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USM Forum -- Message Board -> AAUP-USM MESSAGE BOARD -> Don’t replace the president; replace the faculty
Post Info TOPIC: Don’t replace the president; replace the faculty
Qbert

Date:
Don’t replace the president; replace the faculty
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For the reasons below, I call on all students to start a letter- writing campaign to the IHL and to the Hattiesburg American to have more USM instructors replaced with younger, eager, more progressive, and pro-student instructors.


 


The current faculty, along with some former, vindictive faculty and staff, have taken it upon themselves to remove our president from office. The great sadness in this is that the president actually cares about USM and the students. He wants to advance USM and to compete with other colleges and universities, something only a modicum of the aging faculty knows how to do and wants to do. These faculty are not just anti-Thames, they are anti-USM and anti-student.  The majority of the faculty do not care how much they embarrass USM or how much they decrease the value of a USM degree with their petty, back-door, unethical tactics to oust our president.  They do not care one bit that the students are caught in the middle.


 


Most of the faculty are old and complacent. They are out of touch with the USM students and with researchers and scholars in other universities. Such people obviously will oppose any type of change, no matter how much it will improve USM and increase the value of a USM degree.  These faculty want to make their job as easy as possible.  They already had a very easy job, but Thames came along and made them start working for the betterment of the student and USM.  Unfortunately, they do not want to put forth any effort to help advance USM or to help increase the value of a USM degree.  They want only to preserve the status quo. 


 


Please start a letter- writing campaign to the IHL and to the Hattiesburg American to have more USM instructors replaced with younger, eager, more progressive, and pro-student instructors. You the students will be better people for it.


 


Thank you.



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Robert Campbell

Date:
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Qbert,


If you are really a USM student--and your name is not Walt Cain--you need to explain how loss of accreditation is going to "move USM forward" or enhance the value of your degree.


For loss of accreditation is what Shelby Thames is going to bring you, if he remains in power.


Robert Campbell



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LVN

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RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the facul
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Oh, now you reveal yourself.
Sweetie, the kind of professors you are talking about wouldn't come here for anything. Young exciting professors go places where they have shared goverance (for starters) and appreciation for their fields of study (English, history, the arts, nursing, etc.) Dr. Thames has been busy killing these fields, in case you haven't noticed.

The reason you see so many "old" faculty is that by a certain point in the career people are not free to move -- they have tenure, they are close to retirement, they have other ties and obligations that make them unable to pack up and go. Even so, many of the best are gone or going. The young, vigorous and mobile are gone or going.

It's obvious from your post that you do not understand academic life. As for "embarrassing" USM, well -- Gary Stringer was such an embarrassment that Texas A&M just hired him out of the goodness of their hearts, didnt' they?

But don't worry -- dear Dr. Thames will make sure that pretty soon we won't have anyting to be embarrassed about.

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NKOB

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RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the faculty
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Qbert, I am so impressed with your blind praise of Shelby Thames.


Library hasn't got money to buy more books and to continue subscriptions of professional journals. In fact, we have been canceling subscriptions of important journals. Instead, it's got a fancy coffee shop down on the first floor. Is that how your president cares about you and USM?


USM's national ranking has been dropped from tier 3 (where Ole Miss and MSU belong to) to tier 4 (the bottom rank). Best of all, USM's accreditation is in great danger. Is this your definition of betterment that Shelby Thames is bringing to you?


Your president do not allow us to hire real scholars who can bring you and teach you new and fresh knowledge. Instead we can hire only some pseudo-scholars who can work on grant proposals or military funded projects that USM already has committed to. These people do not even teach. As a result, currrent professors' ended up teaching more courses. I care about my students so much and I want to spend more time for my students. But I can afford only a very limited time for them. Does this also belong to your definition of betterment for students?


I forgot to tell you. I am a young and eager faculty member and I am leaving. I see no hope under this regime but forthcoming disaster and chaos that Shelby Thames would bring to you.


You should appreciate those faculty members whom you referred to as "old and complacement". Becasue they are the ones who remain here and try to save USM and students including your pathetic a*s.


Replace them by younger and progressive instructors? The only people you could get under these circumstances are under qualified people who desperately need jobs. Maybe you can hire people from William Carey or U. of Pheonix with online degrees. My salary doe not even reach the average of the South, I haven't got a raise, worked like a slave yet being treated like a piece of sh*t, becasue I am a scholar who does "useless (meaning: not $$ generating)" pure basic research. So, why any young promising scholar would come to USM if he or she has a chance to go elsewhere. H*ll, wake up! You won't be able to replace current decent faculty members by anyone better than them.      



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Educational Pyramid Scheme

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The "young and progressive" faculty being referred to got their degrees from...you guessed it...USM...where we offer a PhD program so we can hire our own to teach to our own.



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Robert Campbell

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RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the facul
Permalink Closed

Qbert,

Let me add that unless you happen to be majoring in Polymer Science, Shelby Thames does not care whether you get a quality education. He wants to separate as many undergraduates and their families from as many tuition dollars as he can get, so he can spend them on administration, and on a few programs that enjoy his favor.

Those USM professors who remain committed to teaching their students--and despite his efforts to chase them off, there are still many of them--are making their commitments in spite of Shelby Freland Thames, not because of him.

Robert Campbell

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truth4usm/AH

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Qbert
"
The current faculty, along with some former, vindictive faculty and staff, have taken it upon themselves to remove our president from office. "


If only it were this easy!



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Angeline

Date:
RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the faculty
Permalink Closed

Folks: this thread is good news - it sounds as if SFT is finally getting desperate to keep his job and is shelling out the money to have people publicly support him.  I see this as a good sign . . . the times they are a changin'.


"I forgot to tell you. I am a young and eager faculty member and I am leaving. I see no hope under this regime but forthcoming disaster and chaos that Shelby Thames would bring to you."


Yep, me too.  I hope that we all get the news in the next few weeks that we are hoping for and can say goodbye to this place once and for all and resume our careers at a real institution of higher learning.



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asdf

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I think it is funny that your main complaint is the lack of teaching quality, but clearly, Thames does not value teaching.  If you are not producing grant-supported research, you are assigned more classes to teach.  The more students you have to teach (whether in more sections or larger sections), the less individual attention the instructor can give.  If quality of your individual class interactions is the most important criteria you are gauging USM on, then Thames is not your man to improve this.

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stinky cheese man

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RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the facul
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hippie reporting for duty. had hair to my waist. "farm out." "right arm."

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Reporter

Date:
RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the faculty
Permalink Closed


quote:




Originally posted by: Qbert
" ...The current faculty, along with some former, vindictive faculty and staff, have taken it upon themselves to remove our president from office." ...


No Qbert.  The faculty have provided the IHL Board and the public with their professional opinion of SFT's performance.  They have professional and moral obligation to do this. The IHL Board will decide if they will follow the doctors' advice.  Some informed members of the community have also written letters providing reasons why SFT is not doing a good job.  Maybe you are confused by the spin put out by SFT's PR department and think this is just a "political" game and everyone can have their own opinion.  Sorry it doesn't work that way.  There are professional guidelines for how administrators must perform.  Violating these rules results in problems with SACS and other accrediting bodies.  If you are a SFT supporter you may need a business model to understand.   It's like the CEO cooking the books and the IRS finding out. 



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foot soldier

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Permalink Closed

Gosh this is refreshing. It has been a while since we've had a good troll. Look at the wonderful quantity and quality of the responses from the board. Congrats, everyone. As usual I am proud to be able to read your comments.

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Amy Young

Date:
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As a child who came of age in the early 70's, I guess I'm a hippie,too.


Invictus, you got farm out, right arm, but forgot "out of state"


Amy Young



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Mid-life crisis

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Qbert
"Please start a letter- writing campaign to the IHL and to the Hattiesburg American to have more USM instructors replaced with younger, eager, more progressive, and pro-student instructors.
Qbert - your age-related comments sound like you might be the "younger, eager, more progressive" student who looked out the window of his moving automobile on campus and yelled at me from across the street "Get out of the way, old man, get the h*ll out of the way - I'm late for class." I do hope you got to class on time, young man, and I do hope you learned lots from some inexperienced green-behind-the-ears instructor reading lecture notes copied from a textbook.

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Cossack

Date:
RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the facul
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It is difficult to tell if Qbert is serious or game playing. Nonetheless, I will take an opportunity to add to the many thoughtful responses this post has generated. First, prior to the present administration, USM was run, governed is more appropriate, much the same as Ole Miss and Mississippi State. Faculty were involved and the Universities mainly were focused academically on the activities of providing students an up-to-date curriculum, producing research that was peer reviewed, and serving on the many committees, whose tasks were to govern the academic side of the university. Ole Miss and Mississippi State still follow this model. The only administration in Mississippi that has adopted the Thames model is USM. Either the Thames model is wrong, or you would recommend that Ole Miss and Mississippi State adopt the same model. It will not happen because the Presidents of these two institutions know that it would destroy their universities.

Your bravado in claiming that we should be replaced with young faculty more to your liking, and President Thames' liking, suggests that you have given no thought to the dynamics of employment at a university. The new faculty would all be untenured and rookies, new blood as it were, and Thames could coerce them in to doing what he wants. However, that avenue is a catch 22. If the new faculty did what Thames wanted, their career would suffer, as would their future income. They would not be able to move to another job and would be stuck here. The ones that are left would not teach well, research well, or provide leadership. Those who did not want to stay would produce peer reviewed research and leave. Those who remained would grow jaded and angry, and hunker down dong the least amount they can get by with. You would have bad teaching and no research and a university full of bad attitudes.

It would behoove you to investigate further what is involved in being a "good faculty member", that is, a faculty member that another university would both interview and hire. Since you have never taken the time to check, and likely do not have a clue how to check, you can be forgiven for not knowing that a preponderance of the faculty at USM are professionally active in their disciplines. Many of us have published in the top journals and books in our fields. Our work is cited by faculty at the top universities in the U.S. and in the world. We are rightfully proud of our accomplishments and we chafe under the unidirectional path we are on that is anti intellectual and destructive to the university. Because we are involved so deeply in our disciplines, we bring both insight and enthusiasm to our teaching. Insight and enthusiasm that would not be possible with low paid faculty who would be at USM because they are not capable of being hired at other schools.

One last note, if athletic coaches used the model currently being used with faculty, they would not produce winning teams. In athletics and in academics, it requires leadership to produce winners. You cannot whip people into high performances. Freedom and leadership are necessary conditions for success in any group endeavor.

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Maybe I'm Amazed

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RE: Don’t replace the president; replace the faculty
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What continues to amaze me by posters like the above who blame all the USM faculty and support President Thames, is that Thames is one PhD....who came from the faculty....so we have one PhD on one side...and how many on the other side who are saying something entirely different?!?!  Who's advice would you take...one MD who says you need risky, major surgery; or several hundred other MDs who are all saying something else???

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LeavingASAP

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Qbert
"...  Most of the faculty are old and complacent. .."

Oopps! Obert where did you obtain the demographics of the USM faculty?  Did you research this, hear SFT say this at a rally of business supports, or what?  To say this you would not only have to know the distribution of ages of the faculty, but also have access to their annual evaluations to imply they aren't productive.  Verrrry interesting...



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Advocate

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Qbert sounds an awful lot like Lonnie Knight.  Lonnie wrote the letter to the HA saying Thames should stay and his detractors should go.

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Robert Campbell

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But Knight's letter was all of 2 sentences long.


RC



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Albert

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Back to the top. Courtesy of Robert Campbell and the Webmaster.



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