July 2

Throwing a Dean Under the Bus

A recent faculty no-confidence vote at the University of Toledo was designed to oust an unpopular dean, but a subsequent student-led investigation is shifting criticism all the way to the top of the administration.

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A series of e-mails, obtained by students who submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal a candid – some would argue offensive – exchange between the university’s president and provost. In an April 27 e-mail, for instance, President Lloyd Jacobs indicated that he would be open to getting rid of the embattled dean if he didn’t think that doing so would validate faculty critics.

“For several days I thought the best thing to do was to throw [Lee] under the bus and get on with our agenda,” Jacobs wrote to Rosemary Haggett, the university’s provost. “Maybe thats [sic] still the best thing – input please …

“However, we probably can’t do that because we can’t reward the bad behavior that the [Arts and Sciences] folk have displayed, I think.”

In response to Jacobs, Haggett suggested that even meeting with the Arts and Sciences Council – the faculty group that voted no confidence in Lee – would be a tactical blunder.

“It put [sic] us right where they want us, in a confrontational position,” she wrote. “I think it actually rewards bad behavior. It also aligns us more directly with YT [Lee] (when the bus may still be our best option) and makes it more difficult to facilitate the solution.”

David Davis, who headed the faculty council when the no confidence resolution was passed, said he was troubled – but unsurprised – by the e-mails.

“I think these e-mails just sort of confirm what we thought: that the president holds the faculty in contempt,” Davis said. “He treats us like children. He says in the e-mail that he didn’t want to reward bad behavior; that’s something you say to your 8-year-old.”

While the e-mails sometimes carry the tone of a turf war that’s grown personal, the friction on campus can actually be traced back to legitimate differences of opinion about the proper direction of the university. Jacobs, former president of Medical University of Ohio, became president of the University of Toledo in 2006 when the two institutions merged. A medical doctor, Jacobs has been vocal in his promotion of science-related fields.

Jacobs has further asserted that students should have freedom to customize their educational experience, just as Dell computer allows customers to pick the model that best suits them.

“Degree completion requirements for every student with an associate’s degree will be custom-made; each student will understand the shortest, most frugal path from where he or she is to their desired goal,” Jacobs told faculty in his April 2 annual address.

Proposed Mergers Met Resistance

In keeping with Jacobs’ vision, Lee pressed faculty leaders to streamline operations by merging several departments, including communications and theater. These moves were met with resistance from faculty, who argued that Jacobs’ promotion of science disciplines came at the expense of other areas like the humanities.

Brian Anse Patrick, an associate professor of communication, described Jacobs’ plans – as carried out by Lee – as “basically a mass market kind of hamburger university.”

Haggett, Toledo’s provost, said Tuesday that plans to merge departments have been tabled indefinitely.

“Indeed, there was some controversy around that, and all of that has really been put on hold now,” she said.

Even so, the fundamental vision of “mass customization” outlined in Jacobs’ address is still a guiding principle, Haggett said.

Provost defends e-mail

Haggett acknowledges that there are some fences to mend with faculty. Asked about her now-public e-mail exchange with Jacobs, Haggett said she did not intend to be dismissive of faculty by characterizing the no confidence vote as “bad behavior.”

“From the moment that [vote] happened, I stated that I thought the actions were premature and poorly timed, and there would have been better ways to handle the situation through dialogue,” she said. “It was not meant to be derogatory towards the faculty.”

As for the dean, Hagget said, “we continue to work with the dean. Since Dr. Lee arrived we have been evaluating him and assessing his strengths and weaknesses, and were’ continuing to do that.”

Lee was unavailable for comment Tuesday, according to university officials.

Evan Morrison, a junior at Toledo who helped bring the controversial e-mails to light, said the students plan to continue to protest Jacobs’ agenda. They are circulating a petition, and they promise to release further information culled from their investigation at a July 17 rally.

“Dr. Jacobs and Rosemary Haggett see [Lee] as expendable,” said Morrison, a 25-year-old history major. “He could be thrown to the wolves, as it were, and Dr. Jacobs and Rosemary Haggett could still do what they want to the university. So this is larger than the dean, but he’s an integral part of it.”

— Jack Stripling

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Comments

Avoidable?

This is a really sad, and, I suspect, avoidable, story. As a former leader of Faculty Governance at my home U., I find it hard to believe that the Faculty Senate had exhausted its other options prior to taking a vote of No Confidence in the Dean (throwing down the gauntlet), and as a mid-level adminstrator, I find it scary that the adminstrators involved chose to document their conversations about the situation in email. Having stepped in it plenty of times on both sides of this stories like this, I’ve learned to favor conversation over votes of this kind, even if the conversation merely leads to the vote eventually (you’ve made the attempt to resolve the problem another way- maybe that happened here?), and to *never* put anything in email that I would not want everyone to see- one never knows where it will end up (case in point). Best of luck to all at UT.

Mary Coussons-Read, at 7:05 am EDT on July 2, 2008

It was bad behavior

The reason the provost called it bad behavior is because it was. While the e-mails were truly sloppy, why would faculty be so shocked that the administration was considering doing what faculty wanted? Lee’s not a great dean, and that people talk in cruder terms privately and under stress may be unfortunate, but it isn’t shocking.

The bad behavior: the Arts and Sciences Council scheduled the vote against the dean while he was on a long-planned trip to China as part of a UT delegation. There was no effort to wait to provide him a forum to defend himself and those who did try to defend him at the event as I understand it were laughed at. This is especially troubling as several of those defending him were students. That level of pettiness and vindictiveness among the faculty — actually laughing at students who disagree with them — is bad behavior.

Further, after discussing the vote of now confidence and giggling about inviting the media (which is their right, but I’ve been told it was done joyfully — this whole tragic thing has been done with glee by Arts and Sciences leadership) they voted by secret ballot. They’d been trashing the dean in public for hours, but the ballot needed to be secret?

The dean is lousy and the president and provost are hardly sympathetic to the College or its needs, but the leaders of this “movement” are as ignorant as are Dr. Lee and undermining a very real conversation among adults that needs to be happening here.

(And if you read the blog the Arts and Sciences Council has set up — complete with scatological jokes (referring to the mentioned merger as the “Big Merger” and then the “BM") 8 years old might be pushing it, Mr. Davis...)

None, at 7:55 am EDT on July 2, 2008

Freedom of information?

Could someone clarify for me — what are the rules on the release of email conversations at a public institution through the “freedom of information act?”

I am not a lawyer, at 9:50 am EDT on July 2, 2008

Freedom of Information

Each state has its own Freedom of Information Act and the laws vary significantly from state to state. A good place to start is the University of Missouri’s web siteon Freedom of Information:

http://www.nfoic.org/foi-center/

This site has links to each state’s law.

Carol Livingstone, Associate Provost for Management Information at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, at 10:05 am EDT on July 2, 2008

re throw the dean under the bus and articel comments

None, commenter #2, above, is an apologist for the UT administration—and I suspect on the administrative payroll. He has appeared in this role before on ascforum.blogspot.com/ , our faculty Council’s blog. He appears quick to mischaracterize faculty actions and leap to the defense of bullies. Four points, addressed not to None , but to interested people who may read the above (excellent) article and its associated comments: (1) the faculty No Confidence vote was a carefully considered action that prevented a mandated merger of departments that undermined faculty governance, and came about in response also to attempts by the Dean to control and censor faculty communications and meeting agendas. (2) the No Confidence vote was the first in the nearly 100-year history of the College (3) the vote was 42/7 for No Confidence , that’s an overwhelming 85 percent of the the Arts and Science Council which is the ELECTED representative body of 300 faculty in 26 departments, and (4) if Council had not voted No Confidence and stopped this aggressive, ill-considered agenda by President Jacobs and his hires including Dean Lee as his point-man, willing or naive, then College departments, faculty governance and faculuty control over the curriculum would have been LOST by July 1, yesterday, the mandated effective date of the mergers. None’s comments resemble those of many who going around pointing fingers and calling out names such as “scatological.” He merely projects; for the only “scatological” thing about the ASC website and this whole issue seems to be None’s skewed perception of it. And notice I give my name rather than merely decry at a safe remove from behind an alias.

brian anse patrick, professor at university of toledo, at 10:05 am EDT on July 2, 2008

Dr. Jacobs also fired Cynthia Dixon

I’m kind of surprised that the insidehighered news article, “When Equity Official Takes Anti-Gay Stance", was not included in the list of related stories. Just two months ago, Dr. Jacobs terminated the employment of the associate vice president for Human Resources, Crystal Dixon after she wrote a column for The Toledo Free Press that, “questioned how gay people could ever be considered ‘civil rights victims.’”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/05/toledo

If we are to believe David Davis, head of the faculty council, “these e-mails just sort of confirm what we thought: that the president holds the faculty in contempt. He treats us like children.” I now question whether Ms. Dixon was a victim of Dr. Jacobs ham handedness in personnel matters.

justaguy, parent & taxpayer, at 10:30 am EDT on July 2, 2008

Dean under the bus

So let’s see if I have this right. The university president thinks that it is in the best interests of the university to fire the dean. However, he doesn’t want to do so because that would “reward” faculty who also want to get rid of the dean. So the university president doesn’t do so.In other words, the president takes a course of action that he himself admits is not the course that is in the best interests of the university. I think the Board of Trustees should fire the university president.

Manny, at 11:45 am EDT on July 2, 2008

UT doings

I too was surprised not to see a reference to the earlier story about the HR controversy at UT. It seems that there is an emerging pattern of authoritarian rule.

Peter, at 11:45 am EDT on July 2, 2008

Sand Lots & Sad Lots

I referred to this situation in another blog as a sand lot ball game between selfish children. It has become a sad lot of (supposed) adults who think talking about a situation means yelling their opinions and demands at the top of their voices. Conversation involves listening, and since neither party listens both parties lose. YT? Unfortunately he has already lost and isn’t even in the real equation.......

JohnyBGoode, Minion II, at 12:05 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

model behavior for protest

JohnyBGoode mischievously mischaracterizes the communications of A&S student and faculty protesters as “yelling their opinions and demands at the top of their voices.” This is far from the truth. The protesters are justifiably angry, but not yet strident. They have communicated their arguments successfully in remarkably subdued, subtle and innovative ways. Anyone who takes the time to explore the protests and exchanges in the http://www.ascforum.com blog and other student/faculty protester outlets cannot but conclude that the drama has been a model of civility for student-led campus protest. The A&S students are clearly better-informed and more clever communicators then their thuggish adversaries. So “Hooray!” for liberal arts training at UT! No wonder the forces of brute power behind higher-education restructuring at UT are covetous and jealous of what they cannot comprehend and appreciate, and want rid their campus of its excellent liberal arts incubator for nurturing student intelligence and activism in support of preserving our democratic society.

Stevie, at 1:40 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

It’s elementary

“None” and “Stevie” see evident frustration and anger as inexcusable, childlike, and, in “Stevie’s” case (if I can peer through the dark lens of his/her sarcasm), evidence of some sort of systematic failure. Let’s be clear though:

1. A blog is a blog is a blog. The A&S blog is full of silly stuff. Some jokes, some outraged posts, some thoughtful ones. Some are offensive. Whatever the case, there is simply no reason to associate the faculty of an entire college with a blog. And as it is a group blog, it’s really unclear what you think its very presence demonstrates. As is always the case with a blog, if you don’t like it, don’t read it. I suspect it will come down once the administration is able to establish some basic level of trust and communication with the faculty.

2. The allegation of “bad behavior” apparently has some traction among commentators. But please do understand that the issue of college leadership was addressed explicitly in October of 2007, and the vote of no confidence occurred in April of 2008. That’s seven months of inaction, and the “bad behavior” is apparently nothing less than a demand that the administration take action (and clearly they agreed that they should have!). The student who elicited giggles was the president of the student senate, and he earned giggles when he stated as fact something that was clearly and manifestly not the case. He was later congratulated for his courage and some who laughed apologized to him.

3. Take the story above for what it is (as our first comment above does): a cautionary tale about email, and evidence of strained relations at a regional university. Though please also note that colleagues from other insitutions who look into the administration’s plans at UT recognize trends that will affect other universities (or already have, in the case of Georgia State, Central Michigan, and universities in Canada). These trends are indefensible, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to fend off.

Bees, at 2:15 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

What sarcasm? Anyway, attacking the http://ascforum.blogspot.com blog, or any blog, is just new way of “shooting the messenger” (or a way of shooting the newest messenger). This ascforum blog in particular demonstrates that the recent advent of the blog medium into the arena academic politics is an unanticipated and unprecedented boon to grassroots student and faculty protest against administrative malpractice and brute force. Summer has always been the convenient annual opportunity for public higher education administration to whack away at perceived inefficiencies (for example, campus shade trees) in the absence of protesting students and faculty. July 1st is not the beginning of the new budget year for nothing. That is when planned budget cuts are implemented. Administrators, especially under the business model and new management systems practices, are accustomed to advantaging the long summer break a time to “whack away” at any and all student/faculty undefended targets of opportunity, and habituated to letting “the chips fall where they may” without any threat of retaliation. Administrators do not have to suffer the gaze of disillusioned, dismayed and downright angry students and faculty when they act badly during summer break, Instead, they appreciate that their “done deed” however much despicable from the student/faculty point of view is irreversible, thus nearly immune to protest once classes are back in session and education becomes the highest priority. Newsflash! The advent of the blogosphere empowers student and faculty to react immediately during summer break to real and perceived threats to their interests. Their concerns can be communicated immediately, and they can assemble an organized and successful protest on short notice. This summertime confrontation at the University of Toledo between a coalition of concerned student/faculty/alumni groups and their administration demonstrates the effectiveness of blogs, including this one, to empower the voice of the protesters and to amplify that voice throughout the blogosphere. I think the events unfolding at UT are a valuable case study that offers an opportunity to map unprecedented, unpredicted and rapidly shifting power centers in academic politics and related campus culture wars. Administrative rhetoric like “extreme student centeredness” at UT has not empowered these A&S student protesters. Blogs have. Blogs are not just blogs.

stevie, at 6:35 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

“Dr. Yueh-Ting Lee began his job as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences on August 8, 2007.”

“… the issue of college leadership was addressed explicitly in October of 2007, and the vote of no confidence occurred in April of 2008.”

COLLEGE LEADERSHIP BECAME AN ISSUE IN A LITTLE OVER TWO MONTHS. WHO WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR IDENTIFYING HIM AS THE BEST CANDIDATE AND APPOINTING HIM AS THE DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES?

“In keeping with Jacobs’ vision, Lee pressed faculty leaders to streamline operations by merging several departments, including communications and theater.”

THE “POINT-MAN”, WHO DID THE “DIRTY” WORK FOR HIS SUPERIORS UNDER THEIR DIRECTION AND PRESSURE, IS “EXPENDABLE” “COULD BE THROWN TO THE WOLVES,” AND “HAS ALREADY LOST.” WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE OPERATORS BEHIND THE SCENE AND PLAYERS OF TRULY DIRTY POLITICAL TRICKS WITHOUT ANY REGARD OF THE “BEST INTERESTS OF THE UNIVERSITY,” ONE OF WHOM WAS VOTED AS “THE WORST OF THE RECENT UT PRESIDENTS” BY 69% OF AN ONLINE SURVEY?

Angry Tax Payer, at 6:45 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

From http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs....D=/20080416/NEWS21/631530278/-1/NEWS

Mike Betz, outgoing president of the student government, spoke both at the trustee and council meetings in support of Dean Lee’s work with students and urged that he be given a chance to prove himself.

“Dean Lee has done everything in his short term to become an ambassador [for a declining] college of arts and sciences,” Mr. Betz said.

Student Voice, at 9:05 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

“Dean played key role in state award”

an article published Friday, June 6, 2008

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs....le?AID=/20080606/OPINION03/806060320

Voice from One Faculty Member, at 9:05 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

Toxic

After reading this article and shaking my head at the sheer nincompoopery of people committing words like those to emails, which everybody knows can and will become public documents at the worst possible moment, I went and took a look at the Arts & Sciences Council blog (http://ascforum.blogspot.com/) and was almost just as appalled. There may not be much in the way of scatalogical humor there, but the negativity from that blog is just overwhelming. It starts with a poll at the top of the page asking “Who is the worst of the recent UT presidents?” and gets gloomier and gloomier from there.

It sounds like a pretty toxic place to work and learn, if you ask me, and one wonders how students avoid being distracted by all this stuff.

Robert, at 10:35 pm EDT on July 2, 2008

UT A&S

What is missing from th is story is how incredibly mediocre that college of arts and sciences is at UT. 2/3 of the faculty have long since given up any hope of maintaining a research agenda. These are the faculty in control of the union, who spend their time on the faculty senate and numerous other committees, who waste everyone’s time with such notions as “shared governance", because they long ago had the flame burn out, they are no longer scholars but mediocre, low-level bureaucrats.

former faculty, at 5:20 am EDT on July 3, 2008

I don’t get it

The last two comments flummox me. First, with regard to the “gloomy” A&S blog: yes, it is gloomy, and the mood reflects the times. But a quick review of the posts reveals nothing more sinister or gloomy (with a few unfortunate exceptions) than one might find on any other informational, single-issue blog. Look, for example, at the reprint of the letter from a colleague at another institution concerning efforts to reorganize. That’s valuable stuff, and that you have to sift through decidedly less valuable stuff to get to it sounds like ones experience with any blog at all. Perhaps you think blogs should not happen, but then here you are reading one. Gloomy times require gloomy blogs.

The “background” on A&S at UT from a former faculty member—that UT is mediocre—is false. It’s no MIT, that’s true. And it is also true that some faculty no longer actively pursue research projects that make any sense. But that puts UT’s A&S in some very good company. What liberal arts unit at a major metropolitan university in the country doesn’t suffer similar woes? Read IHED more often: the complaint is widespread. The business about “bureaucrats” is partially true: faculty attrition and a refusal to replace after retirement has left more work to fewer and fewer of us. That’s not the fault of the faculty. But to denigrate faculty governance by putting it in scare quotes is odd. You must not think faculty governance is important, or that it is a euphemism for what it is that faculty members are actually doing when they work on curriculum, refine policy, and contribute to the shape of the college.

I can say the following with total confidence: Many faculty in A&S at UT are competent, productive, and creative scholars who provide a first-rate education to students from every walk of life (and who face tenure guidelines no less stringent than at many other universities); and A&S is one of the most productive colleges in terms of grant funding in the Ohio system. Of course it is burdened with its share of problems, but what A&S college at an underfunded, open admission, urban university isn’t? Please don’t tell me that these problems somehow make autocratic presidencies legitimate.

Bees, at 7:45 am EDT on July 3, 2008

faculty governance

dear former faculty member- why is it that you assume participating in governance is because we have nothing better to do since we have apparently failed in “research"? maybe, perhaps, we have just moved on? yes, research is a very valuable part of the human experience, and an ideal way to engage students into open-minded inquiry. but, it is also can be an ivory tower of escape from the real world. and, when your administration threatens to removesupport for YOUR discipline, if you or your “burned out” colleagues across the campus fail to respond, you deserve anything they choose for you. sometimes working for your colleagues or supporting your spouse in her bid to overthrow the chinese communist government is more rewarding than figuring out why stars (the ones in the sky, not the ones on the screen) do funny things.

lawrence anderson, Chair, Arts and Sciences Council at University of Toledo, at 10:10 am EDT on July 3, 2008

Value of Faculty to the Institution

The present situation points to the value of faculty governance. If the administration were truly seeking the cooperation of faculty leaders — duly elected by their colleagues — disasters such as this one could be averted — and real progress could be made. During the search for the dean, there was strong faculty support for another candidate. This advice was ignored.

On a more practical note – and in reply to comments regarding the limited value of faculty governance — a member of the previous administration proposed 6 components to a students’ undergraduate experience — including service learning, an interdisciplinary course, a distance learning course, etc. He then challenged a group of faculty and administrators to deliberate and research the options. He did not impose his ideas — but inspired with these ideas. The group saw value in some components, problems in others — as one would expect. The outcome — if it really comes to that in the present environment — could be the whole greater than the sum of faculty and administrators.

Let the faculty earn their pay by using their experiences — from the history of this and other institutions and from professional fields (e.g. finance, social structures) — to make the university better.

Faculty in general want the university to be better in all respects. Their motivation is not primarily to fight the administration – but as professionals who can assess a situation from many points of view, one cannot sit quietly and watch disasters unfold, especially when it affects one’s students and research agenda.

No one or two or three have a monopoly on wisdom.

Andy Jorgensen, at 11:00 am EDT on July 3, 2008

Transparency

It’s also worth nothing that the deliberations, discussions and actions of the Arts and Sciences Council, which has been engaging these various issues for over 7 months, are all transparent and public: transcripts of their meetings are available, they have a blog, etc.

Whereas the only glimpse we have of the deliberations and discussions by the administration are in the aforementioned emails — emails which were obviously a “mistake” and are now considered an embarrassment. Only the actions of the administration are public.

In the absence of any documents or public debates on this issue, where the administration speaks openly and honestly (as opposed to just organizing PR events) all we are usually left to do is critique and speculate on their decisions.

With the A&S Council, however, we can read and critique and satire and approve or disapprove of the process they engaged in before they reached their no confidence vote.

This is one reason why the emails are so provocative: they give us a possible disturbing glimpse into the way this administration makes decisions.

DL, at 12:00 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

“Former faculty” is correct about the mediocre academics being in charge at UT, especially the faculty union. The union fiercely resists any “merit raises", instead opting to “protect all its members” with across-the-board increases.

Even with some small merit raises, if a poorly-performing faculty member starts to fall behind in his or her salary, along comes and “equity raise” to bring him back up to par with his colleagues. The result is salaries which have almost no correlation with performance. At a school where everyone’s salary is in a.pdf file on the provost’s website, this is devastating to morale.

another former faculty member, at 12:35 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

Double Standards

“Jacobs [President of UT] became the sixth president of the MUO [Medical Univ of Ohio] in November 2003. Prior to coming to Toledo, Dr. Jacobs was chief operating officer of the University of Michigan Health System, one of the largest systems in the country, and senior associate dean for clinical affairs at the University of Michigan Medical School. He also held a faculty appointment as professor of surgery.”

Three years administrative experience running a small Medical College. No experience whatsoever running a liberal arts university. No liberal arts teaching experience whatsoever. No experience whatsoever in a liberal arts university at any level. And the determination to hire him was a consequence of some mysterious agreement between BOR and MUO... not a national competitive search.

So the UT president’s qualifications for a 385,000$ a year job with all sorts of perks including a house and travel and entertainment expenses and who knows what else... is 3 years at MUO.

And as a byproduct of this, the former UT president, who was hired after a national search, Daniel Johnson, had a special position set up for him, “President Emeritus and Distinguished University Professor of Public Policay and Economic Develoopment,” with its own 6 figure salary.

And the “former faculty” thread is indignant over the pathetic raises A&S faculty receive each year?

Nicole, at 3:10 pm EDT on July 3, 2008

How Unprofessional

I am really surprised this incident sank to the depths that it did. I also think that email exchanges like this rarely lead to anything other than increased frustration. Perhaps if they had talked about it instead of sending mails back and forth things would have worked out more positively.

Joe Freeline, at 9:05 pm EDT on July 5, 2008

Top Down Management

Would a dean exercise arbitrary control over departmental organization and bypass faculty governance procedures on his own? Absolutely not! Jacobs’ corporate management style would not tolerate significant moves without high level approval. Firing Lee would dissociate the dean from administrators whose agenda he was carrying out. Kept secret, this would allow Jacobs and Haggett to continue their attacks on faculty governance and on the College of Arts and Sciences at Toledo. Faced with a similar situation at Western Michigan University, the faculty voted no confidence in both the University President and her Provost. The latter resigned, and the former was abruptly fired after a strong defense by a supportive Board of Trustees. Given the climate of fear created by our Provost, deans had little choice but to go along with the administration or be replaced. Congratulations to the students who ferreted out the inner workings of the Toledo administration. The President’s real (hidden) agenda remains to be discovered.Hint: Colleges of Arts and Sciences have been under attack by the right wing in Michigan and across the country because of their alleged “liberal, feminist and multicultural” biases. As our former Provost informed the directors of Africana Studies and Women’s Studies, their programs were “ideological, not educational” and would be eliminated.

Dr. Robert Wait, Professor at Western Michigan University, at 12:30 pm EDT on July 6, 2008

Further No Confidence Votes

Perhaps UT’s faculty should consider doing as Western Michigan did, and calling for a vote of no confidence on our president and provost. It seems as though every other avenue has been exhausted, and it seems as though a faculty that has been shown such contempt by its administration may have no other option, save rolling over.

Faculty Member at UT, at 4:35 pm EDT on July 6, 2008

The University of Toledo is an institution ‘on the move’ and is changing for the better. Change takes people out of their comfort zones (which of course makes many people uncomfortable).

However, many faculty and staff members support where our institution is headed: improved rankings/reputation and an increased focus on students. UT is on the road to becoming a prestigious Ohio institution. I embrace change and support all who are working for a better UT.

Michele Martinez, UT, at 8:30 pm EDT on July 7, 2008

On the move?

Michele,You work directly in President Jacob’s office, at least put that in your post.

I don’t think the incompetent dean and the President’s embarrassing email correspondence have anything to do with people being “uncomfortable” with change.

Finally what evidence to you have that the university is on the move in a positive direction, it is still an open enrollment school, anyone with a pulse can be admitted. It is losing the battle for enrollment with a local community college. Its top administrators almost all are using it as a stopping off point on the way to better institutions.

former faculty, at 10:40 am EDT on July 8, 2008

The Happening Place!

Both Michelle’s lala view from Jacob’s office and the lugubrious perspective of “former faculty” misread the urgency and importance of the protest movement at UT, as well as the profound direction of change it represents. Concerned activist students and faculty intent on preserving a democratic society, on campus and beyond, are protesting a threatening ideological agenda being swiftly imposed against their will by rightist bullies and their mercenary consultants. If I were in search of an exciting higher education opportunity and experience where I could contribute my intelligence and voice immediately while taking an activist stand in support of a Cause Most Just, I would choose to join the fight against tyranny and mismanagement right now at the University of Toledo. While some might not want to come to UT because of its reputation for student and faculty activism, others relish the opportunity to engage and thrive in its vibrant, issue-oriented educational environment. Many public colleges and universities have already followed to the gallows the instrumental-rational drumbeat of an unethical and immoral business model: by systematically starving, neglecting and abandoning their liberal arts they have ultimately sacrificed their souls. Those who ardently appreciate the First Amendment and its importance to preserving our American democratic society will fight hard today to reverse this trend while it is still possible. Today this fight is at the University of Toledo. Activists converge! Get on the bus! Enroll! Apply! Fight the Good Fight! The University of Toledo is The Happening Place!

stevie, at 1:35 pm EDT on July 8, 2008

Stevie....

Your comments are way over the top. Regardless of what you think of the “liberal arts” and their importance, it would be neither immoral nor unethical of the UT administration to downplay or even eliminate them. There are plenty of schools with no liberal arts (technical colleges, medical schools, graduate business colleges, schools of cosmetology, etc.. etc..) There is nothing immoral or unethical about any of them. Make your argument for the importance of liberal arts please without throwing out such ridiculous accusations.

Further, UT does not have the reputation you describe. Indeed outside of northwest Ohio UT has no reputation at all. This is not negative, most 2nd tier state schools have no national reputation, nor should they expect to have one.

former faculty, Stevie..., at 1:55 pm EDT on July 8, 2008

It’s only business! (but it doesn’t have to be)

f-f. There is no “over the top” when it comes to the First Amendment. The importance of the First Amendment as it relates to educating critical thinkers is at the heart of a diverse and well-funded liberal arts education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in an American public higher education university. For the UT administration to downplay or eliminate its robust liberal arts education seems fundamentally un-American and an insidious threat to the Constitution. The vocational schools you list are not responsible for or interested in teaching First Amendment freedoms or the ethical and moral civic responsibilities that are integral to them. To do so would erode their profit margins. There are plenty of published arguments that argue the inappropriateness of a corporate business model to public higher education. The gist of their arguments is sound: a corporation is a legal person invented to make profits unburdened by moral and ethical constraints. That would be for example The University of Phoenix, a bloated degree mill that sells its degrees to ambitious entrepreneurs on a fast track to consumptive materialism so they can engage in professions and businesses that can earn them higher wages and/or more profits. I can understand why the business-minded (obsessed) Governor of the State of Ohio, his appointed higher education Chancellor and Board of Regents, the UT Board of Trustees, UT President Jacobs, Provost Haggett and Dean Lee. They never received a decent liberal arts education, and so are all parties to a crime against America they do not recognize, and once committed, for which they will suffer no remorse.

Stevie, at 3:00 pm EDT on July 8, 2008

Stevie,Is Governor Strickland one of the right-wingers you refer to above? And how do you know what type of liberal arts education those people received?

former faculty, Governor Strickland, at 3:15 pm EDT on July 8, 2008

Recently, Eric Fingerhut, Chancellor, Ohio Board of Regents, unveiled the Strategic Plan for Higher Education 2008-2017. In April of this year, the University of Toledo Board of Trustees approved a document called Directions: The University of Toledo, which serves as the University’s Strategic Plan. These documents are not mutually exclusive; both, in part, were written in response to the changing landscape of higher education that has been experienced in recent years. While these documents articulate aspirations to excellence in teaching, learning, research, service, and reputation both within the local community and larger global context, each also references the challenges of the changing demographics of students, labor market needs, higher education funding policies, and institutional sustainability, and the need to respond strategically. In his second annual address, President Jacobs spoke in terms of “mass customization” and “extreme student centeredness” as a new paradigm for higher education and the “single best strategy” to advance both the University’s and the Chancellor’s strategic plans. In my opinion, the reengineering of the undergraduate experience proposed by President Jacobs is a significant step in the journey toward excellence in the undergraduate experience at The University of Toledo, one that will require flexibility as we respond to dynamic conditions and adjustments to plans that may not be working as anticipated. It is my hope that the UT community can come together on this issue for the greater good of our university, our state and, most importantly, our students.

Kaye Patten Wallace, Vice President for Student Affairs at University of Toledo, at 3:30 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Yikes!

The counter-offensive has begun! Hide your daughters!

Stevie, at 7:45 pm EDT on July 10, 2008

Brave New World

Vice President Wallace. Thank you for contributing this conveniently concocted but inherently flawed boilerplate. The convergence of “mass customization” and “extreme student centeredness” at UT is not a paradigm (a paradigm being thoughtful, meaningful, appealing). It is instead an ugly and meaningless rhetorical train wreck: an oxymoron crashing into a specious exaggeration. Here we have two pseudopithic phrases perceived to have “Wow! factor” plucked cleverly for tactical reasons out of the head of Zeus (Jacobs in this case). “Mass customization” in particular has no justifiable strategic value for achieving excellence at UT. Even at Dell Corporation its concept has proven to be a failed enterprise in the long run. And “mass customization” has no track record whatsoever as a successful tactic, much less a strategy, for improving public higher education (a realm where its business applications seem inappropriate to say the least.) These two pestiferous rhetorical carbuncles of the present ruling body politic are deceptively infectious, causing even you to swoon while drafting this press release. Else how could you in the responsible position your hold valorize “engineering the undergraduate experience” instead nurturing a more gentle and humane “enhancing the undergraduate experience.” Your proposed technological fix is not a vision of excellence. It foreordains the nightmare of a Brave New World.

Ted, at 10:20 am EDT on July 11, 2008

How did UT get Dean Lee in the first place?

Were there other more competent candidates? Was the search committee asleep at the wheel? Or perhaps an appointed president does not have to follow the rules for hiring middle management.

Linus, at 2:00 pm EDT on July 11, 2008

dean under bus

The dean has indeed been thrown under the bus!

dave, at 11:25 am EDT on July 17, 2008

Bus

The Dean of A&S at UT has not been thrown “under the bus.” He has, in fact, been transferred laterally, or possibly even upwardly (salary wise) to the position of “associate vice president for analysis and assessment” in the Department of Human Resources. He moves into this role — which will appear on his resume as a promotion — without the benefit of having to submit a resume or compete with other potential candidates. The entire controversy is being swept under the rug: no firing.. no resigning.. just an executive move across campus to another office.

And, no doubt, this is a new position created specifically to resolve this problem — in other words the UT administration will cry budget “wolf” at every opportunity when it comes to staffing, but when they need to create a six figure salary to hide their own mistakes they do so.

Where such money comes from for such indulgences is a mystery. However you can detect the corporate mindset here: failed administrators/executives almost always have generous safety nets, regardless of their shortcomings. It’s a great club to gain admittance to, either in the “real” world or in academics.

Nica, at 3:10 pm EDT on July 17, 2008

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