[78-L] Does this episode of Hoarders apply to you?

[Michael Biel]

On 8/3/2011 9:16 PM, eugene hayhoe wrote:
> Michael Biel wrote:
> "This guy destroyed our department
> -- all my colleagues still tell me they wish they could also have
> retired.  He split up the department after I left, and then he left to
> go and destroy some other university." MB
>   
> Why is this kind of stuff an 'academic specialty?'

There is an old taunt "Those that can, do.  Those who can't, teach."  
There's another more apt part to it: "Those who can't teach, 
administrate."  I guess I should no longer be surprised at the ineptness 
of academic administrations.  In the 45 years I was in higher education 
as a student and professor I have only once seen an efficient 
intelligent university president -- and they ran him out of town on a 
rail in less than two years.  I had maybe 7 or 8 department chairs, and 
I can recall only one who was universally loved in our department.  I 
very quickly learned that I had absolutely no interest in moving up to 
an administrative position, and rarely trusted any professor who did.

Mike Biel, professor emeritus  mbiel at mbiel.com
>   
> I was out of work for 7 years for 'whistleblowing,' compared to a 'Sept 11 terrorist,' threatened with arrest on my way to a Board of Trustees meeting&  plenty more before finally going back, after arbitration, into a better job, and the guy who created the whole openly corrupt, openly racist mess I fought has been promoted twice&  is now Dean of one of the largest divisions of the college. They never denied the corruption because their own paperwork proved it. And I heard repeatedly during those 7 years 'that's just a drop in the ocena.' When I went back, I met someone in her 8th year of the arb/grievance process.
>
>