USM Faculty Whiners, You Suck! - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jun 30, 2005

USM Faculty Whiners, You Suck!

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Negativity bears negativity. Everyone should learn from this one. Some battles are ill advised, classic example.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

HA Editors wrote:

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050630/OPINION01/506300319/1014

This has to be the poorest piece of uninformed journalism to ever appear in the Hattiesburg American. What a disappointment.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Welcome, Hattiesburg American, to the list of those who seem to have declared war on the faculty. Gannett should be ashamed of their operation in Hattiesburg.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

This was not just a letter to the editor expressing the views of some citizen. It was an editorial. Something must have happened in the American's offices to produce so unwarranted.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

I find this editorial puzzling, if only because it reverts to unquestioning acceptance of every pronouncement made in the Dome.

What could possibly be wrong with a program that: 1) generates millions of additional dollars in research grants for USM; 2) saves the university lots of money; and 3) provides additional compensation for faculty members?

We know that MIDAS does (3). Where is the evidence that it accomplishes either (1) or (2)?

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Wow! Is the Hattiesburg American misinformed. I don't recall when I've ever seen print and reality so far apart from one another. I hope the HA is flooded with letters to straighten them out.

This HA editorial makes three unfounded assertions:

1. The program generates millions in additional research grants.
2. The program saves lots of money.
3. The program provides additional compensation to faculty.

The truth is:

1. Research funding during the past three years has grown at only about 5% a year, the
slowest rate of increase in recent history. Controlling for inflation the increase has been even more disappointing - less than 3% a year.

2. The program is very expensive, a money loser. Approximately 40% of the salary money paid for by grants which used to go to the university now goes to individuals. Such grants would have to increase by close to 70% for the program to break even. At present it is a big expense in hard times, costing about $1 million dollars over the past two years.

3. Any organization which gave 10% of its employees big bonuses while doing nothing for anybody else would experience major morale problems and attrition. Plus, the reward is being provided to encourage faculty members to buy their way out of the classroom, a policy which would remove some of the most talented faculty from access by students.

I can't determine if today's editorial is merely a piece of sloppy journalism or a deliberate attempt to turn facts into fantasy.

So keep those cards and letters coming, folks. Somebody at "Gannett local"l needs to be set straight (metaphor alert) and pronto.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

USM is like most organizations.You've got good folks and you've got bad folks.The good productive ones get out and work and make the organization better.They get the grants,take the extra steps,do a better job. The sorry ones bitch and moan ,talk about how they're being abused,complain when they're not consulted on things they have no responsibility for. In the real world you get rid of the bad folks.In academia they have tenure so you try to ignore or minimize their input since they've proven themselves useless.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

It's time for the USM faculty to cease complaining publicly. If this continues, we will get more of this type of treatment. We got SFT's term cut short. Time to shut up and ride it out unless another issue of the Glamser/Stringer magnitude arises.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Gold City wrote:

It's time for the USM faculty to cease complaining publicly. If this continues, we will get more of this type of treatment . . Time to shut up and ride it . .

Here's a a bit of history for you to read, Gold City:

In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Martin Niemoller(1892-1984)

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Pointing out misrepresentations and bad academic policies is not complaining. Faculty members have an obligation to speak up.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Gold City wrote:

It's time for the USM faculty to cease complaining publicly. If this continues, we will get more of this type of treatment. We got SFT's term cut short. Time to shut up and ride it out unless another issue of the Glamser/Stringer magnitude arises.

The germ of truth here is that it is time to start thinking past the Thames regime to the rebuilding enterprise. The error is in thinking that this means suffering in silence until deliverance arrives. On the contrary, faculty leaders should speak and act boldly, albeit strategically, to limit the wreakage still being wrought.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Jean Moulin wrote:

faculty leaders should speak and act boldly, albeit strategically, to limit the wreakage still being wrought.

To that I would like to add that those who do not speak and act boldly are not leadership material.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Little Jimmy Brown needs to write help the university community inform the rest of the world about the stupidity of MIDAS.

Simply defined MIDAS means that when a professor has all or a portion of his/her salary paid by an external source, the university kicks back a portion of the salary savings to the professor.

The HA editorial missed the point, and so, too, did some of the faculty who responded to the initial news story. (Let’s cease moaning about the inequitably of the application of stupidity.)

The primary failing of the MIDAS program -- other than it’s name (Do you remember what happened to Midas? Didn’t his greed turn him into a golden ass? Could there be a more short-sighted but appropriate name for the program?) – is that it places the interest of individuals above the interests of the university. And here, the word “university” stands for faculty, staff, students, and community.

Ahh, the interests of the individual above the interest of the educational mission of the U. Now, that’s a familiar theme at U.S.M.

Here’s how:

Rather than the U taking the “proceeds” of a salary paid all or in part by an outside source and applying it to hiring a temporary faculty member, or splitting the salary savings with the faculty member’s college/department, and skimming a bit for one-time time expenditures, the U kicks back a healthy percentage to the faculty member.

The assumption here is that the only way to increase faculty grant-getting is by paying them a bonus for doing so. Additionally, the premise holds that faculty are motivated by greed. (I think we may have an insight into the motivations of SFT here.)

Unfortunately, when that bonus is paid others suffer. That’s the fundamental inequity. Not that some probably will not be illegible for MIDASS.

My advice: Try to get a gig as a visiting professor somewhere else. Consult your dean about how to arrange it, but make sure that your salary is still pumped through USM. Then, work it through Sponsored Research with a blue sheet. You’ll get a nice bonus after going away from HERE to teach for a year and with surely a lower teaching load.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

"...Do you remember what happened to Midas? Didn’t his greed turn him into a golden ass?..."

King Midas cursed himself with the "golden touch" imparted to him by the god Dionysus (in reward for an earlier hospitality). When he couldn't eat or drink, and then accidentally turned his daughter into gold, Midas repented of his greed and begged for deliverance. Dionysus instructed him to bathe in the Pactolus River to rid himself of the curse and restore the status quo ante.

Any chance that Shelby and Co. might take a plunge in the Pactolus and return USM to "normal"?

Date: Jun 30, 2005

buckskin wrote:

My advice: Try to get a gig as a visiting professor somewhere else. Consult your dean about how to arrange it, but make sure that your salary is still pumped through USM. Then, work it through Sponsored Research with a blue sheet. You’ll get a nice bonus after going away from HERE to teach for a year and with surely a lower teaching load.

Very clever, buckskin. But yours is only one way to beat the system. Many faculty members engage in consulting for remuneration within university guidelines. Funneling those funds into a special USM MIDASS account and then distributing those funds in a certain manner might yield some very creative opportunities of greed. It doesn't take a CPA to figure that out.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

There a way that MIDAS could detrimental to USM's graduate programs. In Lieu of funding graduate students on research assistantships, or even building equipment into the budget, the PI could ask the funding agency for a 25% per semester released time. That should be obvious to anybody who has been successful in obtaining research support. Contracts are more amenable to this than are research grants. Contracts or research grants from private sources (e.g., industry) are more amenable to this than are federal contracts and grants (the feds are smart. Very smart. They wouldn't tolerate it).

Date: Jun 30, 2005

I can see that there must be many ways for faculty to become millionaires; and, at the same time, for the university to become an academic pauper.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

House of Straw wrote:

Gold City wrote:
It's time for the USM faculty to cease complaining publicly. If this continues, we will get more of this type of treatment . . Time to shut up and ride it . .

Here's a a bit of history for you to read, Gold City:
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemoller(1892-1984)

Yes, yes. Niemoller's statement. It's pretty offensive that you even metaphorically compare the Holocost to the Thames regime. I don't know how many times I've read posts that alluded to that statement, but it's a large number. While the Thames bungle is probably the worst thing to happen in many of our lives, no one has been killed to my knowledge.

I am a faculty member, and I didn't say that faculty members shouldn't complain internally. There are methods by which complaints may be registered both internally and externally. However, the public statements regarding MIDAS did look petty. You may not like MIDAS, but it is not easy for the general public to decypher the arguments against MIDAS. The faculty statements contained no facts, just assertions. Notice that the Gunther report (backed up by facts) wasn't really challenged by SFT or his minions and the newspaper didn't rip him as a whiner because he used FACTS to attack Thames. Numbers. Cold, hard evidence.

Keep on making these kinds of unsupported criticisms and you'll get more of what we got today -- a gut shot from the editorial staff of the HA.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Other cheek wrote:

Pointing out misrepresentations and bad academic policies is not complaining. Faculty members have an obligation to speak up.

See my post above. Our faculty leadership needs to realize that you cannot throw accusations at Thames without proof. Thames provided the HA with an example of how MIDAS works. Where is the counterexample showing how it could be abused?

Date: Jun 30, 2005

The Hattiesburg American, understandably, will not publish an unsigned letter-to-the-editor. I always assumed that the "no anonymity" policy is based on the assumption that one should be held accountable for what is written. Here we have an unsigned anonymous editorial. There is no public accountability whatsoever for the editor who wrote it. Nameless and faceless.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

I will approach a colleague tomorrow to help me construct a counterexample to the HA MIDAS example showing how $$ can be double dipped. When ready, I will post it here. It will be simple and straightforward but numerically correct.

Then if someone wants to submit it to the HA as part of a letter, they can do that. My station in life will not allow me to do that.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

You can run but you can't hide wrote:

The Hattiesburg American, understandably, will not publish an unsigned letter-to-the-editor. I always assumed that the "no anonymity" policy is based on the assumption that one should be held accountable for what is written. Here we have an unsigned anonymous editorial. There is no public accountability whatsoever for the editor who wrote it. Nameless and faceless.

They don't have to "sign" their names at the bottom of the editorial. While I disagree with the editorial's content, it is very easy to find the names, email addresses, and telephone numbers of the editorial staff. You may assume that the Editor in chief position is responsible for this at the very least. No secrets here, but you have to look for the names, etc.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

How could anybody be gullible enough to believe that an organization can give away a half-million dollars and make money on it? Put the half-million in a Salvation Army kettle and maybe you'll be blessed. But hand it out to 45 people standing on the street in front of K-Mart and they'll ...well, you know what they'll do.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

On another thread, a poster mentioned a pertinent report on the NSF's audit of San Diego State University:

http://www.nsf.gov/oig/sdsuf.pdf

See particularly page 8, note 4, in this report.

I'd like to hear what the experts have to say on this. As I read the report, bonuses like those offered in the MIDAS program are in violation of NSF rules, though other granting agencies may of course have different policies.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Robert Campbell wrote:

As I read the report, bonuses like those offered in the MIDAS program are in violation of NSF rules, though other granting agencies may of course have different policies.

Robert, earlier on this thread Spit Ball touched on this as a possible problem - "Contracts or research grants from private sources (e.g., industry) are more amenable to this than are federal contracts and grants (the feds are smart. Very smart. They wouldn't tolerate it)."

Date: Jun 30, 2005

According to the April, 2003 IHL minutes, when the MIDAS proposal was on the table, only Virginia Shanteau Newton voted against it. I believe she was onto something; she is the only one of those board members who merits my trust as someone who works for what is right and just for USM in particular and higher education in general.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Gold City wrote:

While the Thames bungle is probably the worst thing to happen in many of our lives, no one has been killed to my knowledge.

I haven't heard of any assassinations either. But did you hear the one about a dean being pressured to fire a dying administrator?

Date: Jun 30, 2005

No, and I would like to hear the story on that one. That's awful.

Date: Jun 30, 2005

Gold City wrote:

....probably the worst thing to happen in many of our lives, no one has been killed to my knowledge. .

Is that what it would take to get you to take the high road?