"Darling you've got to let me know..."

...will we stay or will we go?...

Apologies to the Clash.

Late this week Dr. Watson announced a "town hall" meeting for faculty on Thursday, February 4th. During the reign of Elnora Daniel these became fossilized performances --think the Sun King at Versailles--that revealed very little significant information but were very high on "look-how-great-I'm-doing" with courtiers making their own perfunctory obeisance. Dr. Watson needs to address the rumors and dribs and drabs of information that no one on campus can (or will) clarify. A "town hall" meeting stuffed with inconsequential powerpoint statistics just won't cut it.


Here are some of the things I want to know about at the Town Hall:

1. Is it true CSU is cutting 125 staff and Administrative jobs by March? How will these be determined?
2. Is it true that the President's office is using flimsy excuses (e.g. ignoring various colleges' DACs) to deny untenured faculty retention as a way to get rid of faculty jobs? Or, is this a way to hire some City College cronies?
3. What is happening with the accreditation visit scheduled for March? What happened to all those accreditation preparation committees that faculty & staff signed up for in November? And I really really want to know, what are you going to tell the accreditation committee about campus governance and faculty's role in it?
4. What is the status of CSU's College of Education merger with Daley College (formerly under Dr Watson's jurisdiction)? This news came out late last semester with the promise of a public announcement in January, so please explain how this merger is supposed to work. And when will it be applied to the rest of CSU? And, explain again how this is supposed to be to our advantage? And while you're at it, does the IBHE know about this plan? Does Senator Maloney?


5. What is the great overhaul of the university college system that we are hearing about? Collapsing departments, closing departments, doing away with CUEs for chairs? Is this going to be the typical top-down directive or will you and the administration take seriously faculty input on this situation? The notion that faculty are simply "advisory" has become very old and very tedious. Quote us all you want about the "corporate model" --it does-not-work for academia. See the most recent discussions on this in the Chronicle and other places. Please, put it to rest already. The corporate model that has been allowed to flourish at CSU has put us into this terrible situation. "Management", not the worker bees, dropped the ball at CSU.
6. Since all sabbaticals were cancelled outright this year in an effort at saving money explain why those who applied for full-year sabbaticals were denied. Don't these actually save the university some money because professors take half-salary? Are PAI raises also cancelled? Why cancel one and not the other? These are contractural issues, aren't they?


7. And if we have no money for sabbaticals, let alone student scholarships, let alone money for upgrading the disgusting toilet facilities in most of the buildings on campus, where did we get $145,000 to put flat screen tvs all over our broken down classroom buildings? What exactly is the purpose of these? I've heard that they are supposed to broadcast security messages (can't those obscenely loud fire alarms to do that for now?) What I do know is that some of these tvs turned on so loud that they disturb lectures and classroom activities and faculty who are trying to teach have already been complaining about them. Really, were these things a necessity? What "discretionary" moneys were used for this frivolity?
8. One of my fears last year about hiring an ex-community college president to head our university was that we would be turned into a community college that grants doctoral degrees. I'm now beginning to wonder how much more the President's Office is going to treat faculty like we are at a high school? So please comment on whether the President's Office is going to continue to take seriously anonymous (unsigned) student complaints against individual faculty members? What kind of Court of Star Chamber is going to be instituted on campus? Faculty have a right to know who their accusers are and the administration (those people who determine our retentions, promotions, and tenure) has a responsibility to act with integrity and stand up for faculty on this matter, not believe anonymous letters at face value. Other forms of faculty harrassment by the administration have been happening as well in these past few weeks, no doubt other faculty could list some of that here. CSU is still not a community college, not a high school, officially, at least.

So, Dr. Watson, you gotta let us know...

The Efficacy of a Corporate Model in Academe

So like many professions, academia is prone to following the latest fads. For example, several years ago 'paradigm shift' became the new catchphrase and everybody had to experience a paradigm shift. Around the time of our last accreditation visit, assessment was the latest in intellectual haute couture. A third that seems to have persisted like a bad case of the flu is the 'corporate model.' I have heard current and past administrators use this as something like a wonder drug that will cure all of our institutional ills if we would just follow it.
I have given some thought to this model and find that its use in academe is limited, misapplied and usually inappropriate for this environment and here's why.
As many long serving and long suffering faculty know, we have and have had for many years a customer service problem according to our students. Presidents have come and gone repeating the mantra of "We will improve our customer service" and very little comes of it. Part of the problem of improving customer service is that those administrators, ostensibly managing the university, have misidentified the customer. In this model of production, our customer is every business, institution or organization that hires, retains or promotes our graduates. What level of customer service do we give them? None, because we don't see them as our customer.
Faculty should be very clear that in this model we are labor. We take some raw material, finish it through some alchemical process and send it to our customers. We can then deduce that our students are the raw materials and nowhere in a corporate model do raw materials get customer service. Management, in this case university administration, has once again dropped the ball by getting seduced by the latest catchphrase instead of bringing incisive inquiry to the problems facing the university.
I should be surprised and yet I'm not. With your indulgence I will share a story with you. Several years ago, I asked the then Provost why do we cut courses at the beginning of the semester. I was told to save money because of the low enrollment. This economic efficiency is the primary goal of a corporate model. I then asked how much money do we save. I was told "we don't know." I then asked what model or calculus would we use to determine how much money we saved if we actually were interested in knowing. I was told we didn't have a model or such decision calculus. I then asked my original question again and was told we cut classes because we have always done it this way. No discussion was ever given to the impact of cutting courses on retention, graduation or faculty morale. It appears to me that administrators pick and choose what parts to use of a rational choice model and leave out the inconvenient bits. That strikes me as very odd given this is a university (at least for now) and I would think critical inquiry would be the best tool we have institutionally to address our challenges.
My invitation to our administration is this. If you are going to use a model, make sure you understand it, apply it correctly and don't use it because it's the latest fashion. That way, maybe some of our institutional problems actually get addressed.

And what does 2010 hold for us???

So many of you readers have joined your humble narrator in condemning the incompetence of the university's Board of Trustees, not just in a flawed presidential search but also in a pattern of malfeasance and misconduct stretching over several years. Now today's Chicago Sun Times puts us back in the news with a report from Fran Spielman that our very own BOT Chairman is a "slumlord." Can it be that a hand picked member of the Chicago Plan Commission is actually been derelict in providing livable housing to low income residents? Methinks yes and so do several of those residents who have planned a downtown rally to ask for the removal of the Reverend Doctor Finney from yet another public body. At least we can rely on consistency from our Board Chairman. He spreads his inability to manage more broadly than just Chicago State University. Recall, that while a member of the Plan Commission, he was part of the body that oversaw a $110 million cost overrun on the construction of Kennedy King College. When questioned about the overrun, neither he nor any City College administrators could find documentation supporting or explaining the overrun. Our new trustees, however, had such confidence in Chairman Finney that they re-elected him to serve a second one year term as Board Chair. Given the identified deficiencies of leadership and governance at the university, will Trustee Finney survive the site visit of the Higher Learning Commission or be purged as part of the systemic failure of the university. Only the trustees know.

I eagerly await the next chapter of this tragic saga.

News and notes....

So is it true that our fair university has taken a page from the corporate world’s playbook and moved us into the realm of mergers and acquisitions. To wit, is it true that Chicago State University is merging with Daley College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago in a heretofore unprecedented ultra articulation agreement? The proposal which has not been formally presented to the Faculty Senate for its consideration is but the first step in the assimilation of CSU into the Chicago City Colleges in some 21st Century higher education hybrid. Your humble narrator can only hope that the university administration has done its due diligence by thoroughly investigating whether this ‘merger’ needs approval by either the Illinois Board of Higher Education or the North Central Association; whether the Illinois House or Senate Higher Education Committees need to investigate this process; whether the university Board of Trustees needs to approve the agreement; or whether the faculty of the university will be consulted given the clear curricular implications of such a merger. If the administration has not received in writing, the blessings of the aforementioned bodies, then they have demonstrated a deplorable degree of negligence that continues to engender a lack of confidence in those associated with the university. If all of those agencies have given their blessing, why has there been no public discussion of such a major change in the operation of the university? Is this project an indicator of a more opaque communication process than the prior administration? Is there something in this merger that is being deliberately hidden from the faculty? It is time for the Faculty Senate to demand information on the university’s first foray the mergers and acquisitions world.

So our women's basketball season is off and running. The Ladies played at a tournament at the United States Air Force Academy this past weekend. They will be off during finals week but will have their next home game on December 17th against Akron. Unfortunately for some that is the same night as the Commencement. How are the women going to play a home game in the Jones Convocation Center if the Commencement is scheduled for the same night? The short answer is that they won’t. They will play at the Jacoby Dickens Building in a clearly inferior athletic facility. The real down side is that the university is now liable for a $10,000 penalty for breach of contract with Akron because the contract the university signed months ago stipulated that the game be played in the JCC. Because the university could not de-conflict its events and schedule the commencement for Saturday we will now pay our opponent to come and play against us. I would think some administrator would have caught this and saved the university $10,000. How much athletic equipment could have been purchased for that amount?

So has anything really changed after the trumpeting of new leadership by of BOT chair, who by the way has some interesting financial challenges outside of the university.

CSU ≠ Southside Community College

Sunday's New York Times (Nov. 28th 2009) brought this article edited by the Chicago News Cooperative: "Chicago News Cooperative: Problems and Discontent Bedevil Chicago State"
By MELISSA ISAACSON

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29cncstate.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

The story has been "bedeviling" the Administration for the past few days. One can almost hear the condemnations of "the white-controlled media" ringing through the corridors of the Cook Building. It must be quite stinging after the love letter Wayne Watson and Leon Finney received in the Chronicle of Higher Ed two weeks ago. Blumenstyk's article there is so highly esteemed by the CSU powers that be that it is posted on the mainpage of the CSU website! Of course, no faculty or representatives from the Faculty Senate were quoted in that unbalanced portrait.

Granted, the NY Times article itself meanders from Convocation center costs to graduation rates and is bedeviled (word of the day) by its own inaccuracies. Are budget cuts so severe that there are no fact checkers left in journalism? Wayne Watson has not been president of CSU since 2008, the Presidential Search Advisory Committee resigned in April 2009, not in July 2008. These are journalism 101 failings. And yet one cannot dismiss the article merely on these points.

The most interesting comment comes from our own alumnus, Sen. Edward Maloney, and gives one a glimmer of hope that someone in the Illinois State political web cares a little bit about what is happening with us. It's the first public stand I've seen him take since a contingent from the CSU Faculty Senate and Alumni Association met with him in June to discuss the problems connected to CSU's flawed presidential search. It seems Sen. Maloney does not share Trustee Finney's desire to lower standards in order to raise enrollment. And he disagrees with Pres. Watson on Rickey Hendon's west-side pork project to build a CSU extension campus over there. More importantly, he sees CSU as a state university, not a "south-side university," let alone an extension of the Chicago City colleges. Thank God someone in politics has said it. And considering what I've heard about CSU linking up with Daley College, I hope Sen. Maloney will be true to his words. But more on that later.

Here are Sen. Maloney's comments:


...But State Senator Edward D. Maloney, Democrat of Chicago, a Chicago State graduate and chairman of the Senate’s Higher Education Committee, said improving the university’s graduation rate should be at the top of the list.

“They have to raise standards, be aggressive about recruiting quality kids who are going to graduate,” Mr. Maloney said. “It’s a state university, not a South Side university.”
Dr. Watson supports a move initiated by State Senator Rickey R. Hendon, Democrat of Chicago, to create a $40 million Chicago State satellite campus on the city’s West Side. Mr. Maloney opposes the proposal.

“I will do whatever I can to see that doesn’t happen until there is some proof at the current campus that there’s a willingness to improve,” Mr. Maloney said. “I can’t see anyone appropriating that kind of money for another campus when the current one clearly is not fulfilling its responsibility.”

CSU in last week's news

Just in case you haven't been watching the latest on CSU in the news...

Peter Sachs is back reporting on education in The Chicago Current the new on-line local watchdog for Chi politics. Two articles from November 9, 2009 to check out:

"CSU Students Question Quinn Appointments"
http://www.chicagocurrent.com/articles/30720-CSU-students-question-Quinn-appointments

and a follow-up to Dr Watson's actions at City Colleges, "Questionable Spending for Watson's Posh Party"

http://www.chicagocurrent.com/articles/30719-Questionable-spending-for-Watson-s-posh-party

The Chicago Tribune hopes the appointment (at last) of four new trustees will help the situation at CSU:

"Starting Over" November 11th

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-1111edit2nov11,0,1204074.story

And if you can access the Chronicle of Higher Education you can read what is really a love letter to Dr. Watson and Rev. Finney. Note--not one faculty member or representative of the faculty is quoted in this article even though two students appear. Is Hermene Hartman ghostwriting for the Chronicle now?

Chronicle of Higher Education November 8, 2009

"A Real-Life Lesson in Why Accountability Matters" by Goldie Blumenstyk

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Real-Life-Lesson-in-Why-A/49067/

First Amendment Anyone?

This week a draft document titled "CSU Policy Manual" made its way into our e-mail boxes with a request for comments. Self-described as "a reference tool to help managers understand and implement University policies," it is troubling on several levels.

First, the document is vague about which employees are being addressed. Sometimes, there is a reference to "all employees," although the majority of the document's text seems to be directed at CSU staff rather than faculty.

Second, the section titled "Public Relations" is extremely problematic. The full text reads:

"The Public Relations policy reflects and supports the University's one face to our students, community and supports. The policy makes it easier for everyone at the university to work with the news media and improves coordination of media relations throughout the organization.

All university employees are required to comply with this policy.

All inquiries from the press or other media must be referred to University Public Relations.

When anyone receives a call from the news media, ask and record the following information, then contact Public Relations:

Date and time of call
Caller's name
Name of publication, station and location (city, state)
Phone number
Specific question
Deadline, if any"

Again, this section is quite vague, other than its insistence that the policy be followed by "all employees." For example, all inquiries from the media must be referred to the university's public relations section? How about questions that pertain to a faculty member's area of expertise?

However, with the caveat that this document is simply a draft, I think the tone of the policy is the most troubling aspect of this particular section. I wonder how this policy squares with the first amendment to the constitution? As long as a particular faculty member does not claim to be articulating official university policy why the need for censorship? Or for a unified message? Given the recent admonitions from our incoming administration to avoid talking to the press, this seems like an attempt to muzzle dissent at a time when we should be engaging in vigorous debate.

Am I being an alarmist here? I would like to hear from others about their thoughts on this matter.

A Chicago State of Illinois Ethics Test

Considering the sham of "ethical" governance that we labor under in Illinois (and forget about shared governance on campus), I find that the mandatory state ethics test for employees to be even more insulting this year than in the past. As I was starting to answer its ridiculous questions I wondered what the test for my superiors (sic) in governance looked like. Maybe it's something like this:

1. As a member of a Board of Trustees at a state university you are allowed to:

a. reward your supporters (or relatives) with university contracts, why else did you become a “trustee”?

b. make university policy such as set admission standards and lower ACT scores

c. play the race card with the media and do the same with local ministers you know when any of your actions are criticized

d. direct the president and provost to fire people who try to stand up to you

e. ignore your major role in donating money to the school

f. all of the above

2. As a member of a state university Board of Trustees, you are conducting a presidential search at your university. You know the candidate you would like to hire, but there are pesky constituencies on campus (like students, faculty, and administrators) who must be given the appearance of consultation. You can dispense with any “equal opportunity employment” laws —the Governor is in your pocket (it’s an election year), he won’t interfere, so you

a. hire a local search firm you know for $78,000 under the guise of conducting a “national” search to give a veneer of legitimacy to the process

b. select a top adminstrator to act as a buffer between you and the tedious faculty who don’t know their place—why should You have any direct conversation with Them?

c. refuse to let those pesky campus constituencies anywhere near the portfolios of all the applicants for the president’s job because they might see the more qualified candidates who have applied from outside of Chicago

d. use your lawyer to issue memos corroborating that same veneer of legitimacy (see “a” above) so that the governor will keep his nose out of your southside business

e. all of the above

3. As a President of a state university you are allowed to

a. blame faculty teaching as the root of the problems at the university

b. use your university’s media equipment to film advertisements for your politician friends

c. fire people who refuse to do things that they worry are illegal—how dare they question you

d. surround yourself with people who know how to say “yes”

e. believe your own publicity about yourself.

f. all of the above

4. As Governor of the State of Illinois you want to be known as someone who will reform your corrupt state government, but you are too weak and tied into the system to be effective, so you:

a. make a great show of power by publicly targetting a really minor infraction of the trustees at a major university

b. ignore the truly major infractions and malfeasance of the trustees of a very minor university under your jurisdiciton

c. back down from your own ultimatum when faced with anything that might offend black ministers whom you think will deliver you a lot of votes from their congregations

d. reveal your own inner racist by deciding simply to let “those people” on the southside of Chicago deal with the problems down there

e. all of the above

Why Can't Pat Quinn Just Do It?--Laura Washington

And one more article in case you haven't seen this one...

The Washington Report written by the Sun Times' Laura Washington (Oct. 19, 2009)

Just do it.
Gov. Pat Quinn plans to appoint new board trustees at Chicago State University “with all deliberate speed.” Chicago Sun-Times, May 11

“The governor’s senior staff has been working with all deliberate speed to ensure that the vacancies on the board are filled. Staff members have spoken with the faculty senate and alumni to assist in the search for strong candidates for the board.” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 25

“Quinn’s press secretary, Bob Reed, says … the governor is close to filling vacancies.” Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 18

For months, Gov. Pat Quinn has been ignoring the debacle at Chicago State University. For months, he has failed to fill longtime vacancies on the board of a school in desperate need of quality leadership. Why can’t he “just do it?” My take: Quinn is afraid of some black folks and doesn’t care enough about others.

For the last couple of years, under the the previous administration of President Elnora Daniel—and the Chicago State Board of Trustees—the university has been roiled by highly critical financial audits, charges of gross corruption and mismanagement, a disintegrating physical plant, and plummeting enrollment. The school suffers a miserable 16.2 percent six-year graduation rate. Last month the Chicago Tribune reported that Chicago State “is at risk of losing its accreditation” by the Higher Learning Commission. The agency cited its “remarkably poor” graduation and retention rates, and its chaotic leadership and finances.

On Saturday, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin reported a new lawsuit that “pours fresh gasoline on the matter.” The suit against the university and its trustees, comes from two former Chicago State administrators who were fired earlier this year. One alleges her dismissal “coincided with the board’s awarding of no-bid, short-term public relations and marketing consulting contracts” to two politically connected operatives, Marin reported. Another claims he was fired after he reported inappropriate board activities to the state’s executive inspector general and the auditor general.

As of this posting, Chicago State officials have not commented on the specifics of the lawsuit.

It’s not Quinn’s fault that the school is a disaster area, but he has the power to help it heal. Last spring, the school was rocked with controversy when students, faculty and staff launched a campus revolt against the board’s flawed search for a new chancellor, which culminated in the April 29 appointment of Wayne Watson as Chicago State’s new president. Critics said the was infected by “insider politics” and urged Quinn to intervene, halt the selection process and replace the board, which included several lame-duck trustees and vacancies.

Illinois law provides that the Quinn can remove gubernatorial appointees “for incompetence, neglect of duty, or malfeasance.” Quinn refused to step in.

If you have had a heartbeat over the last few months, you’ll know that the governor didn’t hesitate to leap into the case of the University of Illinois’ “clout-list” scandal. Last summer, egged on by screaming headlines in the Tribune, Quinn pushed out and replaced the university’s board of trustees.

With all due respect to the U of I, there are other schools with more urgent needs. Chicago State, an underesourced stepchild of the Illinois educational system, serves a predominantly African American, working class population. Many of its 7,000 students are the products of the Chicago Public Schools, and we know where that leaves them on the opportunity quotient.
Why the double standard? Why can’t Mr. Reform, the self-proclaimed champion of the disenfranchised, “just do it?”

Marin has a few other good questions about our accidental governor: “With the February primary fast approaching, is Quinn reluctant to jeopardize African-American support?” Marin wrote. “Is that why he backed down and kept the only two African-American trustees on the U. of I. board. And hasn’t jumped in to challenge the CSU board?”

Yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt.

It seems that Quinn cares more about Tribune’s editorial page and the heavyweight interests at the University of Illinois than he does about a crucial but beleaguered black institution on Chicago’s far South Side. He is loathe to offend the politically connected black big shots like Watson and the Rev. Leon Finney, the chair of Chicago State’s Board of Trustees. Quinn’s press secretary, Bob Reed, told Marin that is not the case, and assures his boss is “close” to filling the slots.

Why can’t he just do it? As reader James Reyes opined at SunTimes.com: “They don’t call him ‘Quivering Quinn’ for nothing.”

"Fresh gasoline..."

In case you haven't read the latest about the leadership at CSU see Carol Marin's article in today's Sun Times.

To read the full story:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/1829610,CST-EDT-carol18.article

Why isn't Quinn fixing Chicago State U.?
October 17, 2009
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist

How come Gov. Pat Quinn, in the wake of a clout scandal at the state's premier university, can sweep out the University of Illinois' board of trustees (with two notable exceptions) but can't do the same for our most beleaguered university?
I'm talking about Chicago State University, the mostly African-American school on the Far South Side with a horrifically low 16.2 percent graduation rate.

Many, including my Chicago Sun-Times colleague Laura Washington, have asked that same question. Now a lawsuit, which was filed Friday, pours fresh gasoline on the matter.
The suit, targeting the university and its trustees, was filed by Patricia Arnold, hired in 2008 as the executive director of university relations and marketing, and Stephen Seth Hosick, hired the same year as director of human resources.
They arrived on campus in the wake of a yet another damning audit by Illinois' auditor general, who cited egregious fiscal mismanagement at the school, such as former President Elnora Daniel's absurd, state-funded "leadership seminars" aboard cruise ships with her family in tow.

Daniel resigned, and an interim president, Frank Pogue, was brought in to right the ship as trustees looked for a new president.

Pogue hired Arnold and Hosick. Then all three allegedly ran afoul of Leon Finney, the chairman of the board of trustees.
Arnold's firing, according to the suit, "coincided with the board's awarding of no-bid, short-term public relations and marketing consulting contracts" to two people. One was Hermene Hartman, publisher of N'Digo magazine, a friend of Finney and supporter of Wayne Watson for the presidency. The other was Marilyn Katz, owner of MK Communications, a firm that does a lot of business with the city of Chicago.
Hosick's firing, the suit contends, came when he blew the whistle to "the Executive Inspector General and the Auditor General [about] the Trustees' intricate involvement into the Univer- sity's personnel matters and files, and its demands to approve the hiring of all full-time employees . . ."
Finney, according to Pogue, openly interfered. "Definitely, yes," said Pogue, whose one-year contract ended in August.
Finney declined to comment.

Last spring, the search for a new president was ugly. Members of the search committee -- including faculty -- walked out after Finney and the board narrowed the choice to the two finalists the committee found least attractive: Wayne Watson, the longtime chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, where low graduation rates are also an issue, and Carol Adams, onetime head of the Illinois Department of Human Services, who battled a controversy over using a well-paid state employee as her chauffeur.

Watson got the job. And Adams got a consolation prize: Illinois trade representative to Africa, with a salary of $110,000.
"Does Illinois need Carol Adams or any other person as a trade representative in this economy? No," said Comptroller Dan Hynes, Quinn's main Democratic primary opponent. "I've called for the closing down of the trade offices to save millions of dollars for the state."

And Hynes adds his voice to the call for Quinn to fill three vacancies out of seven trustee positions on the CSU board immediately.

"You've got to bring in new leadership to address the problems of accreditation, graduation rates, retention rates," he said.
With the February primary fast approaching, is Quinn reluctant to jeopardize African-American support? Is that why he backed down and kept the only two African-American trustees on the U. of I. board. And hasn't jumped in to challenge the CSU board? And gave Adams a job Illinois may no longer be able to afford?

Quinn's press secretary, Bob Reed, says absolutely not. Moreover, the governor is close to filling vacancies.
Let's hope so, because 7,000 or more African-American students are in need of his urgent advocacy