Comments

Posted by: LM On: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:40 AM

Comment Title: JJ - Who is being disrespective?
JJ, where in my post did I demean you? I didn't call you any names, unlike those you called me. Fortunately, I have a thick skin. You, on the other hand, come across as a tad bit sensitive (note, that is not the same as calling you sensitive). While your perception is that it is all about money, the firmness in which you make that statement speaks loudly about how little you know or truly understand academia. While money may be part of the equation, it isn't the end all. As for academic being elite (sigh)...dude, it isn't "elite" to be different. It's just different. Period.
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Posted by: jj On: Monday, July 13, 2009 10:32 PM

Comment Title: Respect?
LM, You start off offering your respect and then proceed to disrespect me. You have no idea who I am yet you feel free to insult and demean me. I don’t know who your friends are but my faculty friends sometimes work 50-60-70 hours per week, belong to churches, etc, raise their children, take care of their parents & grandparents, pay their taxes, mow their lawns, and maybe even coach soccer. They include both lecturers, tenured faculty AND several department heads. Unlike you though, my friends in academia don’t think they are a higher species because they have a PhD. They don’t whine and they (at least the ones I’ve discussed it with) care about the students and taxpayers in addition to their colleagues. As far as money goes: there ARE some of you who could earn more in the private sector; precious few though. Most of you might make more at another university, but not out there in the corporate world. If you disagree with this you are either naïve, misinformed or dishonest. If you are not personally aware of faculty that do “consulting” or other income generating work using state or university resources then you are you either naïve, misinformed or dishonest (or living in a cave). I used to hold academia up on a pedestal. I really did. I have since learned that the University business is big business! REALLY BIG BUSINESS! It’s all about MONEY. Sure many of you love your work. That’s great! But when it comes to the individual professors, the department heads, the deans, the administration, and the system; IT”S ALL ABOUT MONEY! That’s OK with me. I’m a proud capitalist. Just be honest about it. And… with all due respect, the fact that you have succeeded in your profession does not give you the right to try and silence someone with dissenting ideas. I have as much right to an opinion in this matter as you do. When you suggest that a lowly non-faculty member cannot possibly know or understand anything about this issue, you reveal just the type of arrogance that I maintain permeates your field.
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Posted by: Bourne2Bwild On: Monday, July 13, 2009 2:44 PM

Comment Title: SAVE THE REGENTS (important whistleblowing)
I just went rouge from Langley and have important news. Using siphoned funds from an off-shore Caribbean account Gov. Perry was able to fund a retreat for the B.O.R. What they didn't know was that after a special serving of Rick's "special chocolate malt" they were sent into a comatose state. Perry kidnapped my psychologists who revealed my Manchurian Mind Control theorems. After conditioning was complete Perry gave each of the regents calibrated IPOD alarm clocks with remote capability. Each morning a random song wakes them up for the day's task. My collegues told me that the following song cued OPERATION:REACHOUT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZEuzxM3_Uk Help me help them...safety not guaranteed
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Posted by: LM On: Monday, July 13, 2009 11:23 AM

Comment Title: Misperceptions about faculty
With all due respect JJ, I don't know who your faculty "friends" are, but none of the faculty I work with sound like your friends. My colleagues work 50-60-70 hours per week, belong to churches, synagogues, temples, raise their children, take care of their parents & grandparents, pay their taxes, mow their lawns, and coach soccer. As for it being about MONEY...that is laughable. Most of us could make more money in private industry. Yes, many of us have made it in the "real world" and can do so again. Most of us feel lucky to have careers we enjoy, despite the probationary period being 5-7 years long. How many "real world" jobs have you wait 7 years before you know its yours? We were recruited, shown a vision of where TAMU wants to go, convinced that we could contribute to its development, and moved our families here. We don't have problems with the game changing. It happens. We have problems with the game being changed by someone who doesn't understand the game, nor what is at stake. As for faculty pulling in 6 figures and being lazy...I gotta ask: Who the HECK are your "faculty friends?" They don't sound like anyone I work with! Most of us do this because we are committed to learning (for ourselves, our students, & for the good of our country). I figured out I could be more effective preparing an "army" of people to go battle our health issues, than to try and deal with our nation's health issues by myself. I'm sure there are some bad apples in the profession, and at TAMU. But name a single job where those don't exist? In my experience, the lack of sustained productivity is not rewarded - no merit raises, no bonuses, nada. Furthermore, ethical faculty do not use staff time for any consulting work they might do if it doesn't bring benefit to the university as well. Then again, most of us don't have time nor inclination to "consult" since it usually isn't worth the effort due to the paperwork involved. When I read comments like yours, I get upset - not because of your beliefs/misperceptions, but because it highlights the extent of most people's ignorance about academia and academics. With all due respect, having friends who are professors does not give you any special insight into the working, any more than having an MD as a friend bestow medical knowledge on you, or having a plumber brother make you the Roto Rooter man.
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Posted by: jj On: Monday, July 13, 2009 10:43 AM

Comment Title: get over yourself
Mr. "anonymous", I guess... You could not be more wrong or pompous in your attitude of grandiose superiority. .. I am neither an undergraduate, nor an ol’ Ag, nor one of McKinney’s “shills”. I’ve never attended TAMU, had kids there, or worked there in any capacity. I do not know personally anyone in the president’s or Chancellor’s offices. The closest link I have to A&M is my father’s unfinished time there in the early forties (before you berate my dad for being an illiterate unable to finish what he started… he volunteered for service and went ashore on Utah beach in 1944). I do not support McKinney (in fact, I think he has been a disaster). I do however know people that work there in many capacities. I have close friends who are faculty and staff. And I’ve watched what has gone on here at TAMU for more than 30 years. This is not about “shared governance” and you know it. It’s about control. It’s about MONEY. And lots of it! And the wussy faculty members like you will not suffer at all. It will be the support staff who works so hard to allow you to make so much money, and go on “sabbatical”, and do “consulting work” (with free labor from your staff, no doubt), and allows you to do “research” so you spend as little time as possible in the classroom… it’s the staff, or as you call them “ilk” who will pay the price through layoffs and cutbacks. You won’t lose a thing. So stop your bellyaching, get over yourself, and be a little bit thankful for what we peons allow you to have (through our tax dollars, you jerk!).
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Posted by: On: Monday, July 13, 2009 10:10 AM

Comment Title: This is all
getting old.
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Posted by: E On: Monday, July 13, 2009 5:38 AM

Comment Title: More Ravings About Inmates Running the Asylum...
JJ, you sound like an undergraduate that has wallowed in spring break dissipation, and now resents the fact that you now have to study. I say that you and your ilk, whether staff, or McKinney's shills, or 'old Ags' longing for those old country club days, have no understanding of the crisis of leadership that just transpired. You just rave on about cry-baby six-figure faculty members kackling while rolling around in piles of little Johnny's & Susie's parent's overpaid tuition checks and plotting how to take over A&M. Shared governance is not having the faculty run the place. It is about having input into important decisions. Decisions like appointing Murano in the first place.
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Posted by: jj On: Monday, July 13, 2009 1:19 AM

Comment Title: WOW!
WOW!!! A gentle toss of criticism (not directed AT faculty itself, but at the way they are codled by the TAMU and the media) and I'm accused of hate crimes! You people are proving my point! What a thin skin you faculty members have... And don't put words in my mouth. I'm not suggesting that the staff and employees unionize. What I'm saying is that the faculty effectively already have. TENURE IS A FARCE! You all suggest that it protects intellectual diversity, honesty, etc; Bull#@*%! Tenure was not established for that purpose and does not serve that purpose today. Intellectual and idealogical diversity is non-existent on most college campuses. Tenure is a joke and should be abolished!
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Posted by: On: Sunday, July 12, 2009 1:52 AM

Comment Title: bob
I agree with JJ. If the entire Faculty decided to just not come to work one day it would be called a "walk". If all the staff decided to not come in for just one day it would be called a disaster. However, has anyone ever heard of a staff senate? The vast majority of these folks are making around minimum wage to clean your office or take out the trash. Most have to be dropped off at work because there is no way they can afford the outrageous fee charged for parking on campus. Yes they do get health insurance. That is probably why they work on campus for a lot less than they could make doing the same job off campus where insurance is not provided. How about that? The cleaning person that just took the trash out of your office or cleaned the toilet you will need to sit on soon is here because he or she wants their kids to get health care.
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Posted by: On: Saturday, July 11, 2009 10:27 PM

Comment Title: Unions are not the answer
All I care to say is that unions rarely solve any problem. I belonged to a union once, not by choice. While in that union I was able to earn double time for a full shift when called in to work less than 3 hours in order to satisfy union requirements for staffing numbers. I paid no dues, but by working where I did, I was "in the union." Workers who had "problems" were afforded even more ridiculous protections and process than are already offered workers in the public sector at government/public/state institutions like TAMU. TAMU already offers generous benefits, retirement, health insurance, disability, etc., to its employees. Any union will only take dollars away from employees and productivity away from those they work for. Seen it. Texas is NOT a union state. Let's keep it that way.
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Posted by: On: Saturday, July 11, 2009 9:56 PM

Comment Title: RF is not the problem
The Research Foundation has been helping A&M researchers with grants since 1944, and PIs at TAMU have repeatedly risen to defend the RF's role against attempts to move its functions inside the University. The problem is not the Research Foundation being private - their private non-profit status helps them provide superior pre and postaward service. The problem is the attempt of the System to drive the research mission of the University, and commit University resources to ill-conceived black holes. In that context, I do agree with the previous commenter that we should worry about what our leaders might turn the RF into. But moving RF functions to the University is not a good idea.
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Posted by: On: Saturday, July 11, 2009 2:44 PM

Comment Title:
Reaching out is a good first step but it cannot be the only action if this train is to ever be put back on track. The Board needs to abandon their plans to hire some undesirable (undesirable to academia) as President and to abandon centralizing the five state agency's research administration under an external private organization (Reseach Foundation). This cannot be for cost savings as the private organization perform services at a much higher cost than can be achieved at the University. More importantly the Council of Principal Investigators have officially shown their protest to this twice. These are elected members representing the research community. I assume that if the System and Board will not listen to the researchers and will not allow the university and agencies to make their own cost benefit decisions on research administration, the next Board/System strategy would be to force all to the nonprofit organization (under cost savings veil) and then place the Chancellor and members of the Board of Regents on the nonprofit organizational boards so that the University doesn't control its own business. More than one way to skin the university cat.
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Posted by: GCD On: Saturday, July 11, 2009 1:38 PM

Comment Title: Faculty concerns
"jj's" comments require a response. "Tenure" is only offered to those professors who have gone through an "evaluation period" of teaching and research, usually 6-10 years, and their tenure status is voted on by the tenure committee in their department. Only full professors can be offered tenure, and not all professors are tenured. Lecturers, who make up the majority of the faculty at A&M, are not eligible for tenure and are usually hired on a yearly contract basis (nine or twelve months, depending on their desire to work over the summer). If they perform well, their contract is renewed each year. If not, they have to go elsewhere to teach. There is no guarantee of continued employment. Most non-faculty members (i.e., staff) actually enjoy a more stable employment than faculty. It would seem to me, a retired staff member with a faculty spouse, that faculty SHOULD have some say in how the University is governed, as the policies that allow them to teach are controlled by the administrators at the System, as well as the University level. Regardless of the arguments for or against tenure, "jj's" vitriol against faculty is inconsiderate, non-productive, and just plain mean spirited.
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Posted by: Faculty for staff empowerment On: Saturday, July 11, 2009 12:39 PM

Comment Title: responding to jj
It's not the faculty you should be resenting...and your ugly, full of bile and hatred comments about the faculty makes me think you deserve whatever you get. But you ought to be directing your anger and resentments at those who mistreat you: the chancellor and administration and the state of Texas that has been union-busting for years. Instead of hating faculty, why don't you get together and unionize? Why not fight for what you think is fair and right? That's all the faculty has been doing. And, by the way, there's a whole lot of faculty that's very, very sympathetic to staff and the way staff is treated by admin. So stop wasting your energy being ugly and do something constructive. Personally, I'd love to see staff unionize...and I'm faculty.
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Posted by: jj On: Saturday, July 11, 2009 12:16 PM

Comment Title: Don't whine faculty
Hostility towards FACULTY?! Give me a break! The Chancellor, Regents, and Administration bend over backwards for the faculty. We can't upset the wittle bitty babies now, can we? After all, they are pulling down six figures, they have a "senate" and of course they have TENURE. The faculty can't take much more abuse. It won't be the faculty that pays for the Chancellors's little adventure. It will be the "lowly" staff and employees who will soon start getting pink slips. After all, they have no "Senate" or public voice to complain with. The Eagle and the rest of the local "media" all but ignores the plight of the tens of thousands of "non-faculty" employees in the TAMU system.
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