Performance Based Funding

Sheila Simon has an op-ed in the Southern extolling the virtues of Performance Based Funding.

There are lots of reasons to be skeptical and worried about this initiative, it seems to me; they are spelled out better than I can do so here by Ryan Netzley in a posting he did some time ago.  Illinois taxpayers certainly have a right to make sure that SIUC is not squandering their money. But it is particularly rich that the legislature is meddling more in university affairs while state funding levels, as a proportion of overall spending, have been in steep decline for years. It is also the case that outsiders' analysis of SIUC "performance" will increase the power of the bean counters on campus, with their relentless emphasis on recruitment and retention.

While Simon emphasizes that many different measures of performance will be used, I have a sneaking suspicion that the ones that carry the most weight will not be the qualitative measures faculty employ internally in assigning grades (the analogy she uses), but measures that are easily quantifiable by outsiders, and quantifiable in terms of money: retention rates, graduation rates, in short how many students you are giving degrees to and at what expense. Programs are measured solely by their credit hour production, or the number of majors they produce, rather than on their overall contribution to the intellectual climate on campus, and their intrinsic importance to a university education.

Unionization and Shared Governance in Western Washington

The AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom has just published a positive account of the role of unionization at the University of Western Washington. The main thesis is that unionization preserves shared governance (rather than undermining it, as is sometimes argued). The conclusion:

I don’t want to romanticize unionization. There are still a lot of genuine differences and disagreements with administrators, trustees, resolutely anti‐union faculty members, and statewide affiliates. And no matter what system you have, dumb people in key positions making dumb decisions can always make things bad.

But the state of shared governance on our campus right now is the best it has ever been in the fifteen years I have worked at Western. And the biggest reason for that is that our faculty now have the statewide strength and campus clout that comes with collective bargaining.

DE letter and guest column

In case there's anyone who reads this before the DE, be sure you catch the guest column by Robbie Lieberman, contrasting the vision offered inside the Chancellor's ceremony last week with the spirit and vision found outside, and Randy Auxier's letter on an apparent administrative effort to hijack the search for a new dean of of the College of Engineering.

The faculty on this campus appear to be getting uppity.

Provost search update

Laura Dreuth Zeman of Social Work and Women's Studies has an important op-ed in today's DE on the Provost Search.  It sounds like the main function of the search committee was to forward applicants to the Chancellor, rather than to select among candidates, though apparently two of the original six applicants either dropped out or were eliminated somehow or other. The DE's Monday story on the four finalists can be found here; the Southern story (which contains info on the open forums for the candidates) can be found here.

The Silent Majority Speaks

The silent majority has spoken up in today's DE, providing me with an easy cheap-shot illustration. 

Nixon famously used the phrase "the silent majority"of those who supported the war in Vietnam which he, of course, was earnestly attempting to bring to an end. Now there was a leader one could trust! But back to events more contemporary.

There is No Excellence Without Labor

http://www.chancellor.siuc.edu/installation/

What the hell was our soon to be installed Chancellor thinking?  Or, rather, just how was she failing to think?  


In case you have not been scrutinizing the Installation section of the Chancellor's webpage, "There Is No Excellence Without Labor" is indeed emblazoned on top of it. You'd have thought someone who was refusing to negotiate with organized labor might think twice before choosing this as a motto.  But apparently the Chancellor is so tone-deaf that the noun "labor" does not for her carry any connotation of "organized labor," "unionized workforce," "you've got to negotiate with the peons," etc., a usage which the OED traces back to 1830, though this admittedly postdates its usage for a group of moles, which may go back as far as 1471. As you can tell, I've done some manic research on this phrase, which follows after the break.  Plus, to make the savage indignation easier on the eyes, there are pictures.