Didn't USM already approve the purchase the hardware?  So if the DMBA gets voted down, what happens to the hardware? 

Is this guy committing career suicide?

Klumb's Playbook wrote:

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The entire COB will vote on the DigMBA next Friday.  Doty plans to use a coalition in the COB to block the move for a secret ballot vote on his digital MBA curriculum.  If successful, everyone's vote will be openly noted for faster/easier retribution.  I had not heard of the plan to motion that staff also vote.  Sounds possible at this point.  

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How could one possibly justify overriding a faculty request for a secret ballot vote?  Doesn't the administration want faculty to vote their conscience?  Everyone should abstain if they can't have a secret ballot vote.

The strong arming has begun.  We need help over here from AAUP or somebody.  Had I known what I was in for I never would have accepted the position here. 

Smoking Management wrote:

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Outside Observer wrote: Klumb's Playbook wrote: The entire COB will vote on the DigMBA next Friday.  Doty plans to use a coalition in the COB to block the move for a secret ballot vote on his digital MBA curriculum.  If successful, everyone's vote will be openly noted for faster/easier retribution.  I had not heard of the plan to motion that staff also vote.  Sounds possible at this point.   How could one possibly justify overriding a faculty request for a secret ballot vote?  Doesn't the administration want faculty to vote their conscience?  Everyone should abstain if they can't have a secret ballot vote. Well said. Let's remember that the ballots are written, not necessarily secret. Would Doty try to bully and intimidate untenured faculty and those up for T&P? Not just yes, but . . . . . Written ballots allow for privacy for personal decisions.

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Ballots can created that simply say "Yes" "No" or abstain and a space to check or circle.

I will stick my oar in this one to say that I believe that if there are situations where votes are required or approrpriate, the alternative of a secret vote should always be possible. Even our constitution recognizes this -- and the reason is so logical it doesn't even have to be explicit in explaining why.

Without commenting on the issues in CoB, I believe that situations in which any administrator may be exercising authority in a way that harms academic process, academic freedom, or individual members of staff or faculty demand the intervention of senior faculty if there is a collective sense among the senior faculty that something illegitimate or harmful is happening. What is the point of spending years ducking for cover (and frequently being sheltered by those senior faculty members who preceded us) if we are not going to defend these issues or our colleages when such times come? I belive that in the best situations faculty and administration, along with staff and students, should be partners. Partners can quarrel and disagree and then move on when a decision is made. But when people in power put a thumb on the scale by remaking the rules without consultation; or ignore the rules altogether, or work in secrecy, or create a cabal of cronies who then carry out decisions without consultation -- these are not the kind of actions an academic community can long withstand a remain a community of integrity.

Illegtimate actions, however, are not limited to Chairs or Deans and above. All of us on the faculty face the possiblity every day of committing these kinds of actions ourselves with students, with collegues. And although the stakes might not be so high or the damage so visible, to the degree that our actions as individual faculty reflect the same kinds of  urge to power that occurs at the top -- we damage our credibility and our integrity.

Integrity starts in daily actions and interactions, and it starts at ground level. We can't ask administrators to do what we do not do ourselves.

To be clear -- I'm not speaking from a mountain here. I've been learning the hard way these very things about myself . . . and perhaps that is why our critique of power in academy must be continuously accompanied by an ongoing critique of ourselves seems very important to me right now.

 

 

From another thread--

Something similar to what is going on the CoB happened 2 to 3 years back in the SoM. The director and associate director decided to offer an online Masters degree in music education. They did even present this to the departmental graduate and catalog and curriculum committees, let alone to the entire faculty. Several faculty members not in music education but whose courses were necessary for the degree (theory, music history, etc.) was mightily, shall we say, angry. This actually led to the departure of at least two.

Anyone know what the outcome of this was? Did it actually come about? If so, are the people who were upset teaching in it?