truth--i assume you've read other posts of mine, but i'll quickly summarize.  he has been seen boxing up stuff and moving stuff out of the LAB.  he is no longer listed on the english department website.  he is no longer listed as director of graduate studies.  i hear he has a contract offer on the provost's desk at Ms State.  Salary is an issue apparently.  he doesn't have to sign a contract here until Tuesday (the 31st).  he is not scheduled to teach anything (other than special problems, theses, dissertations--not to say that isn't much, but no formally scheduled classes) in the fall.  i have heard others report him saying that "he's outta here."  and a normally vocal english faculty is quiet.

Verbosity is often a fairly good disguise for muddled thinking.

quote:

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Originally posted by: ASK
"AH, You have been one of the many valiant fighters for this cause, but you should know the difference between what is business and what is personal. As an alumnae of two universities, I have followed the rise and fall of many administrators, but never have I encountered such a vitrolic response to those changes as I have seen at USM. I refuse to be silenced by shrieking crones, nor will I retreat from rainy-day rebels that weep for their own but lack tears for the many. It did not require cyberspace to get into the oppressor's face in the days before professors became patron saints. I do not wear USM or any Mississippi insignia on my sleeve as I have great problems with the "good old (mostly white) boys" networks. The impassioned outrage of several people to this and the FS bulletin board was not evident before 2003. The rank injustices of USM, both in Administration and on the Faculty level, were ignored by the mewling kittens who now hiss and scratch at the doors of the Dome in contempt of the slights against a few anointed gods. If the head seethes in corruption, then the body must also be cleansed of impurities to be healed. Trust me, the air in a few of the vacant offices is fresher than it has been in years, and that alone is evidence of what sicknesses permeated those departments. Web-Stir, since I skipped a couple of grades in elementary school and may be jaded about a consistent 3.7 GPA in collegiate study, I'm sure my dictionary might be outdated, but the shiny new one I bought to translate your insightful retort will help me navigate much of the drivel you spew. Should I buy you a copy?"

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ASK, I hope you really do talk this way otherwise I'd say your little epistle is pretentious as well as self-promoting ("since I skipped a couple of grades . . . . etc . . ").

 Perhaps I missed an earlier entry where you said something of substance . . .?

" . . . slights against the anoited gods"?  " . . . . drivel you spew"? " . . . mewling kittens"?

Egad . . . . .

To yet another opinionated Judd,

When asked a question, I respond in kind rather than attempt to be the big fish in the cyberpond burping in the air. I'm not fodder for your future publishing aspirations, Judd, so stick with the murder of (Jim) crows that caw to your mouthings. There's plenty to say, Folks, but when your inverted "hoodies" don't permit you to see, your ears are on a fool's errand. There is much to say about a department hijacked by those that seek smug satisfaction about eradicating ONE problem rather than examining many issues concerning all of USM.

Here's one...While N. P. was judiciously counting "N" words to add to his revision of "All the King's Men," underrepresented ethnic groups continued to be ignored and their numbers reduced in Graduate programs in English.

Here's some sugar in the raw to replace the preferred bleached variety. Why not discuss the conclave ("Con" being appropriate) that is being held to find a replacement for Dr. Ball, and the underground gathering to overthrow the process?

I am not a rumor, and, in the words of the immortal poet Tupac Shakur, "I Get Around." Better believe it.

 

 

"Here's one...While N. P. was judiciously counting "N" words to add to his revision of "All the King's Men," underrepresented ethnic groups continued to be ignored and their numbers reduced in Graduate programs in English."

At last we get to the crux of the matter.  Why didn't you just say so to start with?  However, not everyone on this board, nor everyone in English is a latte-sipping elitist.

N.A.

I will leave these conversations and the "openness" of this board as I do believe in a line from Shakespeare's Macbeth that indeed "Bloody inventions return to plague the inventor." There are a few questions that I must ASK before I depart.

Could it all be so simple for you? I guess the numerous lawsuits against faculty by students are an aberration? Maybe before NearHair Napoleon ascended to the Dome, you might have believed that persons employed by USM didn't pad their resumes? Isn't it disingenuous to want academic freedom for USM only as long as your pedigreed curs ascend, while "new blood" is belittled for attending urban universities, accepting adjunct positions, or perhaps having an accent that is "too ethnic"? Are tiers within the English Dept just an eidolon...I must have missed the Literature Committee's meeting for Research, Funding, and Academic Support. How about those 099 enrollment numbers and grading minorities in 101 classes, just a coincidink, huh?

Heck, I wasn't aware that seekers of knowledge could be chastised for abundant language usage from Liberal Arts colleagues especially after claims of inferior verbiage (worl' class) being emblematic of ill-educated individuals. For Judd, Fuzzy, et. al., "code-switching" is not an anomaly in certain communities. You'd have to read one of the non-Canonized national scholars to understand. Your lack of understanding is based on Free Speech, I guess.

Trent Lott drank Cafe au Lait for decades and considered himself supremacist, so if the latte comment equates with being elitist, then you are speaking from a larger platform than a clique. You are referring to a community, and I was writing to a select few. Enjoy your day.

 

quote:

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Originally posted by: Screech's Lament from ASK
"I will leave these conversations and the "openness" of this board as I do believe in a line from Shakespeare's Macbeth that indeed "Bloody inventions return to plague the inventor." There are a few questions that I must ASK before I depart. Could it all be so simple for you? I guess the numerous lawsuits against faculty by students are an aberration? Maybe before NearHair Napoleon ascended to the Dome, you might have believed that persons employed by USM didn't pad their resumes? Isn't it disingenuous to want academic freedom for USM only as long as your pedigreed curs ascend, while "new blood" is belittled for attending urban universities, accepting adjunct positions, or perhaps having an accent that is "too ethnic"? Are tiers within the English Dept just an eidolon...I must have missed the Literature Committee's meeting for Research, Funding, and Academic Support. How about those 099 enrollment numbers and grading minorities in 101 classes, just a coincidink, huh? Heck, I wasn't aware that seekers of knowledge could be chastised for abundant language usage from Liberal Arts colleagues especially after claims of inferior verbiage (worl' class) being emblematic of ill-educated individuals. For Judd, Fuzzy, et. al., "code-switching" is not an anomaly in certain communities. You'd have to read one of the non-Canonized national scholars to understand. Your lack of understanding is based on Free Speech, I guess. Trent Lott drank Cafe au Lait for decades and considered himself supremacist, so if the latte comment equates with being elitist, then you are speaking from a larger platform than a clique. You are referring to a community, and I was writing to a select few. Enjoy your day.  "

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My problem ASK, is that you obviously have something to say. And it obviously has to do with your judgement that this school and various departments within it (and clearly you also have some specific people in mind) are exclusive (probably read racist, sexist et al). I don't disagree with that analysis in the general sense that these things are pervasive in American institutions and society in general. It is a worthwhile agenda to be one to point that out -- and a worthier agenda to lend some specifics to what heretofore is a general rant. I don't have your history at USM -- I haven't been here that long. It may well be that people you know may have acted in ways you find unfair and oppressive and thus you find the conversations about their own oppression to be hypocritical. I don't know about that. I can only address what I know about, and the issues that face me and my colleagues directly. I'd like to think that I'd defend anyone who has been treated unfairly -- but you seem aware of some instances that I clearly do not.

It is fair to remind any of us that no one has access to a truly Olympian view -- we all work from our own islands of isolation. But if your discourse is designed to help that -- it isn't. It is too sweeping and you seem to take for granted that what you know we all should know. In doing so, you end up promoting yourself as the issue rather than the things that seem to concern you.

I also think you should not assume that I or anyone hasn't read the "noncanonized national scholars." That is an incredible presumption. We'd first of all have to ascertain that we agree on who those folks might be. After all, depending on whether your reading is framed by Algeria, Brazil, Palestine or South Africa as well as by urban America,  there might be some disagreement about exactly who those "uncanonized" folks are.  

And I am mystified about what you regard as attacks on adjuncts and those who have attended urban universities. I don't believe that is what you are detecting here. There may have been one or two folks who attacked adjuncts per se but I don't remember them -- and that is not the tenor nor aim of most who post on this board. The quality of adjuncts per se isn't the issue  -- the issue is the way in which having a large number of adjuncts adversely affects governance. The issue is the way in which universities  increasing use of adjuncts is a way of decreasing tenure track appointments -- which  expands the power of university administrations at the expense of faculty. That is a national problem and  affects the very people you are defending because it a system that threatens to decrease the number of FT tenure track positions opens to everyone.

But -- as we were reminded earlier -- this is a thread for rumors. I'll cease responding on this forum.

.  

 

quote:

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Originally posted by: English Prof
"Stephen and colleagues, I think we've all been too hasty in judgement of our friend ASK.  Viewed as satire . . .  there's real potential here . . . I'd suggest that all ASK epistles be moved to a new, AAUP creative writing thread."

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I'm not in English but when I first saw those posts by ASK I thought they were written by somebody who had a good command of English - much like the graduates of Mississippi's high schools during the 1950's. Speaking from the viewpoint of an amateur such as myself, if I had first seen ASK's postings in a literary journal I would have thought they were written by a professional.

I gotta confess that the first time I read it, I thought it was "screeching clones." And what clones would be doing in the English Dept instead of in a CoST lab had me puzzled.

Oh yeah, ASK, please do not think everyone who posts here is a "Liberal Arts colleague"... Some of us are a lot more comfortable with a separatory funnel or microscope than with Chaucer. But logorrhea by any other name is still too many words.

quote:

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Originally posted by: ASK
" [I]n the words of the immortal poet Tupac Shakur, "I Get Around."  "

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Yeah, but didn't the Beach Boys say it first?

To RAM Love, there was no mistake, but then you probably believe that Elvis Aron Presley wrote all original songs and was never influenced by black singers. Give it up, people. If you can't address other issues on a free speech board, then you're no better than the Eagle Talkers. "Hypocrite"--Bob Marley. 

Austin Eagle,

Thank you for your insightful comments on Elvis. I was put off by him when he made a comment about his black back-up singers during the 70s having breath that smelled of "fried catfish," which caused one of the singers to walk off-stage in protest, but your comments are well placed.

As far as TuPac...His mother and father were members of the Black Panther Party. While "Surfin USA" may have emanated from radio stations in his New York, his influences were probably more shaped by Sly and the Family Stone or Gil Scott Heron. Fly On, Austin Eagle.

quote:

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Originally posted by: ASK
"Austin Eagle,
Thank you for your insightful comments on Elvis. I was put off by him when he made a comment about his black back-up singers during the 70s having breath that smelled of "fried catfish," which caused one of the singers to walk off-stage in protest, but your comments are well placed.
As far as TuPac...His mother and father were members of the Black Panther Party. While "Surfin USA" may have emanated from radio stations in his New York, his influences were probably more shaped by Sly and the Family Stone or Gil Scott Heron. Fly On, Austin Eagle."

---

ASK,

I seem to recall that several of the King’s backup singers left the stage after his “catfish” remark. One female singer remained. Elvis pulled a diamond ring off his finger and presented it to her as a gift. He later apologized for his remark. And now you know . . . . . the rest of the story.

“Surfin’ USA” is credited to Chuck Berry. It is essentially a rewrite of “Sweet Little Sixteen” and Brian Wilson is the uncredited lyricist. Chuck Berry is a black man.

Finally, let me ask you a question: Were you ever the guest villain in a Batman episode?