Sherri's Been a Good Girl

Sherri has been very helpful to Paul Mason. She was the one who compiled the bogus efficiency reports. She was the one who watched English and Wilson in case they went across the street to their parked car or walked down for coffee. She was also the one who called IT and asked them to perform an audit on the computers belonging to Carpen, English, and Wilson.

She’s done a lot of legwork and it looks as though she’s about to receive the reward for her perfidy. Read on…

Edna Chun, Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, has submitted a request for the creation of a new position: Senior Director, Media Relations. The person who fills this position would report directly to the Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing (Paul Mason). The job description is signed off on by Paul Mason and followed by an organizational chart showing three new director’s positions the Senior Director of Media Relations, a Senior Director of Strategic Communications, and a Director for Digital and Social Media.

Looks like we’re about to get three new positions, right?

Wrong.

Before I get into that, though, I want to point out a little asterisk that you might not have noticed. It’s in the box reserved for Sherri MacCheyne’s position. If you follow the asterisk to the bottom, you will find that she is now scheduled to have her salary revised.

Sherri’s getting a raise – a little reward for all the hard work she’s done carrying boxes of fabricated evidence that Paul didn’t feel like picking up. Here, in these times of financial hardship, I suppose it could be coincidence that she has been singled out for a raise...

But back to these 3 ‘new’ positions.

When Debbie Schallock and Betsi Robinson were relieved of their positions through a Reduction in Force (RIF) initiative created by Paul Mason, the reason for their release was listed on their letter of termination as due to ‘reorganization.’ This is one of the six officially sanctioned reasons that an employee can be ‘separated’ as part of a RIF under the Policy Manual for SPA and EPA-Non-Faculty Employees. In other words, these are positions where the employees cannot simply be fired at will.

This “reorganization of positions within the unit which materially changes the nature of one or more positions” was undertaken and Schallock and Robinson were let go. Now those positions are back. The material changes to positions? The former position of Director of Marketing has been renamed Director of Media Relations. The former position of Director of Communications has been renamed Senior Director of Strategic Communications.

The sneaky bastard fired two outstanding employees by removing their positions one day and then bringing the positions back under another name. And now open to be filled by those who are more desirable by the administration. This is akin to when Clark Kent puts on his glasses assuming that no one can recognize him as Superman with such a superficial change. Only, we’re smarter than Lois Lane and even if Mason puts on a fake beard and an English accent, we can still smell him.

That third ‘new’ position? It’s the disguised version of the one that was vacated when Lyda Carpen, who was Director of Creative Services, was arrested as part of the means of terminating her employment. Now that there’s going to be a public hearing and the possibility of her firing being overturned once and for all, they have decided to remove the position she once held and replace it with this Director for Digital and Social Media.

Does that mean that if her firing were to be rescinded, she could simply be removed because of a RIF due to reorganization? I don’t know, but I can see where they are headed with this. If there’s a chance they’ll try it.

This reorganization leaves the department with 16 positions, just like it had before…only there’s one more crucial difference. The previous positions were all classed as SPA, an acronym that stands for State Personnel Act. This is the act that establishes the policies and practices for the hiring, employment, and termination for state employees. 

This is the law that does not allow the Chancellor, for example, to fire an employee at will.

The new positions created are classified as EPA. This stands for Exempt from Personnel Act. These new positions would not have the same protections from unreasonable termination as that which the Chancellor has so proudly upheld in her latest response to Carpen’s grievance process.

Therefore, we have shifted these positions from being created for employees who can count upon some level of protection from the whims and caprices of their supervisors to those that would make the employee wise to ask no questions and have no scruples should they wish to maintain their employment.

The new job description was created on November 1 and received by Human Resources on December 9. The players have been busy recently. There’s more in here, but we’ll leave it at this for now.

So, Sherri gets a raise and Paulie gets three new Directors. I think I know some people who should apply…

I Was Going to Wait Until Tomorrow...But: REALLY?!?

I thought I was done for the night, but I just can’t walk away from this…this pathetic attempt at a response. Linda Brady should be laughed out of the city. Is she really Andy Kauffman? Surely there is a hidden camera somewhere just waiting to leap out and yell “surprise!”

I’m referring to the latest salvo limply tossed by UNCG in the ‘moonlighting’ debacle that Mason engineered.

Brady has now complained that the use of personal equipment by the employees in order to do their job was actually not them attempting to do what they needed to do for the betterment of UNCG but actually a problem because:

 “such use of the employee’s personal equipment was inappropriate and could have resulted in the university being liable for the repair or replacement of equipment which it did not own.”

Stop whining.

When Wilson and English covered the ground breaking work that was being done by professor Robert Anemone, Mason refused to allow the employees to invest in the equipment that would be necessary to properly perform their work for the university (this despite the savings that must have landed some extra money for the department budget since the staff was disappearing like chocolate at a Halloween party). Wilson and English, out of dedication to UNCG, purchased the necessary equipment out of their own funds.

How dare they!

This story made the UNCG Now feature, was featured on the Anthropology Department’s website, as well as a number of other high publicity locations and yet, rather than rewarding the staff’s efforts to carry on (as we were all supposed to be doing these difficult economic times…) it has now come back as a complaint against them.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Brady noted that officials found at least 30,000 pictures and 100 invoices for $258,000 worth of work for Artisan. Wonderful, let’s take a look at that.

1) How much of that was work related to Carpen? Why does she keep having to respond to the charges of all three each time the issue is addressed? Is she also David Wilson and Chris English? Has she been wearing a mask? Is she able to change height? That’s something that UNCG might want to capitalize on then.

2) How many of the 100 invoices were for work that was done on UNCG’s ‘time’? What’s that? None? Oh. Okay.

3) That $258,000 is gross, right? That means that their expenses could have been, let’s say, $249,000? So…they made $9,000 in that case. Between 3 people.

4) 30,000 images. I’m not impressed. A single wedding shoot, for example, could be 4,000 images.  But again, how many of those 30,000 were Carpen’s? Why do we keep lumping the three together? Is it because taken individually the case seems even more pathetic than it already is?

UNCG employees were told by Edna Chun and Charlie Maimone at a presentation specifically called to address the confusion and fear that these arrests caused that they should “use common sense” to determine if their activities constituted an ethical violation.

Carpen did more than that, she got the approval of not just one but two of her supervisors. I don’t know from which set of social mores Brady and Mason derive their common sense, but let’s suffice it to say that I’m surprised they can cross the street because simply looking both ways and having a walk/do not walk sign might still not be enough evidence that crossing was permissible. Maybe that’s why Brady’s parking space is so close to her office.

Brady stated: 

“I do not find your belief reasonable that your after-hours use of university-owned equipment was permissible because it did not occur during work hours.”

I wonder how many people find it believable that she is retiring because of a plan she made seven years ago?

Leaving that aside, though. Wasn’t Carpen fired because she signed off on time sheets that were incorrect? If anything else was lodged against her it was that she was doing work using university equipment on university time. Brady was specific in her statement to the faculty and the email transcript. It turns out now that it wasn’t on university time. I wonder if there are any other details that may be, shall we say, less than accurate.

Her final argument is that they could fire anybody they wanted to whenever they wanted to anyway. Well, if that is true, it’s the only part of the argument that stands. There was no reason to fire these 3, no reason to arrest them, and no reason why either Brady or Mason should still be employed except possibly in picking up trash off the side of the highway.

I’m remind of the time that a friend of mine’s daughter was reprimanded for hitting her brother. Her response:

“I didn’t. And I was done anyway.”

Maybe she should be the next chancellor at UNCG.

Visit www.facebook.com/uncgcleanhouse and show your support for transparency and justice at UNCG.

Driving While Black: UNCG Police Department Search Statistics Paint a Picture

An important part of UNCG putting its house in order is a full and thorough investigation of the people and practices in the UNCG police department.

Here’s a good place to start – an anecdote that led to looking at some data.

When UNCG opened the tunnel leading under the train tracks, there were a small number of protesters. It was anticipated that there would be a great number more or at least, that’s what the police presence indicated. On the side of the tunnel where the Chancellor was to give her opening remarks, there were at least six uniformed police officers. Their radios could be heard with the crackling commentary of police, some undercover, stationed at a variety of other locations and tracking the movement of a certain number of individuals.

On the other side of the tunnel, one of those individuals wanted to hang a home made banner reading “UNCGentrification” but his efforts were met with the full force of the UNCG police department. Officers, some with guns drawn, forced the student to the ground and pushed his face into the concrete before handcuffing him.

This student is black.

Given the use of statistics to examine police department’s attitudes towards race as reflected in their actions, I turned to the website for the North Carolina Department of Justice to see how UNCG’s finest are showing their colors.

Let me preface the numbers with this:

Greensboro’s population in 2010 according to census data was 32.95% Black or African-American. UNCG’s student body has an ethnic minority enrollment of 43% with the total percentage of the student body made up of Black or African-American students being 25.2%.

Let’s acknowledge that this information can never be completely accurate, that there are people who don’t fill out the racial information, or who self-identify differently than they might be identified by others, etc.

Now, then, the question is this:

Why did the UNCG police search 652 black drivers from 2009 – 2014 while only finding 490 white drivers that required their attention?

Or, we could ask why it is that, given the racial composition of UNCG and Greensboro, fully 57% of traffic stops that resulted in searchers are of vehicles driven by Black or African-American drivers?

This data is compiled data from 2010 – 2014. What happens if we look at the individual years, is there some possible explanation there?

Unfortunately, no, there isn’t.

In 2013 UNCG police searched 110 Black drivers and 69 White drivers.

In 2011 UNCG police searched 170 Black drivers and 147 White drivers.

Even in 2012 when the data shows that only 54 black drivers were searched it still shows the same relationship as only 40 of the white drivers were searched.

No matter the year, the story is the same. Black drivers are searched more often than their white counterparts.  

And here’s another interesting bit of information: more White drivers than Black were stopped for Driving While Impaired (in fact, nearly one third more), more White drivers than Black drivers were stopped for safe movement violations and the same thing for stop light/stop sign violations and vehicle regulatory violations. Black drivers are stopped more often than white drivers for vehicle equipment violations and more often for a category called “investigation.” Black drivers are stopped more often for seat belt violations by almost one third.

In short, the violations that could be considered  most dangerous to others and therefore, least likely to be left to the discretion of any particular officer have a racial composition roughly proportional to the population of Greensboro. Otherwise…well, I don’t think you probably require any help figuring out the rest.

So, this is the police department that we have at UNCG. It’s just one aspect of their job and we can’t paint any individual officer with the brush that was used for this picture of the department overall.

But maybe we should check that brush and see if there isn’t some whitewash still left in the bristles.

Time is Unkind to Liars & Thieves

“I do not think it right either to keep the truth concealed or allow falsehood to pass.” 

– Boethius

Who I am is neither true nor false; it is unimportant. Sophie Scholl does not protect my identity, she makes it irrelevant and that is the point. It doesn’t matter who I am because this isn’t about me; this story is the identity that finds friend or foe.

Sophie speaks in a collective voice – she can speak for you too. Her aim is freedom of information, justice for those who are wronged, and support for those who would try to leave things better than they found them.

Sophie is also an inspiration. She spoke the truth in a time when the penalty for doing so was death. We who live in such happier circumstances must remind ourselves of her bravery when we frame our actions. The consequences of speaking and acting are far fewer than those that will come from silence. If those who can speak do so before then we will not need to expect the great heroism that would be required to speak and act after.

Let us concern ourselves with what the ones we know are hiding, not with who it is that speaks the truth.

The Owl Is Watching

On October 16, Provost Dana Dunn told the faculty at UNCG, “I would urge you that if you can give this a little time, information will come forward. Right now, you have very incomplete information. So do I.”

Susan Safran, Chair of the UNCG Board of Trustees followed this by saying, “When the evidence comes out, I hope you’ll understand the actions we took.”

The time has come that the truth must be told.

Provost Dunn, you have had two months since that statement to familiarize yourself with the situation. Chairwoman Safran, the evidence is out and it has only clarified the specious nature of the charges and the firings. 

The only conclusion that the faculty and staff at UNCG can draw from this is that they were lied to.

It may still be unclear what all of the motivations were for the lies, but that they have been told is not in doubt.

It is hard not to begin to wonder why Brady is protecting Paul Mason and why the Board of Trustees is protecting her. What does Linda Brady offer that is strong enough to hold together this melting mess that she created?

Has her openness to real estate development ‘for’ the university been sufficiently expansive to win her the support of ‘people who matter’?

I can only imagine that anyone else who had so monumentally failed in all that they had tried to do would be cut loose so quickly their head would spin. If Mason believed that the university relations office didn’t do enough to put a positive face on Brady’s continued flaunting and floundering, he can’t possibly believe his own little contribution to UNCG’s presence in papers has been anything short of disastrous.

Brady’s best hope at this point is that she will be forgotten, allowed to run out the clock and collect her handsome retirement. Mason is hoping he’s just elaborated his resume for further positions as hatchet man.

Rather than turning away and passing the damage on in the hopes that one day it will disappear of its own accord, let’s reclaim UNCG for its students, staff, and faculty. It starts by showing support – print the owl and display it somewhere, as your facebook profile picture, in the window of your car, or in the window of a sympathetic store.

There are fewer of them than there are of us and army of owls lets them know that we’re watching.

All I want for Christmas is a clean house.