loynoinfo blog march 2009

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[Stupid is as Stupid Does]

This was a stupid thing to do. Stands to reason some Loyola administrator will decide to do it too, not wanting to let any stupid things get by without doing it too.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/04/albany

[IOKIYAKW (It's OK If You Are Kevin Wildes)]

I wish I had the money to burn that Loyola's administration has. In order to impress Benson's $8 mil, the grounds people had guys in laying grass sod down on every square inch of bare soil in the Marquette quad and have been watering the devil out of it for about 2 or 3 weeks. No landscaping, no shrubs or plants to replace what had been dug up and thrown away during the laying of new, improved infrastructure under ground.

Last week, whole chunks of sod had been pulled up (and disappeared) to make way for what I can only presume will be shrubs at all the "corners".

This week they are pulling up yet more sod, digging new trenches around the edges of all the sidewalks as they prepare to lay in automatic sprinklers.

This organized bit of planning from the guys who brought us Pathways. We can now see how their minds (don't) work.

What an insane waste of money!!!

Wildes and his stooges MUST go!!!

[Wishes He'd Just Go!]

Dear Student,
I almost posted the same thing. There were actually five Jesuits with the rest of the faculty the day we protested at the board meeting. They all hold a special place in my heart. I decided not to name them for their sake.

However, Reside may be referring to the non action of the Jesuit Corporation. The former A&S College compelled Dean Scully to write them a letter and ask them to do something. The college got a reply that said something like: we've turned over the management of this place to the Board of Trustees - see them. Of course they're the ones who did it and completely ignored the faculty. Everyone knows that the Jesuits as a whole could have done something to stop it, but they didn't.

Wildes, please recall, is a Jesuit too. They could get rid of him easily because he's not from this Provence. But they don't.

[Student who got pathway'ed]

I'd like to point out that not all the Jesuits were silent about the Pathways plan. A great mentor and advocate for students was vocally against the plan... but he was assigned to another school shortly after the plan's approval.

[So Happy to Not Reside in Stallings]

Senseless,
The LAST thing you want to do is talk to some Jesuit. For Christ's sake, Wildes is a Jesuit. Where were the Jesuits during the Pathways path of human destruction. You could get a more sympathetic response talking to a brick wall--which, come to think about it, is much like talking to Wildes. (Prez Palooka has been appointed to the Board of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad. Kevvy--the little engine that couldn't.)

[me]

Senseless,

I am not in the senate so I cannot talk for the senators. The senate has probably not intervened because no one has officially asked for an intervention. The usual way for the senate to investigate something is for a senator to make a motion to that effect.

My reaction to the stories about the Dean of _____ and the Chair of _____ is disbelief. How could something like this happen at Loyola? Then I remember Pathways. So it CAN happen.

There has to be a Jesuit priest senator you can talk to in confidence. The priest can then bring the issue to the light of the senate floor.

[Senseless in the CSS]

I have been monitoring the latest comments for several weeks and just can not remain quiet any more.

I'll try my best to keep to the same nicknames for the players so as to avoid any confusion.

I am tired of people ripping on a certain department in Stallings Hall. Not every person who works in the department is a sexual deviant, a goon, or a misogynist. There are some very decent, hard working people in the department.

I do have some comments to add to what Alice and Herman have posted. Again, this is not supposition or hearsay. This is factual.

Just prior to the certain female professor under discussion was fired there was a meeting called by his Majesty held upstairs in the college office. Only some members of the department were present. The certain female everyone has been posting about was not welcomed at this meeting.

After what was done to this certain female professor's office failed to scare her away or shut her up his Majesty decided that more punishment was in order. Because she filled out a complaint against her chair she had caused secondary problems for his Majesty because it looked like he was unable to deal with the business and problems in the college.

His Majesty and the chair of the department decided to promote a male to the position of associate chair. The man who was promoted is no longer with us unfortunately but he was only an assistant professor and had only been working at Loyola a little over one year since his graduation.

His Majesty thought that by promoting an unqualified man to the position of associate chair of the department this would serve to shut the certain female up for good and bring some peace to the department.

After the meeting the chair stated very emphatically that no woman would ever be the chair of his department and he hoped the promotion of the man over the definitely more qualified certain female would be enough to put her in her proper place. He also stated that he wasn't sure what to do if this did not work.

The Man in Black referred to in a previous post said if this didn't shut up the troublemaker he would see to it that she was removed for good. Another male in the department who has been the subject of recent posts said he would also help rid the department of the unwanted female if the Man in Black was unable to remove her influence.

After the certain female was removed due to the lie perpetrated by the chair another meeting was held upstairs by his Majesty, the chair, the Man in Black, and another male who has been the subject of recent posts. His Majesty was not sure the tactic of the chair had been effective despite the Man in Black continuing to try to frighten the certain female by going to her home to intimidate her. The other male in the department who was mentioned in a recent post said he would take care of it because the continued scare tactics by the Man in Black were not working.

I am not sure what was done after that but I can tell you all that the elimination of the certain female from this department was very calculated. The chair was nervous that she was going to expose certain behaviors in the department and he didn't want a woman as chair of his department. The Man in Black was sent to scare her and intimidate her into shutting up. This certain female professor was repeatedly harassed at work and feared for her safety. She was not allowed to have a telephone in her office, did not receive the same travel funding as the male faculty, was not allowed to participate in departmental meetings, and was deliberately kept out of a departmental project with a local social service agency.

But, even now I am not sure the certain female professor has been fired. Her office still has her name plate on it and she still has a mailbox.

The chair used the Man in Black to rearrange her office, steal items from the office, and when those tactics failed he finally concocted the outlandish tales about her carrying guns and trying to kill people. These lies were perpetrated because the chair and the Man in Black knew that would be certain to get the certain female removed for good. Nothing else was working so this was their last attempt to get rid of her.

I have not said anything up to now because I could be the next target of the chair and the Man in Black. But I thought the Faculty Senate would be able to step in and stop this behavior. I would very much like to know why the senate has been silent with regard to this incident.

The lies perpetrated by the chair and the Man in Black are completely that, lies. There has to be someone who is a member of the Faculty Senate on this blog who can answer the question of why they have been silent during this travesty.

I came to Loyola believing in the Jesuit educational mission. I wish with all of my heart that I had made another choice. I have never experienced such a hostile and dangerous working environment. Even the police at this university refuse to help those who call upon them.

Someone in a position of authority needs to put a stop to the nonsense. Even now the chair and the Man in Black have started telling people that the certain female has moved to another state and no longer works in the academic world. The chair himself said that he would personally see to it that the certain female no longer had a career in the scholarly world. He was determined to ensure that she was not able to seek employment elsewhere.

[Et tu, Brute! (Yes, I'm back!)]

Memory Lane,

In 2009-2010, the handbook committee did not have its first meeting until late January-early February when it elected the dean of the law school as chair. The only female member of the committee raised a number of questions about the handbook's language regarding termination of faculty and clarity (or lack of) regarding whose responsibility it was to make decisions regarding termination of programs. The newly elected chair looked at her and said "you're going to be trouble, aren't you?" A few weeks later, she was escorted off campus and locked out of her office for the duration of the semester. The senate eventually replaced her with a Jesuit.

[Do the Math]

That $8 mil that Tom Benson gave Loyola for a Jesuit Center (whatever that is) will almost cover the costs to the university in lawyer's fees, judgements and settlements in the cases of the faculty who were illegally terminated under the Wildes Pathway Plan.

When will this university be relieving itself from the services of the incompetent Kevin Wildes?

[Down (Bad) Memory Lane]

This is ringing a loud bell in my head. The Faculty Handbook Revision committee reviewed each of the sections in the Staff Handbook and decided what boxes to check and not check. The committee had not brought the recommendation to the Senate as of 2008. I do not know what happened in 2009-2010.

[WIAFI]

Concerned,

The reason the faculty member under discussion was terminated and the one nearly terminated in 2009 is because the administration is NOT following the Faculty Handbook. They are using the procedures as outlined in the STAFF HANDBOOK. That handbook has never been brought before the faculty and voted on by the faculty to be applied to the faculty -- EVER.

In 2004, the University Senate learned of revisions to the Staff Handbook and heard that it would be applied to faculty as well as staff. The Senate insisted that faculty be appointed to the committee since there was no faculty representation. Two faculty members were appointed to the Staff Handbook committee, their names given to the director of Human Resources and they were never told anything about any further meetings.

The last time I looked at the Staff Handbook online, there were checked boxes at the beginning of each chapter indicating whether the policies and procedures of that chapter applied to exempt staff, non-exempt staff and faculty. Every single box for every single chapter was checked as applying to faculty. The University Senate had only ever voted to approve 2 sections of this manual to apply to faculty, and one of those concerned maternity and parental leave, the other sexual harassment (if memory serves). But if you read the staff policy and procedures for termination, you will clearly understand what happened to the recent faculty members AND what happened to those terminated in PATHWAYS -- locked out of their offices, escorted off campus, denied access to campus .... all of it.

As someone posted earlier, this administration is NOT following the Faculty Handbook. They will never get off censure at this rate. And they shouldn't!

[IOKIYAKW (It's OK if you are Kevin Wildes)]

Alice and Concerned,

The female faculty member thrown off campus who was mentioned in an earlier post asked to have her case heard by the University Conciliation Committee. She sent a certified letter to the provost within 48 hours of being locked out of her office and escorted off campus, in which she invoked her right to due process as outlined in the contractual Faculty Handbook. That meant conciliation. She got back the signed return receipt so she knows the provost got the letter. Here, going on 2 years later, and she has never had a hearing. All she got for over 3 months were threats to her "future employability", at Loyola and presumably anywhere else.

Luckily, she had a lawyer who was not scared of the university's "dream team".

I concur with Done Laughing. Do not bother with university committees, do not stop and go directly to a lawyer. The university's administration is still not playing by the Handbook, so neither should the faculty.

As long as Wildes is president, his administration will NEVER get off censure with the AAUP.

WILDES MUST GO!!!

[concerned]

Dear Done Laughing:

Years ago the A & S Conciliation Committee heard the case of a senior professor accused of sexual harassment. His case involved several female students. The Committee did its job and the professor was found guilty and disciplinary actions were taken.

Regarding the case Alice described, was the tenured professor really terminated? It is hard to believe that a chair has the authority to terminate a tenure professor without a department vote, and without going through the CRTC. How is that possible?

[Done Laughing]

Dear Concerned,
Now that I'm done laughing at your post, I'd like to comment.

I once requested to have a case heard by the Conciliation Committee and I didn't even get a reply to my request. I certainly didn't get any help from them.

And as everyone knows, the URTC voted unanimously that the Pathways Plan violated the faculty handbook and that the tenured faculty should be reinstated. That really helped, didn't it?

Shared governance is a joke at Loyola. Alice, tell your friend to go straight to court. Do not stop at any Loyola faculty committees. Do not collect worthless decisions from them.

[concerned]

Alice:

I am surprised that a tenured professor could be terminated for filing a harassment complaint against her chair. Does this professor know that she could take her case to the Conciliation Committee at both the College and University levels? There is also a Civil Rights Committee. What happened to her is shocking!

[Webbie]

Alice,
I edited your comments before I posted them. I think most people who read this blog are aware of the relationships you have recently discovered. Posting that here would have only caused a concentrated effort to find out who you are. I also deleted some of you references to logistics in a campus building for the same reason. You are best left anonymous.

If you want we to take this edited post down, I will.

[Alice in Loony Land]

It's the end of another week in Loony Land. Time for an update.

The administration's favorite office manager is now back to work. She was sprung from jail this week by an unknown source. You can fill in the words. Her Majesty of Nurseryland was meeting with Shauna's bail bondsman. You can fill in the blanks.

I overheard Shauna just a day or so after her release comment on the irony that she has open access to the money of a certain very wealthy school in the CSS.

I also have a lot of information from the administration in the CSS. I said before in a previous post that the people who should be the most secretive are doing next to nothing to be discrete with respect to meetings held. As I stated before, this is not conjecture or rumor. This is direct from mouth to ear. Straight from his royal majesty's upstairs office.

A meeting was held recently regarding a certain unamed female professor who was terminated because she filed a complaint against her chair for harassment. The allegations were widely known. I was forced one afternoon to go to this certain professor's office to get a form signed because she was not allowed to have a telephone. I was also unfortunately present when the man in black tore the &*^% out of her office and when she learned of her dismissal for complaining about her ill treatment.

In a recent meeting upstairs some of what was discussed was overheard. Here is what I heard.

The chair of this department said the provosts office was having trouble with the dismissal of this female professor. The trumped up allegations were not believable and were not sticking. The tenured status of this female professor was also causing some problems in the quest to get rid of her. Yes this female was tenured.

The man in black had gone to her home on more than one occasion but she was still not scared away. The chair had taken to telling students she had moved to Michigan but that was starting to fall apart as people saw her running in the park on a regular basis.

The chair's wife was not able to have the power with the legal counsel for Loyola that she thought she would have. I wondered about that remark so I did a little asking around. Just an innocent question can get so much return.

This certain unamed female professor still has an office downstairs next to the man in black yet she was fired last December. She also has a mailbox.

I have said this before but the senior faculty of this poor college needs to start asking some very direct questions about the dealings in his majesty's office.

A person arrested for a federal crime is miraculously back at work hours after being released from jail. She has access to millions of dollars of grant money. She will probably go to prison if she is found guilty at her trial.

The college has lost a tenured professor as retaliation from the chair for causing him trouble.

I ask again, since when is a criminal more important
than a member of the senior faculty? Why won't the police at Loyola put a stop to the harassing behavior of the man in black. Take a close look at his belt and you will see his knife. He carries it in a little pouch that he doesn't even bother to try to hide. Why do the police, his majesty, and the provost put a stop to the harassment?

I only wish I could get a hold of some of the e-mails and telephone calls and post them here. That way there would be a record of what is going on. His majesty is directly involved in the Shauna fiasco and the harassment of our certain female professor.

[Loyola level outrage]

Here's the best quote from this article about LSU:

"It was actually quite disturbing to see a $400,000 a year employee (Martin) tell an $88,000 a year employee (Cassidy) to tell 14 $35,000 a year employees they were too expensive for the University to keep."

http://www.lsureveille.com/opinion/cancel-the-apocalypse-classics-instructors-fired-questions-remain-unanswered-1.2337948

[So Happy to Not Reside in Stallings]

Do a search for Shauna Crowden on Loyola’s homepage and she comes up as office manager for the School of Nursing. Go to the School of Nursing page and look up faculty and staff and there is no sign of her. She has become a nonperson. Only the most powerful of monarchs could accomplish this. Queen Ann of Nurseyland again exhibits her great power! (Though her majesty was probably the one who hired her in the first place.)

[Alice in Loonyland]

I've been considering whether to post my latest piece of information. Sometimes it is better to just keep quiet. I don't think this is one of those times, though.

I don't know how many of you noticed the many strange, official looking gentlemen lurking around the Biever Hall-Stallings Hall area a few days ago but I wonder if word of the FBI raid will make it past our dean. yes, people, I said FBI. I think I saw an ATF jacket but I was so nervous I might have been mistaken. There were guns drawn and our entire building was surrounded by agents. I was scared witless I might get shot.

How many of you know who Shauna Crowden is? Google her name Shauna Crowden Hunter. Yes, this person was apprehended and taken into custody by federal agents while at work in Stallings Hall. She will probably spend many years behind bars for her crimes.

My first question is how did she get a job in the College of Societal Knowledge with a criminal past? Her past is common knowledge and public information yet she was able to obtain a job in Stallings Hall. Oh, I forgot, she falsified her employment application. This is also known by those in positions of authority at Loyola.

Now, she has brought disgrace to the college again but will she be fired? Not on your life. She will be greeted with open arms by the dean and her chair when she gets out of jail. I'm not kidding about this people. This is fact.

The walls in this building are paper thin. People hear everything that transpires in offices in our building.

So here we have a federal criminal, indicted by a grand jury, who will be able to keep her job at Loyola. This person will be around students, faculty, money, and other staff members despite a very serious, felony indictment. Just check out the charges against her.

My earlier postings dealt with a certain unamed female professor who lost her job because she filled out a complaint against her chair. This person did absolutely nothing wrong except try to take a stand against a very public display of overt harassment. Everyone in this building knew what she endured yet no one, even the dean, would help her because they were afraid of the chair and his goon. I know this certain female professor had to have male students escort her to the parking garage at night because she was being harassed by the chair's man in black. She wasn't safe at work and had to be afraid at a Jesuit university for her safety.

I would very much like to know why other senior faculty members stand by and watch this occur but fail to take a stand. Why is a known criminal going to be allowed to keep her job depsite a long and intricate history of fraud and theft yet a professor is fired because she tried to stand up for herself? Why are female staff members harassed by one department's goon but are so afraid of the consequences they can't make complaints known to anyone?

I'm taking a terrible chance in posting this. But I think it's time people at this poor university take a stand for what is right. I know the Jesuit martyrs take stands every day against racism and moral wrongs. Why can't the faculty of Loyola? Is it going to take a rape or a murder or an attack before someone in a position of authority is willing to say enough is enough?

Staff people cannot stand up for much because it is too easy to fire them. Faculty can take a stand.

Some very serious questions need to be answered about this. I didn't know a criminal was more valuable to Loyola than a well known and well liked professor.

[Ha Ha]

And it was exactly the point I was making. One of those poorly educated, untalented endowed chairs brokered that Monk deal. Or so I heard. I had not heard they were run out of the previous school early, but it doesn't surprise me.

Loyola sometimes gets these deals like that thinking it will put the university on the map. All it does is take the thing OFF the map - if it ever was on the map. And cost the university a bunch of money that would otherwise go to some administrators' (or former administrator's) big salary and perks pool.

[Off the Radar University]

Laughing,

Exactly the point I was making. I had heard the Monk Institute was asked to leave the previous university before their arrangement was supposed to expire. They were costing more than they were worth and that university was tired of paying for essentially nothing.

I hope Tulane is careful. If the Monk Institute gets wind of their million $$, they'll be dropping Loyola like a rock and heading over the fence to leech off TU.

[Laughing Louder]

Dear Off,
Yes, but I believe that institute costs Loyola for the pleasure we get from having it. It certainly takes up space and has staff who became Loyola employees.

I also believe that we only have the honor of its presence on campus for a limited number of years and then it goes to mooch off some other university.

[Off the Radar University]

Doesn't Loyola have the Felonius Monk Institute?

[Ha Ha]

HaHaHa!
Did you see the Tulane Music Department is getting $1 million from Music Rising to develop a college curriculum for the permanent, comprehensive and definitive study of the musical heritage of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region.

I have NEVER seen Loyola'a Music school get that kind of money. They've gotten those endowed chairs who are supposed to do stuff like this, but they don't. Come to think of it, I don't know what they do but sit around and dream up ways to spend Loyola's money.