Eternal Recurrence

The first line of the movie Peter Pan is: All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again. Much has happened in the past couple of months.

Hitt and Hickey love their tiny slice of power. Both exude this false modesty that only serves to demonstrate their massive arrogance. Their decisions make sense in the context of their desire to keep and expand their power. Hitt and Hickey cut academic programs instead of cutting useless AVPs because the figurative rim job they get from AVPs is more important to them than academic programs.

There have been those who have tried to stop them. The faculty union has done an admirable job of refuting Hitt and Hickey’s nonsense. At times, the Orlando Sentinel and the Central Florida Future have done reporting and opinion pieces that have exposed the inanity of UCF.

Still, Hitt and Hickey get pretty much everything they want. Why? The first reason is ironic: They get what they want because in the larger context, they are unimportant. Most people in Central Florida don’t know who John Hitt is. Anonymity facilitates corruption.

The second reason is sad: Hitt and Hickey get away with it because most state funded colleges and universities are playing the same corrupt game.

All of this has happened, will it happen again? Probably. Frank Brogan was recently appointed the Chancellor of the State University System. He is a non-academic, career politician. He will make 400K a year to lobby the legislature to give the SUS more. He has neither the necessary understanding nor the motivation to repair the system. When Hitt is gone, is it likely his replacement will be someone who is more interested in academic quality than acquiring more employees and constructing more buildings? The rubber stamps on the UCF Board of Trustees will certainly not be looking for this kind of leader.

The future is bleak but there is hope. The internet. Before the internet, it would have been impossible to get the message out about UCF. No newspaper would have printed the factually sound arguments that I make in this blog (e.g., UCF lacks academic rigor; UCF wastes money; John Hitt bribed Evelyn Lynn; David Mealor is a thief; Terry Hickey is short). If UCF administrators are shamed enough, hopefully they will shift their priorities from money to academic quality.