You can bet your patootie that Baby Shelby knew which side his toast was buttered on.  He would not dare resist this.  No one would.  The Tyrant Thames--aka Tiny Thames--would blow his the staves out of his corset.  This sums it up:

Professor Dana Thames received a raise of $13,000. She is the daughter of president Shelby F. Thames and the chair of the department of curriculum, instruction and special education.

“The only part Dr. Thames played was that I told him what was going and we agreed that he would not be a part of it,” Grimes said. “She was requesting a raise for equity purposes because she was making substantially less than peers with similar kinds of positions.”

From the article:

"She was requesting a raise for equity purposes because she was making substantially less than peers with similar kinds of positions.”

This is strange because request for "equity" raises are usually made during annual evaluations in the spring and, if granted, go into effect the next fiscal year beginning July 1.  Why was an "equity" raise given mid-year?  Did other faculty know they could apply for mid-year "equity" raises? 

Dr. Phil wrote:

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Play it again Sam wrote: An unidentified senator proposes a vote of no confidence for Thames. This is the height of redundancy. How about a resolution in favor of tenure or perhaps one in favor of increase pay or maybe a motion to promote shared governance. The repitition is deafening. I believe these resolutions and this forum (Faculty Senate) have a beneficial and therapeutic effect. They allow the faculty members who are in a powerless position to vent their frustrations. They can denounce Thames and pass meaningless resolutions and feel better about themselves. Afterwards they can report these deliberations to the media and the gnashing of teeth can continue unabated.

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Well, that is fine Dr. Phil. But these "meaningless resolutions" have had the cumulative effect of bolstering faculty resolve not to get run over. If not, we'd have had the Hanberry alcohol policy, the Hanberry faculty handbook, and any number of other idiotic things to deal with -- including, quite possibly, a four year renewal of this Presidentcy rather than aa one year one. It is true that the resolutions have not stopped faculty attrition, nor have they successfully prevented many less visible things from happening . . .  and they certainly did not prevent Frank and Gary from what happened to them. But it is a game of holding ground as long as possible and hoping to hold out longer than the administration  . . .  holding out long enough to be able to get past this and begin to repair the damage.

Clearly the faculty isn't an army able to face the administration on equal terms. The field simply isn't tipped in our favor. So I'd say think of all of these actions as mechanisms of insurgency -- except that in this insurgency the object is not to destroy the university as we try to defend it, but to preserve the university while we try to defend it. That makes this kind of thing much more comlplicated. It would have been so easy really attack this administration during SACs -- but in the eyes of many, that would have harmed the university more than an outgoing administration. It isn't easy fighting with one arm tied behind you when your opponant has no such limitation.

USM Alum wrote:

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Stephen, I totally disagree with the assertion that the faculty is on unequal footing with administration.  The fact is that the "University" is the faculty.  It isn't buildings, adminstrators, labs, football fields or even textbooks.  Students come to USM to be taught by faculty. Consequently, the only limitation on faculty power is the faculty's resolve to make change.

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I'm speaking in terms of raw power, not moral authority or even authority over the curriculum. In my experience at USM in the last four years, I find faculty's autohrity over curriculum means only what the administration agrees with . . . otherwise we get outvoted 1 to (you name the number).

The only true power we have is to withhold our services, and that won't happen here.

Tabasco Lover wrote:

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At good universities a vote of no confidence is the beginning of the end for a president (see Auburn, Baylor, and Harvard in the past three years). The USM faculty should continue to do the right thing which includes pointing out serious deficiencies in university governance whether or not the IHL Board understands higher education. One would have thought that some learning would have occurred from the MUW-Clyda Rent fiasco. I guess it's hard to underestimate the IHL Board.

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