How Fools Spend Their Days and Taxpayer/Student Money

From the Annual Report, Division of Community Relations:

The fundamental nature of community relations is sometimes overlooked within the university setting since it can be difficult to establish metrics and quantify outcome. Much like adequate insurance coverage, good community relations may only become noticeable by its absence.

How do you measure community relations? Is it possible to put a price tag on good will?

The last question is intended to be rhetorical (with the answer being that good will has no price tag), but of course, good will has a price tag. The cost of this “good will” is academic diversity. Instead of spending money on academic programs (e.g., Statistics and Actuarial Sciences), UCF has decided to spend money on politically connected employees to participate in meaningless parties.

Notice the emphasis on the difficulty of measuring the impact of community relations. It is very convenient for Helen Donegan and her giant staff to conclude that it is nearly impossible to measure the impact of community relations. Because of this lack of testability, the convenient and financially rewarding conclusion for Donegan et al. is that community relations is the greatest thing in the world.

During a period of limited resources, goodwill that is accumulated as the result of effective community relations becomes important capital for the university to call upon to reach its goals. Neighbors who understand the economic and social value of the university are less apt to oppose university initiatives and drain university resources.

Phrased differently: If we spend a bunch of taxpayer/student money projecting a good public image, then we will be able to do whatever we want.

As evidence of the success of this effort, one of the board members of a nearby homeowners association that had protested a football stadium at the north end of campus requested that he be allowed to play UCF music through a community tower on game days.

With cogent, scientific arguments like that, I hope I never get into a debate with community relations. Seriously, you could teach an entire critical thinking course by using only statements from UCF administrators as examples of fallacious reasoning.