Money quotes from article:

Exline said Malone has taken a "staff role" in the program's changes because Malone's strengths are analyzing resources and systems.

Malone was out of town and did not respond to inquiries from the Hattiesburg American for this story.

Malone did not attend a Faculty Senate meeting on Friday he was invited to by the group's president, Dave Beckett. Beckett wanted Malone to address changes in the program.

President-elect Bill Powell said Friday he and Beckett were told by interim Provost Jay Grimes that Malone is now the "little d director" of the program.

Another job snowball for Kenbot! Little d Dictator!

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Originally posted by: LVN
"This is a pretty good article. There is one thing that's misleading. The sidebar says that UM and MUW don't offer academic credit for continuing ed courses. It's important to note that there is a big difference between "Continuing Ed courses" like flower arranging, estate planning, and all that neat stuff we USED to have for the community, and ACADEMIC courses ADMINISTERED by Continuing Ed. There is a huge workload associated with administering these courses, which Malone et. al. do not seem to comprehend. The departments are not going to have an easy time of it. But it's all about the money. As in the IR debacle, let's just get rid of the people who know what they're doing. "

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Yes, I was wondering what the day-to-day impact to the colleges and departments will be?  How many people were in the CE office making it work?  Was this move just another cut to move money elsewhere?  Do we really know if USM is on the brink of going broke or something of the sort? 

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Originally posted by: What's the impact?
" Do we really know if USM is on the brink of going broke or something of the sort?"

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Financial exigency? Nah. They wouldnt do that. Would they?

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Originally posted by: Chain Link
"If USM threatens going belly up after Bobby Chain recently freed up the $3 million Lassen found for the Economic Development Center, there might be a whole lott of trouble?"

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The $3 million was probably a designated gift or otherwise for a specified purpose, i.e., for the new building only. I doubt that it could be used for faculty salaries.

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Originally posted by: Hortense
"The $3 million was probably a designated gift or otherwise for a specified purpose, i.e., for the new building only. I doubt that it could be used for faculty salaries."

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Au contraire! 

From "USM Finds Lott Funds" by Kevin Walters in the Nov 17, 2004 HA:

"University of Southern Mississippi officials have looked inward to make up the $3.3 million shortfall on the Trent Lott National Center for Excellence in Economic Development. Money USM set aside for "unanticipated needs" will be used to close the gap on funding the $15.8 million center..." 

 

The financial aspects of this change are not entirely clear to me because I don't fully understand the old system. But if I understand it correctly, there was a "per student" charge which went from CE to the departments, which then used it to pay/enhance the course instructors' salaries and/or other dept purposes. The best part of the system was that it rewarded both instructors and departments. Now the "per student" charge is gone. CE courses don't have to come out of regular dept budgets, nor will departments potentially realize gains from offering the courses. (This is a system not too much unlike what happens with grants, where certain monies are shared by the PI and the dept.) Instead--and I'm not making this up--Greg Pierce has said that depts and colleges should simply tell him how much money they need to run their courses and he'll provide it.

So while it's true that departments will have academic authority over the courses (and in fact we did already in most significant ways--it's also true that all the labor--teaching, administering, staff support, etc--will be handed to the departments. The money, on the other hand, goes to the general fund--that is, all the financial authority goes to the upper administration.

Does this make sense? Colleagues, if I'm incorrect about this, please tell me.

NO QUARTER
Anne Wallace

President-elect Bill Powell said Friday he and Beckett were told by interim Provost Jay Grimes that Malone is now the "little d director" of the program.

Is Malone "little d director" because he has a little d?

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Originally posted by: Anne Wallace
"The financial aspects of this change are not entirely clear to me because I don't fully understand the old system. But if I understand it correctly, there was a "per student" charge which went from CE to the departments, which then used it to pay/enhance the course instructors' salaries and/or other dept purposes. The best part of the system was that it rewarded both instructors and departments. Now the "per student" charge is gone. CE courses don't have to come out of regular dept budgets, nor will departments potentially realize gains from offering the courses. (This is a system not too much unlike what happens with grants, where certain monies are shared by the PI and the dept.) Instead--and I'm not making this up--Greg Pierce has said that depts and colleges should simply tell him how much money they need to run their courses and he'll provide it. So while it's true that departments will have academic authority over the courses (and in fact we did already in most significant ways--it's also true that all the labor--teaching, administering, staff support, etc--will be handed to the departments. The money, on the other hand, goes to the general fund--that is, all the financial authority goes to the upper administration. Does this make sense? Colleagues, if I'm incorrect about this, please tell me. NO QUARTER Anne Wallace"

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Some degree classes were taught "in load" and some "out of load." All sorts of abuses occurred. For example, some faculty were forced to teach and overload by a chair through CE, and the chair argued that it shouldn't count toward their teaching loads because it was through CE (sleazy 1). The instructor may have gotten some cash back, but it was a pittance. Another abuse was that some faculty would demand course reductions to do research, and then load up on CE offerings to line their pockets (sleazy 2). CE made out like a bandit (see the pretty building), money didn't go the the colleges, and CE got away with underpaying faculty for their work. Some departments had a sweet deal in which they split the cash with the faculty and CE, and used the rest to line department coffers (without oversight at the college level). Do a search to see how other institutions do degree distributed learning courses. Our system was a screwy outlier and open to all sorts of slush fund activities and shady financial deals. But, if you think this a great system to reward faculty and departments, so be it.    

Just so you don't think the employees ever benefitted from whatever the deal was.

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Originally posted by: LMC
"You think? I do think so. I hope you're being sarcastic. The deans and chairs and college staff will be the ones who will need to so the heavy lifting here."

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Maybe a little sarcastic.   I think the "little d director" is on a collison course with the Peter Principle.

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Originally posted by: Let me clarify
"Some degree classes were taught "in load" and some "out of load." All sorts of abuses occurred. For example, some faculty were forced to teach and overload by a chair through CE, and the chair argued that it shouldn't count toward their teaching loads because it was through CE (sleazy 1). The instructor may have gotten some cash back, but it was a pittance. Another abuse was that some faculty would demand course reductions to do research, and then load up on CE offerings to line their pockets (sleazy 2). CE made out like a bandit (see the pretty building), money didn't go the the colleges, and CE got away with underpaying faculty for their work. Some departments had a sweet deal in which they split the cash with the faculty and CE, and used the rest to line department coffers (without oversight at the college level). Do a search to see how other institutions do degree distributed learning courses. Our system was a screwy outlier and open to all sorts of slush fund activities and shady financial deals. But, if you think this a great system to reward faculty and departments, so be it.     "

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LMC,

You may be right about abuses under the old system.

But where's the money going to go under the new system?

Robert Campbell

I wasn't aware there was a degree offered solely online.

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Originally posted by: LVN
" And all the screaming about all the extra work involved that CE did that can not possibly be handled by the colleges and registrar is a sham. Also, I was not aware I was screaming. Hey, I don't work there anymore. Maybe there's a new streamlined way to schedule those classes and proctor all those exams that I don't know about. Whatever."

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It might not be so bad if the departments had not already absorbed over the last few years a large volume of administrative duties  . . . . like everywhere else the advent of the computer has produced the ability to churn out more information and more changes faster than we can keep up with them . . . so it isn't just absorbing  administrative responsibility for DL courses -- it is absorbing them ON TOP of the already mountainous load of admin work departments process. I've been a director (interim) since July and you could not pay me enough to keep doing this -- I have no outside life, no life as an artist, and not much of one as a teacher . . .

 

there is at least one degree program offered entirely online at USM. From the USM website: The School of Library and Information Science offers the Masters of Library and Information Science in an entirely online format.