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I won't. I wouldn't trust that SOB any farther than I can throw Alberto Gonzales. The sooner BOTH are out of a job the better for the county and Loyola.
These are the last words of Father Wildes convocation speech, which is posted on the Loyola website:
"I promise that I will work with all of you to be worthy of the trust that has been placed in us and achieve the potential for this university."
Well, Father Wildes, you know were to start. 1) Make amends with the wrongly terminated faculty. 2) Work with the AAUP and the faculty to get us removed from the censured list.
If you do these two things, I will give you the benefit of the doubt for the next year.
Why wouldn't Loyola's leadership want to make amends with faculty who were inadvertently harmed by administratve actions post-Katrina? Everyone knows that some mistakes were made. Fr. Wildes even said so himself.
Wouldn't we all expect a Jesuit institution to be one of the first to realize what could be done to help people? Why wouldn't they provide restitution to anyone who was damaged by institutional decisions based on incomplete or faulty information that has since been corrected? Surely that's what one would do in the interests of justice and a right course of action in order to be a person with and for others.
Am I missing something? Isn't the university doing whatever it can, everything it can, to help people who were dedicated servants to it, people who did nothing wrong, people who could even come back and help it to recover now that the storm is past?
I just heard yesterday that UNO was forced to reinstate two professors from their College of Education that they let go after Katrina. Both were tenured and filed lawsuits. I guess UNO's legal counsel is smarter than Loyola's. Their lawyers advised the administration at UNO that they had used poor judgment. It never went to court.
Perhaps it would have served our president well to have plagarized from Xavier's president rather than Tulane's.
But wait! Tulane is bouncing back, too! They are hiring back some of their faculty aren't they? And they look good for getting off the censure list pretty soon, like the next meeting in June 2008?
Why do other other universities in New Orleans have such good administrations while ours contain a bunch of losers?
They really MUST want to dismantle Loyola. They really MUST go before they do.
And might I point out that not only did Xavier NOT get censured by AAUP, they weren't even considered for censure. No faculty complained even though there were some cuts.
Maybe there was a fair process? Maybe there was faculty participation in the process? Maybe they have made every effort to hire back everyone that they could? Maybe Norman Francis attending the National AAUP meeting in June demonstrated something? Maybe there have been no votes of no confidence in him?
There is no doubt that foolish decisions and actions by the administration and board have ruined careers, lives and educations of hundreds of people. Given the enrollments for this fall (down about 450 students compared to last year, not recovering), those same decisions and actions made by those same people are ruining the entire university.
The financial picture is worse now, and looking toward the future, than it was right after 05-06 when the budget was balanced. LUNO's reputation in the academic community is nose-diving as well. Who wants to start out a promising academic career at an institution where the administration has been censured by AAUP? That red flag tells the world it can't operate as a real university where tenure and academic freedom are valued and respected. And why would bright, capable students choose a university where their major can be cut on a whim?
I don't think anyone has a death wish for the provost or president. Quite frankly, that would be too easy a way out and too painless.
However, I do want them to KNOW the heartache of losing EVERYTHING you have worked your whole life for, like I did when my home filled with 12 feet of water.
I want them to KNOW the heartache of seeing your elderly parents lose everything they worked their whole lives for, including their home, and then having your job taken away by people who think you should be grateful for being terminated.
I want them to KNOW the heartaches of all the staff who lost their homes and lifetimes who were told they no longer had jobs to which they could return to help rebuild their lives.
I want them to KNOW the heartaches of the students who returned to lost or damaged family homes, who lost their own possessions and who learned that the university to which they worked so hard to return terminated their majors and told them they were NOT welcome back ... that they now had to go elsewhere for their educations.
THESE are pains that will be with every single one of us who experienced them until the day we die.
Call me cruel, but THIS is what I want for them -- a pain with which they will have to live the rest of their lives together with the pain of feeling betrayed by the people they trusted to lead the university forward to rebuild.
(1.) Xavier University, the same university that went under about 6 feet of water from Katrina, has doubled its endowment ($30 million to $60 million), helped by depositing all donated money to the endowment? An endowment that is something like one fifth or sixth of Loyola's?
(2.) They used a 1% interest loan to refinance bigger loans and saves $2 million per month in payments?
(3.) They are placing the money saved into academics by replacing adjunct faculty with advertised tenure-track and tenured faculty?
and (4.) We have already heard on the local news that while enrollment is not up to pre-Katrina, it is way up from last year and applications are rolling in for next year.
(5.) Xavier is in its best financial shape in 20 years?
How do you spell "competent leadership" and "fiscal responsibility"?
Our administration and BoT should be embarassed for their lack of imagination, their lack of brain power and their lack of courage -- especially when our university did not take anywhere near the damage taken by Xavier. Terminating programs, faculty and staff was the coward's way out of a short term difficult situation. They obviously haven't heard the phrase "that which does not kill you only makes you stronger."
Our administration and BoT are not part of the solution. They are not even part of the problem. They ARE the problem.
Let's not forget that our chief administrators get paid some VERY big bucks (six-figure salaries to the LEFT of the decimal point, I hear) and the BEST they could come up with was Pathways. Obviously salary does not necessarily equate with ability.
In a perfect world, I would agree that administration is the dishwashing and garbage collecting of the academic world. And the fact that it has stalled academic careers is the best argument there is that there should be a term limit placed on the job.
Here at Loyola I will say that I have NEVER seen an administrator who seemed to understand the above.
The only benefit is NOT just a conversion to a 12 month contract. There is a stipend attached as well. Some administrators at Loyola have actually negotiated that stipend into their teaching contract so when they stopped being an administrator, they still received an administrator salary.
The other perks are as follows: reserved parking - now, some get a car, parking paid, or being bullet-proof on the parking ticket, and the big bonanza is - NO TEACHING!
This is why Harris is having trouble getting another job. When was the last time the man wrote a paper or stood up in a classroom?
These people are completely out of touch in every sense of the word, and they are overpaid and underworked.
Besides, at this new Loyola I understand administrators don't "listen to irate people," they tell them to shut up and mind their own business. And I personally have never asked an administrator to solve my problems because I have never met one who could.
Rather than facilitate the work of the faculty as they should, they sit around and dream up more work for the faculty to do.
If they are truly masochistic as you say, they certainly should not even be at a university. They should be in a different type of institution.
A post earlier today (1:25 pm) attributed a post (at 1:19 pm) to me. I did not post this, nor have I posted anything to the blog (although I read it regularly) for many months.
No one doubts that administrative 12-month contracts pay more than faculty contracts. But plenty of people who might undertake such work don't, because the trade-off, for most, is being pulled away from scholarship, putting in long hours doing thankless tasks, listening to irate people day after day and trying to solve their problems, etc.--none of which is professionally rewarding, unless your professinla field is applied masochism. Indeed, it has stalled a good many careers. Administration is the dishwashing and garbage collection of academia. The idea that taking an administrative stipend is living the high life is just nonsense.
Spoke to a person who had to attend two different administrative meetings this past Monday. S/he said afterward that s/he felt as though s/he needed to go home and take a shower to wash off the dirt.
If you think these people who are getting the administrative positions are NOT being rewarded financially (and heftily so), then you are just showing your naivete. They may want to help the university and be putting that line out, but believe when I say, they are also helping themselves to a piece of the action.
7:55 AM--Don't want Synergistic One to have a fatal heart problem. Just something that will cause him to move to some place less exciting. It would be good for him anyway--he really does work himself too hard.
Had a conversation with a Xavier faculty member who was dying to leave NOLA and Xavier last year.
Today, this person said (I paraphrase):
Xavier has placed itself on sound fiscal footing for years to come. Specific examples from last year and this year are (1.) the endowment has doubled ($30 million to $60 million), helped by depositing all donated money to the endowment, (2.) the $165 million on 1% loan was used to refinance bigger loans and saves $2 million per month in payments, (3.) money is being placed into academics by replacing adjunct faculty with advertised tenure-track and tenured faculty to satisfy SACS, and (4.) while enrollment is not up to pre-Katrina, it is way up from last year and applications are rolling in for next year. To sum it up, according to this person (a faculty member), Xavier is in its best financial shape in 20 years.
This faculty member is no longer dying to leave Xavier. On the contrary, this person wants to stay and be part of Xavier re-building.
Craig Hood (1:19pm) -- sounds like justifying your own role on this campus. If you're so giving, then give up your chair stipend for the sake of the university. (You said it's not glamorous or professionally rewarding, but you get paid. A lot.)
It would be truly helpful--though one hardly expects it--to refrain from labeling anyone who tries to help the university by offering administrative service as some sort of toadie or suck-up. More broadly, it might even be useful to stop the childish game of calling folks "pro" or "anti" administration. Much of the labeling I've seen here is flat wrong, including the preposterous "interim dean for life." Some people feel that they can do positive good for Loyola by doing administrative duties--which, by the way, are neither fun nor glamorous nor professionally rewarding. Those who care about the university should wish them well, hope they do a good job, and be done with it. A provost has the duty of appointing whom he or she feels best-suited for the job. One may not like that, but that's how it works at every college and university.
I won't. I wouldn't trust that SOB any farther than I can throw Alberto Gonzales. The sooner BOTH are out of a job the better for the county and Loyola.
Posted by: | August 24, 2007 at 02:15 PM
These are the last words of Father Wildes convocation speech, which is posted on the Loyola website:
"I promise that I will work with all of you to be worthy of the trust that has been placed in us and achieve the potential for this university."
Well, Father Wildes, you know were to start. 1) Make amends with the wrongly terminated faculty. 2) Work with the AAUP and the faculty to get us removed from the censured list.
If you do these two things, I will give you the benefit of the doubt for the next year.
Posted by: | August 24, 2007 at 10:09 AM
Why wouldn't Loyola's leadership want to make amends with faculty who were inadvertently harmed by administratve actions post-Katrina? Everyone knows that some mistakes were made. Fr. Wildes even said so himself.
Wouldn't we all expect a Jesuit institution to be one of the first to realize what could be done to help people? Why wouldn't they provide restitution to anyone who was damaged by institutional decisions based on incomplete or faulty information that has since been corrected? Surely that's what one would do in the interests of justice and a right course of action in order to be a person with and for others.
Am I missing something? Isn't the university doing whatever it can, everything it can, to help people who were dedicated servants to it, people who did nothing wrong, people who could even come back and help it to recover now that the storm is past?
Posted by: | August 24, 2007 at 09:44 AM
I just heard yesterday that UNO was forced to reinstate two professors from their College of Education that they let go after Katrina. Both were tenured and filed lawsuits. I guess UNO's legal counsel is smarter than Loyola's. Their lawyers advised the administration at UNO that they had used poor judgment. It never went to court.
Posted by: an interested observer | August 24, 2007 at 08:26 AM
Perhaps it would have served our president well to have plagarized from Xavier's president rather than Tulane's.
But wait! Tulane is bouncing back, too! They are hiring back some of their faculty aren't they? And they look good for getting off the censure list pretty soon, like the next meeting in June 2008?
Why do other other universities in New Orleans have such good administrations while ours contain a bunch of losers?
They really MUST want to dismantle Loyola. They really MUST go before they do.
Posted by: | August 24, 2007 at 08:22 AM
Loyola is truly a parched desert in need of the oasis of new and vibrant leadership.
Posted by: Nomad | August 24, 2007 at 07:20 AM
And might I point out that not only did Xavier NOT get censured by AAUP, they weren't even considered for censure. No faculty complained even though there were some cuts.
Maybe there was a fair process? Maybe there was faculty participation in the process? Maybe they have made every effort to hire back everyone that they could? Maybe Norman Francis attending the National AAUP meeting in June demonstrated something? Maybe there have been no votes of no confidence in him?
Posted by: | August 23, 2007 at 07:11 PM
7:15am --
Yes, you have summed it up correctly for Xavier: good leadership = a healthy university.
Posted by: Watching Xavier | August 23, 2007 at 05:43 PM
There is no doubt that foolish decisions and actions by the administration and board have ruined careers, lives and educations of hundreds of people. Given the enrollments for this fall (down about 450 students compared to last year, not recovering), those same decisions and actions made by those same people are ruining the entire university.
The financial picture is worse now, and looking toward the future, than it was right after 05-06 when the budget was balanced. LUNO's reputation in the academic community is nose-diving as well. Who wants to start out a promising academic career at an institution where the administration has been censured by AAUP? That red flag tells the world it can't operate as a real university where tenure and academic freedom are valued and respected. And why would bright, capable students choose a university where their major can be cut on a whim?
LUNO needs a new president ASAP.
Posted by: | August 23, 2007 at 09:10 AM
I don't think anyone has a death wish for the provost or president. Quite frankly, that would be too easy a way out and too painless.
However, I do want them to KNOW the heartache of losing EVERYTHING you have worked your whole life for, like I did when my home filled with 12 feet of water.
I want them to KNOW the heartache of seeing your elderly parents lose everything they worked their whole lives for, including their home, and then having your job taken away by people who think you should be grateful for being terminated.
I want them to KNOW the heartaches of all the staff who lost their homes and lifetimes who were told they no longer had jobs to which they could return to help rebuild their lives.
I want them to KNOW the heartaches of the students who returned to lost or damaged family homes, who lost their own possessions and who learned that the university to which they worked so hard to return terminated their majors and told them they were NOT welcome back ... that they now had to go elsewhere for their educations.
THESE are pains that will be with every single one of us who experienced them until the day we die.
Call me cruel, but THIS is what I want for them -- a pain with which they will have to live the rest of their lives together with the pain of feeling betrayed by the people they trusted to lead the university forward to rebuild.
Posted by: | August 23, 2007 at 07:32 AM
Let me see if I get this striaght:
(1.) Xavier University, the same university that went under about 6 feet of water from Katrina, has doubled its endowment ($30 million to $60 million), helped by depositing all donated money to the endowment? An endowment that is something like one fifth or sixth of Loyola's?
(2.) They used a 1% interest loan to refinance bigger loans and saves $2 million per month in payments?
(3.) They are placing the money saved into academics by replacing adjunct faculty with advertised tenure-track and tenured faculty?
and (4.) We have already heard on the local news that while enrollment is not up to pre-Katrina, it is way up from last year and applications are rolling in for next year.
(5.) Xavier is in its best financial shape in 20 years?
How do you spell "competent leadership" and "fiscal responsibility"?
Our administration and BoT should be embarassed for their lack of imagination, their lack of brain power and their lack of courage -- especially when our university did not take anywhere near the damage taken by Xavier. Terminating programs, faculty and staff was the coward's way out of a short term difficult situation. They obviously haven't heard the phrase "that which does not kill you only makes you stronger."
Our administration and BoT are not part of the solution. They are not even part of the problem. They ARE the problem.
Let's not forget that our chief administrators get paid some VERY big bucks (six-figure salaries to the LEFT of the decimal point, I hear) and the BEST they could come up with was Pathways. Obviously salary does not necessarily equate with ability.
Posted by: Kai su, teknon! | August 23, 2007 at 07:15 AM
In addition, Harris was black-balled by faculty at LU when faculty from the other institution called about him.
Payback is HELL!
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 09:39 PM
EXACTLY !
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 09:16 PM
Wasn't he uninvited from his last big chance at a position because he was disingenuous with the search committee?
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 09:13 PM
WILDES = CENSURE
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 07:47 PM
In a perfect world, I would agree that administration is the dishwashing and garbage collecting of the academic world. And the fact that it has stalled academic careers is the best argument there is that there should be a term limit placed on the job.
Here at Loyola I will say that I have NEVER seen an administrator who seemed to understand the above.
The only benefit is NOT just a conversion to a 12 month contract. There is a stipend attached as well. Some administrators at Loyola have actually negotiated that stipend into their teaching contract so when they stopped being an administrator, they still received an administrator salary.
The other perks are as follows: reserved parking - now, some get a car, parking paid, or being bullet-proof on the parking ticket, and the big bonanza is - NO TEACHING!
This is why Harris is having trouble getting another job. When was the last time the man wrote a paper or stood up in a classroom?
These people are completely out of touch in every sense of the word, and they are overpaid and underworked.
Besides, at this new Loyola I understand administrators don't "listen to irate people," they tell them to shut up and mind their own business. And I personally have never asked an administrator to solve my problems because I have never met one who could.
Rather than facilitate the work of the faculty as they should, they sit around and dream up more work for the faculty to do.
If they are truly masochistic as you say, they certainly should not even be at a university. They should be in a different type of institution.
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 07:37 PM
A post earlier today (1:25 pm) attributed a post (at 1:19 pm) to me. I did not post this, nor have I posted anything to the blog (although I read it regularly) for many months.
Posted by: Craig S. Hood | August 22, 2007 at 07:31 PM
No one doubts that administrative 12-month contracts pay more than faculty contracts. But plenty of people who might undertake such work don't, because the trade-off, for most, is being pulled away from scholarship, putting in long hours doing thankless tasks, listening to irate people day after day and trying to solve their problems, etc.--none of which is professionally rewarding, unless your professinla field is applied masochism. Indeed, it has stalled a good many careers. Administration is the dishwashing and garbage collection of academia. The idea that taking an administrative stipend is living the high life is just nonsense.
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 04:18 PM
Do you not know if the person you were talking to was a he or she?
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 03:07 PM
Spoke to a person who had to attend two different administrative meetings this past Monday. S/he said afterward that s/he felt as though s/he needed to go home and take a shower to wash off the dirt.
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 02:55 PM
1:19 pm,
If you think these people who are getting the administrative positions are NOT being rewarded financially (and heftily so), then you are just showing your naivete. They may want to help the university and be putting that line out, but believe when I say, they are also helping themselves to a piece of the action.
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 02:10 PM
7:55 AM--Don't want Synergistic One to have a fatal heart problem. Just something that will cause him to move to some place less exciting. It would be good for him anyway--he really does work himself too hard.
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 01:38 PM
Had a conversation with a Xavier faculty member who was dying to leave NOLA and Xavier last year.
Today, this person said (I paraphrase):
Xavier has placed itself on sound fiscal footing for years to come. Specific examples from last year and this year are (1.) the endowment has doubled ($30 million to $60 million), helped by depositing all donated money to the endowment, (2.) the $165 million on 1% loan was used to refinance bigger loans and saves $2 million per month in payments, (3.) money is being placed into academics by replacing adjunct faculty with advertised tenure-track and tenured faculty to satisfy SACS, and (4.) while enrollment is not up to pre-Katrina, it is way up from last year and applications are rolling in for next year. To sum it up, according to this person (a faculty member), Xavier is in its best financial shape in 20 years.
This faculty member is no longer dying to leave Xavier. On the contrary, this person wants to stay and be part of Xavier re-building.
Posted by: Watching Xavier | August 22, 2007 at 01:32 PM
Craig Hood (1:19pm) -- sounds like justifying your own role on this campus. If you're so giving, then give up your chair stipend for the sake of the university. (You said it's not glamorous or professionally rewarding, but you get paid. A lot.)
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 01:25 PM
It would be truly helpful--though one hardly expects it--to refrain from labeling anyone who tries to help the university by offering administrative service as some sort of toadie or suck-up. More broadly, it might even be useful to stop the childish game of calling folks "pro" or "anti" administration. Much of the labeling I've seen here is flat wrong, including the preposterous "interim dean for life." Some people feel that they can do positive good for Loyola by doing administrative duties--which, by the way, are neither fun nor glamorous nor professionally rewarding. Those who care about the university should wish them well, hope they do a good job, and be done with it. A provost has the duty of appointing whom he or she feels best-suited for the job. One may not like that, but that's how it works at every college and university.
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 01:19 PM