I had to reread this story several times before I was able
to overcome my firm belief that I must be misunderstanding it. However, and
hold on to your barf bags, here is what was released in the Campus Weekly this
morning:
“Chancellor Linda P. Brady and
NC A&T Chancellor Harold Martin received the Thomas Z. Osborne
Distinguished Citizen Award from the Greensboro Partnership at their annual
dinner. The award is presented to a citizen who has demonstrated extraordinary
service and achievement within the community; it is the highest honor given by
the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and is presented jointly with Duke Energy.
Brady and Martin were recognized for not only the significant work done at
their respective universities, but also for the unprecedented level of teamwork
and collaboration that they have exhibited in working to make projects such as
the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, Opportunity Greensboro,
and the Union Square Campus a reality.”
Apparently,
Opportunity Greensboro members hold the mistaken belief that Brady has “demonstrated extraordinary
service and achievement within the community.”
I am
having a very hard time imagining where that idea came from.
First
though, let me clarify, while the award could be, in theory, given to any
citizen, it just so happens that this time the citizens who ‘deserved’ it were
both members of the Opportunity Greensboro cabal.
I
have no beef with Harold Martin, I don't know him or his work, but the mere idea that the words community
service and Linda Brady could be put together in a sentence without a negative
separating them makes my skin crawl.
Apparently,
you can severely damage several communities and yet still receive an award for
outstanding work if, and here’s the catch, you benefit in some way the people
who are giving out the award. So that raises the question: which benefits are
being given to whom in such a way that Brady’s work would seem meritorious?
Let’s take a look at
this “significant work done at their respective universities.” During Brady’s
administration:
- The Glenwood fiasco
- The Wreck Center and its fee hike
- The UNCG3 / Paul Mason
- The unnecessary $12 million give back
- Raises for the highly paid
- Shrinking student numbers
- Academic Program Review Circus
- Alienation of HES donors and alumni
- Forced reorganization (twice!)
- Multiple new upper administration positions
- Massive loss of employment
- Underperforming nano program
- Ever shrinking Union Campus Initiative
- Demonstrated racism in UNCG police
- Wood frame housing subject to fire at Spartan Village
- 85% of faculty experience morale as a significant problem on campus
- Culture of bullying rampant in administration
- Rise & Fall of Learning Communities
- Faculty flight
- Staff disappearance
- Enormous increases in health care premiums & co-pays
- Increased teaching loads
- Lost course sections
- Wrestling program dissolved
- UNCG Magazine abandoned
- #36 on list of Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools
- Fallen off list of best places to work
- Jan Zink's fundraising impotence
- Tragic branding campaign #dsba
- Greatly increased police presence at BOT meetings
I could go on. And
on. And on.
Now put that up against the benefits of the
nano school and union square campus:
- Union square already twice reduced in size
- Currently at 85,000 square feet that will cost $90 million to build (a popular number as the rec center cost $91 million)
- Meanwhile, 500,000 square feet of unused space at Gateway East and Gateway North
- Nanoschool has currently produced four PhD graduates in 4.5 years at an outlay of $700,000
- Unfortunately, the outlay for those who dropped out was about $2 million
- In other words, this is a program that produced 4.5 students at $971,000 per degree)
- The nanoscience program was supposed to enroll 110 students (and the nanoengineering a further 110)…in nanoscience they seem approximately 100 short - makes you wonder about the University's prediction of 320 for the Dr. of Nursing to be offered at the Union Campus
- The JSSN cost $65 million to build and equip (odd that the rec center should be so much more expensive…)
I’m still waiting for
the benefits from either of those projects to become clear to me.
What is clear to me is that Randall Kaplan, who is a member
of Opportunity Greensboro is also part of the founding group for Capital
Facilities Foundation, the group that purchased the rec center land in Glenwood
and made it available to the university.
Here is what Brady has really done that has earned her this award:
Turned the university into a mechanism for real estate development.
It is clear that a lot of university money is being pumped
into real estate in and around Greensboro and that some people benefit directly
from the sale of that real estate, some benefit from the property value
increases, some benefit by skimming, some benefit through kick backs for
construction contracts…and some benefit from lying through their teeth while
rubbing elbows with the Greensboro elite.
What are we positioning for here? Who is benefiting from all
of these projects? I guess it could be a coincidence that despite the lived
experience of thousands of people which indicate that Brady has been nothing
short of an unmitigated disaster, when that is placed by the side of hundreds
of millions of dollars of student and taxpayer money being funneled into
private hands that Opportunity Greensboro sees Brady as a hero, but I think
not.
The poor bastards writing for Campus Weekly should be given
hazard pay for having been made to handle this toxic material.
List the names of all the players and the organizations they belong to, then connect the dots. It stinks!
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