Amy,

The shell game continues.  The page for the Master's program in Economic and Workforce development was modified February 18 at 7:04 PM!

The sheer ineptitude of this operation would be comical... if it weren't imposing such terrible costs on the university.

Meanwhile, the International Development program still cannot be found under the College of Arts and Letters, or in the Department of Political Science (and whatever else it's supposed to include now), but the faculty listing here

http://www.usm.edu/idv/pages/fac_staff.html

now also deletes any faculty rank for Ken Malone.  It was apparently changed on February 14.

Robert Campbell

PS.  I see that Judson Edwards is once again an Assistant Professor; no Visiting prefix.

Let's get down and dirty on this one.  Rumors around campus are that for the past two weeks the Registrar's Office staff under orders from the Dome have been busy in contact with other "universities" to get into USM's student records "updated" Ken Malone's transcript information. Sources tell of the effort to "redo" his transcripts so it will show what the ED web site shows.  Other sources state that thus far no one in the CoB has been able to verify that he took some of the courses shown on his ED web site vita.  Shelby is attempting to alter KM's transcripts to avoid another Angie D embarrassment about accuracy.  The Registrar's Office staff lives in fear of outsiders finding out they are redoing his transcripts - out with the old and in with the new.  Ken's qualifications to be in ED appear to be the driving factor behind this fast-paced effort to make sure he is qualified. 

No one yet on whether or not SACs is aware of the "changing" of the transcripts.   

These rumors are consistent with those about ED's moving "faculty" around the gameboard.  So the pressure from this board and the faculty in general appear to be having an impact.

No Quarter.

 

 

 

 

     

Whoa, whoa, time out boys - - we are on to something really great here. I'm beginning to see the economic development possibilites in a whole new light. Just think --- hmm, what would it be worth to me to get rid of that pesky D in trig?? How 'bout that C in Reading German (hated that class anyway.) I mean, if they can do it for Ken for free, they could do it for me for a few bucks, right? And for you too!! Somebody needs to jump on this opportunity before some killjoy law enforcement shows up. (It is fraud, isn't it??)

Kick

Check the news, Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide today.

quote:

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Originally posted by: Hunter's Suicide
"Check the news, Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide today."

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And do you think he was driven to it by his despair over the Shelby Thames quagmire?

I just visited the Department of Economic and Workforce Development faculty and staff webpage again.  Ken Malone is back as "professor" and David Butler is gone.  They changed "ecomomic" to "economic" in Cecil Burge's title.  I just can't seem to keep up!

Amy Young

quote:

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Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"Amy, Yes, I see. In fact, the date and time at the bottom show that they changed the page this morning: http://www.usm.edu/ecodev/pages/faculty.htm Do they really want to be referring to Ken Malone as a "Professor" when he has no faculty appointment and holds no faculty rank? Robert Campbell"

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I'm not clear how this page differs from the one they replaced earlier: Gaudet and Annulis are back . . . .

 

quote:

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Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"Do they really want to be referring to Ken Malone as a "Professor" when he has no faculty appointment and holds no faculty rank? Robert Campbell"

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In the 2004-2005 Bulletin he is listed as an assistant professor. 

http://www.usm.edu/registrar/catalogs2004/undergraduate/pdfs/Administration_and_Faculty.pdf

Look on page 15.  I would take this document more seriously than what some webmaster wrote who may or may not know the difference between an assistant professor and a professor.  Now whether he is tenure track, was his job arrived through a proper search, etc., that is up to speculation.

quote:

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Originally posted by: stephen judd
" I'm not clear how this page differs from the one they replaced earlier: Gaudet and Annulis are back . . . .  "

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Feb. 2:  Faculty listed on website are Cecil Burge, Mark Miller, Judson Edwards, Ken Malone (chair and professor), Cyndi Gaudet and Heather Annulis. (last updated Jan 16, 2005 at 8:50 pm)

Feb. 18: Faculty listed on website are Cecil Burge, Judson Edwards, Mark Miller, David Butler, Mark Goodman, and Ken Malone (chair - but no longer professor).  (last updated Jan 5, 2005 at 8:56 pm)

Feb. 23:  Faculty listed are Cecil Burge, Mark Miller, Judson Edwards, Cyndi Gaudet, Heather Annulis and Ken Malone (chair and professor again).  (last updated Feb. 23 at 9:26am)

Amy Young

quote:

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Originally posted by: Amy Young
"
Feb. 2:  Faculty listed on website are Cecil Burge, Mark Miller, Judson Edwards, Ken Malone (chair and professor), Cyndi Gaudet and Heather Annulis. (last updated Jan 16, 2005 at 8:50 pm)
Feb. 18: Faculty listed on website are Cecil Burge, Judson Edwards, Mark Miller, David Butler, Mark Goodman, and Ken Malone (chair - but no longer professor).  (last updated Jan 5, 2005 at 8:56 pm)
Feb. 23:  Faculty listed are Cecil Burge, Mark Miller, Judson Edwards, Cyndi Gaudet, Heather Annulis and Ken Malone (chair and professor again).  (last updated Feb. 23 at 9:26am)
Amy Young"

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Now, I'm familiar with the trick of resettting a computer's clock to a point in the past to falsify the timestamp on a file, but it strikes me as odd that the February 18 version was "last updated Jan 5, 2005" while the February 2 version was last updated eleven days later.

Is this a transcriptional error, Amy?

quote:

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Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"how can a feb 2 page be updated at a later date (1/16) than a feb 18 page (1/05)? different page file uploads?"

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Just guessing from looking at the source for the February 23 page, but it appears that the "last modified" date is automagically inserted as an "include." If that's the case, the dates on the page would be read from the timestamp on the server filesystem.

That's why I asked Amy if she transcribed it wrong when she typed up her post.

Also of interest is that Judson Edwards, a USM IDV graduate, was hired as a visiting assistant professor but mid-year after economic development became part of the College of Science and Technology he became listed as the Director of Economic Development master's degree programs.  This may be an illustrative example of Ken Malone's quote in today's HA, "I'm not that patient."  Maybe Dean Gandy and Provost Grimes approved the change, which is certainly appropriate because the economic and workforce development department, under Dr. Malone's direction, now resides in that college.  Dr. Edwards may be a welcome addition to the university and a supportive junior colleague.  Other than the propensity for economic development to hire its own, that is not the issue.  What remains curious is why Dr. Edwards told the media last summer that he was leaving his job for this great opportunity at USM.  What Malone evidently means by "I'm not that patient" must have something to do with bypassing standard unversity governance procedures, including those related to hiring decisions.  Maybe it is because he comes from an industry background and doesn't know anything about higher education.  We can only hope that this level of inexperience does not spill over into accreditation and ranking areas.

quote:

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Originally posted by: Amy Young
"Not on my part!"

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There are several ways the erroneous "last modified" date might have arisen.

The simplest explanation is that the Feb 18 (timestamped Jan 5) version was an older draft copy that was mistakenly uploaded or renamed, clobbering the correct Feb 2 (timestamped Jan 16) version. Five days later, someone finally gets around to proofing the page for the webmaster, discovers the error & the correct content is reconstructed & re-uploaded.

What I'm saying is that if there is any skullduggery going on with this (and we have no proof that there is, just suspicion), then there is a readily available & perfectly wonderful explanation. "Human error" is something we've heard before.