Monthly Archives: November 2009

While I was away….

Posted on November 29, 2009 by | 9 Comments

In the last six days, I am certain that I spent at least 25 hours in the car and most of it behind the wheel. A long but good family trip. Anyway, I’m a bit behind, but I came across a couple of things I thought I’d group together in one post to kick off the race to the end of the semester.

  • EMU Football finishes perfectly bad season. I don’t want to dwell too much on the emu’s perfectly wrong, 0-12 season, mainly because I’ve dumped enough on them already and I don’t want to kick ‘em when they’re down. But a sports savvy colleague of mine pointed out a problem that I hadn’t really thought about before. Sure, we should give Ron English at least one more year as head coach; but what exactly has this guy got to recruit on? “Hey, come play for me at EMU– we’re already at the bottom!”
    • “Gov. Jennifer Granholm: Without big change, massive higher education cuts on horizon.” One of the “fun facts” from the article: in 1960, state appropriations made up 77% of the budget at the University of Michigan; today, it’s 22%. And it’s likely to get worse, too. Speaking of which:
  • “Haves vs. Have-Nots at Public Universities,” from The New York Times. A lot of interesting points here, including the idea that maybe students from different income levels ought to pay different amounts of tuition at public universities.
  • “Faculty objects to changing UT’s tenure process,” from the Toledo Blade, though I saw a version of this story a couple weeks ago in Inside Higher Ed. Basically, the president at the University of Toledo wants to be able to interview faculty going up for tenure to help aid his decision, and the faculty union is not happy about it. I think this is one of those situations in which both the suits and the union are wrong. I mean, the union shouldn’t be freaking out about faculty talking to the president; rather, I think faculty ought to be happy that the president wants to be a part of the process. Conversely, if UT President Lloyd Jacobs thinks that a 30 minute interview is all he needs to make an informed judgment about the tenure worthiness of faculty member, well, he’s nuts. The Blade article quotes the president of the faculty union as saying “Dr. Jacobs is on record talking about how he’ll be able to judge people on the basis of gestures, intonation, and other things.” That’s a little disturbing.

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Posted in College Fun, Uncategorized

my.emich creates a “fail blog” worthy submission

Posted on November 29, 2009 by | 18 Comments

myemichfail

Assuming that ICT has not cracked the secret of time-travel, I’m guessing that someone has made a pretty silly error.

BTW, for the unfamiliar, see the often not completely G-rated FAIL blog.

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Posted in College Fun, EMU Technology

Happy Thanksgiving from EMUTalk.org (and don’t do this)

Posted on November 24, 2009 by | Leave a comment

After school today, sitedad and family will be off to an undisclosed location to visit family for Thanksgiving. My assumption is that we won’t be deep-frying a turkey. I have to say that I’ve always been kind of fascinated and tempted by the possibility, but watching videos like this one makes me think twice. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!

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Posted in EMUtalk.org News

How was the Governor? (And an open letter)

Posted on November 23, 2009 by | 6 Comments

I didn’t realize that Governor Jennifer Granholm was going to be on campus so early today, 9 am. I couldn’t have made it if I had remembered though. Did anyone go? How was it?

I also discovered this morning this fine press release on the EMU web site, “An open letter to EMU Students From EMU Student Government.”

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Posted in Academics, Budgets, In the media..., State Government, Student Life

At least one Division I school with “eastern” in its title has stopped playing football

Posted on November 23, 2009 by | 2 Comments

From Inside Higher Ed this morning, ” Northeastern Ends Football.” In many ways, Northeastern University is very different from EMU; but, as this quote suggests, they share a lot in common:

Joseph Aoun, president of the university, said in his statement that the decision involved setting priorities. “Northeastern has always been guided by the principle that we should focus on our opportunities for leadership,” he said. “This approach ultimately leads to difficult choices, but leadership requires that we make these choices. This decision allows us to focus on our existing athletic programs. At a time when higher education is critically important to rebuilding our knowledge-based economy, universities have an obligation to invest resources in areas of strength — whether they are competitive athletic programs or cutting-edge academics.”

The Boston Globe noted in an article that the football program has for years operated in outdated facilities, which didn’t help the team, which hasn’t had a winning season since 2004 and this year averaged fewer than 1,600 fans at home games.

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Posted in Budgets, College Fun, In the media..., Sports

“Campus concealed weapons bills debated at Eastern Michigan University panel discussion”

Posted on November 21, 2009 by | Leave a comment

From Annarbor.com (and, surprisingly, nothing from the Eastern Echo, at least yet) comes “Campus concealed weapons bills debated at Eastern Michigan University panel discussion.” There’s a good discussion going on there, but I have to say I very much agree with this comment from Andy Ypsilanti:

This is a great idea. Because college kids are known for making the best decisions. Binge drinking, drug and sexual experimentation, exposure to new, life changing ideas, and now we add fire arms. Well, we needed to get the state school budget in line somehow, didn’t we?

Seriously, I am all for gun rights. I have no problem with people owning and legally carrying and using guns. But exclusion zones are created for a reason. Ever notice how the places that are excluded tend to have large groups of people that may be in contentious/stressful situations and/or alcohol involved? And the best amateur marksman is still not a trained first responder who has been taught how to react to stressful and dangerous situations.

Please. Own guns. Carry guns. But a college campus is not a suitable place to do so.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Buildings and Grounds, Faculty Life, In the media..., Security and Safety, Staff Life, Student Life

32% tuition/fees hike in UC system and “near riot(s)” ensue

Posted on November 21, 2009 by | Leave a comment

I found this via Mark Maynard’s blog this morning, where students were protesting/rioting about the University of California system board of regents raising tuition:

The filmmakers were apparently in the area filming something about an upcoming documentary about the collapse of the U.S. dollar. According to the SFGate article “UC regents approve steep tuition hike,” the raise means that student tuition at a UC school (like UCLA or UC Santa Barbara or UC Berkeley) will go from $7,788 to $10,302 next fall. That’s a pretty big chunk of change….

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Posted in Blogosphere, Board of Regents, Budgets, In the media..., Student Life

A bit about the chief of government relations interviews

Posted on November 20, 2009 by | 12 Comments

So, I followed through on my threat/promise to go to the forums for the chief of governmental and community relations interviews this afternoon. I typed up some notes on both Jon Cool and Felicia Wasson, but I don’t think what I typed up was particularly interesting. So, here’s a few bullet point impressions instead.

  • I’m pretty sure I was the only faculty type at both presentations.
  • These forums were held in Welch 205. I had thought that they were being held in room 205 of the student center, but that’s the men’s room, so I realized I was wrong about that.
  • The crowds were small, like eight or so people for Jon Cool and maybe a dozen for Felicia Wasson. The questions were general, and the answers were kind of vague. Generally. Vaguely.
  • I did meet EMUTalk.org regular, “Alum.” I’ll keep his identity to myself, but a nice guy.
  • I didn’t get the impression that either of these candidates was hand-picked by anyone on the board of regents or that there was anything particularly corrupt about this process, despite the fears expressed here earlier. I could be wrong about this, but neither Cool nor Wasson seemed like some kind of hack.
  • At the end of the day, I thought both of them would probably be okay, but I agree with Alum that Wasson in that forum was clearly the better choice. I do agree with Alum’s comment that Wasson was a much MUCH better choice, based on this presentation. But….
  • … I think either of these folks has big shoes to fill. The legacy of Freeman Hendrix in this position loomed large to me. I was talking with a suited colleague between the Cool and Wasson sessions, and we were discussing how neither one of us really knew what this position was about before Hendrix came on the scene. So that means that whoever we hire is going to be compared to him.
  • As I was leaving, I talked with Alum a bit outside of Welch. The obvious choice from this forum was Wasson. Which means they might end up hiring Cool. So we’ll see.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Board of Regents, Faculty Life, Staff Life, Student Life

“Forums on Nov. 20 to meet finalists for position of chief of governmental and community relations”

Posted on November 19, 2009 by | 3 Comments

I’ve gotta say: this is starting to look a little fishy.

Geoff Larcom sent around this email this afternoon at about 1:30 announcing the opportunities for faculty and staff to meet and greet the finalists for the chief governmental and community relations job:

Faculty, staff and students are invited to open forums to meet the two finalists for the position of chief of governmental and community relations. (The third finalist has withdrawn from consideration.) Both forums will be Friday, Nov. 20 in 205 Welch Hall. The open forum with Jon Cool, chief of staff for Michigan Sen. Jud Gilbert, will be at noon. The open forum with Felicia Wasson, associate state director for government affairs for the American Association of Retired Persons Michigan, will be at 1 p.m.

For more information about the search, go to www.emich.edu/univcomm/releases/111309govrelations.html

So, just to be clear about this:

  • We’re getting notice of the one and only opportunity for anyone beyond the search committee to meet these folks with less than 24 hours notice.
  • One of the candidates– Brian O’Connell– dropped out of the search, which suggests that he knew something that perhaps the rest of us don’t know yet, that the “fix is in,” that the choice is just obvious, I don’t know.

Hmmmm….

Interestingly enough, I could go to these sessions and it would be a nice break in my day which is going to mostly involve grading. If I make it, I’ll blog about it here; if I don’t, maybe someone else here can pass along their wisdom and/or impressions?

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Posted in Administrator Life, Staff Life, State Government

Granholm on campus Monday (and a complaint to the Echo…)

Posted on November 19, 2009 by | 9 Comments

Also in the news: “Governor to talk the ‘Promise’ at EMU.” From the Echo:

Granholm will be visiting campus from 9 – 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Student Center to discuss the scholarship.

“Promises should be kept, not broken,” Granholm said in a radio address Friday. “It’s time for the Michigan Senate to take action and keep the Michigan Promise.”

To be honest, while I of course I wish the Michigan Promise Scholarship program would be restored, I really wish the governor and legislature would just up funding to education across the board, period. Granholm says it’s going to take education to help Michigan’s overall economy, but the state hasn’t really matched those words with any action, largely because they’re all too scared to raise taxes. Anyway, a good chance to see and possibly meet the governor, and also have your views on the matter heard.

And my complaint to the Echo: You know, I realize that you are more or less a self-funded entity, selling ad space and all of that. But I think it’s kinda uncool for the Eastern Michigan University supported student paper to be selling ad space to Oakland University to promote their graduate programs. So, you know, you might want to think about that a tad….

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Posted in Budgets, In the media..., Student Life