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USM Forum -- Message Board -> AAUP-USM MESSAGE BOARD -> Thames Taxpayer Alert!
Post Info TOPIC: Thames Taxpayer Alert!
Cash Cow

Date:
Thames Taxpayer Alert!
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For all you taxpaying citizens out in the community and on campus, an update on how your state and federal dollars are being spent by the Thames clan (SF "Papa Doc" and Princess D "Baby Doc").


We all know that the Thames's have a great genetic disposition for lining their own pockets at the taxpayers' expense, but came up short when the line was formed for the administration and leadership gene.


As some of you know, Baby Doc was given a 16% raise ($13,000) in January, 2006 by Papa's people. This follows an impressive series of raises for her under Papa Doc that will put her yearly compensation (including summer and year long "bonuses" for federal trough pork-barrel projects) at a cool $145,000, give or take some change. Local girl makes good, right? Keep in mind that her base salary is the gift that keeps on giving, well into retirement and PERS heaven-and you and I will foot the bill for this. So what did you get for the money?


Well, as the leader of the largest teacher education program in the university, and perhaps the state, she is following Papa Doc's lead on accreditation and is batting just about 100%-failure rate that is. Every single accredited program on her watch has failed the national standards assessment process, and this now puts all of USM's teacher accreditation programs at risk. Along the way, she managed to get one assistant dean who blew the whistle on the problems coming out of that department fired and replaced with a buddy. She convinced the Provost and the VP for accreditation that a second assistant dean, who was trying to clean up Baby Doc's mess, is also a problem for her. That assistant dean is under constant seige from Papa Doc's people. The Dean is terrified for his job, and refuses to act. She has run faculty off from her department to the tune of 14 openings, and good quality replacements willing to work for her are few and far between. She has presided over a precipitous student enrollment drop in her department. The good news? She gets that pork cash from Uncle Thad in Washington, DC. Bless her heart.   


Well that's what you have been getting, good taxpayer. Another poster noted that Baby Doc is announcing her ascension to the Dean throne. Anything is possible. Now that teacher ed is going down the crapper, Papa Doc will be looking for people to line up against the wall, and you can bet it won't be Baby Doc on the receiving end of a blindfold and cigarette. And you good people out there, will continue to pay the bill. 



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Emma

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This is sickening. 

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And No Cure in Sight

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Emma wrote:

This is sickening. 

Emma:


Agreed. I bet this thread dies a quick death due to lack of interest out there. Sad, sad, sad.



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Rounder

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Just wait until DT becomes CoEP dean....

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Vote Early and Often

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Rounder wrote:

Just wait until DT becomes CoEP dean....
Can't wait. The battle will be perhaps the bloodiest in the SFT era and played out in the public arena.

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Incredulous

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Surely SFT cannot be contemplating putting DT into the dean's position. Does he have any grip on reality?

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Sports fan

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Vote Early and Often wrote:

Can't wait. The battle will be perhaps the bloodiest in the SFT era and played out in the public arena.
Two tickets please. Front row. Aise seats. Close to the popcorn stand.

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Macavity

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I'm curious,


Do any posters really know DT??  My dealings with her have just proven her to be a real oddball. Drama Queen and a wannabeshelby. Yuck. Maybe she has some redeeming qualitites, but I don't honestly know what they are. I know she has cost this university far more than she has made it. Her purge of the dept. is legendary. People in Petal are well rid of her.



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nextstateover

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DT is a real piece of work. She's a lost soul without her daddy - she is not a scholar by any stretch of the imagination, and she continues to be the albatross hung around the CoEP's neck. The recent hit on Psychology had a lot to do with the wrath of Dana.  Will NCATE see through this facade when they arrive on Friday?? I believe that they already know.  If she hadn't had acted in such a despicable manner in the past (against friends/colleagues of mine who are far more academically brilliant than she is) I'd almost pity her.

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Pass me a hammer . . .

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Ok, so scratch the best nursing school in the state, scratch the biggest teacher training program in the state, scratch the only College of Arts in the state, and trash the best English department in the REGION. We better hope that Construction Technology degree takes off like gangbusters, or we'll be shutting the door.


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Cartographer

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Pass me a hammer . . . wrote:
...trash the best English department in the REGION.



Are you talking about the Pine Belt Region or just the Region between I-55 and I-59, and I-10 and I-20? If your definition of Region extends beyond the borders of Mississippi, then we've got a serious disagreement.

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Pass me a hammer

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South of I-20, not counting Tulane, though some people would disagree with me on that. This is out of my territory, better let somebody from English pick up the ball. And I'm talking about "used to" not about now.

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Agitated

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WIthout NCATE accreditation, there will be no teacher education college here.

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Bayer Aspirin

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NCATE is huge - surely Pierce will catch some heat for this latest screw-up, as will Tiny Thames teenie weenie one.

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beentheredonethat

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Actually, it is very sad that Willie Pierce will take the fall for the SSN screw up. There are folks hired by Papa Doc who make the decisions about NCATE. Willie has had very little input. He was basically told to shut up and watch.

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constant confusion

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does anyone know who was responsible for the screwup?


who put the list out there and who approved it?


I thought web matters went through PR.



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O-M insider

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De Casal is at fault according to DT.

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O-M outsider

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Baby Doc can't wait to become Dean.  Willie, stand and watch. You'll have Delta State soon enough.

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stephen judd

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constant confusion wrote:

does anyone know who was responsible for the screwup? who put the list out there and who approved it? I thought web matters went through PR.

How about this:


There is so much general disorganization and chaos right now in the university, so many new "initiatives" being proposed in the midst of a busy year of SACs and NCATE, on top of the continuing fallout from the reorganization the administration instituted three years ago that these kinds of mistakes are inevitable -- there is little time at this institution for good planning, for checking on things as they go out, or confirming that apropriate administratives steps are being taken in all cases.


I've never been in a place where so many people labored in such a fog of confusion that actually seems to be willfully maintained by management . . . . it may keep people clicking their heels but it does not contribute to productivity or efficiency . . . . Individuals may be making mistakes, but the mastakes being made are not solely the product of individual competence/lack of competence . . . .



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LVN

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Do Deans routinely post information to websites? I thought that was a staff function. I'd bet lunch that this was a case of a staff person being told to post a list of names and the SSN's were inadvertently attached. Either the poster didn't know not to include the names or else the piece of paper was just scanned in, numbers and all. It would make more sense for the staff person's chair to be blamed than for the Dean to be blamed, but I guess that would never happen.

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Southern Justice

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Deans have been circumvented at USM. The Dome communicates directly with chairs via email. The Deans sit idly by, either trying not to lose their jobs (Pood, Pierce, Fos, Gandy) or trying to cook up vita fillers to help them get out (Doty).

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LVN

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LVN wrote:
. Either the poster didn't know not to include the names or else . .. .


Of course I meant "didn't know not to includes the SSN's. . . "

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astonished

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Who is to blame is not the issue here - the issue is lack of policies (or the communication thereof) concerning individual's information.  I believe (please correct me if I am wrong) that USM does have a policy about posting of this information, but many do not understand the significance of it.

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Cossack

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Professor Judd,

Your observations are right on. Chaos is not a good environment in which to make crucial decisions. This is why there are serious mistakes made when undertaking military actions. It is inevitable. The only way to avoid a mistake is to do nothing, which of course is a mistake in itself. This can be shown in a trivial example.

Assume that a person must make many decisions in a day and continues to do so over an extended period. Assign a probability to the process that 99% of the time the decisions maker will make the correct decision. Further assume that over a two-year period the decision maker makes 150 decisions. There is only a 22% probability that all 150 decisions will be correct (78% probability of a mistake.) If the prior is 98% chance of making the right decision, the probability of making at least one mistake is 95%.

If there are multiple decision makers on a project, there is no possibility of not making a mistake.


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LVN

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Astonished, normally I would agree that placing blame is not the issue; having the right policies in place and seeing that they are followed is the issue. However, if a clerical error is used to unseat a Dean in the interest of replacing him with a particular person, then placing blame is what this is all about.

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astonished

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LVN - I agree that, in this case, placing blame may be important. 


We can also use this instance to show that the administration, down to the dean and some dept chair level, can't manage their way out of a paper bag.  SOMEONE needs to get their act together.



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unbelievable

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Sick, sick, sick.

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CoEp has lost it

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Stay tuned.

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Where are the protests?

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Where are the protests? Where are the shouts? Thames' daughter gets a huge raise and everybody rolls over? Taxpayers allow this to happen? The faculty senate allows this to happen? AAUP allows this to happen? I'm disgusted.

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LVN

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Has the raise been publicly announced? The HA won't print anything about it without verification. As for FS and AAUP "allowing" anything, what the heck are you talking about?

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