This a quick plug for the survey being done by the Faculty Senate's "Faculty Status and Welfare" committee. The survey is easy enough to take, and will as it happens introduce you to the Desire2Learn software package we will all need to learn to love as it replaces Blackboard next semester. It is not at all difficult to access the survey, even if you've never signed on to Desire2Learn before (as I hadn't) and the survey itself is as painless as you need it to be. It basically consists of a couple of open ended questions which you can answer at length (my response--surprise!) or very briefly, and a single multiple choice question on morale. Results are to be confidential, something the software should guarantee (you may leave your department name blank to assist in anonymity should you so choose).
Here's the link: https://online.siu.edu. Below the break, the email SIUC faculty should have received from Becky Armstrong.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Faculty Senate vs. strategic plan
This started as a comment in response to someone asking if I raised the points in the previous post during the FS meeting. My comment went on so long that blogger would force me to cut it up, which I'm taking as a sign that it would be better off as an independent post. Still another comment, by the prolific and well-informed paranoid, linked to the accreditation report that precipitated this strategic plan.
I did raise these points, as it happens, joined by a number of others who were critical of other things. To the extent that a preponderance of intelligent and critical questions and the absence of vapid praise make for a good senate meeting, it was a very good senate meeting. Those answering the questions (Tom Britton and Peggy Stockdale) responded smartly and calmly but also, if I may dare say so, somewhat complacently.
When I made the point that this strategic plan had no strategy, for example, Peggy Stockdale immediately responded that that's just what she had said, repeatedly, in internal deliberations, but, well, that wasn't in the cards. Another senator, however, began the conversation by saying that he preferred this report to Southern at 150 precisely because it didn't outline some unrealistic grand plan. There are indeed worse things than a strategic plan that doesn't say much of anything--one that says significant, imprudent, and impractical things, for example. But I still think this looks like a missed opportunity.
I did raise these points, as it happens, joined by a number of others who were critical of other things. To the extent that a preponderance of intelligent and critical questions and the absence of vapid praise make for a good senate meeting, it was a very good senate meeting. Those answering the questions (Tom Britton and Peggy Stockdale) responded smartly and calmly but also, if I may dare say so, somewhat complacently.
When I made the point that this strategic plan had no strategy, for example, Peggy Stockdale immediately responded that that's just what she had said, repeatedly, in internal deliberations, but, well, that wasn't in the cards. Another senator, however, began the conversation by saying that he preferred this report to Southern at 150 precisely because it didn't outline some unrealistic grand plan. There are indeed worse things than a strategic plan that doesn't say much of anything--one that says significant, imprudent, and impractical things, for example. But I still think this looks like a missed opportunity.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Strategic planning
Below you'll find a link to the draft strategic planning document that is making its way around the Faculty Senate (which will discuss it today) and other campus groups. The plan was, I think, required by our accreditors, who found Southern at 150 in need of revision. I made some sage remarks on strategic planning in an earlier post; this plan and process do not fall into the worst excesses of the strategic planning racket, but the resulting draft plan is rather disappointing.
I'm just working through the plan myself. While my faith in the efficacy of such plans is limited, my initial reaction is that this is a strategic plan lacking a strategy. Love it or hate it, Southern at 150, Walter Wendler's import from Texas A & M, did promote a specific vision for this university; it was probably an impracticable one, and it certainly slighted undergraduate education in the service of high-profile research (at least in my opinion), but it did outline a strategy, with goals clear enough that they required specific means to reach them, and our success or failure in reaching those goals could be clearly measured.
This plan offers a number of ideas, many banal, some smart, some troubling. But there is, as far as I can tell, no attempt here to clearly articulate any overarching goal, new direction, change in emphasis or reordering of priorities. Other than a shockingly frank criticism of the SIUC foundation (more interested in controlling money than raising it), there is no effort at diagnosing our problems and planning to overcome them. If one believes that strategic planning is a real opportunity for an institution in crisis, as this one is, to turn things around, then this is a missed opportunity.
A Strategic Plan Feb 15 2012
I'm just working through the plan myself. While my faith in the efficacy of such plans is limited, my initial reaction is that this is a strategic plan lacking a strategy. Love it or hate it, Southern at 150, Walter Wendler's import from Texas A & M, did promote a specific vision for this university; it was probably an impracticable one, and it certainly slighted undergraduate education in the service of high-profile research (at least in my opinion), but it did outline a strategy, with goals clear enough that they required specific means to reach them, and our success or failure in reaching those goals could be clearly measured.
This plan offers a number of ideas, many banal, some smart, some troubling. But there is, as far as I can tell, no attempt here to clearly articulate any overarching goal, new direction, change in emphasis or reordering of priorities. Other than a shockingly frank criticism of the SIUC foundation (more interested in controlling money than raising it), there is no effort at diagnosing our problems and planning to overcome them. If one believes that strategic planning is a real opportunity for an institution in crisis, as this one is, to turn things around, then this is a missed opportunity.
A Strategic Plan Feb 15 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Trustee Don Lowery on WSIU
I've finally found a working link to Don Lowery's "Morning Conversation" with Jennifer Fuller on WSIU from the 4th. Lowery's comments on the controversy between some on the board of trustees and President Poshard is unsurprisingly rather different than that in Poshard's news conference. I don't necessarily agree with everything Lowery said, but he certainly struck me as someone who's taking his job as trustee seriously, and feels it his responsibility to ask hard questions of the administration--something we need in the BOT. Lowery says that the administration has not been terribly forthcoming with answers to his questions.
Lowery's analysis of SIUC is decidedly more bleak than Poshard's claim that everything was peachy under his leadership. Lowery seemed to me to be a bit obsessed about tuition going up, in addition to the far more damning issue of enrollment going down (a factor Poshard did not mention in his hour long press conference). Our tuition needs to be looked at in comparison with our peers--it is likely that if everyone is raising tuition, there's some good reason for it (declining state support and rising costs come to mind). Of course this isn't to say that higher tuition is a good thing, or that Lowery is wrong to question administrative assurances that all possible cuts have been made.
Lowery's analysis of SIUC is decidedly more bleak than Poshard's claim that everything was peachy under his leadership. Lowery seemed to me to be a bit obsessed about tuition going up, in addition to the far more damning issue of enrollment going down (a factor Poshard did not mention in his hour long press conference). Our tuition needs to be looked at in comparison with our peers--it is likely that if everyone is raising tuition, there's some good reason for it (declining state support and rising costs come to mind). Of course this isn't to say that higher tuition is a good thing, or that Lowery is wrong to question administrative assurances that all possible cuts have been made.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
On coach Hinson
As you'll no doubt have heard, SIUC named Bill Hinson as our new basketball coach. I've learned too much about the seamy side of college athletics, and the fact that well over half of the budget for athletics at SIUC (as most schools) is diverted from academics, to remain much of a college sports fan. But if one grants, as I'd rather not, that SIUC should divert over $10 million per year to provide entertainment in the form of athletics, then you can recognize better and worse decisions about athletics on campus. If you buy that premise, then the decision to pay our new coach less than half of what Chris Lowery was making is most welcome. It is also good to hear administrators were full of praise of Hinson's job promoting academic success among his players; that may be just talk, but talk is a start.
Hinson's salary is still a rather respectable $1.5 million for five years. But Bruce Weber, who many in Carbondale would have liked to see return to his former stomping grounds after he was fired by Illinois, will earn $1.5 million each year at Kansas State going forward, again on a five year contract. By my math, that means that SIUC will have $6 million dollars more on hand after five years than it would have had with Weber back in town. Is he a six million dollar man? He's charming and all, but I rather doubt it.
Put otherwise: you could pay 20 Associate Professors of Classics for the price difference each year between Weber and Hinson. Of course this doesn't mean that SIUC will hire 20 more professors. Most, after all, would be rather poor basketball players.
If only it were this easy to undo some of the lavish spending on Saluki Way, which our students will be paying off in the form of bonds for years to come. But give Cheng, and perhaps Moccia, credit where credit is due. They seem to have realized that we shouldn't continue to spend ourselves silly on athletics. In contemporary American academe that puts them ahead of the curve.
Hinson's salary is still a rather respectable $1.5 million for five years. But Bruce Weber, who many in Carbondale would have liked to see return to his former stomping grounds after he was fired by Illinois, will earn $1.5 million each year at Kansas State going forward, again on a five year contract. By my math, that means that SIUC will have $6 million dollars more on hand after five years than it would have had with Weber back in town. Is he a six million dollar man? He's charming and all, but I rather doubt it.
Put otherwise: you could pay 20 Associate Professors of Classics for the price difference each year between Weber and Hinson. Of course this doesn't mean that SIUC will hire 20 more professors. Most, after all, would be rather poor basketball players.
If only it were this easy to undo some of the lavish spending on Saluki Way, which our students will be paying off in the form of bonds for years to come. But give Cheng, and perhaps Moccia, credit where credit is due. They seem to have realized that we shouldn't continue to spend ourselves silly on athletics. In contemporary American academe that puts them ahead of the curve.
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