Coca-Cola Cabal - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Mar 8, 2005

Coca-Cola Cabal

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: already gone
"
"Brian said that faculty are vital to the university but he wanted to focus more on positive news from Southern Miss."

So, faculty do not have any positive news to share???? What an assumption!

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: truth4usm/AH
" So, faculty do not have any positive news to share???? What an assumption! "

No you don't. It would kill you to say something positive.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

Maybe Brad can help with positive news about his employer when he repairs USM.

A quick google will reveal all sorts of "negative news" concerning Coke...all sorts of discrmination suits, class action, lower than expected sales, earnings, etc, etc.

One would think a world beater like Brad would be in a much more high profile location than H'burg.

In spite of my name I love diet coke, but wont be drinking any dc in H'burg any time soon.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"No you don't. It would kill you to say something positive."

Mach,

I believe you were challenged a while back to offer a coherent defense of Shelby. I believe you (like Albert) ignored the challenge. Therefore, here it is again: since you want to hear some positive things said, please offer us a coherent, well-supported positive statement about Shelby. We are all ears.

If you, like Albert (which may just be another name you've chosen) refuse the challenge, you will only make a fool of yourself, and, in the process, you will also reveal that Shelby is indefensible.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"No you don't. It would kill you to say something positive."

OK, go right ahead. By all means, please list the positive things that have been accomplished by Shelboo and crew.

We're waiting!

Date: Mar 8, 2005

The initial point was made that it was absurd to think that faculty cannot say anything positive about the university. I challenged this board to say something positive. You refused. So I rest my case.

Don't try to turn the argument around on me by asking me to say something positive. The fact is that YOU can't do it!

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"The initial point was made that it was absurd to think that faculty cannot say anything positive about the university. I challenged this board to say something positive. You refused. So I rest my case. Don't try to turn the argument around on me by asking me to say something positive. The fact is that YOU can't do it!"

OK, I will say something positive: USM has a faculty whose commitment to academic integrity, and willingness to fight for high academic values, has won admiration throughout the U.S. and indeed the world. If you don't believe me, Mach, take a look at the names of the people who signed to petition on the old Fire Shelby board; it was up to over 600 signatures last time I looked.

Is that positive enough for you?

And, since the heart of any university is its faculty, without whom the university would not exist and without whom no students would have a reason to come to study there, this is a very positive point indeed.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

Sorry, but the heart of a university is the students, not the faculty.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"The initial point was made that it was absurd to think that faculty cannot say anything positive about the university. I challenged this board to say something positive. You refused. So I rest my case. Don't try to turn the argument around on me by asking me to say something positive. The fact is that YOU can't do it!"

If I must say, I think it's telling that university is being distinguished here from faculty. In the public mind, and apparently in the dome, the university equals the administrators, and therefore an attack on them equals an attack on the university.

Yet, based on a thousand-year history of universities, the faculty is the sine qua non of a university. A university can exist without administrators. It can even exist without students. But it cannot exist without faculty. When faculty say something good about the university, they are saying something good about how research, teaching, and service are being done by their colleagues. If they complain about how a poor administration compromises those efforts, they are not "saying something bad about the university" but still in fact saying something good about the university, about their vision of what a university should be.

JL

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"Sorry, but the heart of a university is the students, not the faculty. "

You've probably never met a faculty member who's more student oriented than the one who is posting this message. But I feel compelled to call your attention to the fact that a student is around for only four years or so. In and out, and then zap - they're gone - usually never heard from again. A faculty member, on the other hand, often invests an entire professional lifetime into the acdemic endeavor. Call the students the "heart" if you wish, but remember that the faculty is the "soul."

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"Sorry, but the heart of a university is the students, not the faculty. "

Does it make sense then that in SFT's model faculty are encouraged to get grants to buy out their time so they won't even see the students? In fact SFT doesn't even distinguish between true research scholarship and contractual service. He just wants the money. In some departments when faculty buy out their time on grants or contracts they are paid using the state money and the contractor reimburses the university. However, only the auditors check on the state money, so the money form the contractors is used for all sorts of things. Grad students or cheap adjuncts are put in the classroom to replace the faculty and the money saved goes everywhere and anywhere. This is the "gold mine" Klumb speaks of. Funding the university by cheating the students is the end result.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

LeavingASAP has made an accurate recap of the "release-time salary" gambit. I've gotten funded by working both on "externally-funded research" (which has a chance of either success or failure, as your hypothesis may be proven false, as data is acquired), as well as "contracts" (in which you have a finite amount of tasks to accomplish for a non-university agency, within a certain amount of time).

Regardless of whether I was funded by "research grants" or "contract time," the university was happy, because "external money is external money." However, getting "release-time salary" was a good deal only for the university administration, but a BAD deal for the department of the "externally-funded" faculty member, and not much of a "bargain" for the faculty member, who draws the same "take-home" whether they're 100% university, or part university, part external funding. Sorry, Machiavelli, but you're not allowed to "pay yourself more than 100 percent" if your "external funding" comes through the university's Office of Sponsored Programs.

Now, here's the point where the university is happy. If a faculty member gets "release-time salary" the external funding agency repays the university for a part of the salary -- usually, 33 percent "release-time" buys a faculty member out of teaching one class. For this, the university pays another "contract lecturer" the sum of $1500 if, and only if, the lecturer has a doctoral degree -- and it's nearly impossible to get a doctoral-degreed person to teach a three-semester-hour class for Fifteen Hundred Dollars for the sixteen-week term.

Figure out the money here -- the faculty member brings in much more than $1500 in "release-time salary," whereas the university can pocket the difference between the "release-time" money and the $1500 paid to the contract lecturer.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: oldtimer
"LeavingASAP has made an accurate recap of the "release-time salary" gambit. I've gotten funded by working both on "externally-funded research" (which has a chance of either success or failure, as your hypothesis may be proven false, as data is acquired), as well as "contracts" (in which you have a finite amount of tasks to accomplish for a non-university agency, within a certain amount of time). Regardless of whether I was funded by "research grants" or "contract time," the university was happy, because "external money is external money." However, getting "release-time salary" was a good deal only for the university administration, but a BAD deal for the department of the "externally-funded" faculty member, and not much of a "bargain" for the faculty member, who draws the same "take-home" whether they're 100% university, or part university, part external funding. Sorry, Machiavelli, but you're not allowed to "pay yourself more than 100 percent" if your "external funding" comes through the university's Office of Sponsored Programs. Now, here's the point where the university is happy. If a faculty member gets "release-time salary" the external funding agency repays the university for a part of the salary -- usually, 33 percent "release-time" buys a faculty member out of teaching one class. For this, the university pays another "contract lecturer" the sum of $1500 if, and only if, the lecturer has a doctoral degree -- and it's nearly impossible to get a doctoral-degreed person to teach a three-semester-hour class for Fifteen Hundred Dollars for the sixteen-week term. Figure out the money here -- the faculty member brings in much more than $1500 in "release-time salary," whereas the university can pocket the difference between the "release-time" money and the $1500 paid to the contract lecturer. "

Thanks for the more detailed explanation, Oldtimer. One update to what you wrote is the MIDAS program; in which faculty can get part of their buyout back as a bonus. How all of this is legally done is still a mystery to me. I can only guess the contractor is not auditing what happens to the money. The worse case is when young faculty are encouraged to do contractual service for big bucks, but the "research" doesn't lead to publications and their teaching tract record isn't established either. They are then stuck here professionally and must support their leaders or else.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

old timer--you're right about the students not directly benefitting from the faculty member who buys out their teaching to work on the grant. a faculty member does benefit when it comes to summer salary. you can get paid up to 1/3 of your 9-month salary in the summers. lots better than the current summer salary schedule.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"Sorry, but the heart of a university is the students, not the faculty. "

Still no defense of your man, Shelby....

who surely does not believe that the students are the heart of a university.

Robert Campbell

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"old timer--you're right about the students not directly benefitting from the faculty member who buys out their teaching to work on the grant. a faculty member does benefit when it comes to summer salary. you can get paid up to 1/3 of your 9-month salary in the summers. lots better than the current summer salary schedule. "

SCM, I agree with you here, and I've gotten summer contracts, which are more lucrative than "summer research," because research grant agencies only allow the Principal Investigator to pay themselves two months' summer salary, versus three months at 1/3 your Academic Year salary rate on "contracts."

However, summer salary doesn't factor in the administrative "profit margin," because in the Summer semester, there's no need for faculty to get "release-time salary," and thus no need to get a "replacement lecturer." The university makes their money on Academic Year "release-time" salaries, as I discussed above.

And, the "unspent" release-time salaries are clearly where SFT came up with the MIDAS "overpayment" of Faculty. In fact, MIDAS must have been a one-time "bonus," because there is no assurance that one year's "release-time" salary buyouts will appear in subsequent years.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

"Still no defense of your man, Shelby....who surely does not believe that the students are the heart of a university." Robert Campbell

No, but they are his most prized possessions. Possession=Control, that's our Shelby.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

I said this months ago, but I'll say it again because it seems appropriate here. The thing that always ticked me off is that a faculty member's grant would allow for 1/4 time release and the funding agency would pay, say, $4,000 to the university for that quarter-time release. But the university would give the department only, say, $1,500 for a quarter-time replacement. To this very day I don't understand how the university could get away with that. That practice galled me to the extent that I encouraged our faculty to ask for NO grant funds for released time. I suggested that they put that into equipment. The department, nonetheless, gave them a quarter-time reduced load.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: oldtimer
" SCM, I agree with you here, and I've gotten summer contracts, which are more lucrative than "summer research," because research grant agencies only allow the Principal Investigator to pay themselves two months' summer salary, versus three months at 1/3 your Academic Year salary rate on "contracts." However, summer salary doesn't factor in the administrative "profit margin," because in the Summer semester, there's no need for faculty to get "release-time salary," and thus no need to get a "replacement lecturer." The university makes their money on Academic Year "release-time" salaries, as I discussed above. And, the "unspent" release-time salaries are clearly where SFT came up with the MIDAS "overpayment" of Faculty. In fact, MIDAS must have been a one-time "bonus," because there is no assurance that one year's "release-time" salary buyouts will appear in subsequent years."

Correction: The NIH allows full 1/3 salary in the summer. Programs like MIDAS are available at many other institutions, so it is not as unusual as some on this list think. MIDAS type programs usually are not one-time incentives, but happen each year for the life of the grant.

Several other advantages of federal research grants. Often graduate student stipends are costed in grant applications, which allows departments to raise average graduate assistantships (which have been stagnant at USM for years). Another good thing about NIH and similar grants is that indirect cost recoveries in part support faculty activities for both grant active departments and for disciplines in which few grant opportunities exist. Some indirects come back to the college (this is unrelated to salary recovery) and are used as seed, travel or support money for all faculty. Start up monies also come from indirects, in large part through the office of the VP for research. A final advantage is that grants can fund rich research environments for undergraduate as well as graduate training.

As some have pointed out--not all grants and contracts are created equal. But ask anyone who has done grant funded scholarship if attracting a grant to his or her institution has hurt them professionally or damaged the reputation of their department or undergraduate training, and I think you would find that to be a very short list.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

I have a question about grants and contracts. I have been told that the university does not value contracts near as much as federal grants because of the lack of indirects. After all, without indirects, how do external monies add anything to the bottom line?

By the way, I realize that grant funded research actually costs the university money. After all, didn't the polymer department have to get $20-30 million from the USDA in order to be a competitive program. Just think if USM/Mississippi/etc could infuse $20 million into another department on campus, I bet it could be nationally known in a few years. I am not knocking the money that came into polymer science, I am just using this as an example of the cost of doing research.

Date: Mar 8, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: already gone
"Friends, doesn't Brad Brian sound like a character in "The Wiz" -- wasn't it the Wicked Witch of the East who said, "Don't bring me no bad news?""

There was a wicked messenger,
From Eli he did come,
With a mind that multiplied the smaller matters.
When questioned who had sent for him,
He answered with his thumb,
For his tongue it could not speak but only flatter.

He stayed behind the assembly hall.
It was there he made his bed.
Often times he could be seen returning,
Until one day he just appeared,
With a note in his hand which read,
"The soles of my feet, I swear, they're burning."

- Bob Dylan (1967)

Well, the leaves began to falling,
And the thieves began to part,
And the people who confronted him were many,
And he was told but these few words,
Before he opened up his heart,
"If ye cannot bring good news, then don't bring any."

Date: Mar 9, 2005

I've just gotten word that The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler and Catwoman will be in attendance at tomorrow night's meeting. This is big, folks!

Date: Mar 9, 2005

Would that make Shelby the Penguin?

Date: Mar 9, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Machiavelli
"Sorry, but the heart of a university is the students, not the faculty. "

I guess I am Johnny-come-lately on this one, but I have to disagree here. The heart of the univeristy is its faculty. The students are the working muscles and the blood that flows. Without a good heart, the body as a whole will fail. Because of Thames' lack of good leadership, most of their heart is either retiring or joining the hearts of other universities.

I support the faculty and staff at USM 100 percent. I am willing to listen to what Thames will say and do to improve the unveristy, but so far he's done nothing but tear things apart.
You want positive things to say, there are none. The only good he'd done is improve the Polysci program into being one of the best in the country and drawing even more students. The down side of that has been the improvement of that department at the expense of others. Reorganizing the colleges and getting rid of all the good deans and department chairs shoots the good he's done in the foot. In other words, the bad far out weighs the good.

So you want positive, there isn't any. For any good Thames does, he does something stupid 10 fold to cover it up. He'd his own worst enemy.

Date: Mar 9, 2005

Well put, Lord Vader. The classroom (faculty and students) is the essece of the university. Since the students have a relatively short presence here, the faculty are the true core.

Date: Mar 9, 2005

The meeting was moved from Coca-Cola building to Warren Paving because the organizers have taken so much heat the last few days. They feared the Coke building was too "public" a place for them to be able to remove any protesters. Apparently Lawrence Warren can just tell the uninvited to get off his property.

All the more reason to go stand around on the adjacent properties.

Date: Mar 9, 2005

Lawrence Warren in the current king of Zeus. He's lived here a long time and has lots of friends. He and his wife love USM. Shelby has their ears, and no one on the faculty does. If any of you know them well (especially town people who understand what is happening), it would be good to try to talk with them.

Date: Mar 9, 2005

No use. He's a nice enough guy, but he won't listen. That is, except to anything Shelby tells him. Save your breath.