Monday, October 8, 2007

UCF Coach Loves Money…and Losing

UCF is clever when it comes to getting money. However, they lack the ability to spend money wisely. One example of this is UCF Football coach George O’Leary. This is a guy who was fired from Notre Dame for lying about having a master’s degree and saying that he lettered three times in college football when he never played a game. Since his first season with UCF in 2004, O’Leary has had one good season. He took UCF to a very shitty bowl game which UCF lost. Based on this one year, UCF gave this douche a ten year contract extension worth a million bucks a year. For UCF, O’Leary has won 15 games and lost 26. In what world, does it make sense to pay a guy that much money to win 37 percent of his games?

Monday, October 1, 2007

A Post About Representative David Mealor

This blog gets very few readers, and I haven’t made any effort to market it because I only write it for the catharsis of saying things that need to be said. I did notice that this post about the thieving David Mealor has received more hits than most posts. Because my audience, such that it is, is interested in Mealor, I’ll give them more insight about the man:

He’s useless. He could disappear tomorrow, and UCF wouldn’t miss an administrative beat, but they would save over six figures a year.

He’s dumb.

He’s fake. He walks around thanking people for all their hard work, yet he couldn’t say what exactly any of these people do.

He wants to be chancellor of the Community College System…Let’s hope he doesn’t get it.

Monday, September 17, 2007

UCF Loves Selling Water

And it is a lot easier to do when you build a brand new stadium with no water fountains.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Congratulations to the UCF Football Team

The UCF players played a great game. The ESPN2 announcers and UCF’s head coach George O’Leary were unnecessarily critical of UCF quarterback Kyle Israel. Considering what he was up against (#5 Texas), he should be proud of his perfromance.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

An Open Letter to Charlie Crist

Dear Governor Crist,

I was heartened to read that because of Florida’s money troubles that you have proposed to cut funding for UCF’s medical school by 4.7 million dollars. Florida is becoming a poor state, and the last thing we should be doing with our money is giving it to a bunch of power-hungry administrators who will waste a lot of it to produce a few mediocre doctors.

Don’t underestimate the political powers of UCF. Sure, they aren’t very good at educating people, but that’s not what’s important to them. The thing UCF loves is money, and they are very good at bringing home funding for inane causes (e.g., medical school, football stadium, new arena, a hotel college, and a campus in Clermont). In Dan Holsenbeck they have a powerful lobbyist. He is the one who pushed for UCF to hire Senator Evelyn Lynn’s retarded daughter as an assistant vice president. The pilfering David Mealor will still be around for the special session that will deal with these budget issues. Still, I hope you prevail with this one small issue so that I am not completely consumed with cynicism.

Your friend,
Arthur Barnhouse

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

UCF Employee Loves Money

David Mealor has two jobs. He is an Associate Vice President for UCF’s Regional Campuses, and he is a Representative in the Florida Legislature. Recently, it was brought to the attention of UCF that when the legislature has been in session, and thus Mealor wasn’t doing any work for UCF, that UCF was still paying him his full-time salary. So, Mealor, who is resigning his legislative post, has to pay UCF back about 75 grand. He’s already paid back ten grand.

The above is what you can read in the newspaper. Here’s the inside scoop. First, Mealor was busted by a former UCF employee that hates his guts in part because Mealor chaired a search committee that denied this employee a promotion. Second, everybody knew that Mealor was double dipping. This was tacitly approved by the UCF administration because they love money and wanted Representative Mealor to bring the pork home to UCF. Third, nobody seems to believe that Mealor didn’t know he was stealing from UCF, and that the punishment for a thief should be more than having to give back what wasn’t his in the first place.

Enjoy it While it Lasts

UCF has sold out their first game in their new, on-campus stadium. Two predictions: First, The University of Texas is going to beat the shit out of them (Clearly, I was wrong about this one - AB). Second, by this time next year, the novelty of the stadium will have worn off and the reality of being a losing football team will have sunk in; attendance won't be good anymore.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Budget Cuts

The unit in which I work just purchased two new, flat panel televisions. Because students rarely spend any time in our unit, these televisions are just another example of how UCF loves to wastefully spend money.

Monday, July 16, 2007

UCF Loves to Spin

Orlando Sentinel: Season Tickets Still Short of UCF’s Goal

UCF Report (i.e., UCF’s Pravda): UCF Football Season Sales Hit Record Levels

A Little Slip Up

Because of cuts in funding, UCF has to trim their budget. This comes from UCF’s state run media: Hitt has asked unit and division heads to eliminate all unnecessary travel.

Shouldn’t unit and division heads always eliminate unnecessary travel? Of course, they should, but UCF loves to spend money, and unnecessary travel is so much fun.

Monday, July 9, 2007

UCF is not Poor

Bob Graham wants the Board of Governors to set tuition rates instead of the legislature. Graham believes that it will be easier for the BOG to increase tuition. Lack of money isn’t a problem for UCF. If you don’t believe me, take a tour of the medical school’s fancy, temporary digs. UCF’s problem is a lack of academic standards (see here and here). I would rather be treated by one of the actors from Grey’s Anatomy than a graduate of UCF’s medical school.

Friday, July 6, 2007

If You Act Now…

Although enrollment at UCF has been increasing, enrollment in UCF’s graduate classes has been declining. To reverse this trend, UCF's big thinkers have come up with the original, creative idea of putting their product on sale. That’s right, if you apply now through July 15, 2007 for the Fall 2007 semester, the graduate application fee will be waived. This is a $30 value. Act now because this offer won’t be around forever.

Because UCF has already lost their dignity, I have another suggestion for how graduate enrollment can be increased: let the public know how easy it is to get a graduate degree from UCF. Anyone with a few spikes on their EEG and money can get an advanced degree from an institution that is slightly more respected than the University of Phoenix. For the academic year 2006-2007, ninety-two percent of the grades given in UCF graduate courses were either an A, B, or S.

This is disheartening. UCF has the resources to make degree completion a meaningful event, but their love of money has eliminated rigorous academic standards.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Florida Higher Education is Run by Assholes, Part II

Charlie Crist is hoping that the legislature will pump more money into FSU, USF, and UF so that those schools don’t have to raise tuition. Senator Evelyn Lynn, chair of the Higher Education Appropriations Committee, states that she doesn’t know from where that money will come. Well, Senator Lynn, I don’t know where we will get all the money, but UCF could save 80K a year if your daughter did the right thing and quit UCF. I say this because her position is completely unnecessary, and UCF administrators hired her because they irrationally fear you.

Florida Higher Education is Run by Assholes, Part I

It is pretty plain that I’m not enamored with UCF President John Hitt (see here, here, and here), but at least Hitt doesn’t argue like a fucking retard. T.K. Wetherell, Florida State President and Former Speaker of the Florida House, justifies increasing tuition at FSU by stating that his granddaughter’s elementary school tuition is $8,500 a year. T.K. then argues that “asking us to run a world-class institution on half the tuition of a second grader, well, it just can’t be done.”

Seriously? T.K.’s quote is evidence that he never learned critical thinking skills in college. Because if he did, he would realize that there is an essential difference between tuition for his granddaughter’s private school and tuition at FSU. The tuition at his granddaughter’s school covers the entire cost of her attendance, but the tuition an in-state FSU student pays covers only about a quarter of the cost of attendance.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Thin Skinned

The Emperor Hitt won’t give interviews to the student-run Central Florida Future. They displeased him by running a negative picture of our dear leader. Over a decade ago, Hitt’s administration proposed limiting the use of bicycles on campus. On their editorial page, the Central Florida Future ran a picture of John Hitt’s head on the body of Adolph Hitler. They called him “Hitt-ler.” Even though all the students involved with this slander against our master are gone, Hitt still refuses to give interviews to the Central Florida Future.

Loyalty is essential to surviving as a non-tenured UCF employee. Incompetence, shiftlessness, or ethical missteps are all survivable actions, but if you go against “Hitt-ler” then you will be expelled from the community.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

An Impression of John Hitt

He is arrogant and tells bad jokes that are followed by obsequious laughter.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Getting Rich the Old Fashioned Way – Begging For It

Florida’s top three state universities (USF, FSU, and UF) cajoled Charlie Crist into allowing them to charge students more money for tuition. Hitt wanted UCF to be among these schools, but he didn’t object to Crist signing the bill. My guess is that by acquiescing to this bill Hitt thinks it will make it easier for UCF to successfully lobby for tuition increases in the future.

I’ve been involved with UCF as a student, teacher, and administrator for over a decade. As a student, most of my classes were terrible wastes of time. Most instructors were poor presenters, ill informed about the subject matter, and/or simply disinterested in making an effort to teach effectively. One of the worst instructors I ever witnessed was still given tenure because he brought in a decent amount of grant money. Have I mentioned that UCF loves money?

As a teacher, I quickly realized that UCF's executive administrators viewed students as consumers who should get passing grades for very little work (The average undergraduate grade at UCF is a B-). Many students are aware that complaining about instructors can be an effective method of improving their grade.

As an administrator, I’ve watched significant amounts of money wasted on full time employees who only have to perform five hours of work a week. I would estimate that UCF could eliminate as much as twenty percent of their work-force and still deliver the same level of service to students.

Allowing UCF to charge higher tuition would financially hurt students only to further benefit a huge institution that doesn’t properly handle the money that it has already been given. I suspect that it was an error to allow USF, UF, and FSU to increase tuition, but I can only testify to UCF’s waste and lust for power.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

They Paved Paradise and Put Up a…

This article is a perfect example of how UCF is obsessed with building stuff. The University is willing to waste 48 grand to be legally allowed to turn an ecological sensitive wetland into, get this, an intramural sports field.

The Benefits of Owning the Means of Production

Under President John Hitt, UCF has made a move towards applying corporate philosophy to an educational environment. The most striking example of how UCF does this is by giving top administrators – the corporate equivalent of executives – exorbitant raises while lower level employees beg for small increases. As expected, John Hitt – the corporate equivalent of a CEO – gets to rape the company.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Tips

Are you a UCF insider with secret information about UCF’s greed and excess? Send tips to ucflovesmoney@yahoo.com. The source of all emails will be kept confidential unless the source’s identity is verified, and they agree to go on the record.

A Bribe

Karen Jans used to be an Assistant Director at the University of Central Florida. She made around fifty grand a year. She got mad at her boss, gave notice, and quit. She was then unemployed for about a year. Recently, UCF hired her as an Assistant Vice President in the Division of Community Relations, and now Karen makes around eighty grand a year. This is an impressive promotion in both rank and salary. Karen’s mother is Senator Evelyn Lynn, chair of the Higher Education Appropriations Committee.

Mission Statement

UCF’s upper level administrators are determined to get as much money as they can from students, taxpayers, and donors. After they get the money, the same administrators engage in their favorite activity: spending the money. They give themselves excessive raises, take unnecessary business trips, buy new and often unnecessary computers, construct new buildings, and hire more employees even though these new hires like many existing employees have little work to occupy them.

The mentality at UCF is this: GIMME, GIMME, GIMME, SPEND, SPEND, SPEND. The mission of “UCF Loves Money” is to document the waste and inanity that is life at the University of Central Florida.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Coming Soon

This blog is currently under construction. Stay tuned for the exciting opening in about a week.