[78-L] 'Academia'^

[eugene hayhoe]

I came out it pretty well, even if the curriculum, which was the primary reason I, with eyes open, went into the mess, did not.  I literally made in one year as a ft faculty member 12x what I made annually as a pt faculty member. I then 'retired.'  It would make for a great comedy were it not for the tragic effects on the curriculum.
 
What 'started' it was when my then new 'lead faculty' at a faculty meeting, during a discussion about doing international site to site video with students, cracked "hey you in Nigeria, shake your shrunken head." As that meeting was breaking up, he told me he wanted to slash my classes in half. I next found out that among the apparent reasons he was eliminating my rock, jazz & blues history courses was so that he could create a new Church Music Program (in reality, the Catholic Church Music Program) which was to be taught by his longtime boyfriend. 
 
Angry about my refusal to go along, after plagiarizing my syllabi, he recruited a 3rd person, the lead faculty of religion, who was in an entirely different dept, to teach the results. Open racism, clear plagiarism, public nepotism, you would think that would get someone fired, right? Nope. First, a promotion to program chair, then dept chair, and now Dean. At one arb meeting the admin testified that I was 'not being disciplined because I had not done anything for which they could discipline me' but I had not been assigned a class in something like 4 years after having classes every semester for 20 plus years. 
 
While claiming that I was still an employee in the arbitration, management claimed I was not an employee when I was asked to be advisor for a student group & in the incident with DPS on the way to the board meeting. It was pretty funny when, after telling me that someone had called them and said that I was a 'disgruntled former employee' & I asked if I could 'get that in writing' DPS backed off completely, saying 'we don't want to get involved in any lawsuit.' Funny too, because I never 'went to court' - I would have had to exhaust the 'internal remedies' first, and that took 8 years as it was. 
 
The arbitrator, the only genuinely competent, honorable person I encountered during the mess, wrote a hilarious narrative of the incompetence of both union & management, and while throwing out the grievance for timelines blown by the union, said that management had violated the contract and the union had failed to represent me by blowing the timelines. That was when the games ended. 

 

--- On Wed, 8/3/11, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca> wrote:


From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Does this episode of Hoarders apply to you?
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 3, 2011, 10:33 PM


On 8/3/2011 10:26 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> 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."

Or, in Woody Allen's words, teach gym.

> 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

Sounds similar to what happened to a favorite archivist/curator we knew in 
Upstate New York. Screwed, blewed and tattooed.

dl

>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>
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