Angeline wrote:

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In the interest of public service periodic updates on the misadventures of the unfortunate dean of Arts & Letters will be offered in this space. Today's episode finds that Pood bought each of his departments printers costing many thousands of dollars each even though they had not requested such equipment. Just what is the connection between Dell and Pood, one might ask? Key question: Was this a wise use of extra money? At least two of Pood's departments from the old Arts side of the fence dramatically overdrew their yearly budgets - a not uncommon occurrence for these departments. The Administration pulled the money - to the tune of nearly half a million dollars - out of Pood's development account. Pood and those departments obviously need to learn how to manage a budget, but the more disturbing question is: What was Pood doing with that kind of money in a development account? CoAL faculty cannot recall being offered travel/research funding or bonuses for their herculean service efforts to get USM through SACS accreditation, much less raises that are sorely needed as our take-home income has dropped over the past couple of years because of rising university fees and health insurance costs. More miscapades in the next report.

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In the interest of not pitting departments against one another (and particularly since I can see a liberal arts vs arts controversy arising here):

I can only speak of my department, theatre and dance. It is NOT common for us to overdraw our ENG account because it is so ridiculously small. However, we PAY IT BACK. We have a pretty complicated system of tracking our money because doing theatre productions is a fairly complicated business -- over 150 lines for production alone. And our seasons do not coincide with the buget year. For instance, Southern Arena Theatre is split between 2004-5 and 2005-6. We have primarily financed our fall shows out of ENG and pour spring shows out of what we call our showcase account, which is money we generate from income and donations and is not given to us by the state. We use the Showcase account to PAY BACK the ENG account. It is a matter of making the appropriate transfers at the right time.

Each year we enter this period with the need to transfer from the showcase account in order to cover our ENG overage. It is not an unusual event but is a matter of transferring funds. Of course, this kind of activity requires some degree of constancy in order to work. Part of the snafu this year comes from changes in the chairmanship of the department; the retirement of Jan Roberts, formerly the business manager in the old College of the Arts and then the CoAL; the gap in bringing in her replacmenet, and the new finanacial suystems Gregg Lassen is putting in place; and a Dean who is still not up to speed on finances (I can't blame him folks -- I know how complicated our department is and that is just one). Remember, at the levels of Dean and Chair we just went through a hellish year with all of the demands for information because of the SACS review. Please don't underestimate how much that threw the daily running of many departments into chaos.

This is one of those areas where life as a member of combined college has NOT helped the arts. Not because we can overspend -- but because the staff that formerly were part of our publicity, development, and finanacial areas that helped us track some fairly complicated proceedures have now been moved into a college where insteasd of serving three departments they serve fourteen with very little staff increase. The confusion of "reorganization" still continues, and that is not completely contingent on blaming individuals for trying to keep their heads above water in a system that one cannot learn fast enough before it mutates into something else.

Now that I am free of my year as director of theatre, I can tell you that from a management standpnt, it was a horror. Not because of my faculty, my students, or even the Dean. But because it was impossible for me to adequately do the daily things I needed to do and keep up with the constant changes in every single area that pertained to my job.

A very good reason why we have seven (or is it eight) new chairs in CoAL.

I don't mean to sound irritated. I think Angeline's report is incomplete and I really not only dispute the accusation that certain departments habitually go over budget, but Idon't think we need those kinds of implications to split us up.

Angeline wrote:

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Today's episode finds that Pood bought each of his departments printers costing many thousands of dollars each even though they had not requested such equipment.

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Perhaps these new printers are more Trojan Horse than gift?

Sources tell IllEagle that the new printers are COLOR laser printers that promise more of Big Brother for Arts and Letters, home of the Resistance.

As has been documented in the technology press, many color laser printers deposit barely-visible tracking information, embedded in tiny yellow dots of ink, on every page.  Want to know where an anonymous packet of information originated?  Take it to a campus lab for analysis or call in your friends from Pileum.

PC World link A

PC World link B

Fly wrote:

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Wow!  You guys on the one hand think that Pood cannot manage his way into his own clothes in the morning.  On the other hand he is bright and evil enough to purchase super-spy printers to Big Brother the departments in the COAL.  Quite a disagreement!

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