Calling B.S here - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jun 13, 2005

RE: Calling B.S here

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Mama Troll wrote:

Thanks to you and Sympathizer for your civil responses. That is unexpected and refreshing on this venue.

You're welcome Momma. I'm civil because that was the way I was raised.

As long as we're defining terms, please define "academic freedom".

Whoa. You are going too fast for me. Does this mean you are agreeing to the definition of tenure presented and that you now have no problems with it? If that is the case we can start changing to discussion to "academic freedom".

Is academic freedom what that idiot in Colorado was practicing? Is it that silliness that is going on at Harvard?

I'm not up on all of the issues on these cases to give you an accurate opinion.

Is it the right to preach political ideology in none political classrooms?

I would say no it isn't academic freedom to "preach ideology" even in a political science class. But the devil is in the precise words. Discussion can be confused by some as "preaching". That is a loaded word.

Is it the right to make unfounded accusations against administration and alumni?

If the accusations are unfounded even the faculty will shoot down such accusations. It has even occurred on this board. But criticizing policies of the administration or faculty bodies is an exercise in academic freedom.

Is it the right to be consistently and constantly negative about most everything about the institution from which you receive a paycheck?

Evaluating information as positive or negative is internal and subjective. Only the P.R. department has the duty of filtering information and only reporting the "positive". Faculty have the duty of searching for and reporting truth.

Is it the right do very little actual teaching or research, but to just ease by?

No it isn't right. That is why there is a system of annual evaluation of all personnel. No organization has 100% efficient Einsteins working for it. Some faculty receive high evaluations and some low. If they are too low, post tenure review kicks in and they can be terminated.

I read your reply, but I don't think working at a part time level and getting paid full time pay ever got a tenured professor fired at USM. I am not being sarcastic. I'm trying to help define terms.

I must ask you who told you faculty work at a "part time level and getting paid full time pay...” If this occurred then you should be mad at the chairman who evaluates the faculty member.

Unless you are the faculty member's chair, you have no way of knowing what you just said is true. Not even faculty in the same department are usually aware of the negotiation between faculty and chair as to the duties and goals for each year.

So I ask, where did you get this opinion?

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Mama T wrote:

I doubt I'll be able to talk with eveybody in Hattiesburg, PW. You don't know much about our town, of course, but it is a little too big for one person to get around to everybody, but I am against tenure, and I couldn't care less about what Shelby Thames does. Shelby is a big boy and should have to fend for himself just like I do, and just like you should have to do. The point is that you don't. You made my point beautifully for me in your message just above, and now you are trying to weazel out of it by trying to saddle me with a Shelby Thames' argument. Why should I spend my precious time going around town arguing about what to do with him? What a ridiculous statement.

Mama Troll,

I've been in Hattiesburg; it's about the same size as my home town--big enough that people don't always know one another. But I figured you couldn't have too much trouble getting around to everyone. You already seem to know what everyone in Hattiesburg thinks about me.

If you're against tenure on principle, you should be against anyone having it--even Shelby Thames. But maybe you'd like to grant an occasional exemption to an administrator with a proven record of hating faculty members?

You say you're indifferent to Thames. Yet you don't want to hear one negative word about a a faithful ally of his like Toy McLaughlin; you talk as though any criticism of Thames and his lieutenants is an unfounded accusation that deserves immediate punishment; and you still believe that USM professors dislike Thames because they aren't working hard and he wants them to work hard. If Thames hadn't been given a termination date by the IHL Board, wouldn't you still be telling everyone how great he is, and how USM needs him as a President for Life?

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Robert Campbell wrote:

Mama T wrote: I doubt I'll be able to talk with eveybody in Hattiesburg, PW. You don't know much about our town, of course, but it is a little too big for one person to get around to everybody, but I am against tenure, and I couldn't care less about what Shelby Thames does. Shelby is a big boy and should have to fend for himself just like I do, and just like you should have to do. The point is that you don't. You made my point beautifully for me in your message just above, and now you are trying to weazel out of it by trying to saddle me with a Shelby Thames' argument. Why should I spend my precious time going around town arguing about what to do with him? What a ridiculous statement. Mama Troll, I've been in Hattiesburg; it's about the same size as my home town--big enough that people don't always know one another. But I figured you couldn't have too much trouble getting around to everyone.

You already seem to know what everyone in Hattiesburg thinks about me.

There you go again. I never claimed to know what "everybody" thinks about you. I do dislike you along with many others.

If you're against tenure on principle, you should be against anyone having it--even Shelby Thames.

I said as much didn't I? What's the problem?

But maybe you'd like to grant an occasional exemption to an administrator with a proven record of hating faculty members? You say you're indifferent to Thames. Yet you don't want to hear one negative word about a a faithful ally of his like Toy McLaughlin; you talk as though any criticism of Thames and his lieutenants is an unfounded accusation that deserves immediate punishment; and you still believe that USM professors dislike Thames because they aren't working hard and he wants them to work hard.

There you go again. Putting words in my mouth. Since these are your words, not mine, I'll let you respond.

If Thames hadn't been given a termination date by the IHL Board, wouldn't you still be telling everyone how great he is, and how USM needs him as a President for Life? Robert Campbell

Again, these are your words - you respond.

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Momma:

Having seen the world from the side of an adminsitrative and faculty member, let me add a bit. I agree that we have some tenured slugs--academics call them dead wood. They are a just a step above child molesters in the eyes of the rest of us who bust butt for the home team (the vast majority of faculty). We punish them in many ways (crappy teaching assignments, small offices, taking away their grad students, and so forth). The are among the lowest paid on campus, also. Their sloth is not rewarded by us, and retirement, or going into a different career, soon becomes an attractive option for them. If they are really bad, they will be canned. You will know them by their schedule. They will show up at 10 AM and leave by 2 PM. What percent are deadwood in my department? Maybe 5% of the faculty--which translates into a better percentage of highly productive folks than I found in the corporate world (where it can also take years to can a slug who has hung around too long).

You asked about academic freedom. Here's how it applies to me and others. Many of us do "high-risk" but cutting edge research, and more often than not it adds significantly to our quality of life (your's too). It takes years of stability to develop and establish a program of scholarship. Often the payoffs are enormous. I have heard horror stories, however, of administrators twisting arms to make a faculty member change their line of research, and it is often for the wrong reason. But the vast majority of admin realize that you grow a department by making good hires and providing the resources and a stable environment to conduct reasearch. Then they stay out of the way and let us do our jobs. That is academic freedom. That is how USM grew in external funding mightily in the past decade (mostly before Shelby).

Tenure? Here is why it may or may not be important. All scientists have experiments (and scholars have projects) that tank at one point or another. Research, unlike developing, manufacturing, and distributing a new widget, takes many years to come to come to fruition. Thus, in the research world, stability and a long term commitment by the university is important to the success of this enterprise. High turnover of good faculty employees can hurt the institution more so than turnover in other systems (for example, law firms encourage turnover by use of the partner system). Tenure means that if you are doing you job well, you won't be canned because a couple experiments tanked or the chair gets a bug up his or her butt because you're an expert in air quality and he or she is an expert in water quality and just hates air people. It does not mean a lot more. In the corporate work, such as in the pharmaceutical bus, the pay is much, much higher for doing very much the same thing that people do here--so you can take the cash and go on to the next high bidder for your talents. In the academic world, the pay is generally low, and the notion of some stability to do one's research is the attraction. Sometimes I wish I went for the cash.

You probably will disagree with my take on things, but I think that most folks in the community are clueless about what we do, why we do it, and the day to day nonsense that is thrown in our way to impede progress (both for us and the institution).

Date: Jun 13, 2005

LeftASAP wrote:

Mama Troll wrote: Thanks to you and Sympathizer for your civil responses. That is unexpected and refreshing on this venue. You're welcome Momma. I'm civil because that was the way I was raised. As long as we're defining terms, please define "academic freedom". Whoa. You are going too fast for me. Does this mean you are agreeing to the definition of tenure presented and that you now have no problems with it? If that is the case we can start changing to discussion to "academic freedom". Is academic freedom what that idiot in Colorado was practicing? Is it that silliness that is going on at Harvard? I'm not up on all of the issues on these cases to give you an accurate opinion. Is it the right to preach political ideology in none political classrooms? I would say no it isn't academic freedom to "preach ideology" even in a political science class. But the devil is in the precise words. Discussion can be confused by some as "preaching". That is a loaded word. Is it the right to make unfounded accusations against administration and alumni? If the accusations are unfounded even the faculty will shoot down such accusations. It has even occurred on this board. But criticizing policies of the administration or faculty bodies is an exercise in academic freedom. Is it the right to be consistently and constantly negative about most everything about the institution from which you receive a paycheck? Evaluating information as positive or negative is internal and subjective. Only the P.R. department has the duty of filtering information and only reporting the "positive". Faculty have the duty of searching for and reporting truth. Is it the right do very little actual teaching or research, but to just ease by? No it isn't right. That is why there is a system of annual evaluation of all personnel. No organization has 100% efficient Einsteins working for it. Some faculty receive high evaluations and some low. If they are too low, post tenure review kicks in and they can be terminated. I read your reply, but I don't think working at a part time level and getting paid full time pay ever got a tenured professor fired at USM. I am not being sarcastic. I'm trying to help define terms. I must ask you who told you faculty work at a "part time level and getting paid full time pay...” If this occurred then you should be mad at the chairman who evaluates the faculty member. Unless you are the faculty member's chair, you have no way of knowing what you just said is true. Not even faculty in the same department are usually aware of the negotiation between faculty and chair as to the duties and goals for each year. So I ask, where did you get this opinion?

Now Mr. Left, you are a reasonable person. Surely you know the difference between questions and opinions. Questions are the ones with the funny looking curly thing at the end.

Twice now people in this thread have pointed out that tenure is necessary for "academic freedom". Don't you agree that at this point we need to define "academic freedom"?

That's what I'm trying to do here, and I don't seem to have too much problem with your answers to my questions. We are probably reasonably close in our ideas of academic freedom. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that we could come pretty close to an agreement about the necessity of it.

Now I'm probably going to ignore everybody but you and Symph, because everybody else seems to want to argue about Shelby Thames.

I'll be back tomorrow. Symph gave me a ton of reading to do. It's almost as bad as that list of questions you fed me.

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Mama Troll wrote:

Now Mr. Left, you are a reasonable person. Surely you know the difference between questions and opinions. Questions are the ones with the funny looking curly thing at the end. Twice now people in this thread have pointed out that tenure is necessary for "academic freedom". Don't you agree that at this point we need to define "academic freedom"? That's what I'm trying to do here, and I don't seem to have too much problem with your answers to my questions. We are probably reasonably close in our ideas of academic freedom. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that we could come pretty close to an agreement about the necessity of it. Now I'm probably going to ignore everybody but you and Symph, because everybody else seems to want to argue about Shelby Thames. I'll be back tomorrow. Symph gave me a ton of reading to do. It's almost as bad as that list of questions you fed me.

Good evening Mama. Yes there is a lot of reading to do. Talk to you tomorrow.

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Tenure-in-law,

Yours is one of the best short pieces on tenure that I've seen.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Robert Campbell wrote:

Tenure-in-law, Yours is one of the best short pieces on tenure that I've seen. Robert Campbell

Thanks. It was good speaking with you the other night.

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Mama Troll wrote:

RC: You say you're indifferent to Thames. Yet you don't want to hear one negative word about a a faithful ally of his like Toy McLaughlin; you talk as though any criticism of Thames and his lieutenants is an unfounded accusation that deserves immediate punishment; and you still believe that USM professors dislike Thames because they aren't working hard and he wants them to work hard.

MT: There you go again. Putting words in my mouth. Since these are your words, not mine, I'll let you respond.

Mama Troll,

or shall I address you as Gracie's Mother?

or even as USM Product?

You should go back and reread your own posts on this thread, in case you forgot what you wrote. No one should have to quote them back to you.

In the end I expect you'll also dodge and weave around every point that USM Sympathizer and LeftASAP have been making.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 13, 2005

Robert Campbell wrote:

Mama Troll, or shall I address you as Gracie's Mother? or even as USM Product? You should go back and reread your own posts on this thread, in case you forgot what you wrote. No one should have to quote them back to you. In the end I expect you'll also dodge and weave around every point that USM Sympathizer and LeftASAP have been making. Robert Campbell

Dr. Campbell, I think we should address Momma Troll as KENBOT!

The name juggling fits his M.O. The female persona adopted is a new role for him, though, OR IS IT?

Date: Jun 14, 2005

I would also like to thank Tenure in Law for the nice description. I once talked to a department head about a deadwood faculty member who had gradually been pushed to 100% teaching and no raise in years. The department head said that she got it from her dentist. The dentist said that he had a particularly nasty patient, so he began increasing what he charged this patient. The dentist figured that eventually the patient would stop coming or he would start enjoying seeing him come in again.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Mama Troll wrote:

Don't you agree that at this point we need to define "academic freedom"?

Or we can look around and find some conventional definitions already in use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_freedom

Google results here

A few AF links here

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Well Left and Symph, my eyes are blood shot from reading boring academic papers, but I will have to admit the study did some good. I recommend to others on this site that you open your eyes to the viewpoints of your perceived opposition. It might be enlightening.

Oh and by the way Tenure In Law, I read your message along with the others. I couldn't find much to disagree with even though I don't go along with it 100%.

Here goes. I would never advocate taking tenure away from those to whom it has been granted. That would cause such a huge disruption of our system, that we would really have a problem. I don't see how that could even be considered without an increase in pay, and most schools don't have the money to do that even if it were a vialble alternative. That said, all of us are stuck with tenure for at least the time being like it or not, and frankly I don't like it. I'll get into my reasons in a bit.

Academic freedom is right up there with freedom of speech and all the other rights we enjoy. There is no question that academic freedom as it has been described so far in this conversation is near sacred, and should be protected at all costs. When an administration either on campus or in Jackson or in Washington starts to dictate what can be taught is the classroom, we are in trouble. Of course there are reasonable bounds of classroom subject matter, but we could probably come close to agreement on what is not appropriate.

I can't buy into the argument that this right is protected by tenure. It seems that this right is and has been protected when necessary almost exclusively by the courts. I can't see reasonable freedom to teach ideas being stiffled in this day and age unless it is something far out as in what happened with that guy at the U. of Colorado. I think that tenure as a defense for academic freedom is an AAUP selling point at best. In reality I can't see it. You' will argue this point, but I doubt I will be swayed.

It is from the economic standpoint that I see a controversy, and if I were an adversary of the faculty, I would love the economics of tenure. I am frankly surprised that the more productive of you hold it so dear.

It seems to me that institutions use tenure in the place of money. A university professor will generally take less dollars in pay if he/she can get tenure. That's a deal for the institution in my way of thinking. What am I missing here. Without tenure universities would have to compete with the private sector for talent. You would earn a higher wage, and if you are as good as you say you are, and I believe most of you are, you would have job security based on your talents and productivity.

The days are numbered for tenure as we know it today. From what I read the trend is that in research institution, the trend is to pay higher salaries for the top people. A some point in this process tenure will become irrelevant. It the individuals hired by the institution are indeed top people, tenure becomes irrelevant. The institution will have to be competitive with their pay or lose them to other institutions.

In pure academic institutions tenure will probably be replaced by employment contracts. I understand that this is the case already with Phoenix, and with some small state supported school somewhere in Arkansas.

My visionary skills aren't sharp enough to see the future, but it is easy to visualize some sort of tenure with more stringent review processes, and/or more monetary performance incentive and less emphasis on tenure as we know it today.

I think the most important thing I gained from my research is an understanding on some of the challenges facing us. There will be many changes with technological advancements, economic inflation, and shrinking tax revenue. The most striking realization for me is that without full cooperation between faculty, business, administration, and community we will fail in our mission to support quality higher education into the future.

I think this is where we will have our big disagreement, and you will start your "troll" monolouges. I can't see where self serving organizations can help this plight, whether it be the AAUP or a "Let's back Shelby" group. It is clear to me that unless we find some way to come together under a common banner, we can just forget it, or more accurately, our children can forget it.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

MT,

Thanks for taking the time to read all the material and to give it some serious thought. Although normally I work at my computer most of the day and thus am able to visit the board fairly often, today I am away from the machine for much of the day and thus may not be able to reply to you until much later, and perhaps not even until tomorrow. I just wanted to let you know why you may not hear back from me immediately. Anyway, thanks again for doing all that reading!

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Mama Troll wrote:

... I can't buy into the argument that this right is protected by tenure. It seems that this right is and has been protected when necessary almost exclusively by the courts. I can't see reasonable freedom to teach ideas being stiffled in this day and age unless it is something far out as in what happened with that guy at the U. of Colorado. I think that tenure as a defense for academic freedom is an AAUP selling point at best. In reality I can't see it. ...

Thanks for an excellent post, Moma. You must have been up late doing all of that reading. I didn't quote all of your post because I wanted to keep each issue clear.

Without tenure there really is no academic freedom. The reason is that before a faculty member receives tenure no reason has to be given for firing the prof. Only after tenure is it required to have a hearing to prove the prof is being fired for cause.

I know of several cases were a prof was given a terminal contract after being approved by the department faculty, chair and college committee for tenure. The dean decided to terminate the prof, no reason supplied. So the reason the dean had could have been anything, including issues protected by academic freedom, but no one knows.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

MT,

I don't expect tenure to go away any time soon, but for a reason that has not really been mentioned yet. There are very few areas of work where the institution is forced to stop, examine a five or six-year record, and decide whether they would rather get rid of the person now, without penalty, or commit to them long-term. Tenure is a very powerful tool for releasing faculty who are not quite up to par.

In the top-level research institutions you mention, pre-tenure review, at about the 3-year mark, is now just as powerful. Anyone not showing good progress by then is told that they have no chance and released.

Other posters have explained how tenure doesn't really keep a person from being fired for good cause, so tenure is more a tool for getting rid of professors than for keeping them. Thus the statement you often hear in academic circles: "Tenure only matters if you don't get it."

Date: Jun 14, 2005

MT,

I found some time to get (briefly) to a computer and thought I'd take a few minutes to share with you some thoughts that came to me yesterday as I was thiking about our earlier exchange. Please note that these thoughts are not directly responsive to your latest post (which I have not yet had time to think about thoroughly); they are just general thoughts on the subject of tenure. I offer them to anyone who may be thinking about the topic; I will try to respond to your latest specific thoughts as soon as I have time.

One point to be made about tenure is that higher education operates in a national, even international, labor market. Local folks often don't understand that. The departures announced elsewhere on the board show that the University of Maryland just recruited two of USM’s most productive faculty. A look at the entire list would show just how connected the world of higher education is. When USM needs a secretary or gardener, the hire is going to be local. USM doesn’t have to out-recruit LSU. For faculty, USM has to to out-recruit every other school in the country that is looking at the candidate. That means USM must have an acceptable tenure system, especially since USM is unable to be able to compete purely on the basis of salary.

Because of heavy faculty attrition under SFT, the university has had to hire over 200 new faculty members in the past two years. If SFT had been able to end tenure at USM, very few of those people would have accepted a job at USM. That is because nearly every university and most colleges within a thousand miles of here have tenure. In effect, the university would have ceased to function as a true university. It would have had to hire high school and junior college faculty to meet the classes. If a school doesn't have tenure, it doesn't get a college faculty. Is that what the Thames boosters want? It's what the Ole Miss and State boosters want. (Please note, MT, that I address this question to Thames boosters; I do not necessarily assume that you are one of these since I think you may have indicated above that you are not necessarily a Shelby supporter.)

Again, I will try to address your most recent thoughts ASAP, but in the meantime I thought I would pass along these ideas that came to me yesterday.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

unable to be able SHOULD BE JUST PLAIN OLD unable

sorry!

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Mama Troll wrote:

...From what I read the trend is that in research institution, the trend is to pay higher salaries for the top people. A some point in this process tenure will become irrelevant. It the individuals hired by the institution are indeed top people, tenure becomes irrelevant. The institution will have to be competitive with their pay or lose them to other institutions.

In pure academic institutions tenure will probably be replaced by employment contracts. I understand that this is the case already with Phoenix, and with some small state supported school somewhere in Arkansas.

My visionary skills aren't sharp enough to see the future, but it is easy to visualize some sort of tenure with more stringent review processes, and/or more monetary performance incentive and less emphasis on tenure as we know it today...

I agree only with part of this Moma. An institution can't hire only top people. My reason is as follows: In any system of evaluation some will be on top and some on the bottom. It is a relative ranking. If only the top get the good raises then the bottom will try to leave to better their salary. If they were true "top" people to begin with then they will leave. So a filtering occurs. The top universities may pay their bottom people more than a lower university pays their top people.

If the university tries to "more up" as USM is trying to do then what was "top" a few years ago may now be average. Salaries get compressed or even inverted as starting assistant profs start asking for salaries closer to USM's full profs levels. Again people start leaving for better positions.

Imagine how many applications USM would get if there were no tenure and faculty could be dumped as they approached retirement age. In some of the most difficult and fast moving disciplines, a scholar's major contribution to the field is usually done before they are 45-50. They still may be excellent teachers and scholars, but their research high point is over. Even "research universities" have older profs who mostly teach and do the committee work. These productive profs are not “dead wood” just because their research is in decline. I realize that all disciplines are not the same and some profs may retire on top in their field, but this is not true for all.

I fear that in some of these discussions we slip into thinking of the university as a "for profit industrial laboratory" where research, and only research, is the purpose of the institution. Education is still the primary mission of universities.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Mama Troll wrote:

Well Left and Symph, my eyes are blood shot from reading boring academic papers, but I will have to admit the study did some good. I recommend to others on this site that you open your eyes to the viewpoints of your perceived opposition. It might be enlightening.
Oh and by the way Tenure In Law, I read your message along with the others. I couldn't find much to disagree with even though I don't go along with it 100%.
Here goes. I would never advocate taking tenure away from those to whom it has been granted. That would cause such a huge disruption of our system, that we would really have a problem. I don't see how that could even be considered without an increase in pay, and most schools don't have the money to do that even if it were a vialble alternative. That said, all of us are stuck with tenure for at least the time being like it or not, and frankly I don't like it. I'll get into my reasons in a bit....

Mama Troll/Gracie's Mother/USM Product/Bidness Man/others I'm sure I missed,

Your economic/institutional analysis of tenure has completely blown your cover.

No way are you a Hattiesburg resident, unconnected with the university, who wandered in to check out the weirdo faculty radicals in the USM chapter of AAUP.

You're an upper administrator at USM. I have a pretty good guess as to which one, but that doesn't really matter here.

Toy McLaughlin doesn't have a big following among ordinary folks in Hattiesburg. I doubt most have ever heard of him. Certain USM administrators know Mr. McLaughlin, however, and are inclined to protect him--even when he obviously doesn't deserve it.

Ordinary folks in Hattiesburg neither know nor care about some professor at Clemson (where the hell's that?) who criticizes the USM administration. Some USM administrators care--especially when their performance has been given a less than flattering review at Liberty and Power.

You make some sound basic points about tenure (for instance, that there is a tradeoff between job security and salary, so tenure depresses salaries for senior faculty). You acknowledge that, contrary to the fantasies of Shelbyite administratiors, tenure won't be taken from those who have it by declaring it null and void, and indulging in arbitrary firings; the only way to get rid of tenure for those who have it is via buyouts, and the upfront cost of doing so would be prodigious.

You miss some other things about tenure, however.

For one thing, tenure is tied up with academic governance.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Continuing with the academic governance issue...

One of the roles of tenure is to protect professors who participate in shared governance from being fired for carrying out their roles when some administrator would prefer they didn't, or for criticizing the policies or the performance of adminstrators.

Maybe you left shared governance out because you'd prefer not to see any?

Back in 1959, one of the first economic analyses of tenure (by Alchian) proposed that tenure is really about protecting faculty members from being fired by incompetent or malicious administrators.

I wouldn't have a problem with multi-year contracts for faculty members (say, for 5 years--not the 1 year contracts that the IHL Board insists on), so long as they were accompanied by substantial protections for academic freedom, an internal grievance procedure with teeth (as opposed to one that does little except dare professors to file lawsuits), and major institutional curbs on the overall size of the administration and on the conduct administrators are allowed to engage in. Very few professors will want to do away with tenure until they see signficant curbs on administration above the department chair level, and more significant penalties for incompetence or malfesance by administrators.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 14, 2005

MT/GM/USMP/BM et al.,

I'm going to be blunt here:

The dream of a Shelbyite dynasty at USM died on May 19 of this year. There are better and worse possibilities for USM after May 2007, but they don't include heirs to Shelby Thames or a continuation of his incoherent program of turning USM into an economic development university.

You may think that you can split the "mainstream" USM faculty from the "radicals" in the AAUP chapter and then get the mainstreamers to sign on to a Shelbyite continuation, but it doesn't work that way. The faculty split 90% to 10% against SFT and any attempt to keep the dynasty going will elicit another lopsided majority against the administration--unless it collapses the university first.

If you were brought into the USM administration by Thames, or were here before he took the throne but have latched onto him for advancement, the only way you can get enough faculty support to stay on after he leaves is to oppose him in public, now, at significant risk to yourself, in support of important academic values.

The alternative is to find work at another university, or in the private sector. I doubt that any professor at USM would try to impede you from doing either.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Robert Campbell wrote:

Mama Troll/Gracie's Mother/USM Product/Bidness Man/others I'm sure I missed,

Your economic/institutional analysis of tenure has completely blown your cover.

No way are you a Hattiesburg resident, unconnected with the university, who wandered in to check out the weirdo faculty radicals in the USM chapter of AAUP.

You're an upper administrator at USM. I have a pretty good guess as to which one, but that doesn't really matter here.

Toy McLaughlin doesn't have a big following among ordinary folks in Hattiesburg. I doubt most have ever heard of him. Certain USM administrators know Mr. McLaughlin, however, and are inclined to protect him--even when he obviously doesn't deserve it.

Ordinary folks in Hattiesburg neither know nor care about some professor at Clemson (where the hell's that?) who criticizes the USM administration. Some USM administrators care--especially when their performance has been given a less than flattering review at Liberty and Power.

You make some sound basic points about tenure (for instance, that there is a tradeoff between job security and salary, so tenure depresses salaries for senior faculty). You acknowledge that, contrary to the fantasies of Shelbyite administratiors, tenure won't be taken from those who have it by declaring it null and void, and indulging in arbitrary firings; the only way to get rid of tenure for those who have it is via buyouts, and the upfront cost of doing so would be prodigious.

You miss some other things about tenure, however.

For one thing, tenure is tied up with academic governance.

Come on Campbell, why stop there. Tell us who he is, I would love to know who this administrator is amongst us. You sound so sure, why not go out on a limb and name names, you have no problem doing so on your blog, why not here.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Seeker,

Really--I'm not completely sure which administrator it is.

Anyway, I don't think that the precise identity is all that important.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 14, 2005

I think you should apply for a position at USM so you can come lead the charge. What dose everyone else think. I mean at least then, you would have some personnel interest vested in the situation.

Date: Jun 14, 2005

We gotta get a new name for this thread

Date: Jun 14, 2005

RE: Calling B.S here

Date: Jun 14, 2005

I believe I have seen it all now. Seeker attacking Robert Cambell for attacking Moma Troll. It just doesn't get any better than this folks. Why am I not surprised?

Date: Jun 14, 2005

Seeker wrote:

I think you should apply for a position at USM so you can come lead the charge. What dose everyone else think. I mean at least then, you would have some personnel interest vested in the situation.

Why would Robert want to take a pay cut to come work at a 4th tier institution?