fire has spread, but he is busy making millionaires. In January '04, he gets another warning, but he is busy defending the honor of a fine lady. In December '04, he learns that his whole house is on fire, and all the world now knows about it.

Will SACS say, "Oh, but Horace started this fire"? Or, will they just say, "Your camel is dead and your house has burned down"?

Date: Feb 4, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
assessment was supposed to start in 1995 as was evaluation. sorry, i know what the SACS consultant said about assessment in the fleming administration. and please, don't tell me how to use my memory--it's a lot better than so many around here."

stinky: If assessment was supposed to start in 1995 and didn't and SACS will hammer us for that, then they will burn us now. That's my point. There was a much better opportunity to pull us out in 2002 than there is now in 2005.

Date: Feb 4, 2005

SACS problem with us is long term. Shelby didn't start the fire, but he did little to put it out. And SACS knows both facts. We need to learn from this. I've come to realize how little members of the major governing bodies (graduate council, academic council, FS) know about accreditation. When we get a new president, everyone has to be vigilant about accreditation.

Date: Feb 4, 2005

Then the powers that be need to communicate better with us Lilliputians. How can we help when we are perceived as disposable goods?

Date: Feb 4, 2005

the nice thing about SACS is that the principles of accreditation are out there for all to see. why wait for the powers that be. empower yourself!

Date: Feb 4, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
". . .why wait for the powers that be. empower yourself! "

Good idea!

Who else loves you, baby?