Comments on Quick Takes: Colleges Prepare for Gustav, Why Harvard Is Examining Its Police Force, Keg Photo Ends Presidency, Central Ark. President Quits, Carnegie Mellon Prof Gets 3 DUI Charges in 8 Days

• Storm decision making
• Posted by CCPhysicist on August 29, 2008 at 8:15am EDT

• Someone in a higher ed program should collect data immediately on the decision making related to Gustav and the continuity planning that should already have taken place.

  With landfall predicted in the delta around 2 AM Tuesday, the only way you can "hope" to have classes on Tuesday is if it turns toward Houston or Florida. And with storm conditions likely to persist until after a second landfall near Lafayette around 2 AM Wednesday (current model predictions), even business operations on Wednesday would depend on the storm moving well to the left or right of its probability band.

• Colleges preparing for Gustav
• Posted by Eric Benoy , Music Librarian at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on August 29, 2008 at 9:15am EDT

• Some schools are, indeed, hopeful of getting back on track class-wise next week. And, as pointed out in another comment, that scenario is not so valid if the hurricane lingers or changes course. But, everyone is trying to avoid any disaster.

  At our institution, using the model developed during the "Katrina diaspora", if we shut down and evacuate, ALL classes will continue online and not be interrupted. Two weeks after Katrina all faculty set up their courses online -- even music faculty -- and they continued through the fall and we even had graduation as scheduled that December.

  All we are doing is waiting to hear from our administrators today -- just like Dillard Univ. and Univ. of New Orleans, we have not heard anything yet.

  I'll get out my galoshes just to be safe...

• Bored of Trustee's
• Posted by dundermifflin on August 29, 2008 at 9:30am EDT

• "...a controversy in which the university’s board has been widely criticized for giving Hardin, secretly, a $300,000 bonus."

  Why have the board members who voted for the double "secret" bonus not been fired? Is this not an example of poor judgement on teir part? So fire the president for accepting it, but not the board that gave it?

  We need to have some accreditation standards for board members as far as I can tell. What are their qualifications, aside from being rich, out of touch with academia, arrogant deadwood? Why are there no professors or students on most boards? Most of the problems that we read about on the pages of IHE originate with Boards of Trustees.

  It is time to make these boards accountable, and to make sure they have proper qualifications and a representative array of members! Rich white Oligarchs are no longer sufficient.

• Carnegie Mellon DUIs
• Posted by Michael on August 29, 2008 at 10:05am EDT

• Really...inappropriate awarding of degrees at a major university might be of interest but the mention of a former dean's DUI charges is not.

• You Can't Trust These
• Posted by Jeffrey Mask , Professor of Religion on August 29, 2008 at 11:30am EDT

• The linked articles in Arkansas papers give a fuller picture of the culpability in the UCA case. Apparently Hardin, a former Republican state senator, urged the board to vote secretly to award him a bonus that he calls deferred compensation. He repaid it because the state AG ruled the source of the funds to be public money and therefore illegal.
  As a previous post asks, do the "trustees" have no responsibility in this? Those board members who do not resign should be fired.
  The real problem in higher ed--and perhaps in business--is that boards of trustees/directors, as they are currently structured, do not work. Too often they only serve the interests of board members.

• Storm decision making
• Posted by Dr. RingDing on August 29, 2008 at 11:30am EDT

• "Someone in a higher ed program should collect data immediately on the decision making related to Gustav and the continuity planning that should already have taken place."

  Good suggestion, CCPhysicist. If the higher ed research after Katrina is any indication, however, the majority of the research after Gustav will be limited to investigations of how students and faculty felt about the experience.

• The fruits of bad behavior
• Posted by feudi pandola on August 29, 2008 at 2:15pm EDT

• The President of an Iowa community college quits after being photographed pouring beer down a young womans throat. His punishment? $400,000 in severance pay!

  The taxpayers foot that bill because 90% of tuition revenue for community colleges comes from the Department of Education, i.e., the American taxpaying public.

  Small wonder that the cost of college is spiraling way out of control.