Winning one battle would not mean winning the war. What happens with SACS is but one part of this mess on campus.

"They (faculty and staff) are doing a yeomen's job." SFT


Yeoman defined.....1. a freeloader of a class below the gentry. 2. a petty officer assigned to clerical duty.


gentry.....people of high social standing. people of a particular class or group.


Us yeomen know what we have to do for the USM gentry.

from the OED--yeoman's service (also yeoman service): good, efficient, or useful service, such as is rendered by a faithful servant of good standing.

LVN wrote:

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I agree the yeoman remark sounded condescending. However, I'm pretty sure it's not "freeloader" -- it's "freeholder" that is, a class of people who were not serfs, but farmed their own land.

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I know its freeholder....SFT thinks it freeloader.

I f the review is favorable,it will be yet another feather in Thames' cap!

If USM is reaccredited, it will reinforce the concept held by the Board and the public that SACS is just a formality that can be met by throwing reams of paper at the evaluation team.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

This is exactly what will happen.  SFT's supporters will say "see, I told you so."  SFT is going to get away with this, with zero accountability.  SACS is interested in paper work, the mere appearance of doing real assessment.  They have no intention of looking at the bad situation here, they are fully aware of what SFT has done.  Only a blind man with no ears would not know that.  His model of governance has been accepted by SACS.  I do not understand it any more than you do.  After SACS gives the green light, the last 12 months of SFT's administration will be a very very dismal epoch at this school, occupied by his "final solution" whereby major policy changes will come rapid fire, and probably some more dumb decisions will be made, with vendettas fully implemented.  It will be so close to his departure date that Meredith  and the IHL will not care.  They have ignored the most overwhelming no confidence vote in american university history, unlike other universities and states in the news.

Then, the IHL can be more flexible in putting in a president much like Lee at MSU, who will do very little to put the ship back on course, and would be more in tune with IHL's plans to change the mission.  IMHO, our mission has already been changed.

 

let me briefly respond to some of cossack's comments about procedure. unlike the past (our '75, '85, and '95 reaffirmations), SACS' procedures and philosophy have changed. for example, there are fewer "must" statements. compliance reviews are done mostly online and/or with meetings from our team at a site (like Atlanta), but they do ask questions of the university and ask them to address issues before they come to the campus. this is a departure from the past. they do give an idea of the issues that concern them. they may still come to campus with some issues that have not been adequately addressed. as i understand it, our team has some issues to be addressed--three that i know of are faculty credentials, the general education curriculum (a mess), and assessment. the QEP is the "big show," however. it is possible that a SACS team would only focus on an institution's QEP.

as to the politics, the decision makers are not at SACS. the people that make the decisions are faculty and administrators at other universities. at the same time SACS has taken hits in the courts on due process, so the organization (through its members) micromanages universities less than they have been accused of in the past. but rest assured, SACS is one of the more (if not the most) stringent regional accrediting agencies. one university in florida that tried to get SACS accreditation for several years, moved to Minnesota and got accredited by the North Central group in 6 months. i suspect that SACS had its impact when the consultant talked with the board. i suspect those talks forced the board to give thames the terminal year. i suspect the talk discussed the potential ramifications of continuing thames. of course the consultant does not officially speak for SACS.

as to other questions and comments, i don't know.

Thanks SCM, my experience with SACS is not recent so your update is useful for many of us. There is another component to this on which I would like to get your take.

While SACS has changed their approach, are they cognizant of perceptions in the field that SACS is now a paper tiger. I have heard from others that there is no way SACS can not accredit USM because USM is too big and too high profile. There is a countervailing thought that the USM administration holds SACS in contempt, but is doing some of the paper work and daring SACS to turn them down. It seems to me that SACS as an organization periodically has to have meaningful examples to maintain their power. Their list of schools that are on probation are small private under funded institutions. Would SACS benefit from denying USM full accreditation and put us on a continuing probation for a year or two? Given the signal USM sent SACS initially that SACS was not important, will approval of USM now weaken the perceived power of SACS? I think that the administration will interpret a SACS accreditation as evidence that USM is too big and that SACS blinked.

let me add one additional thing--the final SACS decision does not come down until December of 2006. i speculate that they will be looking to the IHL to have started our presidential search by then, possibly having a new president selected, possibly having that person in the presidency. that would reaffirm the terminal nature of thames' contract.

Has either S.C.M or Cossack heard that the officers of Faculty Senate will meet with SACS or is that just a rumor?

stinky cheese man wrote:

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i don't know where the idea that people think SACS is a paper tiger comes from. SACS is less prescriptive than in the past, but that was a decision made by the membership. there are some issues that SACS does not back down from--finances, faculty credentials, distance learning (as we found out), general education curriculum, assessment, and the QEP. i think people expect SACS to be some "white knight" to come in and solve a university's problems. their response has typically been in the past--you have a problem here, now figure out how to fix it. for example, they would never say "fire this administrator." they would say you have a leadeship problem here you need to do something about. and then they would expect the institution to do something about it.

yes, i think usm (and frankly the IHL) snubbed their nose at SACS initially. then we got put on probation--a rather sobering experience for the board. and i suspect they were told that as long as thames did not have a terminal contract, the problems with SACS would continue.

does SACS need examples like USM or Auburn to retain their power? i don't think so--SACS is moving away from the punitive model of the past. and they seldom put public universities on probation (but neither do most of the other regional accrediting agencies). our probation was as much a slap on the hand of the IHL as it was USM. and things are bad here, but you have to understand the experiences of SACS associate directors--they've seen much worse. i know one personally and some of his war stories are both funny and scary.

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These are wise words

despite the secrecy in a presidential search, what SACS will know is that there will be a change. so if there are problems with thames, the search at least lets them know that that problem is being solved.

but SACS isn't going to "back seat drive" the search. interference like that is usually not within their purview. they work under the assumption that the process will produce a president who knows he or she has some problems to solve.