daily rumor mill #12 - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jun 9, 2004

daily rumor mill #12

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: gurunuburg
"Still waiting on new word about the destination of economic development. A new tale is that, at a recent meeting about the move, it was suggested that the Honors College be eliminated and ED sit as a stand-alone entity like the HC used to, with its own Dean (instead of simply a dept. chair). Word is that, when this was suggested, no one laughed at the idea (though we're not sure how serious the proposal was at this point; still looking into it). Thanks oldguy. "

What do you mean "like the HC used to?" The HC is still a "stand-alone entity," as far as I know, with it's own dean, Ken Panton. Anyone have any news to the contrary?

The difference between HC being stand-alone and ED being stand-alone is this: the HC is not a degree-granting college. I'm assuming ED would be. This would further undermine the credibility of an ED degree, IMHO, if it came from a stand-alone college.

Also, why would the HC need to be eliminated in order for ED to become a stand-alone college? This makes no sense at all, as there is no connection to these 2 entities. I highly doubt that this would happen. Just my $.02.

And, Guru, will you EVER answer our questions as to how you get your "rumors?" Your credibility is seriously at question on this board until you give us a response (again, my $.02--others chime in if I'm wrong on this one). Your silence is puzzling...

Date: Jun 9, 2004

By "used to" re the HC, I meant in a "post-HC" world which is what the discussion was about.

I didn't realize that readers of this board didn't want to see my rumor mill daily (for "lack of credibility"). I'm sorry. I will post no more.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: gurunuburg
"By "used to" re the HC, I meant in a "post-HC" world which is what the discussion was about. I didn't realize that readers of this board didn't want to see my rumor mill daily (for "lack of credibility"). I'm sorry. I will post no more. "

You carefully identify what you pass on as rumors. That is truth in marketing. I urge you to continue posting. We must all judge the "rumors" by what ultimately occurs.

By the way, for those things that involve the grossly disfunctional CBED, there is much truth in the rumors.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: gurunuburg
"
I didn't realize that readers of this board didn't want to see my rumor mill daily (for "lack of credibility"). I'm sorry. I will post no more.
"

Continue posts; and thanks. One must protect sources so they can continue to help.

On credibility: All one needs to do is wait and verify.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: gurunuburg
"1. New stories are emerging that the catfish fry at the Jamestown mansion (in conjuction with the class reunion) a few weeks ago was a "Give 'em Hell, Shelby!" fest. Word has it that copies of suggested "talking points" for letters to editors, etc. were made available there that night as well. Thanks insider.
"

Honestly, what do they think all these anti-professor letters to the papers are going to do for them? It seems to me that they only

1) Continue the controversy.
2) Make everyone think profs are bad.
3) Decrease enrollments--who wants to go take classes from those evil USM profs?
4) Increase the exodus of faculty and make it more difficult to recruit faculty. Who wants to live in town where people hate you and do not respect what you are doing?
4) Generally give USM an even worse reputation than it already has.

This is just further proof that Shelby doesn't give a d*** about USM, but only about his own ego. He'll take it down in flames and still believe, stupidly, that he's done the right thing.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

Yes, I'm so mad, I've got #4 twice.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: gurunuburg
"2. Some stories are spreading that, in the new dean jockeying game, we should look for Gandy to be more visible and vocal. Also, word is that Doty is solidly with Thames now. Still waiting for info about Pood's maneuvering. Thanks gorod and envelope.

I have it on good information that Doty was seriously looking to leave because he was on the outs with Thames and believed he was going to be asked to step down. However, if Doty has decided he has no where to go, I have no doubt he will do what he thinks he needs to do to protect himself, even at the expense of faculty and students.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: gurunuburg
"By "used to" re the HC, I meant in a "post-HC" world which is what the discussion was about. I didn't realize that readers of this board didn't want to see my rumor mill daily (for "lack of credibility"). I'm sorry. I will post no more. "

Guru, you misunderstood my post. This board is a community, and when people ask questions, the expectation is that they will be addressed. Several people asked you how they could send you information, yet you never responded to any of them. This is the problem I was talking about vis-a-vis credibility. Now that you've responded to my post, I hope that you will also let people know how to contact you if they have information to pass along.

I welcome the information (rumor or not), and I believe most others on the board do, too. Thanks for your posts.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

Guru, I enjoy the "rumor mill" posts. They are clearly labelled rumors. The only thing that seems to run counter to your credibility is that nobody seems to know how to feed a rumor to you.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

Friends,

Sorry if this sounds "cloak and dagger" but.....we need to develop a system to pass information to others. Might I suggest a "drop-box" where information can be deposited and passed along.

Would Truth/AH (or someone else) possibly volunteer to serve as our person (our drop), who we can send information and she in turn can pass it on?
Would guru feel comfortable with this type of arrangement? Of course we need to be careful if using usm.edu addresses. I would suggest home computers away from the usm.edu setup.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Green Hornet
"Friends, Sorry if this sounds "cloak and dagger" but.....we need to develop a system to pass information to others. Might I suggest a "drop-box" where information can be deposited and passed along. Would Truth/AH (or someone else) possibly volunteer to serve as our person (our drop), who we can send information and she in turn can pass it on? Would guru feel comfortable with this type of arrangement? Of course we need to be careful if using usm.edu addresses. I would suggest home computers away from the usm.edu setup. "

I would agree to help out. I have a non-USM account already set up for folks to contact me (truth@FireThames.com). The only problem is that I don't know how to contact Guru. Guru, if you're out there and are willing to do this, drop me a line. Or if you guys want to start your own daily "rumor mill" posts, send them to me anonymously, and I'll be glad to post them.

Seems to me, though, that posting directly on this message board is about as anonymous as one could get, though I could be wrong.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Green Hornet
"Friends,

Sorry if this sounds "cloak and dagger" but.....we need to develop a system to pass information to others. Might I suggest a "drop-box" where information can be deposited and passed along.

"

Suggest using Board as “drop box” under a constant Topic heading of “Rumor Box.” Anyone can then
get to Rumor Box, peruse rumors, then expand, verify, upgrade rumor under a separate topic heading whenever they feel there is enough known to further discuss rumor. The Rumor Box would just be a listing without extra comments, which could be handled under new Topic headings. Then there would be no email addresses that could be traced.

It is true that false rumors could be planted,
but they can be posted now anyway to misdirect.

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: gurunuburg
"1. New stories are emerging that the catfish fry at the Jamestown mansion (in conjuction with the class reunion) a few weeks ago was a "Give 'em Hell, Shelby!" fest. Word has it that copies of suggested "talking points" for letters to editors, etc. were made available there that night as well. Thanks insider.
"

Did this little gathering occur after the Glamser-Stringer suspensions? Is there any reason a copy of the written pro-Shelby talking points couldn't be obtained from a sympathetic "catfish fry" attendee, and provided to the media? Disclosure would certainly undermine the credibility of the authors of the pro-Thames/anti-faculty letters. Wouldn't it?

AE

Date: Jun 9, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: foot soldier
" Honestly, what do they think all these anti-professor letters to the papers are going to do for them? It seems to me that they only 1) Continue the controversy. 2) Make everyone think profs are bad. 3) Decrease enrollments--who wants to go take classes from those evil USM profs? 4) Increase the exodus of faculty and make it more difficult to recruit faculty. Who wants to live in town where people hate you and do not respect what you are doing? 4) Generally give USM an even worse reputation than it already has. This is just further proof that Shelby doesn't give a d*** about USM, but only about his own ego. He'll take it down in flames and still believe, stupidly, that he's done the right thing."

Foot Soldier,

By continuing to publish anti-faculty letters to the editor, Shelby's friends keep the controversy alive in the media. What would really work to SFT's benefit is sporadic media coverage that consists of nothing but official press releases. He has no chance of getting that now.

Of course, if Thames cared about the quality of the education USM is offering, he wouldn't keep exhorting his buddies to pound on the faculty in public.

People like Thames who deliberately inflame anti-faculty sentiment usually have no idea how long it will be hanging around in the community after it's stopped being useful to themselves. They can't just turn it off like a faucet.

Robert Campbell

Date: Jun 10, 2004

Actually, I find it stupifying that any self-respecting president of any university would allow & condone such a mauling of his faculty that is currently occuring here in Hattiesburg. Where is the defense of his teaching faculty? Where are the letters from the deans the provosts, the vice-presidents?

Are our adminstrators really such jackasses that they would rather see the reputation of teaching faculty dragged through the mud for the purpose of punitive retalition than defend the hard-working and underpaid individuals who are the heart and soul of this university? I can't blame anyone who leaves for greener pastures (and hey -- aren't they all at this point?) who the hell wants to stick around a community where all the qualities and standards that higher education hold dear are freely denigrated and marginalized.

Suffice to say, the current behavior by our college board, the excerebrose additude of the community in general, and the complete lack of inegrity or intelligence by our adminstration has made me absolutley sick. Southern Miss to the top of trash heap.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Sick of it
"Where is the defense of his teaching faculty? Where are the letters from the deans the provosts, the vice-presidents?"

You'll find the defense of the faculty in the same place where the deans, provosts, & vice-presidents left their gonads. The simple fact is that they have abandoned their principles & whatever courage they had in favor of a bigger paycheck & other perqs. USM's administration is "gangster management," pure and simple.

quote:

Date: Jun 11, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Sick of it
"Actually, I find it stupifying that any self-respecting president of any university would allow & condone such a mauling of his faculty that is currently occuring here in Hattiesburg. Where is the defense of his teaching faculty? Where are the letters from the deans the provosts, the vice-presidents? Are our adminstrators really such jackasses that they would rather see the reputation of teaching faculty dragged through the mud for the purpose of punitive retalition than defend the hard-working and underpaid individuals who are the heart and soul of this university? I can't blame anyone who leaves for greener pastures (and hey -- aren't they all at this point?) who the hell wants to stick around a community where all the qualities and standards that higher education hold dear are freely denigrated and marginalized. Suffice to say, the current behavior by our college board, the excerebrose additude of the community in general, and the complete lack of inegrity or intelligence by our adminstration has made me absolutley sick. Southern Miss to the top of trash heap."

You post some good questions, Sick of it, questions I have not seen posted on any of the other threads. Now that you bring it up, just where are the members of the university's middle management in all of this? Faculty members have been thoroughly trashed in the press and elsewhere, but I have not seen even one upper-level administrator come to their defense publicly. It appeared to me that Professors Stringer and Glamser were left swinging in the wind during their ordeal. Similarly, the USM faculty in general has been the subject of vicious criticism; yet, as far as I can determine, nobody at the middle or upper administrative tier within the university has come to their defense publicly. Just where the public support from deans provosts, and vice presidents? From my perspective, the faculty deserves nothing less.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Lamont Cranston
"You post some good questions, Sick of it, questions I have not seen posted on any of the other threads. Now that you bring it up, just where are the members of the university's middle management in all of this? Faculty members have been thoroughly trashed in the press and elsewhere, but I have not seen even one upper-level administrator come to their defense publicly. It appeared to me that Professors Stringer and Glamser were left swinging in the wind during their ordeal. Similarly, the USM faculty in general has been the subject of vicious criticism; yet, as far as I can determine, nobody at the middle or upper administrative tier within the university has come to their defense publicly. Just where the public support from deans provosts, and vice presidents? From my perspective, the faculty deserves nothing less."

Yeah, and then when faculty stick up for themselves by writing letters, making appeals, etc., they are condemned and told to "stay in their place." The goal of the administration and community must be to force everyone of any worth out and replace them with under-qualified economic development / ex-business people who think that teaching is so easy that anyone can do it. Meanwhile, the students are the ones who will suffer most as they get their shiny gold degrees and cannot even get their foot in the door at any reputable businesses or other employers because their education has become a joke.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Lamont Cranston
"....nobody at the middle or upper administrative tier within the university has come to their defense publicly. Just where the public support from deans provosts, and vice presidents? From my perspective, the faculty deserves nothing less."

Throughout history the chain of support has mostly gone up, not down; peons support their Lords and Ladies, etc., and the Lords and Ladies USE their peons. Is it any different here? Yes, we want fairness, and truth, and justice, but we are in a system where WE are the expendable slaves expected to sacrifice all for the pleasures of our appointed (and anointed) bosses.

Gangster management has been practiced here and elsewhere for a long, long time.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

SFT says everything he does is for the good of the students. Doesn't anyone in the administration--in the public, anywhere---see that when the faculty is trashed, it makes it much harder to teach the students. Sure, there are some of the students who admire and defend the faculty. But look at most of your classes--50 kids who are sleeping or reading the newspaper--and whose parents hold a grudge when the kid gets a C. One friend told me kids get up and leave in the middle of class--that they come in 15 minutes late, etc. etc. They go out to the bathroom--things wealready had little respect for their teachers. SFT is playing into their hands and greatly diminishing the faculty's ability to teach. USM faculty morale is coming dangerously close to that of the faculty in a public high school.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: toe
"Gangster management has been practiced here and elsewhere for a long, long time."

... which still doesn't make it right or productive.

SFT & his minions have taken it to the proverbial "next level," though. They don't care what anyone things or says about cronyism, favoritism, or shady finance. At least Lucas & Fleming tried to make it not so in-your-face obvious...

Date: Jun 11, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
" You'll find the defense of the faculty in the same place where the deans, provosts, & vice-presidents left their gonads. The simple fact is that they have abandoned their principles & whatever courage they had in favor of a bigger paycheck & other perqs. USM's administration is "gangster management," pure and simple. quote:"

Yes, Invictus, their silence is deafening. There was some deafening silence, too, in the pre- World War II era as troops moved into Austria . . . . Czechoslavakia . . . . Poland . . . . .Finland. There were no computers to be confiscated back then, and no emails to be unobtrusively read, but neighbors were informing on neighbors. Some otherwise responsible citizens, perhaps as a means of protecting themselves, were even identifying with the aggressor. Some even became uniformed intelligence officers. After the war, the Nuremberg Code was developed, and those principles form the basis for each and every code of ethics in all professions today. That Code was back in the mid to late 1940's. USM was founded in 1910. Here it is 2004, but USM evidently still has no effective, fully ratified and active code of protection for its faculty in the form of a Faculty Handbook. I know that must be true, for if such a document had been properly in place and honored, the Stringer/Glamser case would not have been handled in such a clumsy, muddled manner. Someone on this site has been posting under the name "Jean Moulin." It just occurred to me that Jean Moulin was a member of the French Resistance, and refused to cooperate with the German Army when they occupied France. Clever pseudonym, Jean Moulin. I do not want the Deans and other higher-level administrators to LOSE their jobs. I simply want them to DO their jobs, a big portion of which entails speaking out on behalf of their faculty and defending the established academic ideals and principles which have made other universities great.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

Yes - Invictus, Lamont, toe, angeline, ditto boy - you are all absolutely correct on all counts; silence is deafening - part of an adminstrator's job is to take care of and defend their constituency -- their faculty -- against unfair political activity in the job and unwarrented criticism. The omission of any discernible defense is extremely telling. Wouldn't it just be easier to burn crosses in front of our offices or slash our tires? How about pelting us with eggs as we exit our classes? A messege is being sent by our lea-*ahem*-ders, and if they aren't careful, a lot more faculty are going to get it. Respect for teaching faculty has been absolutely undermined by this silence. Faculty can only write so many letters before the public begins wondering, well, hell, where are their defenders? At that point we simply become what we say we are - a group of whiny, overpaid complainers whom nobody wants to defend.

On top of that issue, the College Board's head jackass takes an unethical and very visible 'side' with Dr Thames's position, and decries faculty activity guaranteed by the constitution. Furthermore, Klumb publicly reveals his contempt for university faculty, universities and higher ed in general through insane and illogical comparisons of universities to the lumber business or small-market television stations ("That's right Dave - if you investigated your boss on an LOX computer, why, hell, they'd have your office packed up in a box and you'd be hittin' the road at a dead run with a thumb out" - or something to that effect. It's hard to write as poorly as Klumb speaks.).

Consequently, when you and everything you professionally beleive in are the target of the public ire of the head of your state's university trustee system ALONG with your university president, your university's PR department, your collective deans and provosts, and your community -- well, I ask you, what do you have left? Is it even worth it to do anything for, to have any alliegence to, USM? Somebody seriously tell me why I should shed blood, sweat and tears for a place that seems to actively seeks my professional demise? Why shouldn't I just take my love of learning and my hard-won knowledge somewhere where it will be at least moderately appreciated and respected? Where my G*****n head trustee doesn't embarrass me by being less eloquent than Barney Fife and but yet, just slightly more intelligent than, say - oh, I don't know, a blue jay? No more questions here, just anger, sadness and constant disbelief. I may need to have my eyebrows replaced due to the constant arching.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

Sorry for misspellings. My fingers involuntarily spasm whenever I write about Klumb.

Date: Jun 11, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Sick of it
"
Consequently, when you and everything you professionally beleive in are the target of the public ire of the head of your state's university trustee system ALONG with your university president, your university's PR department, your collective deans and provosts, and your community -- well, I ask you, what do you have left? Is it even worth it to do anything for, to have any alliegence to, USM? Somebody seriously tell me why I should shed blood, sweat and tears for a place that seems to actively seeks my professional demise? Why shouldn't I just take my love of learning and my hard-won knowledge somewhere where it will be at least moderately appreciated and respected? "

Sickofit, you've summarized the tragedy here, and many of us feel exactly the same way. Those of us who have lived outside of Mississippi know its terrible reputation elsewhere. For many years I have defended it, knowing the strengths of USM, but after the past few months, I no longer think that it would be accurately representing my experience to do so. The letters in the paper are the hardest to take. When I read them, I feel as if large portions of the town are actively hostile to me, as opposed to the friendly natives I meet day-to-day. Many townspeople know there is an exodus happening from the university, but I'm not sure they really care. And no one wants to work in an atmosphere of open hostility.

Date: Jun 12, 2004

Ditto!

Date: Jun 12, 2004

Welcome back gurunuburg