What was Shelby's first official gaffe? - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Feb 13, 2006

What was Shelby's first official gaffe?

Date: Feb 13, 2006

The first one I can remember was the consolidation of the colleges and the effective firings of the deans (where he notified the "bidness" leaders before the deans themselves). If that wasn't the first official misuse of power, it was definitely the first one that let us all know how he was planning to do business as the new Prez (in secret and with no input from anyone else).

Truth

Date: Feb 13, 2006

I don't know what the first gaffe was, but the straw that broke the camel's back was the ill advised attempt to fire Gary Stringer and Frank Glamser.

Date: Feb 13, 2006

When he screamed at a student during a presentation that was part of his visit to the Coast when he was being interviewed. During the same visit, he also gave indications of his personality and methods when he became visibly enraged--red faced, sweaty and glaring--when a Coast psychology prof questioned his record when he was VP for regional campuses back in the day. Shelboo, in other words, was committing gaffe after gaffe even before he was officially crowned, er... I mean appointed.

For the record, there's an interesting story behind the latter of those two examples. When SFT was VP for regional campuses back in the 80's he once paid a visit to Gulf Park on a Friday afternoon. This was back when there were few resident coast profs, when USM-GC was forbidden by law from teaching Friday courses and most of the residents who were there taught four night courses, Mon-Thur, every week. The story goes that SFT found only ONE prof on campus that Friday PM, Professor M., and she was carrying a bathing suit folded under one arm, obviously either going to or coming from the olympic size pool that USM-GC inherited from Gulf Park College, and which was in operating condition until about 10 years ago.

Beside himself over this blatant example of a flawed faculty work ethic, SFT instituted a system where coast faculty--I'm not making this next part up-- had to sign in and out of their offices on a time sheet provided to college secretaries. As I heard this story, the timesheet was modeled on the sort of timesheet common to law firms, where lawyers have to account for 15 minute increments of "billable time."

The result of this was, for all intents and purposes, a faculty walk out. A sizable proportion of the coast resident faculty simply offered their resignations, effective immediately. SFT backed off of his timesheet scheme. But the incident of Professor M's bathing suit lived on in coast lore until the moment when SFT came to the coast during his interview process and was confronted by it back in the Spring of 2002.

Lest we forget . . .

Date: Feb 13, 2006

The Big Chill wrote:

I don't know what the first gaffe was, but the straw that broke the camel's back was the ill advised attempt to fire Gary Stringer and Frank Glamser.

Yes. That's the action that triggered the no confidence votes and which accelerated the faculty exodus. It also provided the deans with an opportunity to take some action which would reveal if they had the "right stuff." I'm still waiting.

Date: Feb 13, 2006

his belief that the Mississippi law concerning Nepotism didn't apply to him.

I actually think what other posters have said about the interview itself (on the Coast) was probably one of the first known mistakes - it's interesting to see this timeline being created. The Glamser and Stringer debacle was the most over the top move, even eclipsing the moving 9 Colleges into 5 plan and letting the biz'ness people know the night before the deans knew.

However, now that I'm thinking about it, his biggest gaffe might have been naively, and egotistically, buying into the IHL's plans from the get-go. He will always been remembered in USM history, but not in the way he wanted to be.

Date: Feb 13, 2006

Absentee Bride wrote:

Yes. That's the action that triggered the no confidence votes and which accelerated the faculty exodus. It also provided the deans with an opportunity to take some action which would reveal if they had the "right stuff." I'm still waiting.

hmmmmmm, you will have a long wait for the right stuff given their performances to date.

COB - sacrifices programs to fund his "booze account".
CoST - caves into Dr. Thames's assistant's pressure to appoint a patsy
CoAL - secures Polk's success by driving him away to a place that has real power
CoEP - "what we have a Dean?" or "do we have a Dana?"
CoH - "is he out of IC yet?"

Date: Feb 14, 2006

My pick: When Thames took Carl Nicholson's advice to resign from the search committee so that he could be a candidate himself.

Date: Feb 14, 2006

Let's not forget when he gave his high-school level description of polymer science to the packed room of faculty as part of his "interview" process. I will never ever forget a supposedly grown man explaining the definition of polymer science: "Poly means many . . . ." We had heard he was oppressive and heavy-handed and with those first few words out of his mouth we also knew he was a dim-wit who knew nothing other than his own specialty. We are still paying the price for such narrow-minded leadership.

Date: Feb 14, 2006

Yes, we recall that, and Aubrey Dufas had to fire him. That was funny and tragic.

Date: Feb 14, 2006

Angeline wrote:

Let's not forget when he gave his high-school level description of polymer science to the packed room of faculty as part of his "interview" process. I will never ever forget a supposedly grown man explaining the definition of polymer science: "Poly means many . . . ." We had heard he was oppressive and heavy-handed and with those first few words out of his mouth we also knew he was a dim-wit who knew nothing other than his own specialty. We are still paying the price for such narrow-minded leadership.

...so, what does "mer" mean?

Date: Feb 14, 2006

Baited Breath wrote:

Angeline wrote:
Let's not forget when he gave his high-school level description of polymer science to the packed room of faculty as part of his "interview" process. I will never ever forget a supposedly grown man explaining the definition of polymer science: "Poly means many . . . ." We had heard he was oppressive and heavy-handed and with those first few words out of his mouth we also knew he was a dim-wit who knew nothing other than his own specialty. We are still paying the price for such narrow-minded leadership.
...so, what does "mer" mean?

That's where it gets really fun, for you see "mer" is "the repeating structural unit of any polymer." Ain't that lovely.

Date: Feb 14, 2006

!!

Date: Feb 14, 2006

hmmmm wrote:

Absentee Bride wrote:
Yes. That's the action that triggered the no confidence votes and which accelerated the faculty exodus. It also provided the deans with an opportunity to take some action which would reveal if they had the "right stuff." I'm still waiting.

hmmmmmm, you will have a long wait for the right stuff given their performances to date.
COB - sacrifices programs to fund his "booze account".CoST - caves into Dr. Thames's assistant's pressure to appoint a patsy CoAL - secures Polk's success by driving him away to a place that has real powerCoEP - "what we have a Dean?" or "do we have a Dana?"CoH - "is he out of IC yet?"

CoAL Driving so many excellent faculty away.

A friend who teaches at UT-Austin told me of seeing that Gary Stringer was to deliver an invited lecture at their prestigious Ransom Center for Humanties Research.

Date: Feb 14, 2006

Baited Breath wrote:

Angeline wrote: Let's not forget when he gave his high-school level description of polymer science to the packed room of faculty as part of his "interview" process. I will never ever forget a supposedly grown man explaining the definition of polymer science: "Poly means many . . . ." We had heard he was oppressive and heavy-handed and with those first few words out of his mouth we also knew he was a dim-wit who knew nothing other than his own specialty. We are still paying the price for such narrow-minded leadership. ...so, what does "mer" mean?

In biology, we learned that a "mer" is a molecule.

Date: Feb 14, 2006

Before the memorable incident on the Gulf Coast, there was also an incident in his "interview" with staff, which has been told on this board before. Instead of allowing himself to be asked questions, he took the sheet of questions away from the moderator and picked out the ones he wanted to answer. Most of us left that auditorium with heavy hearts.

Date: Feb 14, 2006

This has been posted before by others, but it is worth looking at again on this thread.
Its not a gaffe, but it explains the vehemence with which SFT attacked the faculty--and those attacks certainly were gaffes. And they began at the very first of his regime.

Shelby entered the interview process with a lot of baggage, but had he shown himself to be a different sort of person in those public appearances, everyone would have been ready to give him a chance and do their best to support him. But the old Shelby--not just impatient and rude but vindictive and revengeful-- was readily apparent at the public interviews--before the staff, at the coast, before the Hburg faculty, before the deans, etc. As a result, he came out of the interview process with an overwhelming vote of "no" from the faculty. (I have been told that the deans also voted almost unanimously for another candidate.) So Shelby chose to vilify those who did not want him. His reasoning to the public? A faculty who doesn't want me must be lazy and stupid. His personal reasoning? I suspect it was "I'll show those ***'s."

Had he trusted and relied on those who really knew how the university works--people like Hollandsworth, Martray, Griffin, Cotten--and had he not begun immediately to attack the faculty, his term might have had a chance to accomplish something.