Loyalty is everything at UCF where it is okay to be incompetent as long as you have proven your allegiance to the higher ups. For example, David Mealor is a useless idiot, but he has shown loyalty to his immediate boss and Hitt and Hickey. If he hadn’t been loyal to them, his thieving would have been dealt with entirely differently.
I get interesting email, and in the future I’d like this blog to rely more on material from the readers. If you send an email, you need to let me know if I can anonymously quote all or part of it. Otherwise, I’ll probably be too concerned for your career to do anything with it.
The email is ucflovesmoney@yahoo.com
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Happy First Day of Classes
UCF’s enrollment could have increased to 50,000. Because of budget cuts and bad priorities, this may result in even larger than usual class sizes.
In related news, U.S. News & World Report's college rankings have come out and Rollins gets a lot more love than UCF. I’m not a huge fan of Rollins. It has always struck me as a post secondary playpen for the dumb children of the very rich (Bret Easton Ellis takes a great dig at Rollins in his novel American Psycho). However, to give Rollins credit, they do seem to make the most of their small class sizes. Their students have homework, multiple papers, and lots of interaction with the instructors. In contrast, UCF’s students often have large lecture classes with only a few multiple choice exams. Although it is a question of opinion, it seems almost indisputable that the former is a better method of education than the latter.
The sad thing is that it didn’t have to be this way. If Hitt had not had such a boner for growth at the expense of everything else, he could have been presiding over a still large school where students attend reasonably sized classes at an academically respected university.
In related news, U.S. News & World Report's college rankings have come out and Rollins gets a lot more love than UCF. I’m not a huge fan of Rollins. It has always struck me as a post secondary playpen for the dumb children of the very rich (Bret Easton Ellis takes a great dig at Rollins in his novel American Psycho). However, to give Rollins credit, they do seem to make the most of their small class sizes. Their students have homework, multiple papers, and lots of interaction with the instructors. In contrast, UCF’s students often have large lecture classes with only a few multiple choice exams. Although it is a question of opinion, it seems almost indisputable that the former is a better method of education than the latter.
The sad thing is that it didn’t have to be this way. If Hitt had not had such a boner for growth at the expense of everything else, he could have been presiding over a still large school where students attend reasonably sized classes at an academically respected university.
Friday, August 1, 2008
FIU Loves Money
FIU hires the outgoing Speaker of the Florida House to teach two courses a year. For this part time job, they are going to pay him 69 grand a year.
Preemptive Strike
As a rule, I don’t print rumors. However, I want to keep this one from happening. People are saying that David Mealor is in line to get an administrative promotion. If this promotion just involves more responsibility, then let him have it because the results will certainly be entertaining. However, this promotion should not include a salary increase. He stole from UCF and is being allowed to pay it back slowly without appropriate interest and penalties. If he is given a raise, it mitigates the already lenient penalty for his crimes against students and taxpayers.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
To Give Credit
Provost Hickey has done quite well for himself considering the vertical oppression that exists in this world.*
* For an empirical analysis of why short people got no reason to live see: Judge and Cable (2004). The effect of physical height on workplace success and income: Preliminary test of a theoretical model, Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 428-441.
* For an empirical analysis of why short people got no reason to live see: Judge and Cable (2004). The effect of physical height on workplace success and income: Preliminary test of a theoretical model, Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 428-441.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
The Difficulties of Persuasion
This remark from Upton Sinclair seems to fit a lot of high level UCF administrators: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
The Trouble with the Pegasus Model
Budgets for different units are affected to some extent by how much that unit grows (i.e., enrollment) relative to other units within UCF. So, it’s not enough that the Philosophy Department, for example, grew their enrollment. If they want to see their funding increased, they need to have grown their enrollment at a higher rate than the average department. I’ve heard administrators refer to this “Pegasus Model” budget allocation method as a zero sum game – the budget increases for some units will come at the expense of other units.
The reason this model screws students is it assumes it is always in their best interest for a fast growing unit to be rewarded with more employees and new computers. All the talk about UCF’s budget cuts have been focused on cutting low enrolled programs and limiting freshman and transfer enrollment. There is some merit to examining these possibilities. Limiting access will probably increase the value of the credential for those that earn it, although that cow is already out of the barn; there are some stupid low enrolled programs at UCF that should be eliminated. Still, it will be a great disservice to students for Hickey to not examine the budgets of units that have had success under the Pegasus model (i.e., fast growing) to see if they are using their increased resources efficiently in the service of students.
The reason this model screws students is it assumes it is always in their best interest for a fast growing unit to be rewarded with more employees and new computers. All the talk about UCF’s budget cuts have been focused on cutting low enrolled programs and limiting freshman and transfer enrollment. There is some merit to examining these possibilities. Limiting access will probably increase the value of the credential for those that earn it, although that cow is already out of the barn; there are some stupid low enrolled programs at UCF that should be eliminated. Still, it will be a great disservice to students for Hickey to not examine the budgets of units that have had success under the Pegasus model (i.e., fast growing) to see if they are using their increased resources efficiently in the service of students.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
