Monthly Archives: March 2008

EMU FT Scholarship Opportunity

Posted on March 20, 2008 by | 1 Comment

A colleague/frequent reader of EMUTalk.org wanted me to pass along the following announcement, just in the name of getting the word out there to as many students and as in many places as possible:

The EMU Federation of Teachers is proud to announce its second annual Labor Lives Scholarship Contest. Any student who is a sophomore or above in good standing can enter to win. Students should submit an essay about “The importance of labor in education” with a minimum of 500 words by March 31st, 2008. The $500 scholarship will be awarded on April 11, 2008. Essays should be submitted through campus mail to: EMU Federation of Teachers, 110 King Hall or by e-mail as a word document to: emuft_9102@yahoo.com. Students should include their name, phone number, e-mail and address with submissions. Questions or concerns? E-mail us or call: 487-5448.

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Posted in Academics, Student Life

AAN sports investigation part 3 (or, see part two– it’s about the same basic thing)

Posted on March 18, 2008 by | 7 Comments

Today’s Ann Arbor News investigation part 3 is “University of Michigan athletes’ ‘safe harbor’ is general studies.” I gotta say, I’m having a hard time getting too excited/worked up about this whole series.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Academics, In the media..., Sports, University of Michigan

Adios to Stroh

Posted on March 18, 2008 by | 20 Comments

Seems that we will be having another position open in the higher administration and some potential improvement in policy based on that personnel change.  The email from the Provost and Executive Vice President Loppnow reads:

I would like to make the University community aware of an administrative change. As of this morning, March 18, Janice Stroh, Vice President for Business and Finance for EMU and Treasurer to the Board of Regents, has been placed on paid administrative leave. As is University policy, details of personnel actions are not shared.

As a result of this administrative action, I have made an organizational change for an undetermined period. Effective immediately, the Physical Plant will temporarily report to the Office of the President. Todd Ohmer, Assistant to the Vice President for Business and Finance, will oversee the daily operations in budget and finance.

Don Loppnow

Provost and Executive Vice President

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Posted in Budgets

AAN sports investigation continues (or, just what the heck does one do with a degree in Kinesiology, anyway?)

Posted on March 17, 2008 by | 5 Comments

From today’s Ann Arbor News comes part 2 of their investigation of sports at U of M, “Kinesiology reserves slots for University of Michigan athletes.” Once again, I’m curious to read what folks have to say, but I’ll throw out two thoughts for now:

  • It’s not exactly news that a lot of the athletes in marquee sports at top-tier programs are less than serious about their academic careers. In fact, a lot of this article is about how a lot of football and basketball players have been steered into “easy” majors for a long time. And here’s another news item: this sort of thing happens at lots of different universities.
  • It doesn’t look like U of M’s athletic department has broken any rules (or at least that hasn’t come up in these articles yet), but it sure looks U of M has been playing kind of fast and loose with the rules and/or they’re being awfully duplicitous, claiming to be one of the 10 great universities in the world and they are looking the other way with their athletes.

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Posted in Academics, In the media..., Sports, University of Michigan

AANews investigates U of M Academics and Athletics (or, how much for that independent study in the window?)

Posted on March 16, 2008 by | 4 Comments

There’s a large investigative journalism story in the Ann Arbor News today about “Academics and Athletics at the University of Michigan.” It promises to be a four part report, so I am sure we’ll hear a lot more, but today’s piece focuses mostly on Psychology Professor John Hagen, who has taught at least 251 independent studies to athletes between fall 2004 and fall 2007, and the GPA average for those classes was something like 3.62.

Seems kinda fishy to me, but I’m not sure it is as big of a scandals as the AAN suggests.

On the one hand, Hagen’s area of study does have to do with education, and you know, a “learning skills” independent study for athletes with a senior faculty who really likes sports might not be such a bad idea. And lord knows that there are plenty of professors at plenty of different schools who have reputations for being an “easy A.” Perhaps Hagen is just one of them. On the other hand, 250 is A LOT– at least it seems like it to me. Maybe the system works different at U of M and maybe it is different in a field like psychology, but faculty in my department certainly don’t do this many independent studies. For one thing, you don’t get paid for them, meaning that to take them on is to take on extra work on top of an already heavy teaching load. Maybe it works different at U of M.

Anyway, I’m sure we’ll be reading more about this next week. If nothing else, it is refreshing to see the AAN dig up some dirt over at that Ann Arbor school for a change of pace.

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Posted in Academics, Sports, Student Life, University of Michigan

“Wanted: Someone who knows nothing about the job”

Posted on March 14, 2008 by | 3 Comments

Bert posted this in a comment to an ongoing discussion about the presidential search, but I thought it probably more rightly deserved its own post here. This comes from Stanley Fish writing for the New York Times, “Wanted: Someone who knows nothing about the job.” It has some obvious relevance for the current presidential search going on here at EMU.

I don’t have a lot of time to comment on this right now (that pesky day job again), but like many things that Fish writes, I personally have mixed feelings. Yes, a university president is not only (or even primarily) an academic position; but, as Fish points out, running universities like businesses is generally ill-advised. Nonetheless, the main mission of a university is academics, so it makes sense to have someone in charge who has some expertise in that area. And what Fish also glosses over here is that a university president that does not have the support of the faculty is a very very weak and problematic president indeed– see Kirkpatrick and Fallon for examples of that.

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Posted in EMU President Search, In the media...

A little more about that quasi-mysterious BoR meeting on Friday, 3/14

Posted on March 13, 2008 by | 6 Comments

Pam Young sent around an email and this link– http://www.emich.edu/regents/meeting031408/ — about the Board of Regents on Friday afternoon out at the golf course. That item #2 about the need to reissue general revenue bonds appears to me (like I know anything about money) to have something to do with EMU restructuring its debt. Maybe someone who knows these things can look at what’s there, but the executive summary seems to me to be blaming the way that the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market has impacted the interest rate that EMU was paying on debt. Or something like that. Anyway, if any money people out there want to chime in, that’d be okay with me….

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Posted in Board of Regents, Budgets

Full time faculty less than half of higher ed professionals

Posted on March 12, 2008 by | 3 Comments

Check this out: http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/12/jobs

The majority of professional full-time jobs in higher education is NOT faculty, but administration.

EMU administration are you listening to this?  Where is EMU on this?  And NO FAIR counting faculty released from all teaching duties as faculty — they are administrators.  We need more faculty. And we need more P&A working for academics.

(Caveat, the numbers a slightly more nuanced than I’ve led you to believe. Read the article)

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Posted in Budgets

Regent Parker Resigns from HAP

Posted on March 11, 2008 by | 10 Comments

There is an updated article from Crain’s Detroit Business, “Most Influential Women,” announcing Regent Fran Parker’s resignation from HAP.  Apparently, Regent Parker wants to devote herself to EMU now that she has transformed that health-care organization:

Now that she’s on the board, Parker is intent on bringing the mission-driven approach she’s implemented at HAP to every decision the board makes.”Are we using our dollars wisely? Are the vast majority of dollars going towards education versus administration?” Parker asked. Parker implemented the same approach at HAP, and today, the company has one of the lowest administrative rates among insurance providers, she said. The system allocates only 7.5 percent of its total revenue to administration and reserves. The remainder goes toward medical care and expenses. “What I want to do was bring the type of approach to (the budget process), transparency and collaboration that we’ve had at HAP to EMU,” Parker said, while ensuring the students EMU graduates meet employers’ needs. Parker said she views the university’s budgeting process as more top-down than bottom-up. She’s urging the board to not only look at that but also to begin looking at next year’s budget now so that EMU can provide more transparency and solicit more faculty involvement and dialogue. …

I welcome the intervention and very much look forward to the reformed, transparent, and bottom-up budgeting that Regent Parker proposes.  Welcome (again) to EMU, Regent Parker, this time in full force! 

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Posted in Board of Regents, Uncategorized

AAN: List of EMU presidential candidates narrows

Posted on March 11, 2008 by | Leave a comment

A loyal EMUTalk.org reader sent me this link from today’s Ann Arbor News, “List of EMU presidential candidates narrows.” It doesn’t say much that is new really, though it does say that “sources confirm” that Don Shelton is going to be a candidate in the search.

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Posted in EMU President, EMU President Search, In the media...