Monday, July 25, 2011

Poshard on the budget and the value of higher ed

I caught Glen Poshard's "Morning Conversation" with Jennifer Fuller of WSIU radio this morning.  Poshard sounded weary and rather depressed, and his main theme was the lousy state budgetary situation. The Illinois state budget is of course depressing, but Poshard's read on this continues to be rather more grim than present circumstances would seem to dictate--and indeed is rather bleaker than the view presented by Chancellor Cheng--which was itself a reflection of Poshard's initial relief that we fared as well as we did.  Poshard noted that the state is even farther behind on FY 2011 payments (which were supposed to be complete by June) than it was last year, but his deeper gloom was tied to the overall state budget picture, which remains dire despite last year's tax increase. This leads him to fear a rescission which would add to the 1.1% cut in state funding we have already received.

Poshard's depressing view of things makes sense from two perspectives. My guess, for what it is worth, is that it accurately reflects his state of mind. Certainly his tone was that of the long suffering public servant, an attitude familiar to Poshard watchers. But of course his view also makes sense as an aid to bargaining with campus unions. Playing up the state's budgetary woes helps the administration demand concessions at the bargaining table.


More on that angle of things (and what Poshard said about faculty salaries) in a subsequent post, but one initial observation here: surely this sort of depressing talk doesn't help recruitment. Of course helping recruitment isn't the only task of a university President, and false optimism would undermine us in the longer run. But I would rather have our president try to give things a more positive spin: Illinois has so far managed to limit damage to its public universities, and we are optimistic about the future, blah, blah, blah. [Yes, I know that this will sound hypocritical to those who have attacked this blog for being too negative: but I'm not the university president.]

Finally, the most depressing thing for me in Poshard's interview was his closing comment.  Asked to say something (i.e., something inspiring) for summer graduates and incoming students, Poshard could only manage to thank the graduates for choosing SIUC--rather like the airline pilot thanks you for choosing his airline after he tells you that you can take your seatbelt off.  Students as consumers.  His message for incoming students was crudely materialistic:
Study hard, make good grades, and you'll get that meal ticket into the American middle class--and that's what a university education is all about.
If you lack any vision for a university beyond this, lousy finances will leave you depressed. Those of us who believe that education is about more than finances can afford to be more positive. You're about to enter a place where you can learn not only how to make a better living but how to make a better life for yourself, where you can not only be trained for a career but educated for a lifetime.

12 comments:

  1. What a great slogan this would make for SIU, "Study hard, make good grades, and you'll get that meal ticket into the American middle class--and that's what a university education is all about."

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  2. Several years ago at a commencement ceremony Dean Keith Sanders told a group of new graduates - "You've graduated so go out and earn a lot of money." I've often heard the locals refer to SIUC as "our university." With local boys (one now deceased) in charge, this shows what harm the parochial mentality of southern Illinois is doing to this university. Perhaps Adlai Stevenson and Uof I were right years ago. This place should never have been given university status.

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  3. Wow! I listened to the end of the Morning Conversation because I didn't believe it really could be as bad as you described. It really was as bad as you described.

    Poshard, Cheng or their staff will have time to prepare a better welcoming message for the convocation. Dave, perhaps you and your readers could help them out by providing inspiring words for SIUC's new students that speak to the heart rather than (only) to the wallet?

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  4. Oh my Gosh! He really said that the university education is all about getting a meal ticket to American middle class. Poshard and Cheng have demonstrated (beyond a reasonable doubt) that they have no idea about what University education is all about. His comments on faculty salaries are pathetic. Why the hell he did not talk about the raises he has approved for administrators (including $80,000 per year raise for Nicklow who is not even qualified for the position) and the administrative positions they are creating or filling up.

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  5. Another good idea, though it isn't very paranoid, Paranoid. Ryan Netzley's post here is one good place to start.

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  6. Why is everyone so surprised? Poshard said whatever he and Cheng believe should be the purpose of this University, i.e. producing graduates to become middle class citizens. They don’t want this university to be a research university. They want to transform SIUC into a teaching school.

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  7. But don't even teaching schools aim to do more than help folks punch meal tickets? Perhaps you meant vocational school. To be fair, this was just one remark by Poshard: he has on other occasions attempted to articulate a larger vision. But neither he nor Cheng (with her degree in management) are particular visionary in this regard, I think it is fair to say.

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  8. Dave, This was his final sentence, the punch-line for all his listeners. So much for promoting research as one blogger asserted as the answer to enrollments. Poshard also hinted that there will be no raises since he has done his job in the past and all money will go into tacky marketing schemes rather than lifting salaries to their peer group level.

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  9. SIU has always been a teaching school. They don't even want it to be that. They want it to be a diploma mill along the lines of the University of Phoenix or Kaplan. They just want the tuition money.

    SIU has never been much of a research university, nor does it have the resources or infrastructure to develop into that at this time. A recent piece in the Chronicle is particularly appropriate for those of us at SIU: http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Save-the-Traditional/128373/.

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  10. The emphasis on long distance learning is also a good example of this trend. It is the way Phoenix and Kaplan operate and is another strategy to cut faculty numbers by using adjuncts and graduate students - if any of the latter remain!

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  11. I was snooping and discovered another message about the university that would be a good start for an alternative welcoming message for new students.

    Of course, all references to "Southern" would need to be changed to "SIU." :)

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