Why I Never Take a Break...

I thought I would come back feeling refreshed, but it turns out the sh*t just kept piling up while I was away and now I’ve got to put on some sort of haz-mat suit and try to wade through it.

In a surprising turn of events, it turns out that Brady actually does have a heart and that even it was feeling a certain level of hostility towards her. When she finally listens to it, it says what we all knew all along: Leave. Now.

Fortunately, this isn’t a monarchy and we aren’t thereafter subjected to the rule of her husband whose lack of both a heart and a soul has been confirmed on many separate occasions.

To our former chancellor: I wish you a speedy recovery and a great deal of insight.

Also, goodbye and good riddance.

The search for her replacement continues underground, in a darkened room, with all the lights off, in a closet, under a blanket, using only a secret set of hand signals that, even if somebody could see them, are incomprehensible. Chances are, we will hire a mole, if for nothing else than to give the beleaguered search committee an opportunity to come to the surface for air.

Edna Chun continues to be a non-entity. Standing up for no one at all times in all places. I remember my math teacher telling me that multiplying two negatives make a positive, but I think I have finally found an exception…I would therefore like my tests from high school to be regarded based on this discovery.

Mason continues to engage in his extremely excellent opportunity that was presented only 10 months after UNCG was hit by Hurricane Paul. The opportunity? To sit at home and not be working at UNCG. If only we’d known that was his idea of an advance, we could have arranged it from the start.

The Board of Governors and NC legislature appear to have been taken over by a committee of aliens whose only basis for understanding human behavior has come from repeatedly watching movies such as “Trolls” and “The Beginning of the End.”

Legislation to mandate that professors teach 8 courses a year should soon give way to regulation to teach 24, be subjected to a curfew, and wear a special identifying arm band so that their tainted blood won’t mix freely with the pure.

There’s really only two questions left to be asked:

Where are we going? And, why are we in this hand basket?

New Chancellor Will Get More Money

Sometimes, it is hard for my to type through the tears as I imagine the struggles that our current chancellor-in-chief experiences. Recently, she complained to those still unlucky enough to work with her that this "anonymous voice" just doesn't understand what she is going through. As much as that pulled at my heart strings, I do have to remind her that given the fact that she never, ever, ever, ever explains herself, it can't really be my fault that I don't "get" how hard it is to be her.

The board of trustees (who I have decided no longer deserve capital letters) is falling all over themselves to reassure any potential chancellor candidates that they won't have to work for the pittance paid to the current occupant of that vaunted position (a measly $324k if you can imagine the indignity!) I say, finally, hurrah, good for them. It must be so hard to stand up in the face of the powerless and give in to moneyed interest. The courage it takes to roll over (and on top of the rest of us) and promise more to an as yet un-wooed confidential individual...it warms my heart.

So, how much more than $324k are we talking about?

Well, it hardly seems dignified that a mere dean (albeit of the under-populated nano school) should make more than the grand high poobah (the new name for the position of chancellor, by the way, I don't know if you got the memo, they only send it on Tuesdays to every third employee who began working in an odd numbered month...). Since he gets $354k, I guess the new poobah is looking at at least $360. I say, why not just make it a cool million, right? I mean, if we want the best candidate, don't we have to pay the best salary?

And we do want the very, very best.

Why shouldn't we have that? I mean, other than the fact that North Carolina's higher education is being gutted. And that once the student loan bubble pops we're upside down in a mortgage for three times the amount of our cash reserves. And that faculty and staff are fleeing the institution. And that we've made some not so great headlines while doing some not so great stuff and then not fixed any of it.

Maybe we'll get someone truly forgiving, generous, and willing to lead a troubled place back to glory, like, I don't know, the Dali Lama. What do you think his salary requirements might be?

Barring that, we can only hope that maybe the very best candidates don't have Google.

Letter from Faculty Member

"All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer." - Thoreau

The following letter was forwarded to me last night and I wanted to share it. So many are expressing frustration with the ways in which their meager time to speak politely to those in power is treated as another opportunity for power to be exercised upon them - an abusive experience in and of itself. Those with power have forgotten the responsibility that accompanies it and that the power they hold is granted to them by US.

This was addressed to the full membership of the Board of Trustees; Dana Dunn, Provost; Charlie Maimone, Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs and member of the chancellor search committee; and Alan Boyette, Vice Provost.

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"If you have not already read the brilliantly written piece by UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Emeritus, James Moeser, I would encourage you to do so posthaste. He gives voice to the very same feeling that is the current experience of many faculty at UNCG. I say many not without intention. The unhappy are no small group of malcontents and the discouragement that is felt is growing.

Forcing through a search for which there is only limited confidence will only accelerate the flight of faculty and staff and further erode what little belief there is that our voices matter. There is no reason to proceed in such a blatantly dismissive fashion, any efficiency of speed gained by bulldozing over the principles of shared governance is more than sacrificed to the ill will created and the profound trauma visited upon the body and soul of UNCG. 

Do not waste your breath pointing out to me that there have been numerous forums, websites, and other fictions of participation. I am not stupid, I know the difference between sincere listening and the patronizing pantomime in which I have been participating. I have never once felt that my words held weight with you, never in my life have I been so plainly disregarded and so defiantly ignored. 

There is an authoritarian attitude that simply cannot stand if what UNCG has been - and could be again - is to be more than a bittersweet memory. This isn't about money or resources, I've been on losing teams before and it has only challenged me to strive harder. This isn't Raleigh or the economy, the search for the new chancellor is us: right here, right now. 

You may not know who I am, but if you had been listening, you should. I have come to numerous Board of Trustees meetings, I have been to countless forums, I have given feedback and years of my life to this institution. I am one of the little people, no Chancellor Emeritus and not even tenured, but I am furious and refuse to be dismissed. The current top down process of ramming through whatever agenda is deemed necessary is not one that history has demonstrated as sustainable. 

We need inclusiveness now.

We need collaboration now.

We need sustainability now.

We need responsibility now.

We need transparency now.

Not later, after a new chancellor, after a five year visioning exercise. Not another technical answer to an ethical or philosophical question. Not another partial mailing list, closed session, or undistributed document. 

It's your turn. Now, show me what you're made of.

Hannah Rose Mendoza, MFA
Assistant Professor, Interior Architecture

'Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

-Dylan Thomas'"

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We're waiting...

Statement by UNCG-AAUP on BOG's Closing of UNC Law School Poverty Center

March 2, 2015

Statement by UNCG-AAUP on the UNC Board of Governors’

Closing of the UNC Law School Poverty Center

To be true to their mission public universities must serve all members of our society, the poor as well as the privileged.  Externally funded centers must be free to sponsor curricular and extracurricular programs and provide services to the public across the broadest range of perspectives and approaches.

--- AAUP Statement on Proposed Closure UNC Law School Poverty Center (2/24/15)

What side are you on? We’re on the freedom side.

When education is under attack what do you do? You stand up, fight back.

---  Members of NC Student Power interrupting the Board of Governors in the midst of voting to close the UNC School of Law’s Center for Poverty, Work and Opportunity (2/27/15)

On Friday, February 27th, the UNC Board of Governors voted unanimously to shut down the Poverty Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. The heroes of the day were the NC Student Power activists who effectively spoke truth to power by reading aloud from a prepared text, thereby disrupting the proceedings before being escorted from the building by campus police. They (along with Professor Altha Cravey, UNCG-Chapel Hill and AAUP member) refused to abide by the established order that would allow the Poverty Center to be closed. Here is why we think their actions were justified:

The decision by the UNC Board of Governors to close the Poverty Center violates the fundamental tenets of academic freedom and shared governance that are the cornerstones of higher education in the United States. Yet the thirty-three duly appointed custodians of one of the oldest and most respected universities in the nation saw to it that there was never an opportunity for this argument to be made and deliberated upon. These business leaders, lawyers, and executives (overwhelmingly white, male, wealthy, and conservative) deployed speech acts as forms of power. Their communications proceeded by way of assertion without regard for the rules of logic and reason.

There is a profound disconnect between academic discourse and BoG oversight. We faculty keep thinking that our highest leaders will listen to reason. But it seems not in their interest, experience, or inclination to do so. The words they used at this meeting most often took the form of self-approbation, sound bite, and atmospherics. One marked exception turned out to be the most telling. It came when Hannah Gage voiced concern that, in recommending to close the Poverty Center, the BoG had "crossed a line" by interfering in the academic affairs of the University. She hoped they would be careful in the future. And then she voted along with all of her fellow board members to close the Poverty Center.

Under the rules of rational argument such a divorce of word from action is untenable. The reasoned response would have been: "The BoG has exceeded its authority (crossed the line), therefore I must vote "NO" on the recommendation to close the Poverty Center." As academics, we may want to expose this logical fallacy in the interests of making better choices, but the fact remains there are currently no structures in place by which we can insure the founding principle of shared governance, namely that faculty play a central role in all decisions concerning curricular matters. Even Gage, the best and bravest of the Board of Governors, remained aloof from any form of dialogue in which reason, truth, or justice had standing as mutually agreed-upon goals to be reached by way of communicative speech acts.

And so it was that the student protesters enacted outside closed doors their passionate dissent, chanting  -- "This is what democracy looks like!" -- a far more disruptive model of communication than formal rules dictate. Their interlocutors retreated into a small room where the public was not allowed, since, as President Tom Ross proclaimed, the Board of Governors must not be prevented from "conducting its business."

Members of UNCG-AAUP

Matt Barr

Deb Bell

Jim Carmichael

Susan Dennison

George Dimock

Michael Frierson

William Hart

Spoma Jovanovic

Hannah Mendoza

Elizabeth Perrill

Christopher Poulos

Jonathan Tudge

Anne Wallace

Andrew Willis

How Much is Too Much? A Quick Note About Raises at UNCG

I have been going back through UNCG salary data since 2008/2009 and looking at the raises that each individual has received who is still employed by UNCG.

Wait, let me correct that. Generally speaking, I have been looking at the raise (singular) that most people have received during that time. Rhetoric of financial crisis aside, I have already found something disturbing…and I’ve only made it from Z – R.

James Ryan received a $4,000 raise.

Okay, I know that’s not terribly shocking on the face of it. I mean, it’s certainly not the largest raise (I could refer to Mike Tarrant’s $25,000 but why bother since he is leaving - I'll certainly refer to Kim Record's raises, but that's an article in and of itself to be address later).

What is shocking about it is that James Ryan was already being paid $350,000 per year. Yes, he makes more than the chancellor. He is, in fact, the highest paid employee at UNCG. Now, I will grant that he has done less damage to UNCG than the chancellor and for that he should be rewarded, but the question it raised in my mind is this:

We have folks who have been working with us for 10, 20, 30, 35 years who are making $20,000 a year. The raises the folks in that range have been given generally amount to no more than $300. Spread that over 12 months and you are saying, before taxes, here’s another $25 for your dedication, don't spend it all in one place!

Many who received these meager sums are the ‘essential employees’ who haveto come to work even when the university is closed. These raises certainly don’t keep up with the cost of living and we should be embarrassed as a university, as a government entity, and as human beings to hand another $4,000 to a man making $350k in the face of the poverty wages being paid to other members of our UNCG community.

I hope that should I ever be in the position to earn $350,000 a year and someone were to offer me a $4,000 increase, I would have the decency to not only decline their offer but to shame them for having made it in the first place.