Goodbye Bonita - You Won't Be Missed

The News & Record has reported the latest UNCG shuffle and it seems that with it the dancing has continued. Bonita Brown did the fox trot out the door on September 14 and with no mention of 'better opportunities.' In fact, not much of a mention at all.

A quick Google search for Bonita brings up on the first page only that she was once named vice chancellor, a video of a protest on UNCG campus and the three blog posts I wrote about her. I wonder what she can do with herself now that 50% of her public reputation is soaked in failure?

It's interesting to note that the people who were driven out of UNCG by the bizarre and embarrassing debacle that was the Brady administration have continued to let their creative talents shine through, while those included in the parade of shame (Mason, Brown, Cathey, Chun, and Brady herself) haven't managed to do much of anything of note with themselves at all.

Karma's a bitch.

Once Upon a Time: A Tale of Faculty Bullying

In light of the recent faculty satisfaction survey and the lack of an accompanying staff satisfaction survey, I wanted to paint a picture of some of the things that staff experience while working here at UNCG. It is unfortunate, but bullying is not confined to the upper administration and if we are looking to recreate UNCG as a positive working environment we can neither assume inherent and homogenous benevolence on the part of one part of our community nor complete and unanimous wrong doing on another.

Too many people assumed that by removing Linda Brady, all that had gone wrong at UNCG would disappear. However, there has still been absolutely no acknowledgement by either those who have managed to cling to power or by those who have come to assume it of the wrongs that were done. The absence of any such profession of truth has left some of these bullies with the feeling that their particular brand of abuse is sanctioned and that they enjoy absolute immunity to continue unchecked.

Let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time, in a department not far away there was an administrative assistant named Cordelia*. Cordelia had graciously served the department and was a dedicated and hard working member of the community known as Uncglandia. She made phone calls, scheduled appointments, supervised a band of student workers, and generally made herself most useful. She was pleasant and polite and her value was obvious to all. Well, to nearly all...

You see, in this otherwise idyllic department in Uncglandia there was a creature who could only raise herself up by pushing others down. On the outside, this creature looked very much like any one else, but all those who had come into contact with her over the years had found themselves in a desperate struggle to maintain their sanity in the face of her unpredictable and irrational assaults. Unfortunately, this creature had imbibed of the potion known as 'tenure' and it had caused her become nearly invincible and to further swell with pride.

Innocent Cordelia had come to this department unsuspecting of the nature of this creature. Many of those who had been given this same potion had used its protective power to fight valiantly, to explore bravely, or to create beauty. And so, Cordelia was surprised to find herself the object of its wrath. She began to be ever more fearful as the slightest wind could blow the creature in to breathe fire down her throat, leaving her in tears and the recipient of sympathy from kind, but equally powerless, graduate students.

Whenever Cordelia tried to answer the creature's questions or respond to its baseless accusations, the creature put out her hand and silenced her with a gesture born of her power. The vile words and unreasonable demands could be heard echoing through the hallways, infecting everyone with their poison. It was clear that no matter where this creature resided, it would bring naught but terror, trial, and confusion.

One day, after a particularly bad bout of burning had been visited on Cordelia, a young and noble graduate student dared to comfort Cordelia in her sorrow.

"Is there nothing that can be done to stop these outrages? This abuse of your goodness surely cannot go unchecked!" The graduate student declared.

"Alas," sighed Cordelia, "I believe I must resign myself to my lot as the creature has imbibed from the fountain of tenure. Sadly, there is nothing to be done except for me to contemplate my escape to somewhere more peaceful."

Turning away, she remembered all of the others who had been lost in this same way. Uncglandia was growing weaker as vibrant and vital members of its community were driven to flee from the onslaught of this creature and others like her. Some had appealed to the grand high Vice Chancellor's for help but it had been discovered that they were nothing if not the very source of the corruption in the land. They sanctioned evil actions and punished those who dared cry out and they remained afoot, despite the mysterious disappearances that had troubled their ranks.

I ask you, dear reader, what is to be done? Is Cordelia to be allowed to suffer? Is there no power that can rise and speak the magic incantation that will either banish or cure these terrible creatures?

To be continued...

-----
*names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Officially Discovering What We Already Knew

There's nothing like a blinding flash of the obvious.

Last year, UNCG administered a survey known as the COACHE survey in order to make an effort to measure faculty satisfaction. Just on the off chance that outbursts, protests, letters, the AAUP survey, position statements, and general conversation didn't REALLY represent what faculty were feeling.
If there's one thing I always say about the faculty is that they are uncommunicative; it's just so hard to get them to really open up and talk...

In any case, Provost Dunn created a PowerPoint that summarizes the findings from this survey. Here are the absolutely unsurprising results:

It turns out, faculty are generally satisfied with each other and their departmental leaders (although that falls off a bit at full professor - probably not difficult to understand why that might be). Faculty are generally satisfied with tenure and promotion policies and procedures.

This next one, and this is the doozy, so let me say it clearly: FACULTY ARE OVERWHELMINGLY DISSATISFIED WITH SENION LEADERSHIP AT UNCG.

I'll give you a moment to get over your lack of surprise.

So, Brady is gone, although threatens to return to the classroom to bring her trademark wit, warmth, and wisdom. Imogene Cathey is gone, Paul Mason is gone, Edna Chun is gone, etc. etc. However, there are still plenty of sharks left over and it seems to me like it might be time to take a real long, hard look at them.

I'd say it's probably high time that anybody in executive administration didn't just get to continue to coast. The default assumption shouldn't be that they are doing fine. Instead, they should have to prove themselves, reapply for their position, demonstrate that their overwhelming failure to gain the confidence of the entire faculty isn't just something that can be brushed off as if unimportant.

And it would be difficult to imagine that a staff satisfaction survey (which was never administered) would show anything except for another section of our community that finds senior leadership to have performed well below expectations.

If an academic department, or heaven forbid a center, were to receive this kind of feedback, the entire area would be under review with the threat of closure/dismissal/defunding - why should senior leadership get a pass? That's the fat at the university and yet we act as if they are indispensable and absolutely immune.

If Gilliam wants to start from anywhere but in a hole, he's going to have to clean up this mess that was left behind before him. The message is clear.

Now, I'm just going to wait for the survey to determine if it's a nice day outside, so I can have my fill of finding out what I already know.

Shutting the Door on Bonita Brown

While I do have to admit that after Brady was forced out excuse me, I meant, left on schedule as anticipated, Bonita Brown took on a sense of humility that I would never have believed possible for her. I'm not saying she was humble, I'm just saying the fact that she would be anything but her typical haughty, condescending, bullying self, even for a moment - even in her own self-interest - was surprising.

I think she could probably sense the end of her reign as an untouchable member of the Brady bunch and her self preservation instincts were kicking in.

Needless to say, that hardly led me to forgive her for her behavior nor to admire her character. It's easy enough to play nice when you see yourself on the line, I reserve respect for those who do good when they don't have to.

In any case, her past behavior had put her on the UNCG Least Wanted list and any pandering she may have done to try to pull herself up out of the muck wasn't enough to take her off of it. She has been instrumental in creating the authoritarian culture that Brady created as her legacy, acting more as an attack dog than anything else. We could have saved the state a fair amount of money by hiring a bouncer and a Doberman - and at least the Doberman would have been acting selflessly.

Word going around is that she is finally showing herself the door and I've always been an optimist, so I hope it's true.

I'm going to go ahead and turn down my music so I can hear it slam shut behind her.

UNCG's Financial Condition...Again

UNCG's budgets are big, complicated things. This makes it easy for people to blow smoke in your face when you try to talk about them. The favorite line is that money is already earmarked for certain things and that nothing, including a PowerPoint presentation from God, could change that. I will state, as I have so many times before, that is simply not the case. There's a pretty good chunk of change that could be repurposed towards our academic mission, but instead it is sitting on Wall Street earning some pretty fat dividends for its investment team. The choking off of these funds from the money flowing through the university is part of an overall scheme to shift money towards the bloated administrative machine by making the cries for austerity on the part of everyone else feel like they result from a budget crisis.

This isn't some half-cocked conspiracy theory, it's a well orchestrated in-the-open business practice. The numbers I've been giving don't come out of thin air, they come from:

• The State Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and Office of the State Controller Monthly Budget Report
• Fiscal Research Division - North Carolina General Assembly
• The College Board
• State of North Carolina Comprehensive Annual Financial Report
• 2014 Bond Report
• UNCG's 2013 Audited Financial Statements
• UNCG Office of Institutional Research
• 2014 Board of Trustees Report

This doesn't mean that I don't get a laugh when I imagine the folks in Mossman going into a Gringott's like vault to let gold coins run through their fingers as they plan their next heist...it just means that nobody should think that's what I really believe is happening. Throwing a couple of pie charts onto a website and calling it budget central doesn't really clear up the questions that I would need answered before I could let this rest:

Who earns money off of the investment of these unrestricted funds?
Why weren't they used as the rainy day fund to compensate for the disastrous $12 million 'giveback'?
What exactly ARE we saving this for if not that?

Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do and if they can't do it in language that everybody understands, they need to be fired and replaced with someone who can...that shouldn't be that hard, our university is filled with people who make it their profession to explain things to those who do not already know them.

Who Benefits from UNCG's Cash Hoard

We've all heard that things are tight, and it's true, but only because the money is being choked off. You know who isn't feeling the crunch? The private equity fund managers who are being compensated through performance fees to care for both the endowment and UNCG's $80 million hoard.

This saved money should, by no means, be spent down to 0 and obviously the endowment is tricky, but imagine if we had used that savings account to deal with the $12 million give back. Or to provide copy paper to the campus or to pay for employee parking or, well, any number of things that would have been better than keeping it on wall street for the profit of others at our expense.

I'd say the new chancellor's first task would be setting our financial house in order - and clearly. I love his commitment to fun, but it's hard to have fun in the wake of the Brady disaster and even more difficult when the wages you live on leave you struggling to make ends meet while still paying increased parking fees just for coming to work. Add to that the distinct feeling (and overwhelming evidence) that we're being lied to about the money and it moves from fun to funereal.

Maybe in this context it's a little easier to understand the bad taste we get when we hear that the chancellor only flies business class, rides to country clubs in a shelby cobra, needs a new butler, and has gotten a fat pay increase over his disastrous predecessor. As the 'needs' at the top get bigger, the money gets diverted from below.

The NY Times has recently addressed a portion of this hoarding - using the example of Yale, but instructive for us as well. It raises questions.

Gilliam will either address them or allow himself to be bought, the choice is still his.

Has Imogene Cathey Been Re-moted?

Here's a question that maybe some of you folks can answer for me:

The last I remember, Imogene Cathey was demoted to Deputy General Counsel because of, "the increasingly complex issues and evolving landscape across higher education, including compliance, Title IX, capital projects, public-private partnerships, and many others that require wide-ranging experience and strategic thinking." 

Now, however, if you go to the UNCG website, you find her listed as a non-modified General Counsel. I know that Betsy Bunting was interim, but where has she gone? Well, her name is on the position in a PDF out of the Provost's office. 

Is she still Deputy GC but UNCG accidentally fired everybody who could update the website? 

If she's Deputy GC still, is it really a good idea to let her hang onto a title she doesn't have anymore? 

Or has something happened here that I don't understand?

Probably would be more transparent if the interfaces that were most likely to receive interaction from people outside of the Executive Administration's offices were updated to reflect the current state of reality. It may seem like a small thing, but when you perform as poorly as Cathey did in her position and still manage to get a big ole salary, the least we could ask for is that she work her way down the ladder and not be seen as still having one foot going up.

Screen Capture 9.8.15

A Letter of Introduction to Chancellor Gilliam

I decided it was time to introduce myself to the new chancellor and so I have written him a letter. I have sincere doubts that there will be any response, but one is not needed if actions indicate an understanding of the situation.

"Dear Chancellor Elect Gilliam:

I know we haven't been formally introduced, but I thought it was time to say hello. Your predecessor certainly knew me and the Acting Chancellor has made it clear she is familiar with my work as well. I have had high hopes for you as the first step in a new era at UNCG but am having a somewhat difficult time holding on to my optimism.

Serious damage was done to the UNCG community by Linda Brady and before those wounds can be healed, we are in need of some plain speaking honest dealings. The ugliest of the scars was created by the scandal of the UNCG3. That injury was exacerbated by the mountain of lies that followed it and the complete failure to acknowledge any error on the part of the university administration and board of trustees. Instead, we have seen how executives protect each other and we have been left twisting in the wind. 

Your tenure here has started in the midst of lies that you did not create. It is just this distance that should allow you to clear the stables and turn out the darkest pockets of failure and incompetence. Your administration can only ever hope to escape failure, rather than aspire to engender greatness, while truth continues to be ignored.

Your choice is between restoring faith and hope to the employees at UNCG or acting as a plaything for scoundrels.

Choose wisely. And remember, as always, the owl is watching.

Sophie"

Looks Like We've Been Zinked

I've just learned something that may explain the car.

Jeff Collins, a UNCG alum and former president of the Alumni Board builds reproduction Cobras and it is quite possible that he loaned this one to Gilliam either for just the photo or for the welcome events. I hope that is true and find it to be a relief, although it does point to another ongoing issue: Jan Zink's idea of the image required by the university.

Is the image we want portrayed that our chancellor can drive around in a half a million dollar car? Does that reflect who we are (and does it indicate we need big donor support?!?)

I learned about this through an inside source, but I doubt most of the community will ever know that this beautiful car isn't the way the chancellor gets to and from his outings.

Here are some other ideas that Zink might have had on her notepad while brainstorming a way to turn UNCG into an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians:

1. See if Paris Hilton can replace the spartan as our mascot
2. Have the chancellor drink champagne from a woman's shoe while fox hunting
3. Hire air force one to deliver Gilliam's off campus mail
4. mink office chair?
5. dress Chancellor & Mrs. Gilliam as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette for ticket only costume ball...arrive in carriage pulled by six white horses

I don't know, if she didn't think of those, they certainly seem right up her alley. How's Gilliam going to change his image if he still has Jan "Diamonds on Her Fingers" Zink kicking around his image and trying desperately to advance herself?

This image is wrong, wrong, wrong - accusations were already flying (unfounded or no) about the chancellor's first class flights, mansion upgrades, and staffing perks. Taking a picture in an expensive car while on the way to series of country club events doth not a chancellor of the people make; it's fuel to the fire.

Are we a fancy school where a highfalutin chancellor jets around on first class flights or in luxurious cars to elite events to rub elbows with wealth?

or

Are we a school for first generation students and veterans that prides itself on educating those who've worked hard (and continue to do so) to get here with a dedicated faculty and loyal, hard working staff creating the next generation of graduates who will do us proud?

I know where the Zink wants to take us...but she'll have to take me kicking and screaming.

Driving a Shelby Cobra to the Country Club

Call me old fashioned, but I've always thought that the French monarchy would have faired a lot better had they not been quite so ostentatious in their displays of wealth while the people in the street were starving.

I have to admit that I felt my heart sink when I saw the picture of Chancellor Gilliam and his wife in a Shelby Cobra on their way to their welcome reception at The Biltmore Forest Country Club. It's a bit different than when I took my Honda to Subway for lunch to celebrate the beginning of my employment at UNCG.

Appearances are important and first class flights, fancy cars, and country club receptions don't exactly demonstrate a presence in the trenches with the faculty and staff who are constantly being told to do more with less. I thought we were out of money? The old ball-and-chain Brady (who by the way we're paying for this year without requiring to do anything as lowly as working) was already making 11 times more than the maintenance and housekeeping staff, what are we spending now and why don't the economic hard times seem to hit those with the most cushion?

Faculty don't have phones in their offices because of budget cuts but the Chancellor is getting some extra staff for his residence. Say it isn't so. Even some symbolic cutting of luxury would go a long way toward sending the hopeful message: I am here because I want to be, not because it was the best way for me to get richer.

I've held my tongue, watched and waited, desperately optimistic, but it's getting hard to hang on to that. When I heard that Gilliam suggested it might be a good idea to reach out to the folks in Glenwood and get to know them, have a BBQ, I thought that was a good idea...or a good start (and something that has been a long time in the making). Now I wonder if he wouldn't mind taking a look at the UNCG community and recognizing that there's a lot there that could use some trust-building gestures.

Don't get me wrong, that's a sweet car, I'm not denying that, but I wonder if Gilliam has taken it by the staff food pantry recently.

A Student Has Questions for UNCG

After finding that, unfortunately, UNCG no longer ranks among the best value colleges (although three other NC universities do), students are asking questions about the difficulties they are having paying for this education. Coming it at #426, something we should find both tragic and shameful, all while raising the price of administrators and paying for a ridiculous rec center, means that students are wondering more loudly than ever: why am I paying so much and why don't I feel like UNCG is helping me get my degree?

As one student poignantly stated:

"It is so disheartening that The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), which is supposed to be giving students the opportunity to make their lives better, is so determined to implement rules and policies that make completion of a degree even more difficult than making passing grades. Not only are we forced to pay a 50% Tuition Surcharge, but we not charged said surcharge until MONTHS after they issue Financial Aid. Then, just before they drop the students' current classes, we are notified that any aid we are due in the coming weeks will not cover the previous semester's balance, so we have to come up with thousands of dollars - RIGHT NOW.

My questions for The University of North Carolina at Greensboro - UNCGare: How is this fair? How is this at all helpful to the student? How are these types of practices not a detriment to the existence and progression of "our" university? How are those of us paying for our college education independently (without the help of Mommy, Daddy, Grandparents, trusts, inheritances, and/or spousal support) ever supposed to attain the degrees we are working so tirelessly toward, if we are constantly being bombarded by financial, logistical, and administrative obstacles? Do you really care more about the date by which ONE of the MANY thousands of dollars you receive yearly is deposited into your vast bank account, than you do about allowing a student (who is not just surviving through, but THRIVING in college) to attain the degree they so desperately seek?

These questions, UNCG, are not rhetorical - I absolutely expect an answer. You do not have to answer them here, but you will hear from me in other forms and forums, so you WILL answer them at some point. You will see and hear from me very soon."

Whatever excuses the administration at UNCG wants to make (ranging from the 'everybody is doing it' model to the 'it's not our fault' version) there are things that are adding to the costs that we very clearly have the ability to control and the failure to do so is as damning as actively picking the pockets of students when they are walking to class. We continue to downgrade the quality of the institution when we drive away dedicated staff, revolt dedicated faculty, and squander our money on unnecessary bean counters with fancy titles but little to offer.

It appears, dear UNCG, that the owl may have a larger family than you expected. A response is in order - and look sharp about it.

I'm All Ears

April 22 was the last I heard of Edna Chun's grievance. Has she been healed? Has she been kidnapped by aliens? Both? I don't know, but any information anybody has would be most helpful (said while batting my long lashes and in my best southern belle voice).

People are marking their calendars for the new chancellor as if we should start counting from the year 0 again. You don't make it this far if you won't play ball though...as Tom Ross unceremoniously discovered (and he actually thought he was playing ball to, so you can imagine the surprise!) I have to admit that despite my initial, possibly espresso fueled, optimism, the more I think about it, the more I can't help but wonder how somebody who is everything that the little people are hoping for have been the person chosen for the position. Is it because Fennebresque couldn't lead the show on his own as he has always has done in his past? Is it because the trade off for getting this chancellor would make some different choice for another position more palatable?

Is this a give away because Gilliam will appear a gift while someone like Art Pope becomes president of the system?

Has some other mechanism for converting Greensboro's real estate into privately held, publicly funded projects?

Will any of this make any difference in the daily lives of the staff? Or is it the same sh*$ different day?

There are some deep, core issues here that will most likely escape the view of the new chancellor as he continues to negotiate himself into power. Maybe we can help keep those before him. We brought down Brady and a number of her creatures, but our work isn't over. Let me help in whatever way I can - I'm not only watching, I'm also listening.

uncgcleanhouse@yahoo.com - to send an email
or you can leave an anonymous comment on my blog which then comes directly to me for moderation (let me know if you don't want it published) but doesn't require an email address or name to be attached.

Keep in touch.

Susan Ladd's Open Letter

Reporter and UNCG faculty member Susan Ladd has written an excellent letter to the incoming Chancellor. I hope that he reads it. I hope that he does more than that, that he takes it to heart.

However, there is an issue that continues to slide out of the spotlight. Yes, Gilliam needs to be not Brady, something he has already given hints of being able to accomplish. A note from one of my sources indicates the direction of the wound:

"HR continues to be the arm for legal to protect the university from her employees. Where is the interest in finding a replacement for Edna Chun? Where are the forums to gather perspectives on how HR can be restructured in order to perform its essential roles? What are the essential roles?"

Benita Peace watched the meltdown and I don't just mean the UNCG3. She's been seeing the slide since well before that. What was her part? If she remains in de facto charge of human resources as the voice of past wisdom, what chance is there for future improvements? She has wrongfully rubbed so many lives, I'm told there will be a parade when she's finally forced out (or, as they say in the trade, 'leaves to pursue other opportunities.') 

She knew all about Paul Mason's past and yet that's how things were handled. She has repeatedly ensured staff that they are without protection and that any problems that exist at work lie wholly and fully with their own individual failure. In other words, she participates in bullying. She is not a 'resource' for 'humans' but rather a 'schill' for 'bullies.' While she must clearly have received some signals from the very public explosions at UNCG, I hate to rely on hints and the ability to read between the lines as a method for making profound change to an individual brought up in a structure of violence. If that worked, we could simply play episodes of 'Full House' on a non stop loop in America's prison and all problems would magically vanish.

Bonita: The first step toward change is admitting that you have a problem. If you don't want to take that step, I'd suggest your other option is to take your first step out the door.

When It's All Said and Done

Remember the good old days when we used to be reassured that if we knew everything, we'd be outraged about the heinous crimes of the UNCG3?

I've finally had a chance to see the final report on their nefarious activities and I can testify that it contains not one new piece of information, not one twist, variation, shift, or enhanced explanation. It turns out, we did know everything that the Board of Trustees knew.

Well, with the exception of one thing:

The Board of Trustees didn't know that we knew.

I don't mean 'we' in the sense of the royal we, but rather 'we' in the sense of every member of the campus community. All the while that they were pretending they were right, we all knew they were wrong. Some of us chose to believe that the powerful have the right to be wrong...or at least that if we ignore their wrong, they might shower us with benefits.

So now what? The Board gets to have led us down this disastrous road, shepherded us toward the scandal and acted in every possible way to obfuscate the truth and cover up the lies.

Is it really possible that this group of people should be the ones our new chancellor must work with so closely? They clearly have only their own interests at heart (with the exception of Linda Carlisle who couldn't stomach being part of the whole mudslide). If we are hoping for the spring sunshine, the cobwebs still need to be cleared away.

The absolute refusal to be accountable for their actions and failures does not set the tone for the new administration. Their incredible (by which I mean unbelievable in the true sense of that word) belief that they are immune from the requirement to be responsive to the rest of us is not only disgusting but demands address.

These are not gods, but men and women who hold us in contempt. It's time to for a change.

It's not too late for spring cleaning.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

So, Brady is gone, right? Members of the university community should be linking arms and singing! Birds should be landing on our shoulders! And yet, the best we can see right now is the hope that we can be optimistic. Why is that? I think that Richard Levy has said it brilliantly, and so I share his thoughts with you below:

"Chancellor Brady is gone.  A cancer, nearly universally disliked and disrespected, has been ignominiously removed from the UNCG body.

     Yet one senses little joy as a new Chancellor will soon come on board.  Why?  Four reasons come to mind.

     --No apology has been forthcoming for the actions causing "Firegate".

     --Neither Dr. Brady nor those who chose or defended her have acknowledged what a huge

       mistake her hiring was.

     --There is no provision for rectifying the error when a bad choice is made.

     --Dr. Brady embodied many larger problems in modern university conception and

       management, none of which has been addressed.

     Dr. Brady has continued to defend her lies and inept handling of the firings that brought her down, disrupted several lives, and brought decimated UNCG's reputation.

     Her total lack of introspection is unsurprising.  But the silence of the UNCG Trustee Board and Chapel Hill higher-ups creates the scary impression that they either agree with her or just don't get it.  Either way, the continued input of these people and their future monitoring of the new Chancellor does not engender confidence.

Dr. Brady's unsuitability for the position was clear years ago.  She was temperamentally wrong.  She made no effort even to learn the names of faculty or even major financial contributors.  She ignored input and tried to rule by fiat.  She made poor personnel decisions.  She gutted academics while substantially increasing administrative and, especially, athletic budgets.

     Dr. Brady's style was already well-established.  A reasonable investigation of her time at NC State or the University of Oregon would have uncovered it.  (And perhaps it did.  Perhaps those choosing and monitoring Dr. Brady actually liked her style.). Whatever reasons allowed her to continue are scary; these folks might do it again.

     But people do make poor personnel decisions.  The question is:  How long do you go before you admit the mistake and correct it?  There was a large and growing disenchantment with Dr. Brady almost immediately.  Yet no one at the local or Chapel Hill level took action until her mishandling of "Firegate" forced Chapel Hill to force her retirement.

     These matters are all serious.  But they pale compared to the last item.  UNCG is particularly poorly run (according to a study undertaken by the NC Legislature).  But it is hardly unique.  Indeed, it is typical of public universities and colleges.  Several examples:

     --Administrative budgets, already outrageously high, continue to expand dramatically, until

       they are often equal to the educational budget, which meanwhile stagnates or is even

       reduced.

     --Athletic budgets proliferate, even as they lose more-and-more money, and at schools like

       schools like UNCG have no chance of becoming profitable and provide few measurable

       benefits.

     --A race to build silly amenities increases student fees substantially, even for those students

       who can scarcely afford it and who will seldom or never use the new facilities.  Little attempt

       is made to find out if the students even want them.

     --State universities are vastly overbuilt, under-utilized, and poorly maintained.  Most schools

       have no idea what their building utilization even is.  (Hint:  at most it is below 25 per cent if

       You count 8 AM-10PM Monday through Friday, plus summers.)

     --Universities are being re-defined so only research or majors with short-term practical

       payoffs really count.  The very real benefits of other academic disciplines are ignored.

     --Professors are asked to spend substantial amounts of time evaluating rather than teaching.

     In other words, public universities are being poorly run and dumbed down (even while their

heads claim they are being run the way a private company would operate, which is very unfunny joke).  But not a word from Chapel Hill or individual trustee boards suggests that these truly important questions are even being thought about, much less acted upon.

     That, more than anything else, explains why university communities are dispirited, and why Dr. Brady's eclipse, welcome though it is, does not lead to a re-set of confidence and optimism."

Hope may have feathers, but it will take much more to grow the wings we need to use them.

Dear Chancellor Gilliam

We have high hopes for you.

That's what I'm hearing from people all over campus. Remember what we have been through, remember to be one of us, remember to listen and to speak frankly, remember to seek wise counsel and heartfelt advice, and remember that disagreement doesn't equal enmity.

We are ready for a new era, but we still haven't put the past behind us and that will be your very first task. We can't just let it drop into the depths of our memories to fester; truth and reconciliation can move us all forward. It's the best way for you to understand where we have been and where we would like to go.

Brady was only one person, part of a structure, and that structure needs to be removed, cleared out and redesigned. We are not afraid of hard work, of careful study, of deep communication. I hope that you can be brave, courageous enough to lead us through this because the other side is a better place.

We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

The Excitement is Palpable

If you liked that cliche, get ready for many more because in about thirty minutes, the long awaited announcement of the identity of the new chancellor will be revealed. I am hoping it involves a smoke machine and laser lights at the very least.

Obviously, this will all be done via the typical democratic process of deciding in secret and then unveiling their identity in another city.

I may or may not be at the reception this afternoon, but I will be tweeting the livestream announcement of our fearless leader's unmasking...because if it can't be summed up in 140 characters, it's still at least more in depth coverage than that provided in the peppering of 'no comments' we get from Joe Gallehugh.

I'm @uncgcleanhouse on twitter if you want to follow me during this epic event of the century. If you can't I'll post the transcripts here later.

Just be prepared: mixed metaphors and sports analogies will be thick on the ground.

A Direction for Employee Satisfaction

If we’re going corporate…

We might be well served to look at those that have symbiotic relationships with their highly satisfied, engaged, and empowered employees.

Look at all the bad press MacDonald’s has gotten and remember that learning that the burgers only have 15% meat or that the nuggets are filled with ground chicken faces (I’ll let you figure out if that’s a typo) wasn’t what made it happen. Instead, a lot of it can be attributed to their poor treatment of their employees. Let’s not model ourselves after a dying (and irresponsible) fast food chain.

But, we’re in a time of budget crisis, how can we possible do this?!?

Having a good work environment isn’t all about ping pong tables in the break room and new iPads. It turns out, and here’s the shocker…money can’t buy you happiness.

The kind of money that helps is money that we have at UNCG. The biggest salaries go the people least likely to stick around, but that doesn’t mean that the lowest salaries are what keep people here. So, step one: everybody earning under $XXk (note the two digits there…don’t come with cap in hand if you earn six figures) gets a raise. I don’t care how you make it appear in accounting, it can be done, so let’s do it. Partly it might come from skimming off the top (for example, do we need a new Vice Chancellor for University Relations if the department has four people? Not sure, but it’s a question worth asking) and part might come from savings I’ll discuss in a moment. Point is, it can, and should be done, as a baseline, a minimum of what employment should be.

It’s much more than that though.

Liz Ryan, contributing author for Forbes explains it well:

“Rather than focusing on new programs to make employees happy, we should be taking away the obstacles that keep people at work disempowered and disconnected from their mission [and that of their place of employment]. Leadership in the knowledge economy has more to do with removing impediments to teamwork, collaboration and new ideas than with installing even more programs and policies than we already have.”

Basically, it will save us money AND increase our devotion (and therefore energy, creativity, contributions, etc.) to do away with the unnecessary structures that degrade the quality of the work environment AND cost us the most money.

I’ll only give one example, for now, but: In University Relations (back when that was what it was), staff such as David Wilson and Chris English were salaried employees. And yet, they had to fill out time sheets. These time sheets were entered into a system developed by department admin Sherri MacCheyne. The system never worked particularly smoothly and had to be fudged and fussed with just to accept information that it turned out was absolutely useless. It didn’t improve the relationship between Sheryl and her co-workers, didn’t ever actually measure the amount of time spent working, and we can see the countless headaches this ridiculous and unnecessary activity has caused.

Remove the bizarre requirement for time sheets and here is what we would have had:

No UNCG3 scandal, a whole host of dedicated employees still working here, none of the legal fees associated with the prosecution of this idiocy, more time for Sherri to devote to work, more time for Chris, David, et al to devote to work, countless hours of work that never would have showed up on the time sheets anyway happily performed by dedicated employees, whatever the hours were that Imogene Cathey, Benita Peace, and Jamie Herring dedicated to this, whatever productivity was lost as people attended forums and tried desperately to understand secondary employment…

I probably don’t need to go on. All of this from one unnecessary structure. How many more are there that could so easily disappear generally improving everybody’s lives AND the financial situation of the university?

I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out.

How to Reform a Wayward Executive

I’m getting reports that Bryan Terry has been quieter recently. It seems like many on campus are in a holding pattern, just waiting to see the new chancellor.

Our new chancellor has an excellent opportunity to come in and turn this institution around. I’m not talking about massive infusions of funds (although that’s there too), I’m talking about setting an example for the way in which administration, staff, faculty, students, alumni, and community members should be working together. If Brady created (or exaggerated) this culture of bullying, it’s clear that the next person has the chance to create an atmosphere befitting of an academic institution. The fact that people are waiting for the new chancellor before they show their cards again means that the time is ripe for leading them in a new direction.

I wish her/him all the best in this. I think the lessons learned are clear and anybody with half a brain doesn’t have to read my blog in order to have understood them. There are a lot of positions to be filled and the choices made will have a profound impact on UNCG.

In case some people need a little extra assistance, I’ve put together some suggestions for helping transition the folks in upper administration who haven’t been able to ‘move on to better opportunities.’

Bryan Terry’s contract will include mandatory anger management classes as well as a slow and detailed explanation of the difference between a compliment and an insult.

Kim Record’s salary will now be calculated as a percentage of the profit from ticket sales to sporting events. She will be assigned a board of advisors to assist her in all decision-making. This board will be made up entirely of members of the former wrestling team.

Kim Record's Board of Advisors

Bonita Brown will be required to join the Girl Scouts and earn a badge in ‘plays well with others.’

Benita Peace will complete a spiritual journey under the guidance of the Dali Lama until she can find her center by reciting ‘hostile work environment’ in the lotus position.

Jan Zink will serve in the peace corps digging ditches and building water filtration systems until such time as she understand that the word ‘authentic’ can be used in other ways than to distinguish fake and real fur coats. Or until the earth crashes into the sun, whichever comes first.

There. That’s a good start. 

Tune in tomorrow when I’ll provide some application and interview tips that could help us weed out the a$$holes before they are hired.