[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] [sf-core] Re: Academic rebellion against Salaita firing growing?
ewjohnson via Peace-discuss
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Wed Aug 27 20:15:01 EDT 2014
It would be even more telling to show the amount of money spent on
salaries and trappings for administration.
On 08/28/2014 06:55 AM, Ian K via Peace-discuss wrote:
> I want to echo Carl's point about the "yahoos" in the administration.
> I think part of what Carl's comment underlines is the systemic
> problem. Not just a few bad apples. I want to go a step further.
> Wise's decision and the board's univocal support raises other
> questions about administration altering the value system of higher
> education. This has become clear to me as I recently took a faculty
> position elsewhere. The power of administrators.
>
> Academic administrations, no matter the personal knowledge or wisdom,
> can become a conservative force by the nature of the position. They
> have little investment in "high-minded" notions bound up with free
> inquiry. It, it is more properly called "it," is a class for whom good
> management is an end in itself. As a conservative force, Wise protects
> the University (the donor base in mind) from political controversy and
> upheaval. She chose "speech decorum" to rationalize the pass on
> Salaita, though it was content rather than form that triggered the job
> withdrawal. "It is not what he said but how he said it," they would
> have us believe. It is happenstance that the admin chose to police
> speech decorum when the speech itself lined up with the political
> hegemon. Wink.
>
> The issue is the role of administration as a proportionate sector of
> education labor/cost. Admin takes the larger salaries. It increasingly
> soaks up the total funds available to universities, diverting more to
> itself than to instruction. It also governs its own growth by shifting
> spending priorities toward more layers of bureaucracy and away from
> teaching resources. The Salaita episode draws a vivid picture of this
> process taking place at the level of values as well: how we value
> instructors. It is part of the administrative eclipse of the teaching
> university.
>
> Evidence of the inflation is important:
>
> administration-to-student ratios over time
> <http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/administrators_ate_my_tuition031641.php?page=all>
>
> 1975:
>
> 1 administrator . . . 84 students
> 1 staff member . . . 50 students.
>
> 2005:
>
> 1 administrator . . . 68 students
> 1 staff member . . . 21 students.
>
> By some metrics, Illinois grants more funding for administration than
> teaching resources . . . including faculty salary.
>
> Carl notes that this kind of political-academic silencing has a
> history back to the world wars. I agree. But the late 20th-century
> self-aggrandizement and bloat of administrative functions at large in
> higher ed is something new and clearly relevant. The two are linked
> and we witness it in decisions about radical politics. The problem is
> not the wisdom of Chancellors. The problem is in the power over the
> value system represented by Chancellor (and staff members).
>
> IKD
>
> IKD
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 3:56 PM, Brussel, Morton K via OccupyCU
> <occupycu at lists.chambana.net <mailto:occupycu at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>
> Useful comments.
>
> No, they are not yahoos. This came about because of pressure from
> Israeli apologists and defenders on an unwise chancellor and
> others of the administration. As for the Board of Trustees, who
> can have Trust in them to uphold academic freedom and the higher
> values of society?
>
> —mkb
>
> On Aug 27, 2014, at 12:57 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook'
> carl at newsfromneptune.com <mailto:carl at newsfromneptune.com>
> [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
>
>> I think this is largely right, except for the characterization of
>> the UIUC administration as "a bunch of know-nothing yahoos" - as
>> if their personal failings account for the university's hypocrisy
>> in regard to academic freedom.
>>
>>
>> If we agree with that ungenerous assessment, we have to conclude
>> that American universities have generally been run by
>> "know-nothing yahoos" through a century of violations of academic
>> freedom, from World War I through Vietnam. That may well be the
>> case, but I think the problem is more political than personal. It
>> will not be solved by appointing "good guys" as administrators,
>> in the academy or the polity. But that would be a place to start.
>>
>> --CGE
>>
>> On Aug 27, 2014, at 7:36 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss
>> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Reading the News-Gazette yesterday was like reading the "Stephen
>>> Salaita protest news."
>>>
>>> The department of American Indian studies has voted
>>> no-confidence in Chancellor Wise. The English department may
>>> follow suit. Other departments are considering similar action.
>>>
>>> What I suspect is happening, in part, is that the boycott of the
>>> University of Illinois is working, in the sense that it's
>>> drawing national and international attention, especially among
>>> academics, to the idea that there is a grave threat to the
>>> principles of free speech and academic freedom at the University
>>> of Illinois. And a lot of writing about this is also mentioning
>>> the Kilgore case, to establish the idea that there is problem in
>>> the University of Illinois Administration that runs deeper than
>>> the Salaita case.
>>>
>>> I suspect that part of what is happening is that academics
>>> around the world are writing to their friends on the U of I
>>> faculty and saying, "What's going on?" And U of I faculty are
>>> reading in the academic press that their University has become a
>>> laughingstock, the kind of place where a modern-day Bertrand
>>> Russell couldn't get a job, because the University
>>> Administration is run by a bunch of know-nothing yahoos. And
>>> this is impelling them to action.
>>>
>>> This is very positive. Good things may yet come of this, if the
>>> pressure continues to increase.
>>>
>>> ===
>>>
>>> Robert Naiman
>>> Policy Director
>>> Just Foreign Policy
>>> www.justforeignpolicy.org <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
>>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
>>> (202) 448-2898 x1 <tel:%28202%29%20448-2898%20x1>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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