Latest outrage - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Latest outrage

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Lisa's salary alone would pay two instructors. I'm sure all kinds of other money can be found. What happened to Angie's salary? That would pay for three or four more.

I want to watch the push for increased enrollment and retention made simultaneously with the cut back in faculty. This should be interesting.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Is this the N.S.T?

What departments are being hit the hardest?

Are they counting on another big batch of adjuncts to pull it out for them?

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Angeline wrote:

Just announced that all unprocessed/outstanding faculty hires are frozen. Devastating news to those departments who have lost multiple faculty this year and are in the process of hiring one-year replacements and then permanent replacements in the fall. This comes down from the Dome despite the fact that the Legislature gave the IHL a 1% increase. So, is this a little "payback" from Shelby or just incompetence on his part for not securing a requisite 1% budget increase for USM?

Please post further details as soon as they become available. This is potentially a VERY important thread.

Thanks!

Date: Jun 10, 2005

What's all this b.s. about positions being frozen? I'd been led to believe that the administration's prudent and frugal actions had saved a bundle.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

When heck freezes over wrote:

What's all this b.s. about positions being frozen? I'd been led to believe that the administration's prudent and frugal actions had saved a bundle.

Material for another great newspaper story?

Date: Jun 10, 2005

When heck freezes over wrote:

What's all this b.s. about positions being frozen? I'd been led to believe that the administration's prudent and frugal actions had saved a bundle.

That's what the trolls seem to believe.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Any confirmation yet of this report?

Date: Jun 10, 2005

There is a campus wide hiring freeze. Our division (not academic) is under this order also. We're waiting to see what the IHL does with the 1% increase. Even if they gave us a 1% increase that won't cover the increase in insurance premium for employees! We are going to have to cut probably 3% and push to increase tuition and fees.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

i've heard the freeze is true, although some say it may be temporary until tuition increases are approved and final university budgets are approved by the IHL. for those who didn't read the clarion ledger article on tuition increases today, the article noted that the 1% increase isn't translating into increases in university budgets. the president of the W says her budget was cut by $215,000. I've heard ours was cut by about $500,000. The CL article notes that the IHL is having to come up with $11 million as part of the Ayres settlement. And as the CL article points out the universities are coping with rising costs--electricity, gasoline, increases in contributions to the health and retirement systems for its employees. so I wouldn't immediately assume a 1% increase in appropriations would have ever meant a 1% increase in any university's budget.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

stinky cheese man wrote:

i've heard the freeze is true, although some say it may be temporary until tuition increases are approved and final university budgets are approved by the IHL. for those who didn't read the clarion ledger article on tuition increases today, the article noted that the 1% increase isn't translating into increases in university budgets. the president of the W says her budget was cut by $215,000. I've heard ours was cut by about $500,000. The CL article notes that the IHL is having to come up with $11 million as part of the Ayres settlement. And as the CL article points out the universities are coping with rising costs--electricity, gasoline, increases in contributions to the health and retirement systems for its employees. so I wouldn't immediately assume a 1% increase in appropriations would have ever meant a 1% increase in any university's budget.

It is true. We got the message yesterday in the meeting of CoAL chairs.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

stinky cheese man wrote:

as the CL article points out the universities are coping with rising costs--electricity, gasoline, increases in contributions to the health and retirement systems for its employees.

No excuses, please. To me is sounds like a case of inexperienced management (also known as living beyond your means).

Date: Jun 10, 2005

yeah--tell that to the university of iowa. the cost of gasoline to fuel their university vehicles went up 42% last year.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

stinky cheese man wrote:

yeah--tell that to the university of iowa. the cost of gasoline to fuel their university vehicles went up 42% last year.

Then let the Iowa administration take fewer unnecessary trips. And the USM administration also.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

stinky cheese man wrote:

yeah--tell that to the university of iowa. the cost of gasoline to fuel their university vehicles went up 42% last year.

Are you saying their increased cost of gasoline is more than ours?

Date: Jun 10, 2005

I would appreciate an answer for several questions. 1. Does the IHL approve new hiring or is that strictly an administrative level function? 2. Doesn't hiring people and then telling them that there is a freeze on make it more difficult to hire good people later on? It sounds irresponsible to me and must be driving the Chairs of the departments wild. Surely there is a better way to hire people.

Once you have told someone that you want them for a position and make a commitment to them it should be kept at all cost. Get rid of overpriced administrators that we don't need and paving streets where there are no potholes and return the expensive new streetlights - we must have a library and faculty for the students. It is the students who are being penalized. Faculty may be bearing the brunt of trying to do a good job with these limitations but the students are already paying more than they can afford for an education that they are NOT getting. It is the students that are being lured to a school that looks good on the surface and contains not even the minimun for an education. That is crimminal! It could easily be viewed a fraud and will be by dissapointed students when they go to find a position after graduation and discover that they don't even have a basic education. That is when Thames and the IHL board will catch the full brunt of their fraudulent folly.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Take the money used for the affirmative action officer and fill a teaching slot. Once you quit checking skin color and sex and concentrate on merit you'll be surprised with the respect you gain.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

One more question please. Has anyone added the salaries of the bogus administrators like Anggie D. and her husband and attorney friend. Plus the administrators who have not in the past and would not now have the necessary requirements for their position (excluding Thames) and deducted the cost of normal hiring practices for this university to see how much money would have been left for hiring faculty. Then add the cost of all the unnecessary improvements and add that to the total of money for hiring new professors. I know that I have oversimplified it and there will be items that you can't account for but it seems to me it would show a pretty good idea of the insane management that has been taking place.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Honest Woman wrote:

Take the money used for the affirmative action officer and fill a teaching slot. Once you quit checking skin color and sex and concentrate on merit you'll be surprised with the respect you gain.

You don't get it, do you? The main thing the person in this position does is help those very people to NOT be discriminated against. It's not about checking out people's gender, skin color, whatever. It's about making sure that everyone gets a fair break.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

As a person who experienced blatant sex discrimination in a federal agency many years ago, I can tell you that the mere presence of a strong AA office is a deterrent to that sort of thing. HW left out "age" discrimination which is alive and well, and more of a threat than any of the others.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

The response to a budget crunch of this type should begin with cuts in administrative spending--both cutting administrative positions and cutting perks (such as travel) for those administrators who remain.

In 2003, Thames et al. pretended to cut administrative spending. This time around, they should be put under relentless pressure to do it for real.

Robert Campbell

PS. Does the IHL Board still rein in tuition increases in the hope that keeping tuition down will induce the legislature to give the IHL more money?

Date: Jun 10, 2005

lassen was quoted in c/l this a.m. that the 5% tuition increase was to cover utilities(gas?) health insurance cost, etc??

freeze in some cases is not always bad, but if you continue to install lamp post, pave/repave streets, it immediately becomes bad

i have always wondered why you always freeze hiring/wages, but universities always seem to announce a major capital expenditure shortly thereafter

Date: Jun 10, 2005

Think about the SACS it to me $500,000 that was immediately there!

Date: Jun 10, 2005

printers devil wrote:

i have always wondered why you always freeze hiring/wages, but universities always seem to announce a major capital expenditure shortly thereafter

I see plenty of deferred maintenence around campus.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

disgusted student wrote:

I would appreciate an answer for several questions. 1. Does the IHL approve new hiring or is that strictly an administrative level function? 2. Doesn't hiring people and then telling them that there is a freeze on make it more difficult to hire good people later on? It sounds irresponsible to me and must be driving the Chairs of the departments wild. Surely there is a better way to hire people. Once you have told someone that you want them for a position and make a commitment to them it should be kept at all cost. Get rid of overpriced administrators that we don't need and paving streets where there are no potholes and return the expensive new streetlights - we must have a library and faculty for the students. It is the students who are being penalized. Faculty may be bearing the brunt of trying to do a good job with these limitations but the students are already paying more than they can afford for an education that they are NOT getting. It is the students that are being lured to a school that looks good on the surface and contains not even the minimun for an education. That is crimminal! It could easily be viewed a fraud and will be by dissapointed students when they go to find a position after graduation and discover that they don't even have a basic education. That is when Thames and the IHL board will catch the full brunt of their fraudulent folly.

The freeze only applies to position sthat have not already been promised. In other words, offers already out will be honored. It means however, that we may not begin searches or continue searches for vacant positions that have not been filled.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

It also means that searches that were on hold through fall of 2004 waiting on dome approvals, which finally came through in spring, 2005 (too late for the bulk of the faculty employment market), are now being frozen.

Can you say sabotage?

Date: Jun 10, 2005

With all the money saved from reorganization and running off senior faculty, you'd think they could afford to fill entry level positions.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

In most disciplines, new hires (terminally degreed) will be mor expensive than senior profs that left.

Date: Jun 10, 2005

In our department we have several positions open for one year hires. Lets say for the sake of argument that we do eventually get the permission to hire for these slots. My point is that it might well be too late by then. At present we have some pretty good applicants. What about a month from now? How many will have moved on or taken another job?

Date: Jun 11, 2005

Honest Woman wrote:

Take the money used for the affirmative action officer and fill a teaching slot. Once you quit checking skin color and sex and concentrate on merit you'll be surprised with the respect you gain.

We're not there yet - honestly. Affirmative action is needed now as much as ever.