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.

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.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

The Board of Governors voted to join Bob Graham’s lawsuit that if successful would give them authority to determine the cost of tuition.

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.

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.

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.

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.