Category Archives: Administrator Life

The NYTimes on the Julea Ward case

Posted on February 4, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Someone posted as a comment the entire text to this story in the New York Times, “A Counselor’s Convictions Put Her Profession on Trial.”  Just posting that as a comment was not a good idea, but I thought I’d share a link to the original story here.  It’s a good story; here’s a passage I thought was interesting:

Douglas C. Haldeman, a Seattle psychologist and a former chairman of the American Psychological Association’s committee on lesbian, gay and bisexual concerns, said the court’s emphasis on referral was misplaced.

“The matter of concern,” Dr. Haldeman said, “is, we don’t train our students in discriminatory patterns of treatment, and we don’t permit them. We don’t say, ‘You can’t treat Muslims’ or ‘You can’t treat black people.’ ”

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Posted in Administrator Life, In the media...

“Julea Ward, Christian Counseling Student Expelled For Gay And Lesbian Views, To Argue Discrimination Case In Court”

Posted on January 29, 2012 by | 6 Comments

From HuffPo (of all places!) come “Julea Ward, Christian Counseling Student Expelled For Gay And Lesbian Views, To Argue Discrimination Case In Court.” In typical fashion, HuffPo is really drawing from other media; in this case, “Expelled EMU counseling student wins OK to sue after refusal to advise gays, lesbians” from the Detroit Free Press. To quote the freep:

An Eastern Michigan University student who was expelled from a counseling program because she refused to counsel gays and lesbians about their lifestyles won a key victory today in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

A three-member panel of the court said Julea Ward can argue her religious discrimination suit against the university before a federal court jury in Detroit.

“Ward’s free speech claim deserves to go to a jury,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton said in an opinion joined by Julia Gibbons and John Adams. Adams is a federal district judge from northern Ohio who was sitting by designation on the appeals court.

“Although the university submits it dismissed Ward from the program because her request for a referral violated the ACA (American Counseling Association) code of ethics, a reasonable jury could find otherwise — that the code of ethics contains no such bar and that the university deployed it as a pretext for punishing Ward’s religious views and speech.”

The HuffPo site is worth visiting because it includes a YouTube video from Ward sponsored by her conservative Christian defense team, the Alliance Defense Fund, and in the nutshell, Ward is claiming discrimination because she’s a Christian.

I have to say given the level of discrimination that happens in this country against people who are Jewish, Muslim, atheist, and whatever else but Christian, I personally have a hard time with that argument.  And I have to wonder how far a professional organization is supposed to take an individual professional’s own beliefs into account here.  I mean, suppose Ward had not wanted to counsel a mixed race couple or a Muslim couple because it violated her “Christian” values:  would this have made it into the courts at all?

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Posted in Academics, Administrator Life, Faculty Life, In the media..., Student Life

In more library plumbing news…

Posted on January 22, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Once again, Provost Kim Schatzel has sent around an update about the busted pipe in the basement in Halle (which I include below), and it would seem that the library and physical plant people are on top of it all and making good progress on the repairs.  Two things that occur to me now:

  • I’m pretty impressed with Schatzel’s swiftness and directness about keeping people informed about all this.  It bodes well, IMO.
  • There’s been some kind of problem with water, plumbing, leaking, etc. in the auditorium in the library for years, and along with this issue, I do have to wonder if there isn’t some kind of serious contractor/construction issue that is now making itself visible.  I’m not sure there’s much recourse at this stage since the building has been open for at least a dozen years now, but this might be something to follow.

Schatzel’s message after the jump:

Continue reading →

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Posted in Administrator Life, Buildings and Grounds, Halle Library

“Shit goes down” in Halle

Posted on January 19, 2012 by | 11 Comments

When I received new Provost Kim Schatzel’s email about the busted plumbing in Halle Library last night (see below for the full text of the message), I was reminded of a conversation I had with a neighbor of mine once.  This guy is a retired foreman from the Ypsilanti Community Utility Authority, Ypsi’s water and sewer provider.  For some reason, we were having an “over the backyard fence” conversation about remodeling basements and he was explaining to me why it’s never a good idea to spend a lot of money on a project like that.  ”We got a saying in the sewer business, Steve,” he said: “Shit goes down.”

The short version is it it seems a big drain pipe fell off of some supports in the basement and bad things happened.  Among other things, Provost Schatzel’s email says that the repairs are estimated to take a month (which I interpret as meaning at least a month, maybe more), and, during this reconstruction period, we can expect noise and “possibly odors.”  Ugh.  It sounds like it is just one of those terrible things that sometimes happens, but it also sounds like it’s going to be pretty unpleasant in Halle for a while.

Anyone working over there have any more insight?

By the way, I think this is the first email I’ve received from our new provost.  Welcome aboard, Kim!  See the full text after the jump.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Administrator Life, Buildings and Grounds, Halle Library

“Michigan’s public universities see 24% increase in ‘unrestricted’ net assets”

Posted on January 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

From the freep.com comes “Michigan’s public universities see 24% increase in ‘unrestricted’ net assets.”  Maybe it’s just me, but this seems to be a pretty muddled and confusing article to me.  It seems to be saying that public universities in Michigan have a lot of extra cash on hand, but then it points out that this extra “unrestricted” money is being used for one-time expenses.  In fact, the picture leading this story is of the renovated Pray-Harrold.

So maybe it’s my simplistic sense of money, but I am not completely seeing what the point is here.

I will say two things though.  First, remodeling/renovating Pray-Harrold has been in the work for years and years, certainly over more than one budget cycle.  And I also don’t think you’re going to find anyone on campus who thinks that the work that was done was somehow frivolous, as I think the article is implying.  Second, I suspect that this argument will come back this year in contract negotiations, as well it should.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Budgets, Buildings and Grounds, In the media..., Pray-Harrold Renovation Pool, State Government

“The Fall of the Faculty”

Posted on January 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

It’s been a pretty busy start to the semester for me around here at EMUTalk.org central because of my pesky day job.  But I’m back (sort of), and I wanted to kick off the term with an article an alert reader suggested I post from Inside Higher Ed, “The Fall of the Faculty.”  It’s an interview with Benjamin Ginsberg, David Bernstein Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, author of  The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters.  Ginsberg is a pretty cranky guy about administrators and he gets much of it wrong, it seems to me.  But he does have a couple of zingers that seem right.  For example, there’s this:

In my 40 years in academics, the number of truly silly courses is very small. But when I look at administrators, I’d argue that the bulk of activities is quite silly, such as the war zones task force which met and concluded that students should be discouraged from entering war zones. More generally, I look at strategic planning that takes enormous energy for no reason. Many of these could just be copied; the end result would be the same. The process of putting these plans together is designed rather like elections in the Soviet Union: the process is designed to give people the impression that people care what they think. I also looked at the minutes and agendas of administrative meetings. When administrators and staff get together, they mostly talk about prior meetings and plans for future meetings.

And there’s this exchange that seems pretty spot-on too:

Q: You recite a litany of administrators who lined their pockets or burnished their own images at the expense of their institutions. Why do you see these examples as reflective of a systemic problem rather than a case of a few bad actors?

A: There are very few controls in place to prevent it. Virtually no university has systems in place to monitor and check the behavior of senior administrators. If some poor student is accused of plagiarism, that’s a federal case. There are all sorts of systems in place. If a faculty or staff member is accused of sexual harassment, there are normal systems in place. If an administrator cheats and steals or presents phony credentials, there’s nothing in place to stop it.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Faculty Life, In the media...

The year that was 2011

Posted on January 1, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Happy New Year, everybody!  I’ve made it back from undisclosed locations and the new year in one piece.  I have a whole series of chores and resolutions to attend to, but I thought I’d start my day looking over the most commented on pieces here at EMUTalk in 2011.  In brief, last year was the year of budget cuts and layoffs.

From February, “Snyder to EMU (and other state supported universities): Drop Dead.”

From April, “Did the Provost quit? Was he fired? What?”

Also from April, “Meanwhile in budget news: think scenarios and not cuts,” which actually turned into a “discussion” about the Bowen parking lot and the expense of sabbaticals and the like.

Then the end of May was pretty busy/popular, with three heavily commented posts right in a row: “Perhaps we can chant “Education First!” at the games…,” Administration asking for unions to give money back during a “fluid” situation,” and “Martin’s budget update, “givebacks,” tuition, and athletics.”

At the end of June there was “Thoughts as the dust settles on lay-offs.” That turned out to be the most commented on post of the year, by the way.

“Glad Ron English is having “fun” with the increased budget,” back in July. It seems to me that the Emus break-even season will save English for another few seasons, though I still don’t think the “fun” he had with the increased budget was worth it.

“EMU planning 9/11 memorial after receiving steel column from World Trade Center” back in early August.

“Pray-Harrold open–sort of,” which wasn’t necessarily the most commented on post of the year but it sure seemed like a big event for me.

“‘Which Core Matters More?’ (featuring Mark Higbee), an October debate on general education.

“Emus beat horses, 14-10″ in November, which kind of turned into a “discussion” about attendance at games.

“Kwame Kilpatrick is coming to EMU, causing controversy already” back in November, though it was pretty much a non-story in the end.

And then sadly (now), there was this post,“Greg O’Dell returns to Eastern Michigan University as executive director of public safety and chief of police.”

Okay, enough with last year and into this year– even though it doesn’t really feel like the new year to me because it’s really just the beginning of the next semester… you get the idea.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Blogosphere, Budgets, EMU Events, EMUtalk.org News, Faculty Life, In the media..., Staff Life, Student Life

Horrible news

Posted on December 23, 2011 by | 6 Comments

From annarbor.com, “EMU Police Chief Greg O’Dell mourned after his death at age 54.”

So unbelievable. My sympathies to his family and friends.

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Posted in Administrator Life, In the media..., Security and Safety

“EMU union says several lecturers went without pay for more than a month”

Posted on December 15, 2011 by | 11 Comments

This from annarbor.com.  Here’s a quote:

Sonya Alvarado and Lisa Laverty, president and grievance officer respectively of the EMU Federation of Teachers, the school’s union for part- and full-time non-tenure tract faculty, said that dozens of adjunct lecturers did not get paid on time.

“It varied,” Laverty said of the late payments. “Some people only missed a paycheck or two, other people weren’t paid until the end of October or early November and at that point they’d taught almost until the end of the semester already.”

According to EMU’s Office of Academic Human Resources, paychecks have been late in previous years as well. In a statement, the office said the number of late paychecks “in fall 2011 was less than any year in recent history.”

The office did not say how late paychecks from previous years were.

And, as Alvarado pointed out, a lot of folks who are teaching part-time need that money to do stuff like, you know, buy food and pay rent.  So obviously, this is a problem.

I’ve actually experienced some payroll problems firsthand this school year– minor inconveniences compared to what’s going on with these folks, but still problems.  I don’t know if it is the staff who cut the checks, the suits along the way who have to process the forms, or some combination of both, but it is definitely a part of the bureaucracy around here that could use some improvement.

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Posted in Administrator Life, EMUFT, Faculty Life, In the media...

“At Forum on the Future, Leaders Dissect What Ails Higher Education Today”

Posted on December 12, 2011 by | Leave a comment

One of the things that I notice about the end of the fall semester is that everyone seems pretty tense and often a little depressed, I suppose because of the stress and pressures of ending the term well combined with stress and pressures of the holidaze, too. So in that sense, it doesn’t surprise me that a bunch of education wonks are dwelling on the negative, according to this CHE piece,  ”At Forum on the Future, Leaders Dissect What Ails Higher Education Today.”

There are two (related, I suppose) issues that came up here that I do think that many of us faculty-types are not of aware of as we should be:  the cost of tuition and the general “economic crisis” that is going on in the world.  Higher Ed needs to respond.  And (to quote):

And James J. Duderstadt, a former president of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, suggested that many in academe may not see a need to do things differently. In a time of cultural and economic turmoil, universities may be “out to sea as a tsunami of change comes through, destroying everything on land.”

The upheaval is felt on campus, he said, as merely “a few ripples.”

I see Duderstadt’s point.  Frankly, I have colleagues who lament a work schedule that requires them (because of meetings and such) to be on campus four days a week, and at the same time, I just heard a story on “Morning Edition” just now about the ridiculously high percentage of Americans who can’t find anything but part-time work.  There’s a disconnect there, right?

But like I said, everyone is a little stressed out….

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Posted in Administrator Life, Faculty Life, In the media..., Student Life, The Market Crash of 2008