Rites of Spring

So as I was driving on a beautiful, crisp spring evening, I was reminded of those quaint events that mark the rites of spring. Baseball’s opening day, perennials bursting forth from the ground seeking the light and warm of the sun, clocks springing ahead and of course the posting of the university’s annual audit report on the Auditor General’s website. Spring brings us news of how well the university is being financially and institutionally managed. Last spring brought great news to the university. Under the direction of Interim President Pogue, the university reduced the number of audit findings from 20 to 13. Most notably this was done in spite of Dr. Pogue being prevented by the BOT chairman from hiring a Vice President for Finance. One could only imagine how much greater the improvement could have been if the Interim President was allowed to do his job. So it was widely anticipated that another 35% decrease in audit findings was in the offing as the university right sized and set off on its new mission. Sadly, it was not to be. Under the direction of the current CEO the university’s audit findings jumped from 13 to 41 with 11 repeat findings from the previous year. This means that the university not only did worse in its overall management according to the audit report, it repeated 85% of the errors from the previous year. By way of comparison, the University of Illinois system with its three campuses, $2 bn budget, and 72,000 students amassed 43 findings with 29 repeat findings during its FY 2010 audit. So it appears that any assertions by the regime that he would have the university cleaned up in six months were misguided and foreshadowed what would become another failure of BOT appointed leadership
So, you are probably asking for some context about the audit report. First, it covers the previous fiscal year. The most current report for FY2010 covers the period July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. Second, the findings are divided into three categories; Government Auditing Standards, Federal Compliance and State Compliance. Third, the State Auditor General contracts with firms on a rotational basis so one set of auditors doesn’t work with an agency or institution for too long. Fourth, amounts of money are not what generates findings, it is the absence of internal controls, non-compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or non-compliance with applicable state and federal laws or regulations. Finally, the report indicates findings that are repeated from the previous year(s). Repeat findings are not necessarily indicators of mismanagement. Providing background is imperative in understanding the meaning of the findings.
From these three categories the breakdown of the findings provides some insight into the continued dysfunction of the institution. There were four Government Auditing Standards findings, twenty-four Federal Compliance findings and thirteen State Compliance findings. Twenty-nine of the forty-one findings were designated “Significant Deficiency/Noncompliance.”
I point your attention to four of the forty-one findings as being typical of the dysfunction of the university.
In Finding 10-14, the auditors found the University did not have systems or mechanisms in place to ensure federal funds are not spent with vendors barred or suspended by federal agencies.
Auditors discovered in Finding 10-22 that the University did not comply with provisions of the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act Amendments of 1989. The university is directed to provide specific information to students and employees annually. This university didn’t do that. A fairly simple act of communication eluded the institution.
One of the most oft repeated criticisms of the university is its low graduation rate. Somehow during this year, the regime didn’t submit its graduation rate data (Audit Finding 10-26) to the US Department of Education. As this has been a federal requirement since 1992, how would something this significant have slipped through the cracks?
And in the area that disturbs me because of the life safety implications there is Audit Finding 10-38. A curious repeat finding from the previous year, the auditors found the university was not compliant with the Illinois Campus Security Enhancement Act of 2008. As the only employee certified by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency as an Illinois Professional Emergency Manager (IPEM) I have on several occasions commented to the Board of Trustees that the university did not have a National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliant Emergency Operations Plan. I warned the Board that there could be consequences both short and long term if this wasn’t addressed. The Board was told by the Police Chief, that I was over qualified to speak about the university and that the institution had complied with all legal requirements. I believe this repeat finding repudiates the statements made by the Police Chief but more critically points to a pattern of mismanagement that could endanger lives. I am sure you can understand how serious this finding is especially given this urban university is bisected by freight rail lines and a major expressway. There is actually more to NIMS compliance than simply stating to the BOT that a plan exists and an IPEM doesn’t know what he is talking about.
So seeing a threefold increase in the number of findings from the previous year caused me great concern. Of course the regime responded in all of the expected ways, many of them the administrative equivalent of “the dog ate my homework.” Using personnel turnover is always convenient but irrelevant. Turnover is a function of the quality of leadership. High turnover brings to question whether the leadership is up to the task of motivating and inspiring people to their best or whether threatening and berating subordinates is the order of the day. The regime has responded that it wanted to know all of the flaws, defects and imperfections. This is a peculiar request of the external auditors. Instead of requesting that the internal auditor go over the university’s practices, the CEO requested the external auditors be particularly incisive. Is this historical revisionism, given that the Chicago Tribune is likely to excoriate the university again or is it sound management practice? This practice of course, gives opponents of the university more ammunition in their war of death by a thousand paper cuts. It raises more questions than it answers, especially given there were 11 repeat findings from the previous audit.
One of the best questions I have learned to ask in difficult situations is what happens next. Any leader worth his weight would recognize his/her limitations, take responsibility and offer their resignation. Clearly, the task of righting the direction of the organization is beyond them and instead of continuing Titanic deck chair rearranging, a new type and style of leadership should be sought. Good leaders recognize when it is time to leave and don’t wait to be asked to go.

Some Thoughts

Given the most recent post by Corday, I have been thinking about issues like “shared governance” and “consultation” for a number of days. Of course, the two are intertwined, there is no possibility of shared governance without consultation. The question seems to be, do we have either on this campus?

Another dismal set of audit findings underscores, I think, the fact that the old ways of doing business at Chicago State do not work. There is now too much scrutiny, too much political pressure, and too much public notice taken of Chicago State’s various problems. At this point, the institution is facing a set of crises that, if unresolved, will, at best, continue to adversely affect the entire university community, and at worst, may result in the school’s closure. I believe a serious commitment to a more democratic, consultative process on campus would help address some of our most troublesome issues.

For the past several years, our administration (and I include the Trustees here) has worked assiduously to shield itself from criticism over the school’s academic problems. Our dismal graduation rate? The fault of faculty and advisors. Poor performing students? Bad teaching. Concern about the rigor of academic programs? Impose by fiat meaningless academic requirements like senior theses and “mandatory” M.A. theses. Students unhappy over treatment in various administrative offices? The departments and faculty do not adhere to a “customer service” model, or alternatively, display banners that proclaim “students first” while continuing to make their experience in the Administration building as unpleasant as possible. Faculty unhappy with search processes that they feel do not recognize their concerns or result in the hiring of the best qualified candidates? Hire the candidate you want and give interviews to the press blaming “disgruntled” faculty members for causing problems in the search process. I could go on here, but this list seems representative.

How has all this worked? Quite well from the standpoint of dumping the blame on the faculty. Unfortunately, the school is now on the defensive, trying to improve a graduation rate that represents the efforts of a minuscule number of students while doing nothing to increase admissions standards. Meanwhile, the public believes Chicago State to be little better than a community college, with unqualified faculty teaching badly. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no concerted attempt to counter the prevailing narrative, or defend the faculty, by presenting figures that paint a true picture of Chicago State and the students it serves. Perhaps most important, the atmosphere on campus is toxic, with neither faculty nor administrators trusting one another.

The Orwellian corporate-speak sloganeering that attempts to mask actual conditions on campus reflects what seems to be the reality of governance at Chicago State. Because of the union contract, our administration must convene various committees that include faculty. However, these committees are constantly reminded that their role is strictly “advisory” and, on some occasions, admonished not to exceed their contractual “charge.” The perception among many faculty is that members of the committee then work diligently on the issue or candidate only to see their recommendations ignored by the administration. This interface between faculty and administrators, of course, reflects the actual practices of “shared governance” and “consultation” on this campus. In fact, consultation here seems to mean that you grudgingly and impatiently listen to faculty committee members (who after all do not have the “administrative knowledge” to make a good decision) then do what you wanted to do in the first place. When criticized, you then claim that you “consulted” with the essentially “disgruntled” faculty.

This desire to control these processes and to shape, or ignore, committee recommendations that are ostensibly reached through consensus reflects, I think, an administrative model that sees power concentrated at the top in a hierarchical structure (much like a business). As other posters on this blog have pointed out, however, universities are not corporations, and the decision making process should not be viewed, or operate, as a zero-sum game.

I am unaware of any faculty on this campus who want to see this institution fail. That means faculty are willing to work together with our administration to do what is best for the school, and especially its students. Although some faculty are critical of a variety of administrative proposals, these objections, while inconvenient, are important to shaping policies that serve the entire university. Although likely apocryphal, a quote attributed to Attila the Hun fits here: “a king with chieftans who always agree with him reaps the counsel of mediocrity.”

I would argue that this model of consultation has served the university poorly. In particular, groups with expertise in certain academic areas, although consulted in a figurative sense, have ultimately found their voices silenced. Since good management utilizes all its resources, this is a risky course of action. For example, our own board regulations acknowledge the expertise of the faculty and its responsibility for curriculum. Why then does the administration see fit to make unilateral decisions regarding the curriculum? As an extension of that expertise, CSU faculty are likely in the best position to determine who will be successful teaching here as well as who will make a good colleague. Why then, is the faculty not allowed to rank candidates? Why does the administration insist on hiring its own choices without any explanation? These practices, while technically permissible, are hardly desirable. They contribute to faculty demoralization and cynicism about the motives of the administration.

I would urge the administration to abandon the practices that have been demonstrated to be ineffective. No need here to reference Einstein’s definition of insanity, but I think it is time to take a new approach. Ideally, this approach would include the faculty in a more meaningful way. At a minimum, faculty should have primary responsibility for developing curriculum and specifying degree requirements. Faculty should also have primary responsibility for recommending candidates for faculty positions. These recommendations should rarely be overruled by administrators, and only for compelling reasons communicated in writing. Finally, faculty input should be prominent in the hiring of administrators. Using the faculty as a resource instead as treating them as a group of miscreant children might result in better hires and a more stable administrative environment--which might improve performance and generate fewer audit findings. This does not have to be viewed as a diminution of administrative authority, rather it represents a commitment to utilizing the university’s resources to their maximum. The paternalistic and largely punitive management approach that defines this university culture, an approach directed toward faculty, staff, and students must be abandoned if we are to have any hope of success.

Wanted: Faculty Representation on Search Committees

It seems the Administration was shocked, shocked, to learn that faculty perceived there were no searches being conducted for the Vice Presidents and Deans who have been quitting, fired or need to be hired on campus.

Yes, big surprise that faculty are demoralized and cynical about the university's "search processes"--we receive messages to welcome so and so as the new such and such, but never hear about who was on the committee that picked them, or what the process was that brought them here. Since there is no longer a student newspaper on campus (paper or online) to plant information for the university community (even though students still pay a fee for it), we can only rely on info to be disseminated like peasants listening to an ecclesiastical hieararchy talk down to us at their whim. Staid old Boston has nothing on CSU. I keep recalling the quote from my New England days: "So, this is Boston, home of the baked bean and the cod, where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God."

And who can blame people for not wanting to serve on a committee that has been organized for a while but only sends out a call for faculty or staff presence one week before it will meet? Or faculty who don't want to serve on committees where their presence is mere eyewash for the accreditors, but whose "input" although claimed to be valued, is disregarded if it doesn't match what or who the Administration already wants? Of course who can forget that great trumped up search called the University Presidential Search Committee of a few years ago? No one wants to serve on a committee where you think your voice may actually make a difference, spend a lot of time in meetings, write up reports that go nowhere, just so the Administration can say they "consulted" faculty.

All this said, there are some search committees out there this spring and the Senate has been asked to look for Faculty willing to serve. I have been stung by service on some committees here at CSU and I will no longer serve on committees that have no teeth, that just spin their wheels while the real decisions are made outside. I will no longer serve on a committee where I feel my voice is not heard and I will resign from any committee if I find that my presence is just perfunctory, just as the members of the Presidential Search Advisory Committee did during that farce of a presidential search two years ago. I recommend that faculty continue to participate in the search process that we have at CSU and to offer your time and service in this regard to the university, but to hold your ground as a member of a committee. I'm giving it a chance, like Charlie Brown hoping to kick that football, and joining one of these committees. Maybe this time Lucy won't pull it away.

Yan Searcy said it very eloquently in his email to all of us this week. It is the faculty who hold institutional memory and it is our responsibility to bring that continuity to the governance of the university.

From Yan:
CSU faculty, we are at a crucial point in the history of the institution. The people who may be hired may be responsible for development of CSU or its demise. The faculty voice and perspective need to be heard. Many decisions that are being made are being made by those who have little than two years of institutional memory. The people who may be hired will have less than this.
I ask you to re-read the request below.

From the Provost:
Lastly, please share the attachment with members of the Faculty Senate. This attachment contains the names of search committee members for Pharmacy and Business deans……… I will try my best to keep the Senate informed regarding searches. Also, please note the following searches that will take place soon (before July):

1. Dean of Library (Committee not formed yet)
2.. Dean of Business (Dr. Jefferson, Committee Chairperson)
3. Director for International Programs (Committee not formed yet)
4. Dean of Students ( Dr. Osika, Search Committee Chairperson)
5. Associate Vice President, Sponsored Programs (Committee not formed yet)
6. Dean, Continuing Education (Position not posted yet)

Faculty recommendations to serve on the above searches are much appreciated.


I certainly hope they will be.

Brand U Part II

I've got some other things to add to Pancho's eloquent indictment of the university's embrace of the corporate model. If you look at what employers want, "image" is not among the skills they are looking for. Most interesting, employers list as a prospective employee's most important skill the ability to "Communicate," defined as "the ability to listen, write and speak effectively." The second most desirable skill sought by employers is the ability to analyze and research, or the "ability to assess a situation, seek multiple perspectives, gather more information if necessary, and idenfity key issues that need to be addressed." Other desirable skills include computer/technical literacy, flexibility/adaptability/managing multiple priorities, interpersonal abilities, and leadership/management skills. Perhaps most salient to this discussion, "image" is not on this list. See the following website for the full list of skills: http://www.quintcareers.com/job_skills_values.html. Since "image" is absent from the list of skills an employer wants, what does our university's focus on "image" mean? Do we want our students to believe they can suceed without demonstrating any of the substantive job skills that employers want? Do we think employers are so stupid that they will not notice that a prospective employee has none of the qualifications they are seeking? Will a good stage presence or "image" overcome an applicant's lack of preparation? her/his lack or verbal or written skills? her/his inability to think critically? In addition, if an applicant lacks communication and analytical skills, how can that person come across as polished? Finally, the skills that are most desirable to employers are the very skills that the humanities and social sciences emphasize. The development of analytical and communication skills is the cornerstone of a liberal arts education. In their fealty to the corporate model, our university seems to be in the process of weakening the programs that provide our students with the knowledge and skills to succeed after college. The university's belief in the importance of "entrepreneurship" underpinned by "image" reveals either a stunning lack of understanding of the world outside Chicago State, or a deep and troubling cynicism about our student's abilities--a cynicism that can't be articulated but that can be detected in the desire of the school to sponsor programs that will essentially turn our graduates into con artists.

Brand U?

“Did you know that 85% of job success is based on people skills and only 15% based on technical skills?”

This line from a flyer advertizing the first lecture in a series titled “Brand U: Professional Development Series” caught my attention. I read the flyer and large posters spread throughout the CRSU and learned that the College of Business along with Kraft Foods was sponsoring this series. The kickoff event took place on Thursday, March 24, 2011 in the Library Auditorium. It featured image communication specialist, Kali Raoul, of Image Studios delivering a lecture and powerpoint presentation titled, “Image Impact: Your Professional Presence.” I fell victim to the advertising and showed up 30 minutes early to the event.

Ms. Raoul and her presentation were introduced by a faculty member of the College of Business who informed the audience that “it is very important to brand yourself.” “Hum,” I thought. “I can’t wait to see what is next.” I, then, spent the next hour and a half listening to the quite polished and professional Ms. Raoul speak about the centrality of image in seeking success in the business world. Ms. Raoul showed us a number of slides meant to help the audience think about their image or how we would brand ourselves. Memorable nuggets of advice include the following: 1) a slide showing the “Success P.I.E.” chart. P.I.E. stands for performance, image and exposure. Citing some source or other she informed us that performance counts for 10% of success, image, 60% and exposure, 30%; 2) “Once you’re in the door, performance does not earn success.”; 3) “Define your brand!”; 4) Wardrobe is more important than grooming, though you must be well-groomed; 5) Women, always wear makeup.

Now, I realize that this is Ms. Raoul’s business. She is an image consultant and has extensive experience in the corporate world including working for Kraft. In addition, though this was unstated, her husband’s business also lives and dies on image. He is former City College employee, current state Senator Kwame Raoul from Chicago. What would politics be without image? The series continues throughout April. On the 8th, our students will learn how to dress. Their teacher will be an employee of the Image Studios. Apparently, they need to learn how to eat as well. On April 15th, they will learn that the bread plate is on the right and beverage on the left (or vice versa. I was never good at that kind of thing). Modet, Inc. will teach our students “the rules and nuances of proper business behavior.”

I’m not a hater. I know a woman’s gotta make a living. Moreover, Ms. Raoul is probably genuinely concerned about the people she consults with. She wants them to do well. So, it is not so much Ms. Raoul’s anti-intellectual, anti-substance message that bothered me but that our university is promoting this to our students.

At the same time that the President and Provost’s office is attempting to eliminate the Economics major on campus, they are promoting branding oneself. This is corporate speak and corporate think at its most crass. Without an intellectual and critical foundation in economics and other social sciences and humanities, students are at the mercy of the business world where they will be told how to speak, think, dress, shave, and talk by people who will make enormous profits off of their labor. The anti-intellectual climate being fostered by the current powers that be on campus is alarming and offensive. It is an affront to the very ideals of higher education. THIS IS NOT A BUSINESS!! Moreover, why do we want to make it one? Why do we want to instill in our students capitalist and business ethics that continue to undermine the livelihoods of humanity and the environment worldwide and specifically the lives of the people in the very communities from which the vast majority of our students come?

Do the powers that be need to be reminded that it was the branding of Black people that kicked off capitalist transformation in this country? Maybe the College of Business needs to be reminded that theft, violence and rape of native people and Mexicanos cleared the West for business expansion. It is for these exact reasons that we need to expand the centrality of social sciences and the humanities to the overall mission of the university. Perhaps it is due to an inadequate history, economics and social science education that they are asking our BLACK students to brand themselves. Throughout the first centuries of the existence of the United States of America, masters burned the flesh of Black people as a means to accumulate wealth and establish their dominance. Today, this Black-run institution encourages a new branding through clothes, makeup, facial hair and manners that will further the misery of most people on the planet and increase the profits of the children of slaveowners.

This is an affront to our university and especially our students. Any effort to encourage dumbing down and increasing focus on image should be resisted by all of us. All efforts toward anti-intellectualism, attacks on critical thinking and the corporatization of our campus should be resisted. It is imperative in this day and age that we teach students critical thinking and creativity and develop their agency. We need leaders who can change the course of history not acquiesce to the very values and behaviors that have brought us to this moment in history when we now have the greatest wealth gap known. It is because of capitalist and business values that our Black and Brown children lack health care, lack adequate education, are overrepresented in prisons, live in food deserts, and struggle to define themselves. Why are we encouraging this? As thoughtful and concerned faculty we are obligated to fulfill our mission of educating people. We must not fall victim to the marketing of the business model as the direction in which our university needs to go. We must become more vigilant in the defense of our educational principles and mission. We must hold ourselves and our students to higher standards. These standards must go beyond selling ourselves to the highest bidder.

If only they'd consult the professors first...

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, March 13, 2011

iPads Could Hinder Teaching, Professors Say
Rival tablet PC's foster more interactivity, studies suggest. But students' craving for the Apple devices could matter more.

http://chronicle.com/article/iPads-for-College-Classrooms-/126681

Interesting article if you get a chance to read it.

Do we know if CSU's CIO has instituted a survey of faculty responses to the use of the iPads that the Board of Trustees asked for at its meeting in December?

Imagine what $750,000 (for the ipads) + $140,000 (for the seemingly defunct flatscreen tvs--lipstick on a pig in those brokendown old classrooms of ours)would have bought in the way of upgrading our so-called "smart" classrooms, not to mention benefitting more students at the university.

And, hasn't the new iPad just come out this week?

More mental meanderings...

So the university is under fire again. This time a writer from the Chronicle of Higher Education put several disparate "facts" together and concluded that the State should close down CSU because it costs too much to educate undergraduates. Comparing CSU to Northwestern University the blogger surmised that it is too expensive to operate CSU. Part of the reason, that it costs more to educate our students is that many of them are unprepared for university level work. Their reading/writing and math skills are not at a level where they would be successful without significant remedial instruction. Instead of raising admissions standards for the first time full time freshman student, the university has continued on its path of de facto open admissions seeing the size of its University college increase. There are several solutions to improving the various measures of success. The university could lobby the Department of Education to change the calculus used to assess graduation. Of course, a casual observer might note that the Secretary of Education is the former head of the Chicago Public Schools. That same casual observer might also note that the President who appointed him was a friend of CSU when he served as a state legislator. The casual observer may also note that last year at this time CSU hosted an event that was harshly critical of the President. This event, attended by "public intellectuals" and "community leaders", might very well have soured the Obama administration on providing any assistance to the university. Seeking to ingratiate one's self with "community leaders" may have come at the cost of alienating the first potentially friendly President in the university's history. On a related note there are some seeking to invite the First Lady to present the commencement address in May of 2012. I would imagine that her political advisers will counsel her to decline the invitation so as not to damage the reputation of the Administration. Being associated, even tangentially, with an institution that continues to conduct itself as it has for the past two decades of my employ would not be in the political interests of this White House. And I am sure that counsel would not ever consider the harsh remarks in declining the invitation.
All of these thoughts beg the question for me; as an institution of higher learning, has the institution lost its ability to learn, to adapt, to change? Can the university improve, not marginally or incrementally, but substantively? The regime has rearranged the deck chairs and it is still the Titanic, speeding toward the inevitable collision with the iceberg. I am sure your humble narrator will be cast as disgruntled by the regime, yet I would ask why would I keep providing solutions, as yet unheeded, to the long standing problems of the institution? Is it because that after nearly 20 years, I have seen first hand many of the challenges and given thought to how to address them?
As with each of the past two administrations, this one will not substantively change the culture of the institution, solve the major problems of retention and graduation or elevate the status of the university from one of glorified community college to one of doctoral degree granting university.
What it is likely to do is provide justification for transforming this institution into something else. Might private investors convince the IBHE or the state legislature that under new (private) management the university would be more successful? The investors could argue that the assets of the university, its faculty and facilities, could better serve the educational environment of the state. under private (corporate) leadership. Standards could be raised, graduation rates improved, and costs to the state decreased. It could usher in a new era of public private partnership in education. It could eliminate the faculty union, which is obviously the cause of of the university's distress over the past twenty years. And the investors could profit on the acquisition of a valuable asset to the city and state.
I have meandered enough for now. Stay tuned.

Mental meanderings...

So aside from the fact that faculty is now in its sixth month without a collectively bargained agreement, commonly known as a contract, not much is happening at the workers' paradise, save for the remodeling of the Administration Building. Thankfully, those old wooden doors have been replaced with new wooden doors. We couldn't possibly function without aesthetic enhancements in our Administration Building. I imagine that was done to cover the rumors of program elimination in the colleges of Education and Arts & Sciences. The regime has been very vocal about its desire for entrepreneurship yet wants to eliminate the undergraduate degree in Economics which is counter-intuitive but must be based on some superior administrative knowledge about the academy and pedagogy. Another rumor has more than three academic programs in the College of Education being targeted for termination. This is a strange turn of events given that there is a contractual obligation for such programs to go to the Program Elimination Review Committee for faculty input and no such request has been made. Of course this is all just speculation since the regime, like past regimes over the last twenty years, has profound difficulty in clear, transparent communication. Rumors would be squashed quickly if administrators communicated effectively. The use of oral missives that avoid creating a paper trail is at best bad practice and at worst emblematic of a level of incompetence that threatens the academic integrity of the university.
And it is refreshing to see ongoing construction at the university. The glaziers are busy at work in the Education building and the elevator installers are toiling away in Harold Washington Hall. The sounds of heavy equipment, drilling, and pounding are only slightly disconcerting during a class period. What is more disconcerting is trying to teach in classrooms that have no clocks, chalk boards or white boards. It appears as if form (new doors) is privileged over substance (teaching materials). I would hope that more attention could be paid to core functions, like instruction, and maybe schedule the important support functions when the fewest people are impacted.
Finally, word has not trickled down to my level about whether the missing I-Pad has been recovered. I thought such sophisticated technology would have the computer equivalent of a L0-Jack installed to ease recovery in case of loss or theft. Wouldn't the Chief Information Officer or their designee have routinely installed such a recovery tool to support loss prevention activities?
Next time, I will ask more pressing questions about the West Side Campus, (the gift that keeps on giving) and the future of the Robinson University Center. Questions have arisen about each and I will search for answers.

Faculty Town Hall Meeting: Jan 25th --what will we hear?

There is supposed to be a Faculty Town Hall meeting with the President on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 on the Fourth Floor of the New Academic Library at 12:30 p.m.

Things I would like to hear, but don't really expect to:

1. that the CEO and CIO have relented and will put an effort into making and maintaining more "smart" classrooms--last Trustees meeting the CIO targeted faculty neglect for the theft and loss of resources and the reason the university is no longer equipping classrooms.

2. the CEO will be spending more time raising money with all his Springfield connections than micromanaging department chair appointments (or the configuration of classroom labs)

3. that an organizational chart for the university is forthcoming (but it must be difficult with a continuous turnover in the Cook Building, SUB, Library etc etc).

4. that directives (or fiats as they're called in the Bible) from on-high come out in writing rather than from an untraceable source

5. that the quaint academic custom of UNIVERSITY-WIDE SEARCHES be reinstituted for ALL interim positions hired since July 2009: e.g. Deans and above --since this is a state regulation (at UIC human resources says they are bound by Federal regulations for conducting searches for Deans and above since they receive so much federal funding--they don't want to be found wanting during THEIR audit process).

6. that senior administrative university positions will be given to people with university experience

7. that the university will adhere to the Board of Trustees'guidelines that Academic Affairs originate with the academic experts (uh, that would mean the faculty, not the administration)

8. that the university will retain the old mission of CSU until it has actually been accomplished...

Putting the assault on faculty in context

Today's (Jan. 4) New York Times has an article about the plans by state legislators to curb the rights of state workers (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/business/04labor.html?ref=global). Illinois is among the states prepared essentially to eliminate teachers' right to strike; Illinois legislation would also tie pay to measures of student performance.

First a little background. Currently only about 12% of U.S. workers are in unions; in private industry unionization is about 7%. So public employees are unionized at a rate at least double that of employees of private firms. Unionization has been as high as 23% but over the past thirty years unions have been decimated in auto, steel, aerospace and other basic industries while jobs are outsourced to non-union plants. Where possible bosses ship jobs overseas, exporting either the physical plant or just the job itself (airline reservations, computer help-desk, etc.). In auto the parts plants have become increasingly non-union shops (with complicity of UAW leadership).

Racial injustice has been transformed. Race used to work directly through judgment about physical appearance, and it still does. But in "post-racial" America the state is central to the new racism. It takes at least three major forms.
1. Clinton's "welfare reform" forces people on aid to work for their checks at sub-minimum wages, eliminating higher paid workers.
2. Changes in immigration laws drastically cut the number who may legally enter the U.S. from Mexico and elsewhere; at the same time internationally-imposed restructuring of the Mexican economy (by IMF, the World Bank, and the U.S.) impoverishes Mexican workers while U.S. dumping of cheap grain in Mexico makes it impossible for many small farmers there to continue farming. So traditional migration of Mexican workers to the U.S. expands, but now they are classified as "illegal," becoming workers without rights.
3. The War on Drugs spearheads a 400% increase in the rate of incarceration in the U.S. since the early 1970s. This has the consequence that over ten million people are either in prison or jail, on probation or parole, or enter the labor market as convicted felons (I can't get the exact number, but all the categories but the last are seven million, and there are many whose probation or parole has ended). Nearly half of this group is black (two-thirds are either black or latino); black people are incarcerated at a rate six to seven times the rate for white people.

So we have folks on workfare, twelve million undocumented immigrants, and over ten million under the control of or stigmatized by the criminal justice system. These are workers without rights or with very limited rights. Racial injustice has been transformed, now working largely through the actions of the state. Workers without rights have been used to break strikes and weaken other workers. An attack on one workers leads to attacks on all of us.

Now the assault on labor--which has initially targeted the most vulnerable--is reaching to public employees in transportation, health care, and education. We are next in their sights. They are targeting not only the right to strike and our pay; they also target pensions.

Two points: When we ignore the injustices done to those more vulnerable than us, we set ourselves up for attacks later; racism is the leading edge of an attack on all of us. We need to fight these attacks and link them to the attacks on workers even more vulnerable than ourselves.