Rhetorical Question of the Day

From the Central Florida Future:

President John Hitt said that according to data from the state system, the administrative overhead at UCF is the lowest in the state. “That speaks to the priorities we’ve pursued in the 17 years I’ve been president,” Hitt said.

The argument that other schools are more wasteful than UCF is no justification for UCF’s wastefulness. Let’s try an analogy that may help Johnny understand. John, imagine you come home to find your wife fornicating with one of the servants. Would it be any consolation if she told you that compared to the spouses of the other SUS Presidents she was the most faithful?

Cut of the Day

Consuelo Stebbins, Assistant Vice President for Internationalization. Fluff isn’t free. It costs a 150K a year.

Cut of the Day

David Mealor, Associate Vice President for Regional Campuses. For 134K a year, students and taxpayers get someone who is dumb, lazy, and corrupt. He is the epitome of uselessness.

Liar of the Day

Rick Walsh, chairman UCF’s Board of Trustees, on 29 May {From The Chronicle of Higher Education, no link because it is subscription only}:

"We were able to treat this as a big business where we were protecting shareholders," says Richard J. Walsh, chairman of the Board of Trustees. "We're in really good shape.”

Rick Walsh on 13 July:

Rick Walsh, chairman of UCF's Board of Trustees, said he worried the reductions are not going far enough given worries that the state could order more budget cuts in the future.

Thanks to a correspondent for catching this.

Greatest Cartoon Ever

Fight the Power

From F. Scott Fitzgerald:

Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation -- the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

With that in mind, you should go protest Hitt and Hickey’s program cuts.

On Thursday, July 23, the United Faculty of Florida will hold a second (and final) “Reprioritize” rally at UCF to protest the university administration’s recommendation to eliminate four programs (Cardiopulmonary Sciences, Engineering Technology, Management and Information Sciences, and Radiologic Sciences) and to suspend another (Actuarial Sciences).

The rally will take place from 11:45am to 12:30pm in the free assembly area between the Student Union and John T. Washington Center (Bookstore), where faculty will be joined by students, alumni, and other concerned taxpayers. From there, rally participants will move to the UCF Board of Trustees meeting from 1:00-5:00pm in the Live Oak Room.

At the rally, speakers, press contacts, and new information sheets will explain why the proposed program closures are unnecessary and based on misguided priorities.

Protesting probably won’t do any good, but there is a chance. Remember, Hitt didn’t want to retrofit the new stadium with water fountains, but he caved because a lot of people expressed outrage. Because Hitt is a politician, he will reverse himself if he is pressured.

I Hit You Because I Love You

From the Central Florida Future:

The fact sheet also claimed that the administration likely violated Florida Sunshine Laws by not consulting with faculty and students before arriving at its decision, but Hitt said he preferred the faculty not direct their anger toward each other.

"It's a hell of a lot better that you be mad at Terry Hickey and John Hitt than be mad at one another for suggesting that your programs be cut," Hitt said. "You want to see something that could really be terrible to faculty morale? Let faculty colleagues be suggesting that one another's programs be eliminated — that'll do it."

Unless the reporter for the Future left it out, Hitt didn’t address the argument that he and Hickey violated Florida Sunshine Laws. Instead, Hitt offered the non sequitur that he did the faculty a favor by not letting them participate in the discussion. He did this because he loves them and doesn’t want them to fight amongst themselves. In no way did he break the law and the norms of collegiality to avoid addressing the propositions that UCF has plenty of reserve money and that any cuts should first come from a bloated administration.

Judas of the Day

Ida Cook, chair of the Faculty Senate and member of the BOT. Ida voted against students and faculty by voting for Hitt and Hickey’s program cuts. Instead of thirty pieces of silver, she gets release time.

Lou Frey Loves Government Waste

A reader wrote:

Apparently this isn’t important anymore:

From Lou Frey’s bio: He received the Watch Dog of the Treasury Award in each of his terms for voting to hold the line against inflation and to curb excess government spending.

Dumbest and Most Esoteric Post Ever

The “Jabba the Hitt” cartoon got me thinking what if Hitt and Hickey ran the Republic in Star Wars.

1. Hitt would be Emperor Palpatine and Hickey would be Darth Vader, although this doesn’t fit because Vader is tall.

2. Yoda would be reduced to saying things like “Increase Jedi Credit Hours we must. Promoted to Associate Vice President I will be.”

3. Instead of having only one Padawan (i.e., student), each Jedi Master would have a hundred. This would increase JCH.

4. Because each Jedi Master would have so many Padawans, the Jedi Trials would become multiple-choice and true/false.

5. Many of these mass produced Jedi wouldn’t be able to use the Force to move even a pencil. They would end up working at Dex’s Diner while trying to use the Jedi mind trick on themselves – pathetically waving their hand at their own face and telling themselves that their Jedi-degree wasn’t utterly worthless.

A good friend helped me with these.

Made Me Laugh

Regarding the reversal of UCF’s decision to eliminate the Department of Statistics, a reader wrote:

They clearly hadn't thought this through and the idiocy of Research 1 aspirations with no statistics????

Cut of the Day

AJ Range, Assistant Vice President for Regional Student Services. At 84K a year, you all know the story…

Cut of the Day

The Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government. For an example of narcissism without justification, see Lou’s bio.

Cut Duplicative Administration

I like Jim Gilkeson’s slogan. UCF loves to hire three people to do one job that isn’t even important. Too bad the phrase didn’t get into the full article on the protest over academic programs being eliminated.

This op-ed piece is pitch perfect:

To make matters worse, the program eliminations are not even necessary. The State of Florida Auditor General's most recent financial audit of UCF, dated June 2008, shows that the school had more than $140 million in "unrestricted net assets."

Beyond better prioritizing academic programs in its budget, UCF could spare program eliminations by ending wasteful spending. UCF could, for example:

•Cut a bloated administration that has grown more than three times the rate of faculty during the past 10 years.

•Call back the $8.7 million loan to athletics.

•Save at least $2.7 million per year by ending the practice of rehiring retirees.

•Cut funding of campus beautification, community relations and other non-academic projects and programs.

Go Privateers

The University of New Orleans seems to have the right priorities:

Faced with its deepest budget cuts in decades, the University of New Orleans will eliminate nine top-level administrative positions and restructure non-academic departments to minimize the impact on classrooms, Chancellor Timothy Ryan said at a news conference Thursday.

The athletics program was spared major cuts but key positions abolished include the vice chancellor for advancement and the dean of admissions. Ryan said between 20 and 30 currently filled administrative and staff positions, including the director of Greek life, will be lost through a combination of layoffs and retirements.

Thanks to a reader for sending this in.

Funny Reader Submitted Cartoon

Why Hickey is a Dickhead

Hickey flip-flopped on cutting statistics: From the Orlando Business Journal:

But a July 10 release said keeping statistics will preserve 12 faculty and two staff jobs and allow 75 students to continue in the program. Statistics will have to increase degree production and put a greater emphasis on biostatistics and data mining.

“After further consideration in recent weeks, I believe a restructuring of statistics will allow us to preserve the program as long as it meets new productivity measures,” said UCF Provost and Executive Vice President Terry Hickey.

How is the statistics department supposed to increase degree production? I suppose they could spend a bunch of money on a marketing campaign (e.g., “Statistics Stands for Opportunity”). Nope, that won’t work. The only efficacious thing the Department of Statistics can do to increase degree production is to lower academic standards.

It is Hickey’s desire for more students, more graduates, and the concomitant increase in funding that is destroying the value of a UCF degree.

Thanks to a reader for a link to the article.

Cut of the Day

Cecelia Rivers, Assistant Vice President for the Western Region. At 109K a year, she’s more expensive and less useful than all those palm trees Hitt and Hickey bought.

Statistics Lives (Probably)

UCF is considering keeping statistics. Hickey is a complete dickhead. I’ll write more about this next week.

Cut of the Day

Lin Huff-Corzine, Assistant Vice President of Faculty Affairs. She costs a 139K a year but has difficulty performing her responsibilities competently. At UCF, poor performers that are loyal are never fired. UCF just hires additional people to pick up the slack. Lin needs to go back to teaching.

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.

Cut of the Day

Denise Young, Associate Vice President for the Southern Region. She makes 154K a year. Her colleagues consider her lazy, but it doesn’t matter. Her job is unnecessary for the functioning of UCF’s satellite campuses in Brevard County.

Cut of the Day

UCF Global Perspectives. For 107K a year, John Bersia directs a lot of expensive, unnecessary staff members. The office purports to solve global problems by offering vague, meaningless generalities (e.g., “If September 11th taught Americans and the citizens of other nations anything, it was that the world demands the ongoing engagement of its people.”). UCF should focus resources on educating students (put Bersia on a 3/3), and not on generating insignificant publications and presentations that pretend to solve global conflict.

Cut of the Day

Al Harms, Vice President of Strategy, Marketing, Communications, and Admissions. At 182K a year, he is in charge of UCF’s strategic planning. Try to imagine UCF running without him. It’s easy, isn’t it?