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Originally posted by: Hello, Moto!
"You know, it seems that last year's no confidence convocation drew quite a bit of media attention and served to unify the faculty. Are we not scheduling a campus-wide convocation because we are afraid turnout will be slight, or are we hesitant to hold a convocation because we don't want to burn that political capital yet?"

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Originally posted by: Hello, Moto!
"Stephen, Not really thinking "No Confidence" here. Perhaps a resolution stating that faculty support a well-rounded educational experience and opportunities for a better Mississippi. That way, we save the "No Confidence" card for later and don't sound like whiners, but we can get our views out and backed by a faculty-wide vote. The numbers thing is what's worrying me, though. I am concerned that this may be viewed as a Liberal Arts problem by those in other colleges."

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I believe the CoAL senators are trying to organize an all college meeting before Thursday  . .. actually I'm sure it would be open to all even non CoAL folk . . . .

I think the stuff about "liberal arts" is really just kind of putting a face on a set of ideologies that these folks are uncomfortable with . . . . I think when they say liberal arts they are really talking about education that they see as unpragmatic, ivory tower, and not productive of what they regard as "real work."  But I think a lot of those comments are off the cuff and not well thought out. I think the real issue is that this is a rally to drum up support for the administration and the Presidents contract renewal. 

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Originally posted by: A rose by any other name
"You can bet that if the liberal arts here were encompassed into a "College of Arts and Scienes," as typically exists at many if not most colleges, the complainers lips would be zipped. By no means am I suggesting a College of Arts and Sciences for USM. But it did occur to me that every "reorganization" I have seen at USM had the effect of screwing things up. "

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Could not agree with you more.

It seems that the reroganization was much more about creating colleges of relatively equal numbers than as a result of a genuine rexamination of a philosophy of academic alignment . . . I have argued that such reorganzing isn''t simply shuffling a deck of cards . . . when you move a department over into another college you are in essence making crucial decisions about the nature of its academic focus and its knowlege and research base . . .  in effect you are redefining it. An extreme version would be putting biology into the arts  . . .  you could not do that and not be affecting its practice and its definition of itself as an academic discipline . . .

These guys don't get that . . . . they think its simply like moving a car from one garage to another . . . .